
Look at me, I'm skinny - feverishaaron
http://www.fistfulayen.com/blog/?p=420
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KirinDave
So let me get this straight:

1\. Give up all your free time to working out. 2\. Eat nothing that is
delicious ever again. 3\. Statistically, not significantly prolong your life.
You could still die of heart disease at 50 because your genes are just not
good genes. You could get cancer and keel. You could sleep an hour to long,
and throw a clot and die. 4\. Some people feel better in general doing the
above 3 steps.

I am overweight, by a fair margin. But I'm not especially unhappy, insecure,
or immobile. I have plenty of hobbies that involve outdoor things and my
lifestyle doesn't inhibit those. My doctor says that losing weight is more for
reducing long-term stress on my joints: my cardiovascular system is fine so
long as I don't gain more weight.

So why the fuck should I, or the legion of people like me, care or listen to
what this exercise freak says? I've got dogs, a girlfriend, and some hobbies
taking up all the non-work time in my life. Who actually wants to do what he
says, especially when the benefits are so incredibly dubious?

~~~
dkarl
Or just eat less.

 _To quote former FDA commissioner David Kessler from the book I just read
(and the impetus for this post), The End of Overeating, “People get fat
because they eat more than people who are lean…we finally have strong evidence
that weight gain is primarily due to overeating.” Period._

This has been conventional wisdom for years now. Everything else is just
details, though people love to obsess about the details, because "eat less"
doesn't provide the same level of excitement and optimism as "eat this freaky
diet." Even the theory behind most of the low carb diets is that avoiding
high-glycemic-index foods smooths out your insulin levels, which helps
regulate your appetite, which helps you avoid overeating.

Likewise, exercise is a big help for me in eating less, because it improves my
mood, which makes it easier for me not to overeat. I've talked to lots of
other people who, like me, find that a moderate amount of exercise actually
decreases their appetite. (If you burn enough calories, you end up driving
your appetite back up, but not many people burn many calories in relation to
their intake. I work out about three days a week; averaged over the week, I
burn about 150 calories per day, which is helpful but not a big deal.)

~~~
KirinDave
So you put "Don't eat delicious things" higher up the chain that he does.

And then you still burn a huge chunk of free time accomplishing no tangible
thing in exchange for a dubious assurance of a fractionally longer life.

I used to be in much better shape than I am now, but my life was _miserable_.
Exercise did not make me feel better, coming to terms with my life and my
environment and having some control over my situation made me feel better. My
opinion has been that the "workout high" is more about having control over
yourself and your situation than any real lasting benefit.

~~~
Periodic
I've found that I generally just don't enjoy physical activity. It just isn't
pleasant much of the time, particularly on days where I'm already tired. The
only way that I manage to get a good amount of exercise is by biking to work.
I can sort of trick my schedule by overlapping with commuting time. If I had
to drive to work and the gym I just wouldn't go to the latter.

I now bike about 50 miles per week and my appetite is enormous. I start
getting hungry about 3 hours after eating, and if I have lunch at 12:30 I can
actively seeking food around 5:00, walking to other buildings just to get a
handful of chips, i.e. I don't eat just because it's there. I'm also pretty
tired in the evenings after the ride sometimes. I sometimes wonder if it's
worth it.

~~~
shard
Don't give up, keep exploring possibilities. Would holding a cute person in
your arms make physical activity fun? Try dancing. Does nature or landscape
photography excite you? Go hiking. Like shooting things? Play paintball. Want
some self defense skills? Take up martial arts. Like flowers? Take up
gardening. Use your imagination to combine interests and activities.

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johnswamps
I don't like being skinny. I've been skinny my entire life. Last year, I was
6'0 and 135 pounds. I started working out and eating more. I'm up to 160 and
look a lot better. I don't look like I'm starving, I fit in my shirts a lot
better, etc.

If you want to gain weight and are interested in a food hack, buy lots of
milk. Over here it's about $1/1000 calories. You can't beat that. I drink half
a gallon a day and it's done wonders for me. You probably want to be weight
lifting if you do this though.

~~~
stevenjames
could also eat lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches

~~~
pmorici
Peanut butter and jelly is horrible for you. Peanut butter just has a bunch of
sugar in it.

~~~
yummyfajitas
That may be true for some brands. Smuckers (the kind in my fridge) contains
only peanuts and salt.

~~~
pmorici
As it is the brand in mine but a lot of people eat that trash, Jiffy, or Skip
for example, and you might as well just each a candy bar at that point.

~~~
mikeryan
You keep saying this, but if you browse the Peanut Butter's here
[http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-j-m-creamy-natural-
pe...](http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-j-m-creamy-natural-
peanut-i95144)

You'll find that most commercial peanut butters only have 2g or so more of
sugar per serving then their natural counterparts.

~~~
evgen
The serving size for peanut butter is also around 2T (~30g) so that 2g of
sugar is basically going to double the sugar content of the serving...

~~~
mikeryan
Yeah but 3g is < 10% of the 40g of recommended sugar in a day and way less
then the 50g in a Snickers bar.

[http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_daily_recommended_inta...](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_daily_recommended_intake_for_sugar)

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antidaily
He eats (what looks like¹) around 1400 calories a day:

 _Pre-workout: Protein power, Glutamine, and Lecithin mixed w/water

Breakfast: Whole grain non-instant oatmeal w/ Oat Bran, Raisins, Almonds, Skim
Milk (no sugar), plus a multivitamin and some omega 3 pills

Lunch: Small salad w/protein (lettuce, broccoli, tuna, tofu, garbonzos, black
beans, salsa, flax seed oil)

Afternoon snack: Cottage cheese

Dinner: Some lean protein (fish, eggs, etc) w/veggies, ideally

Bedtime snack: Plain yogurt w/berries and maybe some protein powder_

¹Based on a calorie counter and normal serving sizes.

~~~
maximilian
I was going to say that it didn't seem like much food, especially that salad
at lunch and itsy bitsy afternoon snack. I'm a skinny kid and I have to eat
waaaay more than that to keep my weight.

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quizbiz
Eating less is the one proven way to live significantly longer.
[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070502143834.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070502143834.htm)

~~~
evgen
You don't live longer on those diets, it just seems longer.

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proee
I can promise you that it takes more than a "lunch salad" to keep Oprah fat.

Your body is a two-port function - it's not rocket science.

What comes in must come out, and if your body doesn't use up all that food
energy then... (you get the idea)

------
jsz0
Taking weight loss advice from someone who admits to always being slim seems a
bit silly to me. This guy seems to have a long standing exercise routine and
enjoys his flaxseeds and cottage cheese just fine. Very few people are going
to just wake up one day and start exercising religiously, give up meat, and
buy some tubs of protein powder. It may work for him but it's not going to
work for most people who aren't used to it. So what's the net value of this
article? Someone masturbating about their lifestyle choices after proclaiming
that was not their intent? Lame.

Ultimately I think the biggest problem with obesity in the US is how out of
proportion calories are to the amount of food ingested. It's probably
something that the brain has trouble dealing with. Visually it's hard to
imagine this little candy bar being more calories than a gigantic salad. And
as Americans have proven time and time again they are found of not accepting
logic and reality in favor of house wife superstitions and slack jawed common
sense. Of course on the other extreme I've met (grossly) overweight nurses and
doctors who obviously know better but cannot deal with it. That's also hard to
explain given. If it were so simple I would think these smart people with
first hand experience (everyday) of the health risks of obesity would be among
the most capable group to deal with the problem. To me this suggests there is
a very real mental or chemical cause for obesity that isn't as simple as "eat
less, lose weight"

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feverishaaron
I thought I would post this (via @bfeld) because of the discussion about
startups and sacrificing health to succeed. Here's a guy who runs an up and
coming startup who is doing the opposite.

Brad's post is here: [http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/06/how-to-be-
skinnier.h...](http://www.feld.com/wp/archives/2009/06/how-to-be-
skinnier.html)

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ciupicri
> Trying to eat less sugar/carbs, so I swapped out the boxed cereal (even the
> healthy one I used to eat) for oatmeal.

As far as I know, oat is a cereal.

> I stopped eating meat

What's with this anti-meat movement? I'm not saying that we should eat a lot
of meat, but still a steak (barbecue) tastes very good. I don't eat a lot of
meat compared to other persons, I tend to eat the vegetables, but I sure like
some steak once in a while, especially when it's pork. In case someone
wonders, I'm thin.

~~~
shard
_As far as I know, oat is a cereal._

In America, "boxed cereals" conjures up images of Captain Crunch or Frosted
Flakes, which are full of sugar, and usually eaten cold with cold milk.
Oatmeal, while it may be a cereal and may come in a box, is usually not placed
in the same group as it is usually eaten hot.

------
weegee
it's a great article. lots of will power in there. I like it. I've recently
decided to get into a routine as well to try to lose 25 pounds. I'm not fat,
but if I can lose 25 pounds I'll be at my target weight. And working out is
fun if you get into a habit of doing it regularly. Don't think I could go as
far as to stop eating meat, but I am planning to stop drinking beer on
weekdays as a start, and most likely stop all together later on this summer.
Thanks for sharing the link on HN.

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kingkongrevenge
> Eat five or six times a day

This is bad advice. You want to eat two large meals and a light one to
minimize total insulin exposure. If you eat and snack all the time you keep
insulin spiked up too much.

Working out six days a week to stay thin is completely ridiculous. Once or
twice should be sufficient if you're eating right.

~~~
TFrancis
Hmm...I think eating five or six times a day is generally considered good
advice because it assumes you've selected food that are whole grain/have a low
glycemic index so that your insulin levels remain level throughout the day.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
You don't want constant insulin levels. You want as much time with very low
insulin levels as possible. You get that by eating two or three meals and
avoiding snacks. It's also beneficial to skip a meal every now and then and
have a longer than 12 hour fast.

~~~
lanaer
As I’ve seen advice urging you to keep your insulin level constant throughout
the day, and this is the first time I’ve seen anyone trying to contradict
that, do you mind citing something?

