Ask HN: What's your secret diet tip you can share?

Some people are good at consistent moderation. I am not, but I am good at binary behaviors, even when they require a lot of discipline. Intermittent fasting works very well for people built this way since you are on or off.

I normally maintain a healthy weight if I only eat from 12-8. If I really don't pay attention and graze that entire window, I can still creep up doing this. If I hit 175lbs, my rule is I cut my eating window from 1-7 until I reach 165 which happens in less than a month on the 6 hour window.

I've kept this up for 5-6 years. You get over the hunger pangs within a few weeks and then it just becomes normal. I've only had to cut my window down to six hours I think three times since I started the routine.

PS: I have had diagnosed ADHD since middle school. I wonder if there is any correlation between ADHD and intermittent fasting as a successful diet strategy. I think there is something similar between struggling with focus and a proclivity for absent minded snacking. It makes it so much easier to have a binary rule that I can follow that tells me when this is or isn't allowed.

1) Eat for satiety and, as a rough proxy, focus on things high in fiber (beans, lentils, grains, vegetables, etc). You will likely eat a larger volume of food but that’s ok.

2) Don’t diet, switch lifestyles.

3) Still take time to enjoy in moderation that which does not fall into these categories.

4) Give calorie counting a go for 6 months or so as it will give you a good intuition on some surprising sources of calories; personally I would not do it too much longer as it can take the joy out of eating.

5) Check in periodically on a scale.

6) Exercise regularly if you’re not already; it’s helpful both physically and mentally. It’s OK to start small and work from there.

Totally. I don't keep unhealthy food in the house. If I really want it I can go get it in the moment. But keeping it all a few blocks away enlists my laziness on the side of healthy eating.

Get diet, sleep, and exercise right. If any of these three are off, energy is lower. I wish I could oversell this point a little more, there has been plenty of times over the years I've done something small on days - missed an hours sleep, ate too much, sit around to long without moving -- and my energy level and performance was affected without me realizing it.

I've found the easiest and usually cheapest way to control diet is to cook at home.

Look into the Mediterranean diet, it has consistently come up when researching health. Of course the mere word diet implies temporary, but the right way of eating should perhaps be permanent.

Get a blood test done and have it analysed to determine if anything is off.

Don't get dehydrated and get kidney stones. Drink enough water throughout the day. Sometimes I carry a stainless steel container with me throughout the day so I'm getting enough. Be careful about drinking something else for example two glasses of tea and getting sweaty.

Perhaps find and add some health books to your reading list. One interesting, seemingly irrefutable argument put forth in "The China Study" though the book controversial, was no single ingredient food will give more health as much as focusing on the overall diet for most people. Two good books are "How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease" and "On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen" are two good ones.

Interval fasting 16:8, which means 2 meals within eight hours, then 16 hours (over night) to the next meal.