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

Exercising but Gaining Weight

well.blogs.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 56 posts

Re: Exercising but Gaining Weight

#11

Post by prostoalex »

dkrich wrote: post #7
teen wrote: post #3

Running on a treadmill for an hour is about 600 calories. Eating an extra snack before bed can easily be that. To be calorie deficient and lose weight, it is so much easier to eat less than to exercise more. On top of that, exercising more can stimulate your appetite... leading to over eating. Basically you just have to be vigilant with not eating too much. I don't think counting calories is important, but 3 small me…

Exactly. The real problem with fat gain/loss isn't sedentary vs. active lifestyles, it's calorie consumption. This is why smokers who never work out are usually extremely thin- they typically eat very little. That isn't of course to suggest that that is healthier than being a non-smoker who is overweight, but rather to show in an extreme case that for fat loss exercise is extremely overrated while simple calorie rest…

> The formula that I know works for me is calorie restriction and limiting carb/sugar intake as much as possible.

The latter might be more effective than the former. Dr. Atkins adopters have challenged people to gain weight on the high fat / high protein diet, and those who took up the challenge simply could not "fatten up" - after a while they could consume only so much meat, cheese, fish and green veggies before feeling completely satiated. So there is a hard practical limit on number of calories consumed on a protein/fat diet.

Compare that to carbohydrate-related cravings, where people talk about having just another [calorie-laden] scone, cookie, or piece of candy, and seemingly losing track of consumption.

Re: Exercising but Gaining Weight

#12

Post by cschmidt »

phlosten wrote: post #5
teen wrote: post #3

Running on a treadmill for an hour is about 600 calories. Eating an extra snack before bed can easily be that. To be calorie deficient and lose weight, it is so much easier to eat less than to exercise more. On top of that, exercising more can stimulate your appetite... leading to over eating. Basically you just have to be vigilant with not eating too much. I don't think counting calories is important, but 3 small me…

I made massive changes to my diet a few months ago, after being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. The doctor said diet and exercise needed. Trying to keep it simple I didn't worry about the exercise, just changed the diet, the weight started falling off easily, as long as I ate regularly and kept my carbs to what was required. I started riding to work this week. I am so god damn hungry right now. I think if you are rea…

> * Have enough carbs each meal so your body hormones etc are getting stuff to work with.

Your body doesn't actually need any carbs to function. It can run off of ketones rather than glucose. You might be interested to look into the keto diet, which works beautifully for people with diabetes. You eat low carb, but high fat. The FAQ of /r/keto on reddit is a good place to start.

Re: Exercising but Gaining Weight

#13

Post by prawn »

steakejjs wrote: post #10
teen wrote: post #3

Running on a treadmill for an hour is about 600 calories. Eating an extra snack before bed can easily be that. To be calorie deficient and lose weight, it is so much easier to eat less than to exercise more. On top of that, exercising more can stimulate your appetite... leading to over eating. Basically you just have to be vigilant with not eating too much. I don't think counting calories is important, but 3 small me…

I think your comment shows part of the problem, which isn't mean as a dig. carbs, sugar, low dairy, small portions? What does this leave you to eat? The average person will go crazy following these rules. The problem is people aren't realistic about what they are eating and their activity level. It is okay to eat poptarts, icecream, whatever it is you like. But do so in moderation. It's not okay to develop a habit of…

There are countless great options you can derive from meat, vegetables, eggs and fruit.

Re: Exercising but Gaining Weight

#14

Post by axlprose »

cschmidt wrote: post #12
phlosten wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made massive changes to my diet a few months ago, after being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. The doctor said diet and exercise needed. Trying to keep it simple I didn't worry about the exercise, just changed the diet, the weight started falling off easily, as long as I ate regularly and kept my carbs to what was required. I started riding to work this week. I am so god damn hungry right now. I think if you are rea…

> * Have enough carbs each meal so your body hormones etc are getting stuff to work with. Your body doesn't actually need any carbs to function. It can run off of ketones rather than glucose. You might be interested to look into the keto diet, which works beautifully for people with diabetes. You eat low carb, but high fat. The FAQ of /r/keto on reddit is a good place to start.

This is also a good guide to keto: http://josepharcita.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/guide-to-ketosis....

Re: Exercising but Gaining Weight

#15

Post by sytelus »

Anyone with even a rudimentary training knows this fact: Exercise don't help you loose weight. Even the heavy routines burn minuscule amount of calories that would be compensated by just couple of slices of bread. Exercise helps you build cardio and/or muscle strengths which is very different than loosing weight. The only sure shot way of loosing weight is diet control. Just stop eating simple carbs (aka white floor/grain/corn stuff and sugars from non-natural sources) and you can drop weight and keep it that way.

Re: Exercising but Gaining Weight

#16

Post by axlprose »

steakejjs wrote: post #10
teen wrote: post #3

Running on a treadmill for an hour is about 600 calories. Eating an extra snack before bed can easily be that. To be calorie deficient and lose weight, it is so much easier to eat less than to exercise more. On top of that, exercising more can stimulate your appetite... leading to over eating. Basically you just have to be vigilant with not eating too much. I don't think counting calories is important, but 3 small me…

I think your comment shows part of the problem, which isn't mean as a dig. carbs, sugar, low dairy, small portions? What does this leave you to eat? The average person will go crazy following these rules. The problem is people aren't realistic about what they are eating and their activity level. It is okay to eat poptarts, icecream, whatever it is you like. But do so in moderation. It's not okay to develop a habit of…

The problem with moderation of extremely sweet/carb-heavy foods, is that it is incredibly difficult to actually moderate, since they actually stimulate more hunger and cravings for similar foods. More difficult than actually cutting them out cold turkey I'd say.

Of course there's often times a stubborn emotional component to eating carb-laden food, so 'moderation' may help as an introduction to a healthy diet, but it's very difficult to pull off successfully without first being low-carb and just adding them in every now and then after the fact.

There's no clear-cut good way to approach it unfortunately as both methods obviously have their flaws, hence obesity is such a tough nut to crack.

Re: Exercising but Gaining Weight

#17

Post by letstryagain »

prostoalex wrote: post #9
teen wrote: post #3

Running on a treadmill for an hour is about 600 calories. Eating an extra snack before bed can easily be that. To be calorie deficient and lose weight, it is so much easier to eat less than to exercise more. On top of that, exercising more can stimulate your appetite... leading to over eating. Basically you just have to be vigilant with not eating too much. I don't think counting calories is important, but 3 small me…

> Basically you just have to be vigilant with not eating too much. No. There's no consistent evidence of large groups of people who started reducing calories and in return lost pounds predictably. Subjects lose energy, become irritable, get headaches and migraines, have hunger pangs, every now and then just fall off the wagon and over-indulge, or just plain simple gain weight on reduced calorie diet in a controlled e…

> There's no consistent evidence of large groups of people who started reducing calories and in return lost pounds predictably.

The only inconsistencies come from inaccurate self reporting of caloric intake by study participants. There's been several meta-studies on this. Eating carbs/sugars is indeed a problem because of GI issues - you will feel hungry again soon after consuming sugar which makes it harder to stick to your calorie target.

Re: Exercising but Gaining Weight

#18

Post by axlprose »

moonka wrote: post #2

>While this study didn’t track the women’s eating and movement habits away from the lab, it is likely that those who gained weight began eating more and moving less when they weren’t on the treadmills, “probably without meaning to,” Dr. Gaesser said. Without knowing the whole picture, it seems hard to draw any sort of meaningful conclusion. Weight loss is almost entirely diet-based.

Can someone please explain why this comment is getting downvoted? It is essentially saying the same thing as the current top 2 comments that exercise is not a terribly meaningful contributor to weight loss, and adds to the discussion that certain conclusions in the article may not be warranted given that context, using no inflammatory language. Yet it is almost invisible. What gives HN?

Re: Exercising but Gaining Weight

#19

Post by letstryagain »

prostoalex wrote: post #11
dkrich wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The real problem with fat gain/loss isn't sedentary vs. active lifestyles, it's calorie consumption. This is why smokers who never work out are usually extremely thin- they typically eat very little. That isn't of course to suggest that that is healthier than being a non-smoker who is overweight, but rather to show in an extreme case that for fat loss exercise is extremely overrated while simple calorie rest…

> The formula that I know works for me is calorie restriction and limiting carb/sugar intake as much as possible. The latter might be more effective than the former. Dr. Atkins adopters have challenged people to gain weight on the high fat / high protein diet, and those who took up the challenge simply could not "fatten up" - after a while they could consume only so much meat, cheese, fish and green veggies before fe…

> Dr. Atkins has challenged people to gain weight

Where can I read about this?

Re: Exercising but Gaining Weight

#20

Post by ardit33 »

phlosten wrote: post #5
teen wrote: post #3

Running on a treadmill for an hour is about 600 calories. Eating an extra snack before bed can easily be that. To be calorie deficient and lose weight, it is so much easier to eat less than to exercise more. On top of that, exercising more can stimulate your appetite... leading to over eating. Basically you just have to be vigilant with not eating too much. I don't think counting calories is important, but 3 small me…

I made massive changes to my diet a few months ago, after being diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. The doctor said diet and exercise needed. Trying to keep it simple I didn't worry about the exercise, just changed the diet, the weight started falling off easily, as long as I ate regularly and kept my carbs to what was required. I started riding to work this week. I am so god damn hungry right now. I think if you are rea…

I disagree. Going to the gym and building strength and muscle by lifting weights, is the best way to get your body fat low. You might actually gain weight, but it would be muscle.

Muscle requires more energy at rest, so you actually end up burning more calories on the long term.

Post reply on HN