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Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?

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

#321
Intermittent fasting. Basically I don't eat anything after 20:00 (8pm) and the next meal I eat is lunch around 11-12. Maybe a tea/coffee in the morning, nothing else.

The other trick is to eat as much as you did before, just substitute less calorie dense foods.

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

#322
I love eating and I eat a lot. I try to control eating candies, but I still eat too many of them.

Still, my weight does not increase, because I drink only water and sometimes no-calories sodas. There really should be more awareness on how many calories sweetened beverages have - way too many.

I lost weight very quickly when I heavily limited the amount of food I ate, on top of not drinking or eating anything sweet.

When it comes to exercise, I'm only really doing one thing: 2 hours of walking with my dog every day. I imagine if you have no exercise at all, my tips will not work that effectively.

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

#323
I see a lot of people pushing back against the "just eat less" approach, and I have no clue why. They argue that it takes too much discipline. It doesn't take much. You eat a banana or something that size in the morning with your coffee. You have a pbj for lunch. You make a portion sized like you would find at a restaurant. You stop snacking. You drink water instead of sugary drinks. It would be tough to even reach 2000 calories a day eating like that. Throw in increased physical activity and you will shed BMI like a winter coat.

OTOH what actually takes some discipline is the "traditional" dieting approach, of counting calories, finding recipes, buying different food, being choosy about what restaurants you now allow of yourself, and otherwise overturning your entire life surrounding food. That sounds like setting up for failure to me. Just go ahead and eat that big mac if that's your big meal of the day and you've eaten like a bird otherwise.

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

#324
post #64

Weird tips like that? No, no definitely not. Just eat less man. It's pretty straight forward. Just eat one meal a day (lunch) and you'll see the weight fly off. It's what I did for a bit and lost the weight quickly. You'll lose 5lbs/month easily even for people who have a relatively lean body mass already. (Easier to lose a lot of weight when you're heavier because your BMR is high to begin with) I've done it as some…

> Just eat less man. It's pretty straight forward. Just eat one meal a day (lunch) and you'll see the weight fly off. You're suggesting a diet that requires a discipline that, empirically, is obviously beyond the reach of most people. Here's much, much simpler advice, that is also more enjoyable to do: Just eat better. Or just somewhat better, and do some exercise. You'd be surprised how easy it is to purchase or coo…

The key to losing weight is to maintain a caloric deficit. You can do this and have the occasional celebratory meal. You don’t have to eat like a monk. Some people use strategies like IF (intermittent fasting), but just being sensible and accessing good nutritional advice is helpful. Eating more fresh fruit and vegetables, and drinking enough water, has been shown to be very helpful. Your point about cooking is also true.

The science on caloric deficit seems pretty solid (unless you have other health complications eg thyroid issues). These days eg the UK’s National Health Service has a therapy[1] which is being rolled out to more and more people (morbidly obese people initially to control numbers) which puts them on an extremely restrictive diet to get them to lose weight.

And asking people, especially people who “feel” heavy and inactive, to exercise is a hard problem. Again, you’re not wrong, but ensuring that an inactive person watches TV on a treadmill is … challenging. Exercise is helpful, but it really increases quality of life, and in reality most obese people won’t do the exercise needed to make a significant dent in their calorie budget.

For most people (especially with 25..30 BMI — ie not quite at the extreme end of the spectrum), losing weight is mostly a psychological or motivational problem. This is the problem, because our ability to provide psychological or motivational therapy is limited.

[1] https://www.england.nhs.uk/2022/01/nhs-soups-and-shakes-diet...

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

#325
When you're unable to "just eat less", it's important to figure out what to eat. One trick I've learned is to substitute all of your snacking with Lupin beans. Every time I get those stomach growls between meals, I just eat a handful of them. They're basically just fiber and protein.

They're also delicious. They're usually sold in a brine, which you'll want to switch out for fresh water at least once to lower the salt content.

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

#326
Time Restricted Eating is your answer.

1) https://www.foundmyfitness.com/topics/time-restricted-eating

2) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41387-021-00149-0

3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7262456/

4) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S155041311...

5) Also see the book The Circadian Code by Dr. Satchin Panda. TEDx talk : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erBJuxVR7IE

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

#327
post #64

Weird tips like that? No, no definitely not. Just eat less man. It's pretty straight forward. Just eat one meal a day (lunch) and you'll see the weight fly off. It's what I did for a bit and lost the weight quickly. You'll lose 5lbs/month easily even for people who have a relatively lean body mass already. (Easier to lose a lot of weight when you're heavier because your BMR is high to begin with) I've done it as some…

> Just eat less man. It's pretty straight forward. Just eat one meal a day (lunch) and you'll see the weight fly off. You're suggesting a diet that requires a discipline that, empirically, is obviously beyond the reach of most people. Here's much, much simpler advice, that is also more enjoyable to do: Just eat better. Or just somewhat better, and do some exercise. You'd be surprised how easy it is to purchase or coo…

Even better, find something you enjoy doing that doesn't require you to binge media while doing it, and is just intrinsically motivating. If you can make enough of a lifestyle change to consistently show up at a gym, you're already past the difficult part of lifestyle changes in general, might as well find something that you want to spend your time on for the sake of it.

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

#328
Regarding messing with your gas exchange: The body is well adapted to 21% O₂. If you flush the CO₂ of of your lungs (which you can do without the tank, just hyperventilate) you'll actually bugger up your blood's pH (CO₂ in water is carbonic acid), and you'll get pins and needles and nasty cramps in your hands.

So probably avoid that.

As far as weight loss goes, the only method that works is to modify your diet and decrease your dietary intake. Doing this is, often, hard. Food has many functions in our body, we don't often eat out of genuine hunger. A psychologist can be very helpful.

There seems to be reasonably good evidence that once BMI exceeds some number between 35 and 40 it's almost impossible to reverse that by willpower alone. In those cases the combination of willpower and bariatric surgery (but not surgery alone) can be effective.

Source: I'm a doctor in Australia. I lost 50kg through bariatric surgery, with ongoing psychology to support the behaviors required to maintain a healthy weight.

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

#329
Here's how I lost weight:

1) Download the Lose It app

2) Buy an apple watch (or whatever matches with your phone)

3) Connect the watch up to the app

4) Fiddle about with the settings

5) Stay below the line

Excercise is optional. I did this for my dad and he can barely move, and he lost like 12kg.

The only reason ANYONE ever loses weight is because they consume less energy than they burn, there is no other way for energy you consume to leave your system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIlsN32WaE

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

#330
post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just eat less man. It's pretty straight forward. Just eat one meal a day (lunch) and you'll see the weight fly off. You're suggesting a diet that requires a discipline that, empirically, is obviously beyond the reach of most people. Here's much, much simpler advice, that is also more enjoyable to do: Just eat better. Or just somewhat better, and do some exercise. You'd be surprised how easy it is to purchase or coo…

> do some exercise Don't underestimate walking! And stairs!

Absolutely.

One advantage that I have of living in the center of a big city is that there are literally hundreds of restaurants in walking distance from my home. Lockdowns are over but my employer is still mostly in WFH mode. I've made it a habit to try out a new dining place for lunch at least 3x a week, and since I'm more than familiar with all the places in my immediate vicinity, that often means a 15min walk to some place I found on Google Maps.

The 30mins round trip are not about the exercise. All that's on my mind on my way to the place are the great tacos or banh mi or whatever I saw or heard about and that I'm about to try.

I just happen to also get 2km of walking exercise out of it.

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