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

411–420 of 501 posts

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

#411

Post by mattlondon »

voisin wrote: post #371
mattlondon wrote: post #131

This article is quite accurate I think. I use MyFitnessPal on and off. It is easy - you just scan the barcode and it tots up the calories. MFP is excellent at making you face up to what you are actually eating. At first it was a huge eye-opener for how many calories were in everyday things - like a slice of bread is 80-120 calories etc. The article mentions fruit juice too - that was a big one for me as well. I figur…

> you just scan the barcode and it tots up the calories. A good tule of thumb is to minimize the number of things you eat with barcodes.

We joke at home that when we're on "fatness pal" then we can only eat dust and sand, which is what I assume you are referring to since everything has a barcode.

If you mean stay away from processed foods, then yeah readymeals and the like are best avoided. But pretty much everything has a barcode - raw chicken breast, raw fruit and veg, milk ... you name it - hell even salt and water have barcodes.

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

#412

Post by jjj123 »

OJFord wrote: post #317
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…

> It doesn't even take that much extra food to gain a lot of weight. One extra piece of cake a week [...] I honestly only say this in case it helps, and I'm firmly on the upper end of 'healthy' UK BMI so not in any health freak position of judgement by a long shot, but I last had a slice of cake months ago, so the casual 'just an extra slice of cake every week ' really stands out to me. (On a complete tangent I don't…

I’ve been learning to bake and will make a batch of brownies or cookies at least once a week. It’s just my boyfriend and I that live together so it ends up being the equivalent of 2+ extra pieces of cake a week, probably. Now a dinner without dessert feels lacking.

I’ve been thinking about giving all but one serving away to friends each time I bake, but your comment reminded me that even one serving a week is likely more than I need.

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

#413

Post by layer8 »

amelius wrote: post #368
layer8 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only way to lose weight (other than amputation and the like) is to take in less calories than you burn. If what you say is correct it just means that in those cases the intermittent fasting causes higher energy expenditure.

This is incorrect. There are many examples of pairs of people who eat the same and exercise the same, yet one remains slim, the other becomes obese.

Exercising the same doesn’t imply their bodies expend the same amount of energy. One body may be more efficient than the other, for example producing less excess heat. Exercise also isn’t the only factor in energy expenditure. People have different basal metabolic rates (how much energy your body consumes when you’re doing nothing), and changing your diet, your sleep, your mood, etc., can affect it, as can stress and cognitive activity. Finally there’s differences in how efficiently people extract energy from food.

However, for any given individual, if they want to reduce weight, they can either reduce their energy input or increase their energy output, or both. There’s just no other way.

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

#414

Post by rvbissell »

Blackthorn wrote: post #110
formerly_proven wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drinks other than water, tea (no milk), black coffee (if too strong, make it muricanize it) were a mistake, change my mind.

Nothing wrong with diet coke. (Well, I don't like the caffeine so I don't usually drink it, but still.) Gatorade zero after a workout can really hit the spot some days too.

Every time I've successfully lost significant weight, I was drinking mostly water and not diet sodas. I half-way wonder if our bodies release insulin into the bloodstream in part due to the presence of a sweet taste on the tongue -- even if noncaloric. Because anecdotally, I think I get hungrier faster after a Diet Coke.

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

#415

Post by edanm »

notatoad wrote: post #160
Vladimof wrote: post #2

yeah, exercise is not for losing fat... it's just for staying in good health

this is another one of those things that's true in a sort of broad sense, but factually incorrect. exercise burns calories, and burning calories makes you lose fat - that's just basic math. but exercise makes you hungry, and to the article's main point: people are terrible at estimating calories. a one-hour easy run, a two-hour bike ride, or a full day of alpine skiing burns what's basically an irrelevant amount of c…

It's not just that exercise makes you hungry, it's also that deliberate cardio exercise can lead to you unconsciously moving less throughout the day, therefore reducing your total daily expenditure, in effect cancelling the whole effect of the exercise. E.g. If someone were to run a marathon, especially if they're untrained, they would be too tired to do anything else during that day (I imagine).

You can theoretically try to counter this by also using a step counter to make sure you keep moving throughout the day, but at some point you might be too exhausted for even that to help.

That said, most people don't move or exercise nearly enough, not for weight loss nor for general health, so for most people's situation you're probably right, adding some exercise is a net benefit. It's still much easier and faster (and more important in the long run) to control caloric intake.

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

#416

Post by 411111111111111 »

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…

At my maximum I weighed 192kg.

Then I really tried to eat only salads and generally healthy things while doing a lot of sports.

I lost almost 95kg within less then 2 years and for most off the time, the hunger was gone.

At some point, the hunger came back however, and I'm back up to 160kg. It is a terrible feeling, and while it's possible to ignore it for a while... At least I cannot for months or even years. I'm not sure why it went a away before, but I wish I knew. Switching over to salad diet and doing sports doesn't seem to work by itself, at least not within a reasonable amount of time

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

#417

Post by edanm »

throwaway675309 wrote: post #240
nostromo wrote: post #134

And if you are going to work out, lift weights. Don't just do cardio. In fact, many people won't have to do cardio at all. Cardio doesn't help you look and feel better. Build muscle, and that muscle will burn calories, even when you're asleep.

False. Cardio in the form of high intensity interval training is absolutely beneficial for your heart. I do agree that you should not neglect anaerobic training.

I think cardio in other forms is just as beneficial.

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

#418

Post by edanm »

lisper wrote: post #264

It’s not that you’re eating too much, it’s that you’re eating (and drinking) too much sugar . Consume less sugar, and don’t eat when you’re not hungry, and you will be amazed at the results.

Sugar isn't specifically worse than other ways to consume calories, as far as I understand. The way we know this is that there have been many studies in humans, some with high-sugar diets and some with low-sugar diets, and as long as calories are equated, almost everything else about them is the same. Same amount of weight loss, blood markers look similar, etc.

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

#419

Post by pjerem »

qgin wrote: post #40
SnowHill9902 wrote: post #25

If you squat, deadlift and walk enough, and are generally healthy, you physically won’t be able to eat yourself fat.

I can overeat 1000 calories without even trying. It would take me 4-5 hours to walk off 1000 calories.

I don’t know what gp implied but I know that in my personal case, I’m way less hungry after physical effort. So I wouldn’t think he talked about calories but more about the ability to eat.

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

#420

Post by peppermint_tea »

d--b wrote: post #258
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…

My experience is that hunger is a lot like the sensation you get when quitting smoking. And eating while hungry is definitely triggering the same stuff than smoking an overdue cigarette. It’s something in the throat that has must have neural connections in the upper back (at least for me!). What I am trying now is to find hunger not too unpleasant. It feels unpleasant at first, then if you think about it, it’s not pa…

Yup, exactly this. I quit smoking multiple times and dieted one time (lost ~20 pounds).

You have to "hack" your brain into enjoying the unpleasant sensation like it is something good. Even if you feel like the world will end, nothing happens.

Doing other activities help indeed, but in order to do this, you sometimes need massive changes in your daily habits/lifestyle. I feel like these changes are the hard to maintain part since you are constantly fighting to do "the right thing" instead of "the pleasurable thing"

P.S : I still smoke & overeat

Post reply on HN