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

Always Hungry? Here’s Why

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 134 posts

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#111

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

findjashua wrote: post #107

Stephan Guyenet has written extensively on the issues with the insulin hypothesis: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2012/01/insulin-and-ob... He has also written about how low carb diets work by reducing the variety and the reward factor of the diet ( http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2011/08/carbohydrate-h... ) some other counterarguments are: 1. Protein digestion also raises insulin, so why doesn't a high…

A lot of people have had success losing weight by going with a very simple diet that is nutrient replete. The low carb thing really is BS. Sugary fruit is fine nutrition.

It's really not hard to get complete nutrition from well chosen foods like fruit and dairy. Here's 20 bananas and four pints of 1% milk, totally nutrient replete: http://imgur.com/a/X6F6j You could eat this every day for weeks and have no problems. If you're fat you'd almost certainly lose weight and maintain muscle.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#112

Post by ximi »

ninkendo wrote: post #91

This article goes to a lot of effort to make calorie-counting diets seem futile due to human nature, and there's certainly some truth to it. But I still think "pure" calorie counting (and by that I mean not changing much of what you eat, just how much you eat) can work for the average person. It's just that, to "just eat less", you actually have to log everything you eat so that you can't lie to yourself and blow you…

Out of curiosity: How many calories per day are you aiming for and how did you come up with that number?

I'm currently going for 1800 calories and after losing a decent amount of weight initially, I feel I'm making fairly little progress (to be expected). It seems to me that I actually lose more weight when I go a bit over the limit, which leads me to believe I might be eating so little that my metabolism slows down.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#113

Post by a8da6b0c91d »

HarrietJones wrote: post #36

Saying that fat contains twice the calories as carbs ignores the plain fact that carbs contain a hell of a lot of calories. This is the problem with modern eating. We don't realise how many calories there are in a slice of bread or a bowl of pasta. Low carb works because people can't seem to understand that flour is 95% the energy density of sugar, and it's easier for them to trick themselves into calorie restriction…

> As far as I'm aware, your metabolism doesn't slow down until you're close to starvation (all reserves used)

A bad night's sleep or a lack of sunlight will slow your metabolism down. It's quite variable. Under eating for just a couple days will tank it. Going low protein (under, say, 80 grams) is also sure to lower metabolism.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#115

Post by codeshaman »

Calories and energy sources (carbs, proteins, fats) are a small part of the riddle. Besides calories our bodies need lots of micronutrients, amino-acids, enzymes,... - the quality of the food is paramount.

Our modern food is high in calories and low in nutrients, that's mostly due to the 'advances' in modern agriculture and the whole chain of food production and distribution.

Then there is the aspect of the mind. Look into the mind of any overweight or obese person and you'll find a bucket of psychological disorders, most of them caused by poor nutrition and most of them being the reason for the person 'fixing' them with more food or alcohol or drugs.

Few people ever learn to listen to their bodies and when their bodies scream 'I need nutrients', the mind hears 'I am hungry' and goes and procures more empty calories. That's the cycle which leads to weight gain and obesity and all the related health problems.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#116

Post by vobios »

kephra wrote: post #61

All those theories ignore the epigentics part ob obesity. One of the main factors are what did your mother eat, when she was before puberty, and what did you eat before puberty. Children of immigrants are often fat, because their mothers came from a culture where food was scare but natural, and they now grow up in in a culture where food is cheap and contains lots of sugar. The epigentics now cause that they will sto…

Do not confuse epigenetics with culture.

There are a ton of calorie restriction experiments involving all species (except humans, since that is not realistically possible). These studies show that calorie restriction clearly results in weight loss.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#117

Post by Nimi »

stinos wrote: post #75
SatoshiPacioli wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a wealth of information on ketogenic (low to no carb) diets: http://www.reddit.com/r/keto Everyone serious about this understands that carbs are the problem.

Care to also post links to scientific evidence next to the reddit? Sure it has information, but from a quick glance it's information without much science/proof to back it up, from people who are already convinced. I think way more is needed to convince the rather critical spirits on HN :)

AFAIK, there are several experimental results supporting low carb diets, but all are refutable, as in someone can always come up with a counter-argument. Robert Lustig and his "Sugar: The Bitter Truth" lecture (available on youtube) is probably currently the best-supported argument.

There's an initiative called the "Nutrition Science Initiative" (nusi.org) that apparently attempts to put an end to the debate with irrefutable research, which will finally convince everyone one way or the other. They seem to be still in the early stages.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#118

Post by ninkendo »

ximi wrote: post #112
ninkendo wrote: post #91

This article goes to a lot of effort to make calorie-counting diets seem futile due to human nature, and there's certainly some truth to it. But I still think "pure" calorie counting (and by that I mean not changing much of what you eat, just how much you eat) can work for the average person. It's just that, to "just eat less", you actually have to log everything you eat so that you can't lie to yourself and blow you…

Out of curiosity: How many calories per day are you aiming for and how did you come up with that number? I'm currently going for 1800 calories and after losing a decent amount of weight initially, I feel I'm making fairly little progress (to be expected). It seems to me that I actually lose more weight when I go a bit over the limit, which leads me to believe I might be eating so little that my metabolism slows down.

When I was losing weight I was trying for around 2100 calories per day, and that brought me to around 1 lb/week of weight loss.

From what I've read, the rule of thumb is 3500 calories = 1 lb of fat, so in a week, you want to run a 500 calorie deficit each day. That, and most of the online calorie estimators seemed to cluster around 2600 calories/day for "maintenance" for me, assuming a mostly sedentary lifestyle. So I came up with 2100 and that mostly worked.

It's important to "dial it in" though, by weighing yourself at the same time every day and keeping track of how much you've lost in a given week. At first I was doing 1800 calories per day and I was losing too much, so I bumped up my number up to 2100 and leveled off a bit.

Nowadays I'm doing 2600 per day and I'm coasting pretty well, maybe losing a tiny bit, but making up for it by blowing my budget on occasion. 2600 is very easy to hit though... I can still do fast food for lunch and have no problem making my budget so long as I don't overdo it too much.

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#119

Post by StavrosK »

masto wrote: post #103
ninkendo wrote: post #91

This article goes to a lot of effort to make calorie-counting diets seem futile due to human nature, and there's certainly some truth to it. But I still think "pure" calorie counting (and by that I mean not changing much of what you eat, just how much you eat) can work for the average person. It's just that, to "just eat less", you actually have to log everything you eat so that you can't lie to yourself and blow you…

I also lost 50 pounds with simple calorie counting after being inspired by John Walker's book "The Hacker's Diet" (freely available online).

I lost 20 kilos by working out, but not the way you think. I just felt guilty eating fatty foods afterwards, because "then that whole hour of boring workout would be wasted".

Re: Always Hungry? Here’s Why

#120

Post by jpindar »

greggman wrote: post #83
mistermann wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Informative: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-does-200-calories-look-like.htm http://www.mendosa.com/satiety.htm http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/foods-high-satiation-3799.ht... Imho the easiest way by far to lose weight is eat foods that combine low carb + high satiation index.

Thanks for the suggestion It's not about satiation for me. It's about quantity. My point was until I've eaten a plate of food where plate of food equals pretty much any "standard" picture of a plate of food ( https://www.google.com/search?q=plate+of+food&tbm=isch ) my brain thinks "Dang, you haven't really eaten yet" and yet pretty much every picture in that link is over >1000 calories. Note, I'm not saying satiating…

It sounds like intermittent fasting would be the thing for you. When you only eat one meal a day, that meal can be reasonably large. Many people do find it easier to get used to skipping meals than to eating tiny ones.
Post reply on HN