When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go? • Hacker News Board

Re: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

#141

Post by wccrawford » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 6:29 PM UTC

DanBC wrote: post #40

DoodleBuggy wrote: post #31

The TLDR: > Physical activity as a weight loss strategy is, therefore, easily foiled by relatively small quantities of excess food. > Our calculations show that the lungs are the primary excretory organ for fat. Losing weight requires unlocking the carbon stored in fat cells, thus reinforcing that often heard refrain of “eat less, move more.” "Eat less, move more." If anyone isn't aware of that by now, I don't know w…

the eating less part is more important (for weight loss) than the moving more part, especially because people doing exercise for weight loss often overestimate how many calories the exercise is burning, and underestimate how many calories are in food.

Plus, the difference between "not losing weight" and "losing weight" can be a lot of calories.

If you were gaining weight regularly and start exercising to lose it, you'd have to do a ton of exercise to compensate.

But if you're on the verge of losing weight and start exercising, it would be possible to tip the scales, so to speak. So long as you don't start eating more because of it.

I'm 205 lbs, and the charts say I need to eat between 1500 and 1800 calories per day to lose weight. I can eat 2600 and maintain my weight.

So if I'm just barely maintaining my weight at 2600 calories and I want to lose weight, I'd need 800 calories worth of exercise.

Moderate-pace walking burns 300 calories per hour for me. I'd need almost 3 hours of deliberate walking at a good pace to lose that extra weight, every single day. And I couldn't reward myself with a treat afterwards.

I got the exercise numbers from MyFitnessPal. The food calories I got from a site I found the other day, but I don't remember which.

Re: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

#142

Post by deadmetheny » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 6:29 PM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #114

deadmetheny wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For someone who is very badly overweight, cutting calories is still a very good step. My first 100 lbs lost were from doing exactly that. After you get down to merely overweight from terribly obese is when you really need to start caring more about being active and attempting to work exercise into the routine as well. At least from my experience, cutting calories is something that beginners can fairly easily wrap the…

> For someone who is very badly overweight, cutting calories is still a very good step. It's more or less the only possible step: unless you have an absolutely freaky metabolism, exercise will not be able to mitigate an unhealthy diet until long-term (through increasing basal metabolism by building up muscle mass), and when significantly overweight it's easy to exercise "wrong" and hurt yourself.

Indeed, which is why I dislike seeing people who pooh-pooh on the idea that "calories in < calories out" is not a good first step. It's absolutely the correct first step, IMO. There's obviously more in play beyond that, but for a lot of people it's the most basic first step they need to grasp to move further down the scale. After getting eating habits under control, then people can worry more about how the body burns different calorie sources differently and balancing exercise with healthy eating.

Re: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

#143

Post by SomeStupidPoint » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 6:31 PM UTC

jedrek wrote: post #123

SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most important role of exercise in weightloss is hormone regulation, not the calories burned. (As you correctly point out.) Being less stressed and routinely expending large amounts of energy simply causes your body to run differently (because of the hormones produced and burned off), which in turn changes how it processes food and fat stores, what it craves, etc. I think proper hormone regulation is far more sus…

> I think proper hormone regulation is far more sustainable than the calorie restrictions necessary to offset out-of-whack hormones. Sure. As long as you have time to work out. Or you don't get hurt. Or you can afford to go to a place to work out (much of the US isn't even walkable).

You could hit the level of physical exercise I'm speaking about in 30-60 per day at home with bodyweight exercises, with a very minimal chance of injury. (To the point my 90 year old grandmother can do the exercises -- she's just slower and does lighter versions.)

That's not a priority for some people, but that's a choice they're making.

It's absolutely not about access or time -- it's about choosing to do it or not. Frankly, given how much more efficient it makes everything else, I think it's harder not to.

Other people feel differently.

Re: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

#144

Post by smeyer » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 6:31 PM UTC

Jenya_ wrote: post #139

adekok wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty difficult to double that number. Can you really double your metabolism without ill effect? Or without massively changing your lifestyle? The normal expectation is maybe 10-25% change. Any more than than would require things likes 8 hours of exercise per day.

Losing eight pounds during 3-4 hours run (marathon event) is not unheard of: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=3319287

Like the previous commenter mentioned, that's mostly water. I've seen various numbers between 100 and 150 calories burned per mile for runners, which at the high end is just a bit over one pound's worth of calories for a marathon.

Re: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

#145

Post by averageweather » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 6:36 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #122

darrenf wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lost 16kg this year, which I attribute to 3 things: 1. being fairly strict with calorie intake - though I have gone over my limit a whole bunch of times 2. upping my running game - 80km+ most months 3. being diagnosed asthmatic (after 40 years of merely "you've got shitty lungs, sorry") and prescribed a morning+night inhaler Dieting isn't new to me, I've been a fat bastard all my adult life. Previous attempts at…

I highly recommend a meal tracker app for anyone who's looking to lose. I avoided it for ages. I didn't want to be "one of those people". I felt like I ate fairly well and was working hard enough, I shouldn't have to stoop to that level. I started bike commuting over 3 months ago now, but my weight was only increasing, and I was pretty sure my diet was the same as ever -- healthy breakfast, fairly healthy lunch, heal…

Couldn't agree more. Also didn't want to be that person tracking calories ... but now that I do and can look back, my perspective is more of "let's face it, losing weight is not easy" and those people tracking were doing hard work.

But you realize, finding your macro deficit combined with an app like my fitness pal makes it SIGNIFICANTLY easier. Losing weight becomes simple arithmetic.

Alcohol is rough. So many people have no idea what a drink actually contains calorie wise. Even the new and popular alcoholic seltzers will list something like "100 calories", and then the nutrition facts will list something like "5 carbs". With 4 calories per carb ... 4 * 5 does not equal 100. It is more accurate to just take the calorie count of 100 and divide by 4. Now you have a 25g of carbs drink, which is fine, but you need to factor that into your daily tracking.

Alcohol has calories per gram, but it isn't required to be listed. This makes craft beers very interesting. Take a 16oz can of some double IPA at 8% and boom, you have around 320 calories in that one drink ... or 80 carbs if you look at it that way.

I've tried to simplify it a bit with this calculator that actually factors calories/g of alcohol.

http://www.thealccalc.com/

Re: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

#146

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 6:37 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #118

mikeash wrote: post #4

For anyone coming straight to the comments looking for an answer to the question: it turns into CO2 (and a bit of water) and you breathe it out. When you realize that you have to breathe out all the weight you lose, I think it gives you a bigger appreciation for how difficult weight loss can be.

Thunderf00t had a great take on this showing why excercise is pretty much useless for weight loss. You exhale same percentage of CO2 no matter how active you are so to burn more fat you have to make yourself breathe faster. You can do that with excercise which, if it's intense, can triple your rate of breathing. But if you do intensly excercise for an hour each day you just burn 26 hours of fat instead 24. Not much o…

[deleted]

Re: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

#147

Post by cuckcuckspruce » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 6:40 PM UTC

rconti wrote: post #122

darrenf wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lost 16kg this year, which I attribute to 3 things: 1. being fairly strict with calorie intake - though I have gone over my limit a whole bunch of times 2. upping my running game - 80km+ most months 3. being diagnosed asthmatic (after 40 years of merely "you've got shitty lungs, sorry") and prescribed a morning+night inhaler Dieting isn't new to me, I've been a fat bastard all my adult life. Previous attempts at…

I highly recommend a meal tracker app for anyone who's looking to lose. I avoided it for ages. I didn't want to be "one of those people". I felt like I ate fairly well and was working hard enough, I shouldn't have to stoop to that level. I started bike commuting over 3 months ago now, but my weight was only increasing, and I was pretty sure my diet was the same as ever -- healthy breakfast, fairly healthy lunch, heal…

I am embarking on my third attempt at major weight loss -this time medically supported.

The first two times were a success as I was doing Weight Watchers and they stress always 'tracking' - meal logging and accounting for your meals before eating - and planning your meals ahead. All of my failures came after stopping Weight Watchers for one reason or another (inconvenience of weekly meetings, wanting to save some money instead of paying for the subscription, etc).

Moving into medically supported weight loss has changed my view toward some of the pseudo-science of Weight Watchers, but one thing both approaches have in common is keeping a food diary or accounting of what you are going to eat and holding yourself accountable to that. I'm down ten pounds over the last two months and well on my way thanks to getting back into using a food diary (in my case, MyFitnessPal).

I highly recommend it to anybody who wants to lose a lot of weight over the long term, but it's also good for generally accountability. After I lose the amount of weight I'm trying to I will continue to keep a food diary.

Re: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

#148

Post by fleitz » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 6:42 PM UTC

zappo2938 wrote: post #60

mikeash wrote: post #4

For anyone coming straight to the comments looking for an answer to the question: it turns into CO2 (and a bit of water) and you breathe it out. When you realize that you have to breathe out all the weight you lose, I think it gives you a bigger appreciation for how difficult weight loss can be.

I sometimes ask the deep philosophical question, why does a tree not sink into the ground it grows out of? It blows people's minds when I explain that the reason is because the tree is mostly water and CO2, a gas and a liquid coming from the sky.

That's because the ground doesn't hold up trees, trees pin down the ground. Also, trees grow into the ground, not out of it.

Re: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

#149

Post by Zanta » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 6:44 PM UTC

StevePerkins wrote: post #37

Zanta wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the paper "Replacing one hour of rest with exercise that raises the metabolic rate to seven times that of resting by, for example, jogging, removes an additional 39 g of carbon from the body, raising the total by about 20% to 240 g. For comparison, a single 100 g muffin represents about 20% of an average person’s total daily energy requirement. Physical activity as a weight loss strategy is, therefore, easily fo…

I can't help but groan at some of the "obvious" health and weight loss platitudes that get smugly thrown around. " Calories in, calories out! " " You can't outrun a bad diet! " " Weight is lost in the kitchen! " Sure, things ultimately boil down to intake-vs-expenditure. However, it IS more complicated than that in practice . As software developers, we complain when management makes decisions based on inadequate or p…

Your point absolutely has merit. I know some, but not many, badly overweight people who exercise regularly. I know some, but not many, skinny people who never lift a finger.

I was mostly trying to address the direct cause-and-effect conclusion the parent comment was making with breathing hard == losing weight

Re: When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?

#150

Post by rconti » Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 6:45 PM UTC

averageweather wrote: post #145

rconti wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly recommend a meal tracker app for anyone who's looking to lose. I avoided it for ages. I didn't want to be "one of those people". I felt like I ate fairly well and was working hard enough, I shouldn't have to stoop to that level. I started bike commuting over 3 months ago now, but my weight was only increasing, and I was pretty sure my diet was the same as ever -- healthy breakfast, fairly healthy lunch, heal…

Couldn't agree more. Also didn't want to be that person tracking calories ... but now that I do and can look back, my perspective is more of "let's face it, losing weight is not easy" and those people tracking were doing hard work. But you realize, finding your macro deficit combined with an app like my fitness pal makes it SIGNIFICANTLY easier. Losing weight becomes simple arithmetic. Alcohol is rough. So many peopl…

I need to do more reading on this calories per carb thing. I don't get it at first glance.

I also hated the "if it fits your macros" type thing. I'm not a body builder, what do I care? But when you see the real impact of what you're about to eat it actually frees you quite a bit (assuming you generally eat well). I'm actually happy to grab that extra piece of cheese because I can easily take the calorie hit, I gotta eat something, and some protein and fat seems better than carbs.

I did the math on craft beer last winter, and cut back on beer for a bit, but it never stuck. 2.5cal per ounce per % abv. It would not be unheard of to drink half a POUND of calories in an afternoon, say, watching football. As I've switched to wine, even when I have more than I should and input the numbers, I simply cannot believe my eyes in terms of how FEW calories it has. I overestimate my consumption to be "conservative" and yet it still barely makes a dent in my diet. It's amazing.

I've done dry january a few times, and never saw a bit of benefit. But a month is a short time to see a trend, and it's not a time when I'm training for a race or doing much cycling; most of us are indoors a lot, maybe you have a dessert once or twice a week when normally you'd have none, and bam, you get discouraged and it feels like cutting out alcohol entirely makes no difference at all. Again, when you can see the data on a day-to-day (or even minute by minute) basis, it's so freeing.

Looking at myfitnesspal right now, my 'goal' is 2220kcal (which I think is a 500kcal deficit since I set it to lose 1lb/week). goal 2220, -470 food, +1141 excercise and I've got 2934 left to 'spend' for the rest of the day. It's amazing to get to work and have more than your entire BMR left to eat.