Live data from Hacker News

The lazy technologist's guide to weight loss

dberkholz.com

31–40 of 93 posts

Re: The lazy technologist's guide to weight loss

#33
post #26
post #25

Congratulations! 55lb is a big chunk of weight to not be carrying around! It's very true that for weight loss, diet is the single most important variable, but that doesn't mean exercise doesn't matter. The kind of exercise you do matters a lot, too, particularly once you start caring about lean mass vs fat, rather than just the gross scale weight. Cardio has this image as "the way you lose weight", but I think that s…

What's a kcal here? It doesn't seem plausible to me that a pound of muscle only takes 10 kcal (aka 1 Calorie, with a capital "C") per day to maintain. Are you saying, for example, maintaining 20 pounds of muscle only requires consuming 200 Calories per day more of food? Edit: According to the Internet, this is actually approximately correct, 20kcal/lb/day. I must just have high metabolism, because I must consume more…

What we call a calorie in the US many other countries call a kcal, because our “calorie” actually 1000 of the base unit. We abbreviate for whatever reason.

Re: The lazy technologist's guide to weight loss

#34
Sleep.

If I didn't skip it, it's not mentioned in the article, but it's very important in my experience. If you don't sleep enough, going through with a reduced calorie intake will be much harder.

I personally tend to overeat if I haven't slept for more than 6 hours the last night. Lost 88lb a long time ago within a (too) short time.

Re: The lazy technologist's guide to weight loss

#35
I lost 35lbs recently—surpassing my goal. I tracked every calorie I consumed and used an Apple Watch to be sure I was hitting my calorie deficit goals. However if I were doing it again today, I would follow some simple rules: cut anything I was planning on eating in half, then substitute with as much salad and fruit as I want. You can reduce calories in dressing by adding acids to it (pickle liquid, etc.). Easy to remember, really effective.

Re: The lazy technologist's guide to weight loss

#37
post #5

> Moderate alcohol intake (vs none, occasional, or heavy) I thought it had already been shown that the only healthy amount of alcohol is zero. I'm also surprised that "moderate" is better than "occasional".

I highly suspect zero alcohol is correlated with less health than some alcohol only because when you have health problems you often stop drinking.

Re: The lazy technologist's guide to weight loss

#38
post #26
post #25

Congratulations! 55lb is a big chunk of weight to not be carrying around! It's very true that for weight loss, diet is the single most important variable, but that doesn't mean exercise doesn't matter. The kind of exercise you do matters a lot, too, particularly once you start caring about lean mass vs fat, rather than just the gross scale weight. Cardio has this image as "the way you lose weight", but I think that s…

What's a kcal here? It doesn't seem plausible to me that a pound of muscle only takes 10 kcal (aka 1 Calorie, with a capital "C") per day to maintain. Are you saying, for example, maintaining 20 pounds of muscle only requires consuming 200 Calories per day more of food? Edit: According to the Internet, this is actually approximately correct, 20kcal/lb/day. I must just have high metabolism, because I must consume more…

Confusingly, it’s a Calorie, in the sense of “the thing the nutrition label says you probably need 2000 of a day.”

If I remember correctly, 1000 calories (with a lowercase “c”) makes one Calorie (with a capital C). The former is the energy to raise 1g of water through 1 degree Celsius, and the latter 1kg through the same amount of temperature change.

Re: The lazy technologist's guide to weight loss

#39
post #5

> Moderate alcohol intake (vs none, occasional, or heavy) I thought it had already been shown that the only healthy amount of alcohol is zero. I'm also surprised that "moderate" is better than "occasional".

In a vacuum, zero is best since it's a poison. But the real world is full of trade offs and confounders. Like the increased socialization with friends & co workers could have health benefits that outweigh the negatives of alcohol. Or that many people who drink nothing are ex-alcoholics.

One important factor is that many alcoholic beverages taste great and are a way of enjoying life. I don't think "zero because that way you'll live longer" is the be-all end-all of arguments. What if the same hypothetical argument was made of sex [1], "don't do it and you'll live longer", would that be a pleasureable way of living a longer life?

[1] which may not be true of humans, but it's not scifi either. Some species, like octopuses if I'm not mistaken, die after breeding (for the male this means "sometime after having sex", for the female it's more complicated).

Re: The lazy technologist's guide to weight loss

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply not true, no amount of alcohol is good for you. See: https://podcastnotes.org/huberman-lab/episode-86-what-alcoho... Not saying everyone should be sober 100% all the time (I drink occasionally myself), but there are much safer and more fun alternatives (med dose psilocybin etc.)

Those living in "blue zones" would disagree, and they live longer than anyone. https://www.wellandgood.com/alcohol-in-blue-zones/

Other than a single line asserting reduced cortisol levels, that article provides no evidence for causation over correlation.
Post reply on HN