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

People took some potassium and lost some weight

slimemoldtimemold.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 156 posts

Re: People took some potassium and lost some weight

#101

Post by quickthrower2 »

alwayslikethis wrote: post #45
paulpauper wrote: post #11

seems too good to be true. If this was possible it would would be all over the news. Pharma companies have been looking forever for non-stimulant supplements that induce weight loss without the side effects of conventional weight loss medications. Given that such a drug would presumably be worth hundreds of billions of dollars in sales owing to the widespread obesity epidemic, there is great incentive to find one, ye…

You seem to be too optimistic about the motives of pharma companies. They need profits, and for that they need patentable drugs. They are not going to perform those very expensive randomized controlled trials for things they can't patent and sell for exorbitant prices. That's just the way it is.

That is why CFS wallows in pretrials and fokelaw about how to fix it. That old drug in a low dose is small business.

Re: People took some potassium and lost some weight

#102

Post by quickthrower2 »

zaptheimpaler wrote: post #90
ck2 wrote: post #79

It's water weight loss. Potassium competes with sodium. You take enough potassium and it becomes a diuretic.

This is the right answer!

Why are they doing studies and not measuring lean mass vs. water vs. fat? Might as well have had shoes on the first weigh in and bare feet on the last one!

Re: People took some potassium and lost some weight

#103

Post by ljf »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

Any time you have people start tracking their weight, it’s not surprising that they might start paying attention to their diet and lose some weight. Without a placebo or control group, these numbers aren’t really useful.

I did exactly this about 10 years ago - weighed myself daily, and took fat and measured my circumferences at various points on my body, and wrote it down by hand each day in a table.

That alone was all the encouragement I needed to consider what I ate, drank and did.

Re: People took some potassium and lost some weight

#104

Post by jimnotgym »

nsxwolf wrote: post #76
jwiz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just track calories in, and weight. If you stop losing weight, reduce calories in. It doesn't matter if you "have a slow metabolism" or whatever, because that just means you don't get to eat as much as someone else who weighs the same as you. There are confounding factors so that you can't predict how much weight will be lost by a given calorie deficit. But that doesn't matter. You will lose weight if you eat les…

And here’s where the problem comes in for me - when I reach that level, where weight loss begins to be measurable, I am so miserable I can’t think about anything but food 24/7. It’s like being in a staring contest where the other person never, ever blinks.

This, and I get into weird blood sugar deficits where I feel like I'm going to die! It makes it very difficult not to grab some food so you can keep working.

I am not diabetic btw, before hn not a doctor chimes in.

I think it is something to do with high cortisol levels caused by stress. I am currently experimenting with an extreme low carb diet, early results are showing some promise. I am using the better management of blood sugar to eat less early in the day, hoping this will force a lower calorie consumption

Re: People took some potassium and lost some weight

#105

Post by PeterStuer »

paulpauper wrote: post #24
Waterluvian wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thermodynamics is thermodynamics. However what I think people are meaning to argue is that “just don’t eat as much” can be akin to saying, “just stop being depressed.” It can basically be impossible if not dangerous for some. Also, our calorie furnaces all work a bit differently. Thermodynamics laws hold, but some of us have far wider margins for how generously our body will burn off or otherwise not hold on to those…

exactly, I don't get why so many people who are presumed to be smart always default to this oversimplistic assumption, ignoring that food consumption and calorie burning are as biologically-driven as almost everything else in life.

All models are wrong, some models are usefull.

The (over)consumption industry is trying to hammer home a message that basically boils down to 'calories model is not perfect, please do not moderate your consumption'. If forced hey are ok with you consuming 'different', but not with consuming 'less'.

The results can be observed every day on every street.

Re: People took some potassium and lost some weight

#106

Post by fbn79 »

raffraffraff wrote: post #88
Waterluvian wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lost 50 pounds in 2020 with this one trick: I counted calories and stayed under 2100 per day. I didn’t even pay attention to what kinds of food I ate. That came automatically as I would look at a treat and think, “130 calories? That’s so expensive.” I naturally learned what foods made me feel full for longer. It was fun. Diet can be complicated, but I have a feeling that for most of us, it really doesn’t need to be…

I used an app with a barcode scanner and a huge library of products. It not only tracked calories but gave a nice daily count on fat, protein, carbs and sugar. Simply staying under 2100 calories will drop your weight. No doubt! However, if you want to be able to maintain that long-term, you need to figure out what to eat so that you get the right balance of carbs, sugars, fats and protein. If you don't then you're ei…

Another improvement step is to stop eating food that comes with a barcode.

Re: People took some potassium and lost some weight

#107

Post by yywwbbn »

scythe wrote: post #68
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But potassium salt is just not that risky. I bet Tylenol or Ibuprofen are riskier. I doubt it. Potassium chloride is the active ingredient in lethal injections, too much and it will stop your heart.

Potassium chloride is used in lethal injections to the tune of 75 mg/kg. For a typical adult, that's an injection of 4-6 grams all at once. You could never eat that much in a sitting: it would taste horrible and probably cause immediate vomiting, and still it's not so readily absorbed through the gut anyway. See: https://research.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/SOP-KC...

You could easily eat 4-6 grams (if you wanted to obviously). But absorption us much lower and slower you probably need over hundred grams or so to reach levels that would be lethal

Re: People took some potassium and lost some weight

#108

Post by gadders »

Waterluvian wrote: post #9
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

Any time you have people start tracking their weight, it’s not surprising that they might start paying attention to their diet and lose some weight. Without a placebo or control group, these numbers aren’t really useful.

I lost 50 pounds in 2020 with this one trick: I counted calories and stayed under 2100 per day. I didn’t even pay attention to what kinds of food I ate. That came automatically as I would look at a treat and think, “130 calories? That’s so expensive.” I naturally learned what foods made me feel full for longer. It was fun. Diet can be complicated, but I have a feeling that for most of us, it really doesn’t need to be…

Likewise. I worked out what weight I wanted to be and by when, and put that into a Renaissance Periodisation calorie calculator that told me I need to be below 1600kcal/day.

Re: People took some potassium and lost some weight

#110

Post by _ph_ »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #89
22c wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People also seem to think that "calories out" == "exercise" which it doesn't. For example, if you ate gasoline encased in glass marbles, you'd be eating a lot of calories. The body wouldn't use much of it, though! It's not really widely understood how much the caloric content of our food is actually converted to fat.

Calories out means exhaling carbon dioxide (that's the end of the chemical reaction chain of burning fat). So exercise certainly helps.

Yes, exercise helps. But it also can have the side effect on making people hungry. So if the other nutritional inbalances in the people are not kept within limits, the exercise might not be as effective.
Post reply on HN