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Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

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Re: Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

#401

Post by glastra »

barleymash wrote: post #168
glastra wrote: post #78

Switched to a ketogenic diet with intermittent fasting 5 months ago. My sleep quality, mental clarity, ability to focus for long periods of time and mood swings have all improved dramatically. I am also shredding fat at a pretty good pace and apparently also gaining muscle (I lift every single day if I can).

I've been trying the opposite lately -- a high carb diet. I've mostly been modeling my eating style after Dr. McDougall's "Starch Solution" plan. He basically believes that humans are designed to eat starchy foods (potatoes, whole grains, etc), and that fats are bad (healthy fats -- like from avocados -- aren't necessarily unhealthy, but aren't great if you are trying to lose weight). So one of the core tenets of thi…

> low enough fat that your body isn't storing any

Dietary fat is rarely stored. It is mostly either burnt (metabolic upregulation) or excreted.

Excess glucose in the blood, however, is stored as fat, through a process known as de novo lipogenesis.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

#402

Post by cyphunk »

started attending more activist-oriented and critical discussion groups or groups dealing with specific local issues in my community (Berlin). While it can feel as though there is a certain amount of depth lacking to many discussions, the trade-off is very community focused and collaborative language which has left me feeling a lot less isolated.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

#403

Post by glastra »

wilsonnb2 wrote: post #287
glastra wrote: post #78

Switched to a ketogenic diet with intermittent fasting 5 months ago. My sleep quality, mental clarity, ability to focus for long periods of time and mood swings have all improved dramatically. I am also shredding fat at a pretty good pace and apparently also gaining muscle (I lift every single day if I can).

Why did you pick the keto diet? All of the studies I've seen say that while it is very effective for reducing seizure frequency in children with epilepsy, it's not any more effective for weight loss than any other diet.

I didn't switch for weight loss, but for the other benefits I listed. I was skeptical, of course, but I like to self-experiment.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

#404

Post by cjblomqvist »

Being more strict about having really thoughtful, relevant and clear purposes - and trying to really focus on only doing activities that really matters to achieving those purposes and goals. I feel this applies to everything, really pays off, and in my experience surprisingly few people question what and why they are doing something. They have shallow explanations that often break down when go a little bit deeper.

When developing an organization, why does this organization exist? What is the true purpose of doing your own startup? What is the true vision and purpose of the startup? Why do you live? How do you want your life to look like in 10 years? What are important things to achieve the best life you can in 10 years, and so forth.

From what I understand this is most often the most overlooked issue in success in more or less all types of activities. From developing software, achieving a happy life, succeed at work, succeed as an entrepreneur, and so on.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

#405

Post by glastra »

methochris wrote: post #148
glastra wrote: post #78

Switched to a ketogenic diet with intermittent fasting 5 months ago. My sleep quality, mental clarity, ability to focus for long periods of time and mood swings have all improved dramatically. I am also shredding fat at a pretty good pace and apparently also gaining muscle (I lift every single day if I can).

i'm interested in this approach. what is your age and starting weight and what is your fasting window regime and what amount of calories per day do you shoot for?

I am a 30-year-old male. 172 cm and around 60 kg starting weight (skinny-fat, slender build, quite high fat % and almost no muscle).

After the initial water weight loss, my weight has been fluctuating around the 55 kg mark. However, fat loss is really, really noticeable. I had a pretty huge belly, and now you can see my abs. As I haven't lost that much weight, and as it remains stable while I notice more fat loss, I am certain I am also gaining lean body mass in the process.

I try to fast 18:6, by consuming 3 shakes of my own DIY keto powdered food (i.e. DIY soylent) at 14:00, 17:00 and 20:00, for around 650 kcal each. I also drink black coffee with 25 grams of butter some mornings if I feel like it.

I don't do IF every day, especially if I travel or if I stay over at my girlfriend's. You don't have to do it every single day to reap the benefits, as long as you stay in ketosis, or at worst as long as you don't fill your liver glycogen stores completely.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

#406

Post by barleymash »

turc1656 wrote: post #390
barleymash wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally, I actually had a physical scheduled for last week, before realizing I scheduled it for a date I was going to be out of town. So unfortunately I had to reschedule for August. But anyway, there is a decent amount of people who are following this plan, and if you are interested, you can find a lot of anecdotal experiences (including people reporting on their blood testing, etc) by googling "Starch Solution" or…

This sounds dangerous. I am not on this diet and don't know anything about it but I second the recommendation to closely monitor your blood sugar levels because the science on that is clear. While I do the opposite (high fat low carb), I still monitor my blood sugar anyway, just for good measure (because I have too many people close to me with diabetes). If you are interested, here is the test kit I have: https://www…

Thanks for the helpful breakdown. I might have to give the blood sugar monitoring a shot.

Just curious, in what way were you thinking it would be dangerous? I'm trying to find some good scholarly research articles, but I'm not sure what I should be searching for.

I think kind of the "common knowledge" perspective is that high carb causes obesity and diabetes. But I'm wondering if there are other dangers beyond those that you might be referring to.

In regards to obesity and diabetes, I think a lot of researchers are starting to doubt those claims. Here is an article from the American Diabetes Association that concluded that the participants of the study (all of whom had diabetes) responded well to higher carb diets:

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/1/2/77

Also, there are two notable cultures/groups of people--the Okinawans and the Adventists--that eat high carb, low fat, low protein, and both of which have some of the best longevity rates and highest rates of centenarians. Obviously those types of statistics are really hard to determine causation, but I thought that was worth mentioning that they at least don't have high rates of obesity and diabetes like you'd maybe expect.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

#407

Post by heckanoobs »

owenversteeg wrote: post #213
heckanoobs wrote: post #122

Stopped using any feature with infinite scroll implemented. It's the common thread between social media feeds, app store lists, streaming services, etc. For sites like HN I stop after the first page. I was bored at first but then I started filling my time with more productive hobbies, which was the point. Infinite content providers are designed to steal all your time. It's crazy how little I use the internet now. I n…

Huh, that actually seems like a great idea. What services were you mainly using before?

I was on all the social media but took the plunge and deleted them all.

Some things I visited to blow time like imgur have infinite scroll in their apps but are paginated on their mobile site, so I just visit the mobile site and stop after one page. I had disabled infinite scroll in RES at first but eventually left Reddit altogether.

I no longer browse app stores, Netflix, hulu, etc. I already know what I want to watch and search for it directly.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

#408

Post by simonebrunozzi »

afterglow wrote: post #338
Klover wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

20oz = 591,471 millilitres for others wondering. And it is a good practice indeed. I think deep down my comment history here one can find that I found it strange that someone would pay a lot of money on an annual basis for coffee out of the home. That said I also think that it is not bad to be able to spend money like that. Not about the money itself, but the mindset required to spend. It must require a very pleasant…

591.471 liters of coffee? ohmygoodness! :)

Eheh, "lost in translation" - "," and "."

Re: Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

#409

Post by simonebrunozzi »

glastra wrote: post #401
barleymash wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been trying the opposite lately -- a high carb diet. I've mostly been modeling my eating style after Dr. McDougall's "Starch Solution" plan. He basically believes that humans are designed to eat starchy foods (potatoes, whole grains, etc), and that fats are bad (healthy fats -- like from avocados -- aren't necessarily unhealthy, but aren't great if you are trying to lose weight). So one of the core tenets of thi…

> low enough fat that your body isn't storing any Dietary fat is rarely stored. It is mostly either burnt (metabolic upregulation) or excreted. Excess glucose in the blood, however, is stored as fat, through a process known as de novo lipogenesis.

"de novo lipogenesis" in Latin literally means: "generating fat from new" - funny how knowing some Latin from school is always a bit helpful in understanding or remembering things like this one.

Re: Ask HN: Is there a new habit you cultivated recently that is really paying off?

#410

Post by simonebrunozzi »

turc1656 wrote: post #390
barleymash wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally, I actually had a physical scheduled for last week, before realizing I scheduled it for a date I was going to be out of town. So unfortunately I had to reschedule for August. But anyway, there is a decent amount of people who are following this plan, and if you are interested, you can find a lot of anecdotal experiences (including people reporting on their blood testing, etc) by googling "Starch Solution" or…

This sounds dangerous. I am not on this diet and don't know anything about it but I second the recommendation to closely monitor your blood sugar levels because the science on that is clear. While I do the opposite (high fat low carb), I still monitor my blood sugar anyway, just for good measure (because I have too many people close to me with diabetes). If you are interested, here is the test kit I have: https://www…

Sounds dangerous? Perhaps it's more dangerous to "live in a bubble" and believe only the latest NYT-bestseller fashion diets.

I have two words for you: Mediterranean Diet. Before thinking that this paleo/keto stuff is the best possible, please take it with a grain of salt and try to understand the whole.

I am not an expert (even if I consider myself very well educated on nutrition and diets), and I am not saying you're wrong. What I say is: be careful when telling someone "it's dangerous" when, in fact, it's really hard to have a definitive answer to almost any diet you can encounter.

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