Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

physiqonomics.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 501 posts

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#221

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

csours wrote: post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

Your hunger is partly driven by gut bacteria that want you to feed them. It is a genuine form of mind control. Your current mixture of biota aren't doing you any favors. It would be worthwhile to look into medical treatment that can kill them off and replace with a known good inoculation.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#222

Post by devwastaken »

csours wrote: post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

I have a pet theory that obesity is linear to tastey food. As we have sugar and tastey food readily available it's far easier to continue to consume. I catch myself eating a whole bag of cereal, even though it's not fulfilling, simply because it tastes good and I'm hungry. If instead my only options were healthy foods I'd eat a lot less.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#223

Post by milankragujevic »

csours wrote: post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

I have just accepted being hungry all the time. Lost 61 pounds in 6 months, still got 44 to go before reaching my ideal weight. Being hungry all the time became normal after 2 months. It was difficult, still is.

So, my diet plan was - eat less. And of that which I eat, avoid sugar like poison and avoid carbohydrates as much as possible, while still having at least some daily intake split between meals.

And regular blood tests and monitoring by doctors (endocrinologist, GP, cardiologist).

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#224

Post by TameAntelope »

BenjiWiebe wrote: post #6
elmerfud wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong because it's about calorie deficit of which exercise can help you achieve. Also since the way fat gets "burned" for weight loss is by exhaling carbon atoms, aerobic exercise can assist with this process. As always do not add more mass than you expel.

I don't eat particularly healthy, and I don't exercise much, yet I'm perpetually borderline underweight. Why does the math not matter for me, while the next person watches every calorie, goes on long walks, and yet struggles to lose any weight?

It actually does go both ways; while overweight people who struggle to lose weight are undercounting their calories, you're likely overcounting your calories.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#225

Post by LeonM »

retrac wrote: post #60
lr4444lr wrote: post #8

Someone finally wrote this article. So refreshing. It's obvious when you live with a fat person why they have trouble losing weight, even when they're on a diet: they're usually not actually following it. Whether they don't understand portion sizes for calorie math, or look at calories at all, or eat things that they say "do not count", there is almost always a failure to understand what and how much they are eating.

One of my roommates tried everything, including good hard exercise and all sorts of diets. Nothing seemed to be working. It was kind of perplexing me, actually. Then we started working the same schedule, breakfast together. The whole thing unravelled with a casual comment he made. "Wow, you're really stingy with the sugar in your coffee." Except I wasn't. I was actually indulging myself, like two tablespoons. Show me…

Story time!

I used to drink my coffee with sugar. Next to the coffee machine at my office there was this big box of sugar sticks, I took one with every cup.

One day, we ran out of sugar sticks, the box was empty. I asked around in the office if anyone knew where we keep the boxes of sugar, everybody answered that they didn't know, because they didn't take sugar in their coffee. If found I was the only one in the entire office drinking coffee with sugar.

That box was 3kg... 3000 grams of sugar, that I consumed in my own in just a matter of a few months...

Kind of shocked by this, I told a colleague about this, and he replied with something that stuck with my till this day: "It's all between your ears, stop taking sugar in your coffee, and after just a week, you won't know better. In fact: you'll come to detest it".

So I did, stopped taking sugar in my coffee cold turkey. And, my colleague was right, after a couple of days, I didn't miss the sugar in my coffee. In fact: I came to appreciate the taste of pure coffee.

A couple weeks later my mother accidentally put sugar in my coffee, as a force of habit, and I actually spat it out. It tasted horrible.

So, If you drink coffee with sugar: just stop doing it and you'll get to enjoy the real taste of coffee, and safe yourself a lot of sugar intake.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#226

Post by pid-1 »

csours wrote: post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

Have you tried Saxenda or similar? It was a life changer for me.

Good luck, I also struggle with weight and it's clear there's something we have not figured out yet.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#227

Post by TameAntelope »

MisterSandman wrote: post #9
BenjiWiebe wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't eat particularly healthy, and I don't exercise much, yet I'm perpetually borderline underweight. Why does the math not matter for me, while the next person watches every calorie, goes on long walks, and yet struggles to lose any weight?

I think you know the answer to that question, but are trying to make a point, which is IMO very valid. I don't care if you call it genetics or luck or just who you are, but people have different bodies and tend to default to different sizes. This idea of "one diet fits all" does not work. You need to do what is and feels right to your body.

This is just not true; people are different, but we're not generally that different from one another. It's vastly more likely that an underweight person isn't eating enough than it is they're genetically predisposed to being underweight.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#228

Post by mattlondon »

csours wrote: post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

+1 to this.

I am almost permanently hungry. It is extremely rare for me to feel full. My wife, friends, co-workers etc who eat the same meals as me (e.g. at restaurants or Xmas dinners etc) stop with comments like "man I am so full I could not eat another morsel!" yet I sit there with a clean plate thinking I could eat the entire thing again while also wondering what is for dessert. At home I will pretty much always finish off what my family leave on their plate.

I think I am just missing that gene or whatever that tells you you have eaten enough, kinda like how horses can eat themselves to death without a nosebag.

The only thing that has kinda worked for me is MyFitnessPal and eating sugar-free sweets or black coffee to distract my brain.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#229

Post by wincent »

csours wrote: post #73

I weigh 350 pounds. I'm very obese. I know this. When I was a teenager, I looked at people who weighed 300+ pounds and though, how do you get that way. Don't you realize that you are gaining weight? Don't you know that you just have to eat less to lose weight? Anyway, now I realize that I am hungry. It never goes away unless I eat a significant amount of food. My body told me to eat, so I ate. It doesn't even take th…

> Maybe it's Ok to be a little hungry.

This is the key. On evolutionary time scales, human beings have only very recently come to inhabit a world where regularly being able to eat to full satiation (and beyond) is commonplace. Being "a little hungry" is actually the typical condition under which most of our ancestors over many thousands of years have operated. Put an organism evolved to survive amid scarcity in an environment of abundance, and it's going to gain weight unless it comes up with a method for stopping at or before the earliest signs of satiety.

Re: You're Not Losing Fat Because You're Eating Too Damn Much (2016)

#230

Post by pixl97 »

bavell wrote: post #55
sharken wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like they DO NOT want to believe how small portion sizes are required to consistently lose weight. Even if there was a device that could scan all food before eating it, they would still exempt some meals with the "do not count" argument. Rule of thumb, that if a meal is easy and fast to prepare, then it is probably not suited for a diet. To lose weight you have to do a lot more exercise than you think consi…

> To lose weight you have to do a lot more exercise than you think consistently. And you have to eat a lot less than you think. Exercise doesn't help very much, it's really all about diet. Plus if you are exercising a lot, you'll feel hungier and it'll be harder mentally to not eat more to compensate.

If you're already overweight then exercise is important for reducing insulin resistance. Any resistance keeps ones insulin levels high, which is bad for many reasons, but also increases the feelings of hunger.
Post reply on HN