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Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

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221–230 of 1001 posts

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#221

Water is 27x more thermally conductive than air, so standing in water burns 27x more calories than air of the same temperature. So, go cold water swimming! (Plenty of normal healthy ways to lose weight but that's the weirdest hack I can think of)

Drinking more of the stuff is generally good advice too.

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#222
Eat frozen sour dough bread. Every morning you have to cut the slices which is good exercise if you are not fit at all. High calorie bread toppins with fat taste bad on it. You are encouraged to slowly chew the bread until it tastes sweet. Body heat goes into warming the food in your mouth (also drink cold water). You eat less bread in the morning.

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#223
Breathing more / denser oxygen is very bad for you (breathing at all is bad for you). Furthermore, badly treated asthma (i.e. you cannot breathe well) will lead to very fast weight loss.

This should inform you of one thing: anaerobic respiration is inefficient and therefore great for burning more calories. An easy way to achieve such respiration is running or cycling (which I think is better on your knees) so fast that you start panting. Keep doing that for an hour and do it every other day.

This advice is IMO better than "eat less", because changing your dietary habits is very very hard. Moving more is much easier by comparison, though sadly it still won't be fun for you in the beginning.

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#226
post #190

Having lost ~75 pounds and having (mostly) kept it off, the "trick" is to stop eating certain foods, sleeping well and exercising. Start by avoiding any sugars whatsoever (exception: fresh fruit), bread, fried food. This will be difficult for a few days to a week, but afterwards it gets easier and easier. You will end up consuming less food. Do this diligently, as even one chocolate might set you back by increasing d…

What's your go-to replacement for bread? I'm a bit fan of bread (brown / whole meal bread), it's a filling, slow release and (not unimportant!) cheap source of carbs, which you need for regular functioning. Going "no carb" is extremist and can be dangerous long term. Balance out the macronutrients first, then start adjusting a little in favor of protein.

While losing weight, I would not replace it, but simply remove it altogether. Bread is not an essential nutrient (although obviously French baguettes are great tasting). You can get plenty of carbs from other food (e.g., fresh fruit).

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating only once a day is very bad advice. If you make a regular meal, one meal a day nets a negative of 1300/1500 calories per day, which will cause considerable muscle tissue loss (note how the parent writes "losing weight", not "losing fat", but also "yes, I have significant fat even at 150lb and 5'10"), besides having no energy. If you make instead a massive mels, you're going to give a massive glucose shot to yo…

Anyone who has actually fasted knows this is all nonsense. Sure, you can lose muscle mass — that's always true of going into a caloric deficit, which is the only way to lose weight.

Nonsense? I take you've never actually measured body fat percentage during diet periods.

It is true that caloric deficit always causes muscle; the issue is how much one loses.

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#228
Try keto or lazy keto if you haven't. But avoid most of the keto websites when it comes to advice, because some of them are weird. No, you don't need to stuff your self with bacon and drink coffee with butter to be keto. Just cut down on almost all carbs. Don't bother with quest bars or any other cheat meals, you will just harm your diet. Stick to foods like meat, broccoli, cauliflower, beans for a week and see how you feel and move from there.

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#229
post #190

Having lost ~75 pounds and having (mostly) kept it off, the "trick" is to stop eating certain foods, sleeping well and exercising. Start by avoiding any sugars whatsoever (exception: fresh fruit), bread, fried food. This will be difficult for a few days to a week, but afterwards it gets easier and easier. You will end up consuming less food. Do this diligently, as even one chocolate might set you back by increasing d…

What's your go-to replacement for bread? I'm a bit fan of bread (brown / whole meal bread), it's a filling, slow release and (not unimportant!) cheap source of carbs, which you need for regular functioning. Going "no carb" is extremist and can be dangerous long term. Balance out the macronutrients first, then start adjusting a little in favor of protein.

A lot of people eat a ton of bread, which ends up being a ton of calories. Then they miss a lot of nutrients, so they will have weird cravings for other things. It's not necessarily that bread is bad, it's just that excluding it means you start thinking about "ok, so what do I eat". For some people this is useful.

Re: Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

any unhealthy side effects of only eating one meal a day? what if that meal is 1800+ calories?

Eating only once a day is very bad advice. If you make a regular meal, one meal a day nets a negative of 1300/1500 calories per day, which will cause considerable muscle tissue loss (note how the parent writes "losing weight", not "losing fat", but also "yes, I have significant fat even at 150lb and 5'10"), besides having no energy. If you make instead a massive mels, you're going to give a massive glucose shot to yo…

> Eating only once a day is very bad advice.

This meta-review seems to conclude fasting + resistance training might not only be harmless but actually beneficial https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7468742/

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