
Clicker Diet: Tracking Diet with Tally Counter - hippich
https://clickerdiet.com/
======
Thriptic
> I also noticed that calories counting was the most efficient way to drop off
> extra weight, but counting calories is a very-very-very daunting task. If
> you ever used MyFitnesPal or similar tool you know how much time it takes:
> unlock your phone, find the app, wait till it loads, go through the list of
> categories, find the right food (if you are lucky), try to measure what you
> ate/about to eat and adjust numbers, save. Eventually, it became “I will add
> all these things in the evening,” then I started missing days until I gave
> up entirely.

If you are embarking on a diet, I would highly advocate minimizing meal
variability to remove the cognitive overhead associated with meal planning. If
you pick 3-5 healthy meals that you can eat everyday, calorie or macro
counting becomes simple because you already know that what you are going to
eat will fit into your daily totals.

I cut from 300 to 215 lbs several years ago and kept the weight off. If you're
interested in reading some high level dieting advice, please refer to my post
here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15604761](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15604761)

~~~
Fnoord
The amount of weight you have or had or lost (in lbs or kg) does not tell the
reader anything about your height, age, or BMI.

~~~
Thriptic
When I started my diet I was a very obese, 300 lbs, untrained (no lifting or
running experience), 6'2" male in my early 20s. I am now 225 lbs and have put
on significant muscle mass. I don't know what my BMI is, but BMI for a lifter
is a useless metric as it doesn't take lean muscle mass into account. I
achieved almost all of my weight loss over the course of one year; obviously
putting the muscle on took much longer than that.

~~~
nradov
If you care, you can get an accurate measurement of lean muscle mass from a
DXA scan for about $50.

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alexm920
I feel like this amounts to "Tracking calories wasn't working, but tracking
calories divided by 100, that's the ticket!" While a mechanical clicker is
certainly cleaner than an app, you hit the same snags of not really knowing
the calorie content unless your diet is incredibly regular. While I'm happy
the author found a gimmick that helps them stick to their calorie targets, I
don't think this needed a write-up, much less a dedicated website.

~~~
hippich
Most crucial part is adjusting a total number of points each "sprint". This
way you start with each click = 100kcal, but eventually, it will be something
else based on how your brain estimates the caloric content of the food you
eat.

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brianbreslin
The points system reminds me a lot of the Weight Watchers system where foods
have roughly assigned point totals.

~~~
chickenchaser
> I was thinking – what if I assigned a particular number of points to each
> food I eat and try to keep points under certain threshold daily, and, which
> is more critical, weekly.

Yup, even the weekly total is very similar to the Weight Watchers system.

~~~
theodorewiles
I think the insight is that you don’t really have to track down the points for
everything you eat. you can guesstimate how many points something is and the
measurement error will come out in the wash after you calibrate it to observes
weight loss / gain. Pretty neat IMHO!

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malkia
In Feb, this year, got severe coughing, went to the doctor just to find out I
had really high blood sugar. Next thing - do as I did 10+ years ago - cut all
carbs/sugar - 6 months later, on (I guess) keto diet - I'm from 320 -> 275lbs
- without calorie restriction - e.g. I eat as I like.

For some unknown reason cholesterol also went down. My only "gym" exercise are
walking the dog - mile, two or three a day. Iron mind #2, #2.5 and #3 and few
more like it, and recently started again doing occasional push-ups, pull-ups,
dips, etc.

I know that once I get back into shape, and start going to the real gym, and
hit the legs - I'll lose even more :)

~~~
phire
_> For some unknown reason cholesterol also went down_

I tried a keto diet last year.

Unfortunately, my cholesterol went through the roof. Shot up from
"concerningly high" to "holy shit that's high" in a single month.

~~~
leekyle333
Your cholesterol can balance out over time, might be worth trying for a longer
time and seeing if it goes back down. It's also worth trying to reduce your
dairy consumption to see if that makes a difference.

~~~
flowardnut
Humans also respond to dietary cholesterol differently. I'd leave this up to
the doctors.

~~~
malkia
I just gave another blood test today, waiting to see how it goes. But stopped
my lipitor in the mean time. We both decided to experiment with the doctor and
see how it goes... Fully metrics-driven development :)

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ectospheno
Log how much you eat at your current weight. Then eat less of that. Once you
hit a new plateau you decide if you want to weigh even less. If so then eat
less again.

I'm 35 pounds down from my high weight and have kept it off for 6 months now.
I eat all the same crap (candy included). I just eat less of it.

It is only rocket science if you choose to make it rocket science.

~~~
jmull
> Then eat less of that.

The hard part is finding a way to do that, especially over a longer period of
time. Generally people are working against some combination of social,
cultural, psychological, physiological, and financial pressures so it is not
necessarily simple to do.

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tonystubblebine
This was one of the best explanations of why "calories in, calories out" isn't
true. [https://betterhumans.coach.me/why-caloric-restriction-
fails-...](https://betterhumans.coach.me/why-caloric-restriction-fails-
part-2-ec0c0c337649)

~~~
tryitnow
"So what happens if you are trying to lose weight by adopting conventional
advice to reduce the dietary fat and calories, and eat 6 times a day. By doing
so, you keep insulin levels high because you are eating lots of low-fat bread,
pasta, and rice and eating all the time."

I don't think "conventional advice" is to eat 6 times a day. And "conventional
advice" is certainly not to eat lots of bread, pasta, and rice.

Fung is pretty obviously setting up a strawman argument here.

Furthermore, even accepting his absurd strawman, wouldn't the body still end
up burning fat when you sleep (8+ hour fast)? Fung himself said so earlier in
this article: "But what happens when you go to sleep? Because you are not
eating, you are fasting."

This article is mere ad copy to sell Fung's books (and whatever else he is
selling).

By the way, I personally think there may be something to intermittent fasting
and I plan to try it sometime myself, I just can't stand con-men who have to
puff themselves up by creating strawmen arguments and preying on people's
insecurities about their weight, which is basically what Fung is doing here.
Any benefit from intermittent fasting will just be a marginal improvement over
achieving caloric reduction through other means.

If you want to lose weight, cut calories. You can do that by eating 6 meals a
day, or occasionally fasting, or eating low-carb or eating low-fat, whatever
works for you.

But if you consume fewer calories than you eat, you will lose weight. Read
carefully and you will find that even people like Fung are forced to admit
this. Be skeptical of anyone who tells you otherwise, they're almost always
trying to sell you something.

~~~
jmlsf
While I completely agree with you on the general puffery of most of these diet
book people, note that Fung comes at this from having treated thousands of
people for diabetes, with a great deal of success. I think you should take a
closer look at his writing, which is fact-based and extensive.

The eating six times a day advice IS advice I have repeatedly heard and I have
known many people who follow it. The idea that we should be eating lots of
carbohydrates IS conventional advice if you consider the medical community's
decades of instruction that we should not eat fat or meat: the only remaining
macronutrient that most westerners will eat is carbohydrates. The popular
prevalence of keto and paleo and Atkins makes people forget that the
prevailing medical advice STILL effectively directs people to a high carb, low
calorie diet.

Calories-in-calories out isn't wrong, but it is incomplete. It doesn't explain
why the "Biggest Loser" winners see their base line calorie consumption drop
way below what you'd expect for someone of their new weight. It doesn't
explain why some people NEVER have to diet while other go through life
starving but still gain weight. If it were just "calories in calories out",
you wouldn't see these anomalies. In short, it doesn't explain hunger.

Fung's insulin theory has good science behind it and fits well with a lot of
historical observations, such as the increase in sugar in our diets. And the
ADF diet study had incredibly good results.

~~~
darioush
> It doesn't explain why some people NEVER have to diet while other go through
> life starving but still gain weight

This is simply not true. I monitored behaviors of my friends or asked them
probing questions where I suspected this was the case. They may 'skip dinner'
or 'have a light dinner' the day you watched them gorge on cake, but you might
not see that. They may run 10 miles the day after eating the same Mexican food
as you.

Same with other side, people who say they don't gain weight in spite of eating
1000s of calories in surplus just aren't eating 1000s of calories in surplus.
They think they are because they often eat candy, ... but they may take a bite
or two and 'save the rest for later', or 'have dessert for dinner' and think
that's eating lots of calories.

They may also be taller than you by a couple inches and you're underestimating
the effect height has.

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andrewchoi
Is it just me or did the OP just reinvent Weight Watchers points?

~~~
gnicholas
Yes, and he describes it as his “lightbulb moment”.

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lev99
I think it's probably better to train yourself to accurately estimate the
calories in food than it is to assign food to clicks for two reasons. One,
it's easier to measure calories in vs calories out if you use the same units
for both. Two, adjusting the unit you are measuring (clicks vs calories)
doesn't solve the problem of bad estimates. My calorie estimates are rarely
off by the same percentage, often times my estimates on certain food will be
off by 50% whole other food is spot on. 50% could be a choicing a few clicks
less on certain high calorie foods causing your counting to be inaccurate.

------
psergeant
I’m not sure I can envisage any situation where I wouldn’t be chipping away at
point totals like a particularly needy Product Manager

------
jmull
Excellent!

One of my little side projects (perpetually in progress, unfortunately) is an
Apple Watch app with exactly the same mechanic.

(That is, to budget food in terms of points where a 1 point == "my estimate of
100 calories", and you adjust your daily budget based on long-term weight
change.)

The idea is to distill the benefit of tracking calories -- which I think is
(1) the basic mindfulness around eating to stop and think for just a second
before stuffing something in your mouth; and (2) the valuable feedback loop it
creates... while minimizing the tracking tasks.

However, I think this is really best for experienced calorie counters because
while the estimates don't need to be accurate, they do need to be fairly
consistent and proportionate. And, I suspect, you need to be ready to
calculate calories when you're facing an unfamiliar meal.

I'm encouraged that it has been working for our author.

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paultopia
Interesting concept. How does the clicker relate to the spreadsheet? that is,
if you're entering the data into a spreadsheet anyway, why also the clicker?
(isn't the point of the clicker to simplify away the laborious/unmaintainable
spreadsheet stuff?)

~~~
hippich
Clicker is in my pocket and I "sync" every evening (or next morning before the
first meal)

I like the convenience of it. I do not have to pull out the phone to enter a
number. I can discretely click it while it is in the pocket while in the
restaurant without bringing up dieting topic. And I personally like mechanical
feeling of it.

~~~
elboru
I'm working on a expenses tracker app, I hope I could find a similar way to
input money expenses. Pulling out the phone/unlocking it/opening the
app/entering data sounds easy, but it's not when you have to do it several
times daily, it depends too much in discipline.

~~~
hippich
I am not quite seeing how clicker would work for precise stuff like
money/budgeting. Perhaps the opposite would work - you "click" when you save?
I.e. you look at something you want to buy impulsively, and refuse to do it.
And reward yourself with a point (or multiple)

Just throwing an idea.. :)

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rootusrootus
The healthiest thing people could do is realize that the five year success
rate for weight loss is about 1%, and those people in the 1% that maintain
their weight loss invariably manage it by becoming obsessive with their
calorie counting. Ergo, chasing a number is bad for your physical and mental
health.

Also, unless you're class 2 obese or above, you are probably healthier not
losing any weight. Being thin is more about looks than actual health.

Want to be healthy? Exercise. Toss the scale.

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ScotterC
This is a great idea. I've been on a several year cycle where every 3-4 years
I go hardcore again and cut 20-30 lbs with minimizing meal variability and
exercising constantly. This feels like a great solution for the intermediate
time of trying to slow/stop my general daily increase of 10-20% increase in
calorie intake. Even having a small, easy habit like using a mechanical
tracker would make me more mindful of what I eat and have a beneficial impact.

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darioush
Practical diet for software engineers:

\- Breakfast + dinner <= 500 cals

\- Lunch eat what the company gives or go out with teammates, don't get 2nds
or lots of dessert. Keep it to 1000 cals.

~~~
Kagerjay
best advice here IMO

also just memorize a bunch of common food items you eat, bananas are about 100
calories, bowl of cereal + milk, protein shake, etc. Should be less than 10
items you need to commit to memory, you can guesstimate everything else off of
these. For reference, a burrito bowl from chipotle w/ everything but guac is
~1000 calories, ~300 calories for a tortillia shell, its a good balance
eyeball measurement to use, since most of the food groups are in there.

Have some nonperishable consumable foods to balance calorie vs hunger intake.
I use jerky.

Drink increased amounts of water to reduce appetite on weight loss

Unfortunately my dinner and lunch meals have too much variability so it
becomes hard to keep track of though. Mine looks like breakfast <300 calories,
early lunch and late dinner <800 calories.

For bulking you just need to adjust the breakfast / lunch / dinner values.
Easiest way is to make breakfast a fullmeal, and add a 4th meal (protein
shake) at night, but keep everything else the same

------
dreeves
Highly relevant:
[https://blog.beeminder.com/bites/](https://blog.beeminder.com/bites/) (about
tracking bites of food and committing to a max number per day)

~~~
CharlesW
This is bonkers, but _slightly_ less so once you realize that the author means
"mouthfuls of food or caloric liquid" rather than literal bites (which you
hopefully do many times per mouthful of food).

~~~
dreeves
Ha, thanks for saying that. My mother had the same reaction and I assumed she
was just being obtuse but now that a commenter on Hacker News has said it I'm
going to assume there's genuine ambiguity there and add a little prescript to
the post to clarify! ... and done. Thanks again!

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nyxtom
Neat idea! This is intuitive to how I approach eating and working out in
general. I gauge the overall consumption and activity and make adjustments for
the next day or week. Progress is generally slow but consistent.

~~~
nyxtom
For instance I also gauge how repetitive the foods I eat so I also maintain an
internal awareness for the need to have variety and a good biome.

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hippich
Re: weight watchers - it is close, but not the same. the ultimate goal is to
get mind assign points for food, no matter how much each point worth in
calories. 1click = 100kcal is just a starting point.

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sumobob
This is awesome! Thanks so much for sharing, how do you handle increases or
changes in activity during a sprint?

~~~
hippich
I do put notes about my workouts or anything out of ordinary, but in general I
just trying to keep it down to number of point (which no longer represent
100kcal anymore) and adjusting total number after each "sprint" and its
results.

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nategri
"Calories in calories out." Yes, hooray we've restated the 1st law of
thermodynamics, because it's never wrong, and you can never be called out for
saying something incorrect when you trot out that phrase. But it's also about
as relevant to effective nutrition as it is to the current price of soybeans.

------
RobertRoberts
I think the simpler the plan the easier it is to maintain.

I lost weight and maintain it without any exercise, dieting and only minimal
portion control (which is now super easy and I can cheat whenever I want, even
every day).

How I have lost weight, and not only maintained the lost weight, but also
continue to slightly lose more, is to be ok with being hungry.

Being hungry is good and normal and if you can get to this point mentally then
every meal tastes better, you eat less automatically (some portion control is
related, next paragraph) and when you are hungry your stomach has contracted
some and you need less food to feel full. Also, you have more energy, and more
time (less spent on dealing with food).

To ensure you are hungry before the next meal, eat less and less every time
until you understand your body intuitively. Not with measures, but with skill
honed by experience, customized information/data to your exact body and life.

An average day (currently), I make an egg/milk (add ice to make a shake) type
drink for breakfast and lunch. Sometimes a very light lunch, and then I eat
whatever I want to for dinner. Anything I feel like. (anyone can find
something super light, just to get you through a few hours, and then be hungry
before lunch.)

If in the future my energy level changes? (from more/less exercise or
activity) Then so will my hunger status, which automatically adjusts how much
I eat.

But feeling hungry has to be ok. I like being hungry for about an hour before
I eat a meal.

This is with no exercise at all, none.

Also, when on vacation, if I pig out (not as enjoyable as it used to be) or
drink more than usual, then it doesn't matter at all, because if I go up a few
pounds, they will shed easily in the next couple days.

\--Experiment from the past year.

Last year (summer) I did intermittent fasting, and got up to running 2 miles a
day. I lost 15 pounds in a month. I kept most of it off, but limited my
running a lot after this, and by December I decided to see if pure strength
exercising would be enough to control weight. It was not, I gained weight,
mostly muscle, but my waist did not shrink.

Then last January, I decided to try the "be hungry and ok" technique, and I've
done this for about 8 months. My weight has consistently fluctuated in a
downward trend. I will never go back to gorging, exercise for weight loss or
any of that really stressful stuff, it doesn't work long term for me.

I will start running again soon, and it may help with weight loss, but I won't
rely on it. I exercise to be strong and healthy, not to fix my eating problems
anymore.

Cheers and encourage to everyone dealing with health and weight issues.

~~~
Fnoord
Great post. In addition, some foods/drinks are able to satisfy more than
others whilst their calories don't add up.

Consider simple water. I once read a book which recommended to drink water
right before dinner so you'd eat less; it seemed to work. Drinking water in
general when I'm hungry helps, and has far less calories than soda or
alcoholic beverages. Best of all, if you're in a restaurant in The Netherlands
you may ask for tapwater and it has to be free (IIRC they could ask you
service costs, not sure). But you need to make sure you ask for _tap_ water.

Also, learning to fast (practicing) can aid with feeling OK to be hungry. Some
people start to feel terrible if they don't eat for a while (my partner has
this problem) whereas I fasted for a longer time and it certainly changed my
perspective on food in general. I'm not eating for a few hours? I'll survive.
I've been through worse (whilst I was on smoking cessation I barely ate for a
week, with very light foods such as cucumber).

~~~
aviv
Each year I do 2 dry fasts of ~7 days each, in addition to one or two water
fasts of ~25 days each time. It's a great experience, and best gift you can
give to your body.

------
tw1010
I guess this is a law now. I have nothing against it, but imma be the first to
coin the observation. Let it be known that today tw1010 was the first to
observe that it seems, funny isn't it, like every new pet project the tech
world stumbles into (biohacking, economics, etc) will eventually find all its
subcomponents (fasting is a subcomponent of biohacking, etc) combinatorially
combined with all the concepts in the tech sphere (agile, etc), as long as the
combination makes sense (but sometimes also when it doesn't make sense; a
nonsensical blog hidden in a github gist viewed by 13 people).

