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Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

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Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#41

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

You call this "data driven"? Look at his explanation of the supplements he takes:

>Grenade Thermo Detonator: A scary name, but essentially a dosage of caffeine from concentrated green tea extract that's meant to be a fat-burner/pre-workout pill. It gives you some energy to focus, and suppresses your appetite. It is not very different from simply taking a packet of coffee. I used these for the first 4 months.

>Multivitamin: Just to ensure you get your vitamin requirements for the day, but there is evidence to show this might not really be necessary.

>Fish Oil: I heard from many sources that omega-3s are good for you so I thought I'd get some

>Whey Protein: If you don't consume enough protein a day and are on a weight loss plan, you will lose muscle with your weight. 1 - 1.5g/lb of body weight is the general recommendation. Because it's not always easy to make sure you get that much pure protein, a protein shake is an easy way to quickly gulp down 50g of protein regardless of how hungry/full you are.

So of the four he takes, one he takes may not be backed by any data, and another he takes because he heard that it's good for you.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#42

Post by munificent »

throwaway2016a wrote: post #11
cagenut wrote: post #5

ah to be 24 again

I'm 32 and I found a free-weight system for upper body I've had success with. It auto-adjusts the weight over time whether you want it to or not so you are forced to continually improve. It also forces you to do repetitions every day whether you want to or not. Sometimes I do extra reps and the system responds with positive reinforcement. It gives extra positive reinforcement if I hold it over my head and fly it arou…

> I don't know many 30-somethings (especially in tech) that can work out for a half hour uninterrupted, nevermind an hour.

I work full-time in tech, have a wife, two kids, two dogs, and work on my book [1] writing every single day. I still definitely have 30 minutes of free time every day to work out.

What I don't have as much of is will-power/discipline/execute function whatever you want to call it. I workout twice a week and run once a week and with that on top of working and writing I really do feel like I'm at the limit of what I'm able to motivate myself to do.

If I wasn't writing a book, exercising even more would be pretty easy.

Try tracking how much time you spend staring at your phone and/or the Internet. Cut that and you'll be very surprised how much long the day gets.

[1]: http://craftinginterpreters.com

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#43

Post by harveywi »

elchief wrote: post #30

If you're lactose intolerant / milk protein intolerant like me, I've found Vega Performance to be the best protein powder, though not cheap. I am not affiliated with them.

Vega is a good supplement for those who cannot digest the milky whey.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#46

Post by cheald »

mootothemax wrote: post #33
cheald wrote: post #15

If you're data-inclined, it's a powerful tool to drive health and fitness. Extracting actionable meaning from your data isn't that hard, as long as you understand the basic mechanics of what you're doing and can compute things like percentages and moving averages. I'm 34, spent the last ~15 years at sedentary desk jobs, and became quite out of shape. I've lost 70lb over the last year doing little more than just loggi…

Data-based exercise rocks. I never knew I'd enjoy the rowing machine quite so much until I got into the stats side of thing. It helps that the major manufacturer has a beyond awesome online logbook for analysing and comparing with other real people, plus challenges and so on. If you're looking at creating an exercise app or community, take a look at what Concept2 do, it's lean yet pretty much well perfect.

I'm not at all aware of Concept2 - I'll have to take a look at it. I know there's been something of a revolution lately in resistance rowing and biking tech (some of my friends are SUPER into the Twitch subculture with people who do these competitive resistance bike ride video games), but I'm not really too aware of most of it. I'm generally happy just picking up heavy-ass things. :)

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#47

Post by vikiomega9 »

dsacco wrote: post #37
vikiomega9 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 on having a lifting routine. Cardio by itself doesn't seem too sustainable as compared to watching what you eat and building muscle.

Cardio on its own is very sustainable.

Yes in general. What I meant to say is for someone like me, I had trouble with what I ate, for example overeating after a cardio session. Understanding this and changing behaviour is a lot harder as compared to building more muscle which is "sustainable" in terms of a larger TDEE that's evenly spread out. Unless I'm mistaken building muscle is far more efficient than bursts of cardio. HIIT seems to work on a similar idea.

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#48

Post by masto »

The canonical “engineer studies the problem of being fat and works on it like any other problem” story is The Hacker’s Diet by John Walker. There’s no secret formula necessary, just eat less. I found it very inspirational (and effective). https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#49

Post by manmal »

subcosmos wrote: post #36
jjawssd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy into your endocrine/metabolic system theory whatsoever. Do you have any evidence that this is even possible?

Hi. Neuroendocrinologist here. Body fat is regulated by specialized circuits in the hypothalamus. We now know that inflammation of these central nuclei is a key feature of weight gain in both animals and humans. There are two sets of neurons: those that promote feeding and slow metabolic rate, and those that suppress feeding and increase metabolic rate. The former class of neurons is GABAergic (inhibitory in neurosci…

Thanks for the clarification! Do you think rapid weight loss could lead to HPA axis dysfunction as a result, i.e. lowered corticosteroid output (what some call adrenal fatigue, but is actually regulated by the hypothalamus)?

Re: Data Driven Weight Loss: Losing 66 pounds and gaining a six pack in 8 months

#50

Post by JamesBarney »

vamerock wrote: post #31

Don't let the fact that he was 24 deter you. Over at r/bodyweightfitness, there are hundreds of people who started above 45 and are in better shapes than 20 year olds. Obesity is now a taboo topic in tech because you might unfortunately step on the toes of a few sensitive people and be labelled a fat shamer. This is not the case.Obesity in tech is a disease on it's own and it needs to be fought with a sharp edged pit…

"Sustainable weight loss is achievable by everyone, whether you're 40 or 50 years or 400 pounds or 600 pounds."

While I applaud those individuals that have kept off weight long term, the science disagrees that is an achievable goal for everyone.(only about 5% of people who successfully lose large amounts of weight will keep it off long term)

For example here is what happened to the contestants on the biggest loser.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weig...

The body will fight very hard to get back up the heavier level. It play nasty tricks such as increasing hunger, decreasing metabolism, and nastiest of all physiologically sabotage the part of the brain that is responsible for conscience regulation of food intake(it turns off willpower specifically for food).

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