It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#31

Post by criddell » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:08 PM UTC

Kurtz79 wrote: post #15

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so simple. People are different. Some people won't need your plan because they stay at low weight no matter what they eat. Others won't be able to follow your plan because it would require superhuman willpower. I'm an example of the first category. I'm 6'2'' and 160 lbs, and have been like this for years. At age 27 I spent a whole year working from home, eating at McDonalds 1-2 times every day, going to slee…

My favorite explanation I found on the issue is on "The Hacker's Diet" (free ebook). https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/ The author's theory is that the issue is not on of metabolism, but that people overeating do not have a good "I'm full" mechanism. Most people like you that "can eat all they want and not gain weight" in reality... don't. They balance out their intake naturally, if not in the scope of a meal, ove…

> people overeating do not have a good "I'm full" mechanism

And there are people like me who rarely feel hungry. I eat because the clock tells me to.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#32

Post by baddox » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:11 PM UTC

cousin_it wrote: post #6

aabajian wrote: post #4

"Weight management is actually much more complex than just ‘energy in’ versus ‘energy out." No, it's not. Maybe it's more difficult to measure calories (that salad ranch dressing has more calories than that hamburger), but people should be encouraged to balance their calorie intake everyday. For what it's worth, here's why Americans are obese: 50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs…

It's not so simple. People are different. Some people won't need your plan because they stay at low weight no matter what they eat. Others won't be able to follow your plan because it would require superhuman willpower. I'm an example of the first category. I'm 6'2'' and 160 lbs, and have been like this for years. At age 27 I spent a whole year working from home, eating at McDonalds 1-2 times every day, going to slee…

My guess is that you simply overestimate how much you eat, perhaps by a lot. I'm pretty sure that people who are skinny without much struggle (or struggle to gain weight) generally overestimate their caloric intake, and people who struggle with their weight generally underestimate their caloric intake.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#33

Post by leemuro » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:11 PM UTC

This is such a bad study and this post is your usual garbage of the media just confusing people and making them think weight loss is impossible, all while giving them more excuses to do absolutely nothing. The idea that this "data" is in any way an accurate representation of how many calories the average person eats is just absurd. The average person cannot tell you how many calories they eat per day, they have no idea. The foods we have available today make it much more likely for a person to consume more calories than someone "thinks" they are.

You can sit around all day and blame it on leaky gut, artificial sweeteners, pesticides, gluten, carbs, fat, red meat or whatever the latest "fad villian" is, and you'll just keep failing to lose weight.

Plain and simple. Eat nutritious food that actually fills you up and satisfies you, track your calorie intake, and find a sustainable way to just eat less every day.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#34

Post by cousin_it » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:12 PM UTC

okasaki wrote: post #19

cousin_it wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not so simple. People are different. Some people won't need your plan because they stay at low weight no matter what they eat. Others won't be able to follow your plan because it would require superhuman willpower. I'm an example of the first category. I'm 6'2'' and 160 lbs, and have been like this for years. At age 27 I spent a whole year working from home, eating at McDonalds 1-2 times every day, going to slee…

It really is that simple and these vague self-reports are worse than useless. People aren't capable of "judging" how many calories they consume. I bet if we compared you to someone who's gaining weight we'd find your ideas of "portion" are off by a factor of 2-3 and that's why they're gaining weight and you're not.

It's probably true that I eat less than a typical overweight person. But the thing is, I eat as much as I want, and sometimes even a bit more. Do you think it's just because our ideas of portion size are different? I think it's more plausible that I'm just less hungry than they are, for some reason that has nothing to do with willpower.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#35

Post by leemuro » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:14 PM UTC

thomasahle wrote: post #26

TL/DR: It's gotten harder to lose weight, because people eat more crap: artificial sweeteners, steroids, pollutants, plastic packaging, pesticides, meat, antidepressants. A positive read would be: if you want to be healthy, don't focus solely on energy intake, but also what chemicals you are subjecting your body to.

"Chemicals" are a scapegoat. Everything you put in your face is a "chemical". Folks just need to eat food that isn't just a bunch of empty dense calories. Stuff that actually satisfies you.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#36

Post by gozo » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:15 PM UTC

monochromatic wrote: post #29

thomasahle wrote: post #26

TL/DR: It's gotten harder to lose weight, because people eat more crap: artificial sweeteners, steroids, pollutants, plastic packaging, pesticides, meat, antidepressants. A positive read would be: if you want to be healthy, don't focus solely on energy intake, but also what chemicals you are subjecting your body to.

Plastic packaging makes people fat?

I assume it's a reference to BPA.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#37

Post by odiroot » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:17 PM UTC

thomasahle wrote: post #26

TL/DR: It's gotten harder to lose weight, because people eat more crap: artificial sweeteners, steroids, pollutants, plastic packaging, pesticides, meat, antidepressants. A positive read would be: if you want to be healthy, don't focus solely on energy intake, but also what chemicals you are subjecting your body to.

Artificial sweeteners are not a problem but a solution to natural sweeteners. The latter are a cause of diabetes.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#38

Post by jasode » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:17 PM UTC

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #11

Shivetya wrote: post #5

The bias isn't against obese people, it is against morbidly obese people who don't want to accept it. There is a whole collection of groups that sprouted up to fight the "discrimination" against fat people, HAES (Health At Every Size) is the most know, but fat acceptance gets airtime simply because it is so much easier to get a message out. Obesity is an issue, we simply have way too much opportunity to indulge and l…

> exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. Anecdote here, but I've found that for me the key to weight loss has been exercise-first. I decided that I'd never be very good at reducing my dietary input (I really enjoy food) so I focused instead on increasing my energy output by incorporating progressively more physical activity into my lifestyle. Over the past few years I have steadily and gradually r…

>Anecdote here, but I've found that for me the key to weight loss has been exercise-first. [...] It's hard to believe that exercise isn't the key to weight loss when I burn 2,000 calories on my Saturday morning run.

You specified that you were only speaking for yourself but I think that for most people, a healthy steady-state weight is easier to achieve by smart food choices rather than exercise.

Recommending exercise is good advice for overall health such as increasing endurance, bone strength, sexual performance, managing stress, etc. However, saying that exercise is a "key" to weight loss is very misleading because the act of exercise also causes an increase in appetite.

These days, I exercise less than half the amount I did a decade ago and I still weigh 10 pounds less. The difference is that I eat oatmeal for breakfast and vegetables + olive oil for dinner instead of sugary corn flakes and pizzas.

Optimizing eating habits (without causing starvation) is much easier than running an extra 10 miles on a treadmill. This disparity in effort is obvious if you ask obese people if it's easier to eat a glazed donut (consume 200 calories) or run 6 mph for 20 minutes (burns 200 calories).

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#39

Post by Programmatic » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:32 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #38

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. Anecdote here, but I've found that for me the key to weight loss has been exercise-first. I decided that I'd never be very good at reducing my dietary input (I really enjoy food) so I focused instead on increasing my energy output by incorporating progressively more physical activity into my lifestyle. Over the past few years I have steadily and gradually r…

>Anecdote here, but I've found that for me the key to weight loss has been exercise-first. [...] It's hard to believe that exercise isn't the key to weight loss when I burn 2,000 calories on my Saturday morning run. You specified that you were only speaking for yourself but I think that for most people , a healthy steady-state weight is easier to achieve by smart food choices rather than exercise. Recommending exerci…

> Optimizing eating habits (without causing starvation) is much easier than running an extra 10 miles on a treadmill. This disparity in effort is obvious if you ask obese people if it's easier to eat a glazed donut (consume 200 calories) or run 6 mph for 20 minutes (burns 200 calories).

Anecdotally, I find that the initial bit of exercise makes the biggest impact. The added benefit of the "exercise first" approach is that after exercising, I find that I don't even want the donut. If I try to tame food first without exercising, I crave worse food which makes that effort considerably harder.

Re: It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think

#40

Post by douche » Fri, Oct 02, 2015, 1:33 PM UTC

aabajian wrote: post #4

"Weight management is actually much more complex than just ‘energy in’ versus ‘energy out." No, it's not. Maybe it's more difficult to measure calories (that salad ranch dressing has more calories than that hamburger), but people should be encouraged to balance their calorie intake everyday. For what it's worth, here's why Americans are obese: 50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs…

I have to laugh at the whole idea of the 2000 calorie diet and recommended daily amounts. If you think for just a second or two, it's a ludicrous idea to stipulate that everyone shall eat 2000 calories, be you man or woman, short or tall, child or old fogy. If you are a 5' petite woman, you may find that on a 2000 calorie diet, you don't remain petite for very long. If you are a 6'5", powerfully built man that expends tremendous amounts of energy at work, you may need 3-5 times that many calories just to maintain[1].

Human beings exist on such a wide spectrum, on so many attributes, that simply declaring that what is good for the ideal median person is exactly what everyone else should do is insane.

[1] http://espn.go.com/blog/houston-texans/post/_/id/12059/bacon...