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

What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

intentapp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 194 posts

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#181

Post by newnewpdro »

james_s_tayler wrote: post #80
newnewpdro wrote: post #51

Over a decade ago I DIY'd going from 225 to ~165 and have kept it off. The main success factor in my opinion was becoming single and staying single, as well as restructuring my life in general, especially how/who I socialize with. It's pretty easy to do what's right for you when you go solo. The process isn't really different than a drug addict trying to go clean and avoid relapse. It's all about the friends and envi…

Not gonna lie when I got married and had a kid and started a new job all at the same time my weight went up like almost 30kg.

To be fair, it's entirely possible to enter a family, social, and employment situation that reinforces healthy choices.

My point was more along the lines of the existing environment being largely responsible for the emergent property of being overweight/unhealthy.

Unless you change the environment, it makes it very difficult to sustainably alter the emergent outputs, which is what we are.

I found it easiest to simply replace and/or eliminate the major environmental problems rather than try modify them in-place. Nobody likes to be forced to live differently, and in my experience, the relationship's happiness was largely derived from the shared unhealthy activities.

After enough time living the healthier life as an individual, access to the healthier environments improves. Healthy members of the opposite sex that have also figured it out become attracted to you, employers who secretly discriminate against unhealthy employees start making offers, same for friend circles. But it's a privileged lifestyle, so it's not the easy/likely default option open to all.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#182

Post by willsun »

Flenser wrote: post #157

What I'd like to know is if there are any studies into whether the frequency with which a person weighs themself can have an effect on weight loss? The theory being the quicker feedback would lead to quicker results by motivating more change and making it easier for the person to stay motivated and correlate changes in lifestyle with weight loss.

Yup - there are several studies [1][2] that have looked into this, and regular weighing (e.g. daily) looks like it has a small but significant effect that helps with weight loss.

[1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa061883

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3788086/

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#183

Post by willsun »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #126

The problem with this meta analysis is that it doesn't really account for the motivational factor related to money and other things. Moreover, that people with more weight to lose might likely opt for the more major programs. When your doctor says "You now have diabetes, and you're going to die young unless you get your weight under control" ... well, that might motivated people. As opposed to someone who just wants…

I think this is a fair point, and the final section of the post attempts to address this. For what it's worth, most studies do not selectively draw from a highly-motivated cohort - participants are rarely the most severely obese, and they also usually aren't people who are actively looking for clinical trials or free weight loss programs. Money is also controlled for, since the interventions are almost always offered for free, and any time or work involved with the study will be compensated as well. From my perspective, if anything, the motivational factor may actually be _too_ well-controlled in many of these studies, so the observed result does not translate properly to real-world settings.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#184

Post by JonGarfield »

tracker1 wrote: post #159
_xerxes_ wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every annual physical and every work-related health exam I have had here in the US has included some kind of fasting glucose test.

An A1C test will only show problems after you've gone through a cycle of your body resisting insulin and your pancreas being overworked (resting insulin 4-7x normal) and then your pancreas wears out (damaged beta cell production) and then your resting glucose rises. This process can take many years. A resting insulin test will show resting insulin rising years before an A1C test shows a problem.

A1C is not the fasting glucose test.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#185

Post by willsun »

aabajian wrote: post #52

Amphetamines were popularly used to suppress appetite in the mid-20th century, but addiction and abuse proved disastrous. He glosses over amphetamines. They are highly effective at weight loss. So much so that ADHD patients have the stereotypical "Adderall skinniness" after 1-2 years of use. Addiction is a problem with stimulants, but psychiatrist routinely assess for addiction in the ADHD population. Why not prescri…

Certainly abuse and addiction management has improved since the 1960s - but companies have struggled to get more stimulants to market because of other side effects as well (e.g. fenfluramine was quite effective, but withdrawn in the 1990s since it was found to cause heart valve disease / pulmonary hypertension). At this point, broader adoption of medications seems to be blocked by a combination of physicians choosing not to prescribe, payers unwilling to pay (e.g. $300/mo indefinitely), and patients who don't like the non-trivial side effects of existing options. Perhaps future drug discovery will alleviate these issues.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#186

Post by galvs »

kranner wrote: post #142
galvs wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you pick any activity that encourages you to burn more calories than usual? I would expect that comes down to finding something you enjoy doing. Exercise and eating well is a way of life. If your life dictates you do neither, you will get fat. I don't really understand how its complicated. You just do it for the benefits. Personally I eat chicken and veg 5 days a week (with occasional carbs when I train), trai…

I mean this respectfully. Think about it this way: If there's an obvious solution that so many people are having trouble implementing, what is more likely? 1. That all those people are stupid or have no willpower, or 2. that the obvious solution doesn't work for everyone?

They have no willpower. You are the only person who controls what you eat everyday. If you are in stuck in an office you need to block out time for exercise.

How can there be any other excuse?

I know people who look great and eat entire cakes each day but they do 4 hours of high intensity exercise everyday. I can't do that as I am fundamentally lazy and only exercise/diet for vanity.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#187

Post by KozmoNau7 »

john61 wrote: post #76
Negitivefrags wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of these things are true. With a good diet and exercise, you will feel better and be happier, with way more energy. That makes your life better, not worse. I never said your life won’t be better overall. I said it will be worse in real ways. Eating pizza, Soda and so on are awesome. There is a reason these foods are popular. No amount of pretending is going to make that not true, and a life where you could eat…

> Eating pizza, Soda and so on are awesome It depends what you are used to eat. A few years ago I would have agreed that pizza and Soda is great. But today after changing my live style I cook for myself fresh vegetables from CSA and small bio farms I do not like pizza and all the crap any more. That goes so far that I can not go to restaurants anymore, because 95% of them serve crap for my todays taste.

Pizza is only crap, if you eat crap pizza.

Making good pizza at home, with high quality ingredients is maybe not 100% perfect nutrition, but it is damn good, and much better than anything you'd buy from a pizzeria or (heavens forbid) frozen pizza.

Soda is junk, though. Only fit for extremely occasional use as a mixer in a good drink.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#188

Post by kranner »

galvs wrote: post #186
kranner wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this respectfully. Think about it this way: If there's an obvious solution that so many people are having trouble implementing, what is more likely? 1. That all those people are stupid or have no willpower, or 2. that the obvious solution doesn't work for everyone?

They have no willpower. You are the only person who controls what you eat everyday. If you are in stuck in an office you need to block out time for exercise. How can there be any other excuse? I know people who look great and eat entire cakes each day but they do 4 hours of high intensity exercise everyday. I can't do that as I am fundamentally lazy and only exercise/diet for vanity.

IMO you have an oversimplified view of this based on limited experience. You have abstracted away the diverse and complex reasons this doesn't work for everyone behind the excuse that people make excuses. It's not so simple. People are different; their circumstances are different; we can't just write them off by blaming them for being obese or addicted.

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#189

Post by Flenser »

willsun wrote: post #182
Flenser wrote: post #157

What I'd like to know is if there are any studies into whether the frequency with which a person weighs themself can have an effect on weight loss? The theory being the quicker feedback would lead to quicker results by motivating more change and making it easier for the person to stay motivated and correlate changes in lifestyle with weight loss.

Yup - there are several studies [1][2] that have looked into this, and regular weighing (e.g. daily) looks like it has a small but significant effect that helps with weight loss. [1] https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa061883 [2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3788086/

Thank you!

(It also looks like it helps with keeping the weight off once it's lost.)

Re: What I learned from reading over 100 weight loss studies

#190

Post by beaconstudios »

Fricken wrote: post #55
atom-morgan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if you are not willing to adjust your lifestyle and consistently make the better choices when it comes to diet you will fail. This statement applies to anything in life you want to get better at.

If there's a pattern that I've noticed amongst the people in my life who struggle with their weight is that they all have an emotional relationship with food. They eat not to serve their metabolic needs but to serve their emotional needs. They say they are counting their calories, but they aren't being honest with themselves about it. They can't make clear headed diet decisions because their feelings are so wrapped u…

100% this. I've been overweight to varying degrees for most of my life, but my weight has been at its lowest when I'm happy and highest when I have high stress or anxiety. Anxiety especially seems to lead to poor eating because you go into survival mode and stop being able to think long term, while loading up on food as if you were a hunter gatherer about to go through times of extreme food uncertainty.
Post reply on HN