The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving • Hacker News Board

Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving

#241

Post by berdon » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #183

berdon wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. Nothing about the body is simple. - There is a virus that studies suggest (show correlation) increase weight gain [1] - There is a study that shows water in != water out (unfortunately my googlefu is failing me though). - Empirical: I've lost weight eating 900 calories/day and I've lost weight eating 3500 calories/day with the same level of exercise. The difference…

> Empirical I think the word you’re looking for is “anecdotal”. No one here knows anything about your TDEE so it shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that you could lose weight on 3500 calories/day. If your TDEE is >3500, then yeah, weight loss. Especially since the thermic effect of food is quite high for protein, and that people suck at accurately recording or even measuring their actual intake.

I addressed your concerns over my TDEE by stating both instances occurred under the same level of activity and general conditions. In both instances, I lost about the same amount of weight weekly as well. I've also been counting calories for longer than 10 years and at that time I had a spreadsheet with such granular detail I could track the average duration and quantity of protein still within my gut based on average timing, etc.

...

Actually...empirical works as well. I think anecdotal is just the latest trend.

Empirical

based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic. "they provided considerable empirical evidence to support their argument"

Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving

#242

Post by cco » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 8:37 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #167

hoschicz wrote: post #153

I first wrote this as a reply in this thread and now I'm looking at it, I think it's relevant to the article as a whole -- sugar, insulin, calorie reduction, stress, fitness in general. I believe that the "diet" mentioned in the article is in effect a calorie-restriction one. > Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. > you are losing weight because you are consuming less calories. This is only true in the…

> This is only true in the first up to 6 months of a calorie-restriction diet. Then, body adjusts its metabolism (lower body temperature, making you feel more lethargic to keep you from exercising, etc) and your weight begins to slowly climb back up, sans any further calorie restriction. At this point, it's easy for a dieter to blame himself of lacking willpower: "it worked, and it stopped working now, I must've been…

>It varies by person but is generally not a major effect. A few hundred calories is typical and is largely attributable to changes in NEAT.

A few hundred calories is ~10-16% of the daily necessary caloric intake of many people, I daresay most? It is most certainly a major effect and considering that people become obese most often by consuming a small daily surplus, a few hundred calories extra, over many years, a swing of 100-300 calories can easily make the gaining weight much easier or much harder.

Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving

#243

Post by bena » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 8:38 PM UTC

dpark wrote: post #205

taurath wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calories out usually refers to energy expenditure. Nobody measures their waste energy calories.

That’s because waste generally doesn’t contain any significant usable calories. If you’re passing undigested food then obviously it starts to matter, as abusers of laxatives know. It’s not typically discussed because it’s not typically a meaningful factor and if it is you should already know.

Yeah, crapping out calories is a time-honored tradition among people with eating disorders who don't like to vomit.

Your body doesn't care how the calories go out. If they're gone, they're gone. If you eat 3000, but crap out 2000, your body doesn't say "Yeah, well, that's not how you usually get rid of calories, so get fat."

Just because our methods of recording aren't perfect doesn't mean that the core idea is wrong.

Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving

#244

Post by IanCal » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 8:40 PM UTC

crispyporkbites wrote: post #103

uptownfunk wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally this. I kid you not, I fasted the entire day and somehow weighted the same, and when I slept for three to four hours I literally woke up 2 lbs. less. It almost defies reason the importance of sleep in weight loss. Probably gives new hypothesis of “dad weight”, you gain weight because you don’t get good sleep after having a kid.

> “dad weight”, you gain weight because you don’t get good sleep after having a kid. No this is because you've had a baby and don't need to be in good shape to keep or sleep with your partner, so you stop going to the gym, eating well, doing exercise etc. Applies to both sexes.

As a new dad who has put back on some weight, I'd say the biggest reason is not about "keeping my partner" but purely how I rate different things I need to spend my effort, time and energy on. Less time and more stress makes me more likely to make some poor health decision - for example heading out for a walk or a run would help but right now I'm knackered and just want to sit down because it's the first break I've had today. Or order in food because my plan to cook earlier failed due to an unexpected _something_ or just plain comfort eating.

Kids are great, but undeniably add time and stress. Maintaining good healthy habits is not impossible, but it's easier to let them slide.

Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving

#245

Post by bscphil » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 8:41 PM UTC

partialrecall wrote: post #239

bscphil wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think all berdon is trying to say by "not simple physics" is that even though CICO is true , it's not helpful to people trying to lose weight because there are many other conditions (e.g. a virus) that can affect the body's metabolism - to a limited extent. This particular virus seems to make you fatter even on a precise calorie controlled diet, which implies it must reduce your metabolism. For the record I disagre…

CO may be difficult for a person to manipulate, and raising CI to put on weight may be physically difficult, expensive, or ineffective. However, reducing CI takes willpower but will make you lose weight. If you reduce it enough. Somebody may have a CO so low that the reduction in CI required to lose weight might require medical supervision (e.g. to prevent malnutrition.) That's probably not the case for most people t…

> However, reducing CI takes willpower but will make you lose weight. If you reduce it enough. Somebody may have a CO so low that the reduction in CI required to lose weight might require medical supervision (e.g. to prevent malnutrition.) That's probably not the case for most people though; certainly not people like myself.

Yes, this is exactly my point. I'm simply giving a measured defense of what berdon has been saying further up this thread: CO is not a known constant and may vary based on certain medical conditions. Because of this, CICO can sometimes (I think berdon would say frequently) be unhelpful advice to someone trying to lose weight, because they struggle with cutting CI far enough to lose weight, which may be due to a person's health and biological makeup.

Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving

#246

Post by logfromblammo » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 8:42 PM UTC

So how long before it is possible to 3D-print a brain-sized, person-specific artificial organ, composed primarily of brown adipose tissue, blood vessels, and "skin", connect it to the blood supply with sterile tubing, and refrigerate it in a portable plug-in cooler, to create a 6000 kcal/day energy deficit?

Lose 100 pounds in 60 days without surgery. Some infection risk. Grid power required.

Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving

#247

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 8:43 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #233

dpark wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CICO is mostly nonsense, because you can't control neither CI no CO. This is a wholesale abdication of responsibility and an embrace of victimhood. Yes, there are elements of calories out that aren’t fully in your control. However these place a lower bound on calories out. You can absolutely increase your exercise and activity level. On the other side, you are very much in control of your calories in. You can choos…

> You can absolutely increase your exercise and activity level. Exercise is important for health. Exercise does not help people control weight, and it may make people heavier. The fact that people insist they're scientific while ignoring the evidence is particularly frustrating.

[deleted]

Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving

#248

Post by brandonmenc » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 8:43 PM UTC

nscalf wrote: post #91

scarface74 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be blunt. But this is as much pseudoscience as the anti vaxers. Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. There is also a big difference between losing weight based on water weight and losing real body mass. I sweat like a pig anytime I work out. I use to teach two hour fitness classes and even now after the end of a workout, I’ve “lost 5 pounds” but that’s pure water weight. I’m burning around 10…

While this is probably mostly true, there is good science indicating that certain hormonal portfolios "hold" onto calories better than others. There is a reason power lifters are spiking insulin post workout, people are taking steroids, and medical conditions can make you fat. If my mother wants to cut weight, I'm telling her this. If an athlete has to make weight for a fight, this is a stupid way of thinking. At the…

> While this is probably mostly true, there is good science indicating that certain hormonal portfolios "hold" onto calories better than others.

Yes, that's true, but too many people believe that hormones have a whole number multiplier effect when in fact they probably just nudge TDEE by, what, (off the cuff here) ten percent plus or minus? Maybe less?

Is that enough to significantly reduce a person's margin of error when they're doing CICO, particularly as they get closer to their ideal weight?

Absolutely.

Does that mean they'll get fat eating less than a thousand calories a day because hormones?

Almost certainly not.

Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving

#249

Post by dpark » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 8:44 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #233

dpark wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CICO is mostly nonsense, because you can't control neither CI no CO. This is a wholesale abdication of responsibility and an embrace of victimhood. Yes, there are elements of calories out that aren’t fully in your control. However these place a lower bound on calories out. You can absolutely increase your exercise and activity level. On the other side, you are very much in control of your calories in. You can choos…

> You can absolutely increase your exercise and activity level. Exercise is important for health. Exercise does not help people control weight, and it may make people heavier. The fact that people insist they're scientific while ignoring the evidence is particularly frustrating.

Exercise can absolutely contribute to weight loss. It does not guarantee weight loss because an individual can always eat more than they burn (and indeed many do). That doesn’t mean it’s not a very useful tool for weight loss in a continued caloric deficit.

Maintain your caloric intake level “at maintenance” and add 5 miles of running per day and you’ll lose weight.

Re: The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving

#250

Post by UnFleshedOne » Fri, Sep 13, 2019, 8:44 PM UTC

RobertRoberts wrote: post #137

kerkeslager wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to try to reiterate more clearly what your parent comment was saying: Your experimental methodology is flawed because it fails to control for water loss. This isn't negligible: in the summer when it's hot and I sweat a lot, I can easily drink a 1 liter Nalgene bottle in the morning, about 2 pounds of water. It's likely that what you've measured is simply the slow loss of water through perspiration and exhal…

>Your experimental methodology is flawed because it fails to control for water loss. I absolutely tested for water loss. What I found was that some extra (?) water retained until we sleep. And that something happens with fat or other processing that occurs during sleep. Again, I charted my weight carefully multiple times a day over a month. Carefully testing when weight loss occured. I Recorded my diet as well as my…

Imagine that fat gets burned at the exact moment when you eat or drink anything. On your chart, even if it is realtime, you would see weight gain, then later during the day and night you pee and exhale little more than if that fat burn didn't happen. But that burn is say 1% of intake and it gets spread over few hours.

Would your tracking method allow you to detect the moment of weight loss in this hypothetical scenario?