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

No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

chuff.it

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 123 posts

Re: No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

#81

Post by keeperofdakeys »

127001brewer wrote: post #47
readme wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd have to say of the three things, the one that definitely has to be given up to lose the weight is beer. Beer is not only caloric, but contains alcohol. When alcohol is ingested, the body's fat metabolism practically stops until it's out of your system. Drinking a beer each day would almost make it impossible to lose fat efficiently. It wouldn't matter if you were eating under, because your body would not be able…

Instead, it would burn other things ... your own muscle, then fat, etc. That's the first I've ever heard that a human body would burn muscle before fat. Also, a beer each day would be out of your system relatively fast, so it should have no lasting affects on your body's metabolism. Also, if you're drinking a beer a day, then be sure it's at least bottle-conditioned craft beer since the suspended yeast has many nutri…

Alcohol doesn't go away after you stop feeling the effects, it stays for many hours more than that. If a person on a learners license was at a big party overnight, and had a big binge, then they likely still have enough to trigger a positive breath test the next morning.

I'm unsure what amount is required to produce the supposed fat effect though.

Re: No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

#82

Post by mattmanser »

gxs wrote: post #21

This is great and certainly don't want to discourage anyone. Some people need extreme transformations like this to be successful. Most people, however, don't. You'll have a much higher success rate if you're patient and change just one little thing at a time. Once you're comfortable, you move on to the next. I myself have lost over 30lbs and increased strength tremendously (power clean 250+). I went about it by doing…

Citations?

At the moment you're simply relating a personal opinion against someone else's personal opinion.

It seems you have been struggling for a few years of losing and gaining it (like I have I hasten to add), trying different things:

https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/all&q=by%3Agxs+calor...

Note that 3 years ago you were actually recommending 100% wheat bread, now it's no wheat.

Let's just agree that no-one seems to know a reliable method yet. Some people find a way, I've a couple of friends who have, a couple who haven't. One did it on Dukan, which I found repulsive and made me feel ill. One simply pretends he lost no weight. Although if you've got good citations I'd be deliriously happy to eat my words and try it. Now, it really is time to sign up to the gym under my work...

EDIT: I suddenly realized, if it's working for you and you're happy with it, don't doubt what you're doing at all. My point was meant to be it seems different things work for different people.

Re: No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

#83

Post by penguindev »

This person has rediscovered the William Banting original low-carb diet from 1863[1] : "The emphasis was on avoiding sugar, saccharine matter, starch, beer, milk and butter."

Banting knew carbs made you fat over a century ago, but of course since the scientists couldn't figure out WHY they discredited it. And so it ever was.

They also knew carbs should be avoided by diabetics, but when insulin was invented they chose to (more profitably) just shoot people up all the time and make them sicker. Do you know what shooting yourself up with insulin constantly does, by the way? [2]

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Banting [2] http://garytaubes.com/2012/02/on-the-greatly-exaggerated-dem... [ see disturbing picture ]

Re: No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

#84

Post by grecy »

byoung2 wrote: post #63
grecy wrote: post #3

After attending hundreds of weight watchers meetings, and being involved with hundreds and hundreds of people losing a ton of weight, I still genuinely believe too many people make weight loss too complicated, which leads them to give up. Keep it simple (as the article did) If you burn more calories (energy) than you eat, you will lose weight . Obviously, you have choices. You can cut down on all the really high calo…

That's been my philosophy. I started by cutting out alcohol and soda and replacing it with water. What had been 3-5 drinks a week is now zero. I estimate that is about 500-700 calories eliminated per week for the past year, and I lost 7 pounds, so the math makes sense. About 6 weeks ago I started replacing a few high calorie meals with low calorie meals per week (e.g. where I would have eaten a big breakfast, I just…

> I didn't want to do anything drastic, because I'd get fed up and quit.

That, in my opinion, is one of the most important attitudes to have. It's important to be realistic, and be aware of the fact that whatever you are trying to do, it's not just a fad you have to "tough out" for a few months until you get sick of it.

This is something you're going to do for the rest of your life.

We all need cheat days, and we all have bad weeks. The most important thing is to look at the long game, and always just slowly, slowly tend towards eating a few less calories, and trying to burn a few extra calories.

Re: No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

#85

Post by glaugh »

grecy wrote: post #3

After attending hundreds of weight watchers meetings, and being involved with hundreds and hundreds of people losing a ton of weight, I still genuinely believe too many people make weight loss too complicated, which leads them to give up. Keep it simple (as the article did) If you burn more calories (energy) than you eat, you will lose weight . Obviously, you have choices. You can cut down on all the really high calo…

I think this thinking is tempting and reasonable, but it misses the role of hormones.

As an example, women gain weight during menopause because of hormones, not because they eat more.[1] So thinking of the body and losing weight as being purely calories in/out misses some important factors; namely, the hormone response to different kinds of foods.

It's uncontroversial that the body responds to carbohydrates with insulin, and also that insulin tends to provoke fat to store more of the available energy vs. it being available to muscles, brain, etc.

Putting that together into "Don't eat too many carbohydrates. Replace with healthy fats like grass-fed butter and meat, eggs, avocado, etc." is controversial; feel free to disagree. I've personally gotten a lot of mileage out of making that change, and even though I eat way more calories I'm 10 pounds skinner, more alert, etc.

That said, basically the anti-carb and anti-fat folks all agree on getting rid of chips, soda, deep fried stuff, so I'm not trying to say that advice won't work.

If this is interesting, it's all cribbed from Gary Taubes's "Why We Get Fat", which I can't recommend enough, lots of good science.

[1] http://www.kansas.com/2013/05/07/2791705/mayo-study-discover...

Edit: Added "too many" to "Don't eat carbs", since you do need to eat some, just not nearly what people typically eat.

Re: No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

#86

Post by glaugh »

lena wrote: post #74
stcredzero wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a Finnish study where they had some people try to control salt intake and others just eat as much salt as they want. The "as much salt as they want" group actually had better health outcomes. Their conclusion was that for most people, the body's salt regulation is actually very good.

Link? Studies about salt are notoriously difficult, because hardly anyone actually adheres to a truly low-salt diet, so you get the equivalent of a study that tries to discern whether smoking 1.5 pack of cigarettes (which takes lots of restrain) is any better than 2. Personally, it took 2 months for my blood pressure to start coming down on a high-vegetable low-sodium diet, and I notice that many people already think…

Here's my favorite summary of the science on salt: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/2/311.full

Re: No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

#87

Post by hughlomas »

penguindev wrote: post #79
jaggederest wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elimination diets work because people fail to replace the missing calories, not because there's something magical about the thing you choose to eliminate. You can do this with colors of food, textures, anything that eliminates ~30-40% of the available food options.

You couldn't be more wrong. You realize you can stock different foods in your house, right? Or buy different things at the store? You really think people go to the store on a wheat belly / LCFH (low carb high fat) diet and buy 30-40% less stuff? I've lost over 10% body fat cutting the bread and carbs with NO exercise. Get a clue and either 1. try a no wheat / sugar / starch diet for just 2 weeks 2. read up on insulin…

While we're on anecdotal evidence, I stay at a steady 155 (6 feet tall) eating pints of Ben and Jerry's and Krispy Kreme donuts fairly often.

Re: No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

#88

Post by kyllo »

grecy wrote: post #3

After attending hundreds of weight watchers meetings, and being involved with hundreds and hundreds of people losing a ton of weight, I still genuinely believe too many people make weight loss too complicated, which leads them to give up. Keep it simple (as the article did) If you burn more calories (energy) than you eat, you will lose weight . Obviously, you have choices. You can cut down on all the really high calo…

Yep, and the diet part is the key because while you may burn 400 calories in an hour on the treadmill, you can eat a 400 calorie cookie in seconds. So I agree with the general idea that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise, abs are made in the kitchen not the gym, etc.

Where the exercise comes in is keeping your metabolism from dropping off when you cut your calorie intake.

Re: No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

#89

Post by grecy »

glaugh wrote: post #85
grecy wrote: post #3

After attending hundreds of weight watchers meetings, and being involved with hundreds and hundreds of people losing a ton of weight, I still genuinely believe too many people make weight loss too complicated, which leads them to give up. Keep it simple (as the article did) If you burn more calories (energy) than you eat, you will lose weight . Obviously, you have choices. You can cut down on all the really high calo…

I think this thinking is tempting and reasonable, but it misses the role of hormones. As an example, women gain weight during menopause because of hormones, not because they eat more.[1] So thinking of the body and losing weight as being purely calories in/out misses some important factors; namely, the hormone response to different kinds of foods. It's uncontroversial that the body responds to carbohydrates with insu…

See, you're doing it. You're making it too complicated, which makes people give up.

It's physically impossible for a body to gain weight if it's burning more calories than it's using.

That's like saying my gas tank will overflow if I burn 10 gallons a day and put in 9 gallons a day... that makes no sense. I'm using more than I'm putting in, so it must go down over time.

Keep it simple, stick to the basics, play the long game (i.e. you're in this for the rest of your life, not the next few weeks/months)

Re: No Bread, Beer or Biscuits: How I Lost 63lbs in 100 Days

#90

Post by grecy »

kyllo wrote: post #88
grecy wrote: post #3

After attending hundreds of weight watchers meetings, and being involved with hundreds and hundreds of people losing a ton of weight, I still genuinely believe too many people make weight loss too complicated, which leads them to give up. Keep it simple (as the article did) If you burn more calories (energy) than you eat, you will lose weight . Obviously, you have choices. You can cut down on all the really high calo…

Yep, and the diet part is the key because while you may burn 400 calories in an hour on the treadmill, you can eat a 400 calorie cookie in seconds. So I agree with the general idea that weight loss is 80% diet and 20% exercise, abs are made in the kitchen not the gym, etc. Where the exercise comes in is keeping your metabolism from dropping off when you cut your calorie intake.

Indeed, for most people it's much easier to eat less calories than it is to burn a ton of them, but that's over complicating the issue and doesn't really need to be explicitly told to first-timers.

Let them figure that out on their own.

Once they have an appreciation for how many calories are jammed into that cookie, and how long they'll have to run on a treadmill to burn it off, they naturally won't be so interested in that cookie, which is great. Then show them how few calories are in an enormous garden salad.

Post reply on HN