
It’s gotten harder to lose weight and not for the reasons you think - RyanMcGreal
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/01/its-gotten-harder-to-lose-weight-and-not-for-the-reasons-you-think/
======
dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10309249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10309249)

------
Shivetya
The bias isn't against obese people, it is against morbidly obese people who
don't want to accept it. There is a whole collection of groups that sprouted
up to fight the "discrimination" against fat people, HAES (Health At Every
Size) is the most know, but fat acceptance gets airtime simply because it is
so much easier to get a message out.

Obesity is an issue, we simply have way too much opportunity to indulge and
little reason to move to entertain ourselves. Go out and play seems to have
fallen on deaf ears, why should kids do that when adults don't?

lastly, exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is. if anything
exercise contributes because it changes your lifestyle, you get out more or
you spend less time eating and sitting

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> exercise is not they key to weight loss, proper eating is.

Anecdote here, but I've found that for me the key to weight loss has been
exercise-first. I decided that I'd never be very good at reducing my dietary
input (I really enjoy food) so I focused instead on increasing my energy
output by incorporating progressively more physical activity into my
lifestyle.

Over the past few years I have steadily and gradually ramped up my activity
through walking, running, cycling, body-weight exercises, plyometrics, stand-
up desk, and so on, and I've been progressively losing weight and feeling
better physically, mentally and emotionally. As a result, other complementary
aspects of health - sleeping, eating - have also tended to fall into healthier
patterns in a positive feedback loop.

It's hard to believe that exercise isn't the key to weight loss when I burn
2,000 calories on my Saturday morning run.

~~~
imgabe
My own Saturday morning run is about 4 miles and burns ~500 calories according
to Runkeeper, so I estimate you're running about 16 miles every Saturday? Do
you really expect an overweight, out-of-shape person to jump into a 16-mile
run to burn 2000 calories a week? If they drink 2 sodas a day, they could
switch them to water or even diet soda and remove even more calories for less
effort.

~~~
dspillett
They should still do some exercise though: while changing your calorie
output/intake difference is key and diet changes are the easiest way to do
that, there is more to exercise than just burning calories. It is possible to
be the perfect weight but still unhealthily unfit.

One thing to remember to account for with massive people: the bigger you are
the more you burn moving the same distance. It takes effort to move that mass
from place to place. I burn a lot less doing a 5K or 10K run now I weight
approximately 10 stone than I did back when I was around 16.

------
aabajian
"Weight management is actually much more complex than just ‘energy in’ versus
‘energy out."

No, it's not. Maybe it's more difficult to _measure_ calories (that salad
ranch dressing has more calories than that hamburger), but people should be
encouraged to balance their calorie intake everyday. For what it's worth,
here's why Americans are obese:

50 extra calories / day x 365 days / year x 1 lb / 3,500 calories = 5 lbs /
year

Multiplied by 10 years, and you get 50 lbs over weight. In twenty years you
are 100 lbs over weight.

Bottom line is that people are eating just a _little_ too much every day, and
that adds up over time. My advice for losing and maintaining weight: Have 5 x
400 calorie meals each day and exercise for 30 minutes. The chore of finding
400 calorie meals is well worth the effort because you'll see just how many
calories each item you consume contains.

~~~
cousin_it
It's not so simple. People are different. Some people won't need your plan
because they stay at low weight no matter what they eat. Others won't be able
to follow your plan because it would require superhuman willpower.

I'm an example of the first category. I'm 6'2'' and 160 lbs, and have been
like this for years. At age 27 I spent a whole year working from home, eating
at McDonalds 1-2 times every day, going to sleep at 5am, and not exercising at
all. Resulting weight gain? About five pounds, which I promptly lost after
joining a gym. More recently, at age 32, I took a two-week vacation and
literally spent it all in bed, playing video games and eating large amounts of
chocolate and pastries. Resulting weight gain? Zero (actually a slight loss).
This happened last month.

Since I'm at one extreme end of the scale, it's very easy for me to believe
that there are people at the other end, who won't be able to follow your plan
at all. Restrict them to 2K calories/day, and they just won't fall asleep
unless they get a snack. They need a different way.

The laws of thermodynamics are true as far as they go, but they don't have
anything to say about genetics, metabolism, hunger, or willpower. These are
the real important factors in weight loss. The sooner we move away from a
virtue-based worldview, the sooner we can start actually solving it.

~~~
Kurtz79
My favorite explanation I found on the issue is on "The Hacker's Diet" (free
ebook).

[https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/)

The author's theory is that the issue is not on of metabolism, but that people
overeating do not have a good "I'm full" mechanism.

Most people like you that "can eat all they want and not gain weight" in
reality... don't. They balance out their intake naturally, if not in the scope
of a meal, over a day or so.

For example the concept of leaving unfinished food on the plate it completely
alien to me (or not going for seconds if available), while most normal people
just stop when they feel they are ok.

In my very personal and anecdotal experience every time I started dieting
counting calories and exercising I have always lost weight, consistently,
while when I stopped I gained weight back (again, consistently and
predictably).

Most other diets that have a scientific basis should be efficient as well,
since what they all have in common is to enforce some sort of control on your
intake.

Either way I agree that it's about genetics and willpower but, not having the
possibility to change genetics, the mechanism to counter it exists and it's
not a mystery, it's really a psychological issue, IMHO.

~~~
Mimu
I am one of the "eat whatever shit in a big quantity and never gain weight"
people, and I think you may have a point. After discussing it turns out if you
add anything I don't eat that much.

First, I never eat in the morning. And I mean never, I can't eat after waking
up, I always need a few hours before being able to eat without being
disgusted, I know it's bad but I don't think it has an effect really (I don't
do it since I'm like 12 or 13).

Second, I NEVER eat between meals. I don't do snacks, unless someone give one
to me or whatever, but you get the point, I don't fucking eat some chocolate
bar everyday at 4pm, or eat chips all day because I'm bored.

I often only eat good food, or what I think is good food at least. I never use
the microwaves, always buy "fresh" meat, eat vegetables aswell (only recently,
not when I was a teenagers).

So in the end, I may eat like a savage during the meal earning my reputation,
but in the end I don't really eat a lot of shit.

Anyway since I watched Fed Up I understand while US kids are obese. Their
public cafeteria in school literally are fast food. Not to mention the retards
crying out for freedom when the gouvernement even think about taking action
into kids diet.

I won't even start on the sugar and science thing because it sound very
threatening but I don't know enough to judge how accurate it is, even though I
have no doubt it's very likely given history (hello smoking industry).

~~~
jrs235
> I am one of the "eat whatever shit in a big quantity and never gain weight"
> people

I'm the same way.

> First, I never eat in the morning. And I mean never, I can't eat after
> waking up, I always need a few hours before being able to eat without being
> disgusted,

I'm the same way.

> I know it's bad

Why do you think it is bad? Because everyone has told you that you need a good
breakfast? That it's the most important meal of the day? That's all recent and
new ideology.
[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20243692](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-20243692)

> I often only eat good food, or what I think is good food at least. I never
> use the microwaves, always buy "fresh" meat, eat vegetables aswell (only
> recently, not when I was a teenagers).

Here we are different. I eat good and "bad" food.

If I had to guess why I can eat anything and everything (including lots of
sugary drinks) with little to no exercise and not gain weight it would be
this: food passes through me. My digestive tract doesn't absorb food that
well, a lot of calories just go through me. (TMI: Honestly, some foods can go
through me in 2 hours.) That's what I think. (No, I don't care to go to the
doctor to figure out if its true or to "fix" it because frankly, it doesn't
negatively affect me as far as I'm concerned.)

------
thomasahle
TL/DR: It's gotten harder to lose weight, because people eat more crap:
artificial sweeteners, steroids, pollutants, plastic packaging, pesticides,
meat, antidepressants.

A positive read would be: if you want to be healthy, don't focus solely on
energy intake, but also what chemicals you are subjecting your body to.

~~~
monochromatic
Plastic packaging makes people fat?

~~~
FilterSweep
"Makes people fat" is a bit of a reach, but it has an effect on the holistic
reasons why one becomes fat.

The links are dubious, but they are there. Plastic Packaging contains a high
amount of BPA (Bisphenol A) which acts as a xenoestrogen - slightly unrelated:
the generational drop in testosterone in males has been tied to this[0].

Back on topic, cells containing the metabolite of BPA, BPA-Glucoronide, have
been found to accumulate more fat than untreated cells.[1] [2]

This is part of the reason why "BPA-Free" plastic products (think: Nalgene
water bottles) use this tagline in sales.

[0] [http://www.livescience.com/29401-bpa-testosterone-
levels.htm...](http://www.livescience.com/29401-bpa-testosterone-levels.html)

[1] [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bpa-may-prompt-
mor...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bpa-may-prompt-more-fat-in-
the-human-body/)

[2]
[http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/777288](http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/777288)

------
rasz_pl
same story yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10309249](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10309249)

study relies on SELF REPORTING, need I say more?

~~~
ZoFreX
What would we prefer, a study that relies on self-reporting but is a study
nonetheless, or a bunch of theories based on entirely on anecdotes with a
sample size of 1?

I get this study isn't perfect but it seems silly that so many commenters here
are disregarding it entirely yet are perfectly happy to listen to completely
untested theories from people with no expertise whatsoever in the field.

~~~
rasz_pl
We do know that self reporting is flawed, just ask your chubby "dieting"
friend about donuts.

------
leemuro
This is such a bad study and this post is your usual garbage of the media just
confusing people and making them think weight loss is impossible, all while
giving them more excuses to do absolutely nothing. The idea that this "data"
is in any way an accurate representation of how many calories the average
person eats is just absurd. The average person cannot tell you how many
calories they eat per day, they have no idea. The foods we have available
today make it much more likely for a person to consume more calories than
someone "thinks" they are.

You can sit around all day and blame it on leaky gut, artificial sweeteners,
pesticides, gluten, carbs, fat, red meat or whatever the latest "fad villian"
is, and you'll just keep failing to lose weight.

Plain and simple. Eat nutritious food that actually fills you up and satisfies
you, track your calorie intake, and find a sustainable way to just eat less
every day.

~~~
CaptainAmerica
Completely agree that this is total crap and is only going to hurt the
population more. They lost in the first paragraph when they stated they're
using BMI. BMI is total bs and I'm pretty sure we all know it. I'm male, 24,
6', 195 lbs. I work out 5 days a week, run, play sports and eat healthy, but
according to BMI I'm overweight.

------
irixusr
Hormones act in blood concentrations of 1E-12 [1]. This is by design, they act
as triggers.

When you consider hormones affect _everything_ , from how and where you put
weight, to sexuality, to behavior it's incredible how little thought lay
people give to them and the endocrine system. (The Intercept has a very
interesting 3 part series about an endocrine disruptor that DuPont splashed
all over WV and Ohio causing thousands of cancers [2])

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_blood_components](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_blood_components)

[2] [https://theintercept.com/2015/08/11/dupont-chemistry-
decepti...](https://theintercept.com/2015/08/11/dupont-chemistry-deception/)

------
michaelgold
In my experience, losing weight is very hard if you follow fad diets. In the
NY tech scene, nearly every tech event has free pizza and beer. I gained a ton
of weight from 2008-2012 and have finally lost it. I'm weighing in at 165
pounds now.

In 2012, I was weighing in at 215 pounds. In May of that year, I started on
Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Body Slow Carb diet. It worked for a while but I
plateued at 195 pounds. I figured that was it for me - that I wasn't going to
be able to lose any more weight.

I told my primary care doctor about this in January of 2015 and he recommended
ditching the Slow Carb Diet and tracking my calorie consumption in the app My
Fitness Pal. He said to continue using My Fitness Pal until I figured out the
right balance of food and exercise I needed to eat to drive weight loss or
maintain my weight.

 _Just by guessing calories of the food I was eating, I was able to lose 30
pounds_

This may seem like a pain in the ass, but it only added on 5 minutes to my
daily routine.

I got a good scale (the WiThings WS-50). It not only tracks your weight, but
it tracks your weight loss / weight gain trend over the last 30 days in its
app.

In 2015 from CES to SXSW I dropped from 195 to 182 pounds.

From SXSW to June 1st I dropped from 182 to 169 pounds.

I stopped using the app in July and am now weighing 165 pounds.

I've put a few of my friends on to this, and they've also lost weight.

Hope this can help someone else who wants to cut through the noise of fad
weight loss advice.

------
colund
As a Swede it's hard not to blush reading the name of the interviewee. Kuk
means cock in Swedish (not the bird).

~~~
rogeryu
In Holland we have people called Dick de Cock. Anyhow, a cock is actually just
a rooster, not?

~~~
colund
No it's also a Johnson.

------
makecheck
In my case this is what matters most:

\- Watch what you DRINK, not so much what you eat. Drink water or _black_
coffee/cold-brew or tea most of the time, and turn other beverages into rare
treats. Soda is perfectly fine once a week but buy the _smallest_ size and sip
it without a straw so that you enjoy it a lot more. (I was shocked at how I
could barely finish a tiny Coke by sipping it but somehow I could practically
chug one 3x the size just by using a straw. _Don 't_ use straws; they increase
consumption and keep you from even tasting most of the calories that you're
consuming.)

\- Cook most of your meals, multiple meals at once. Yes, this takes time and
it'll take awhile to become any good at it but it's worthwhile. Pick a day,
spend 1-2 hours cooking your lunches for the rest of the week. You will tend
to fill your shopping lists with more raw vegetables and meat that go a long
way. This also keeps you from finding excuses to head to the nearest fast-food
place at lunch time.

\- Do not _ever_ skip a meal, no matter what your weight is. Prefer breakfasts
high in protein, like eggs and chicken sausage, with few carbs (not too much
of cereal or muffins or similar).

\- Take _every_ excuse to walk. Find someplace to go a few times a week, like
a coffee shop, and walk the entire way. Even when I drive somewhere, I'm never
afraid to park the car and walk in (no drive-through, no spending 10 minutes
to find that "good" parking spot; just walk from somewhere a bit further out).
Same thing with stairs versus elevators; and if you take an escalator, walk up
the escalator instead of riding it.

\- Make some effort to build muscle to get some "free" calorie consumption.
You don't need a lot. The biggest muscles in your body are better at working
off calories so if you have limited time, start with your legs. A gym isn't
strictly required for a lot of good exercises; you just need to read up on a
few things to do and be really consistent about doing sets a few times a week.

------
rogeryu
Sorry, haven't RTFA, but what I know is that when people get heavier, the
babies they get are biased to more weight. These kids, now adults, have a body
that is trained or prepared for more weight, and it won't give up that easily.

I'm 5 kg overweight, and should lose another 10 kg to get the ideal weight. My
goal is not to gain any weight, and I've kept it stable for about 10 years. I
know when I overeat, and I feel really bad when I gain another kg. If that
happens, it takes a week or so to lose it again.

------
dagurp
Click bait title

------
linkydinkandyou
The New England Journal of medicine did a study with "doubly labeled water"
which made it possible to determine _exactly_ how many calories a person ate.

In a study of people who claimed to be "diet resistant" (some of whom were
taking medication based on what they reported to their doctors) it had been
determined that _each_ _and_ _every_ _one_ of them were underreporting their
calorie intake and overreporting their exercise to the doctors.

Here's the study (PDF)

[http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701](http://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701)

It's been duplicated again and again.

The last paragraph says:

"In conclusion, all the obese subjects we studied who had a history of self-
reported diet resistance had appropriate energy expenditure, but they
misreported their actual food intake and physical activity."

It's sounds shocking to me, but people would rather lie to their doctors, and
get medication they don't need, than count calories accurately.

