
Machine Learning and Ketosis - ddv
https://github.com/arielf/weight-loss
======
ghshephard
What's interesting about this post isn't the actual diet advice, but the
guidance to track and see what works for you. Different people react to
fasting differently - some continue to burn calories and drop weight, some
just go into starvation mode, have their BMR crash through the floor, and end
up exhausted all the time because their body is fighting like crazy to
conserve energy.

Likewise - some people, when they start to eat carbs, see their BMR ramp up,
are full of energy, and end up running 5-10 miles a day to burn that energy
off, and are pumped the rest of the day.

Also, focussing on weight to the exclusion of everything else is really
horrible. It's pretty easy to lose 40-50 pounds and end up being much less
healthier than you were before if you aren't careful. Having some sense of
your V02 max, your strength, endurance, flexibility, etc.. are sometimes as
important, if not more important, than what your weight is to +/\- 20 pounds.

Everybody is somewhat different in how they'll react to various diet and
exercise regimes. Understanding that, and taking a bit of time to watch how
your body responds, is the important insight here.

~~~
khattam
> It's pretty easy to lose 40-50 pounds and end up being much less healthier
> than you were before

Maybe if you amputate your legs or catch AIDS or syphilis in the process.
Otherwise, I can't see how losing 50 pounds will leave you less healthier than
before.

~~~
ghshephard
What I was trying to say, perhaps poorly, that is if you were heavy because
you were working out a lot, and eating a lot, and then decided to lose weight
by reducing the eating/working out, you can end up being skinny/fat/weak.

At the very least, doing regular body-weight resistance training (pushups,
situps, pullups, air-squats), helps to reduce the amount of muscle you are
losing while you are losing weight.

~~~
khattam
>doing regular body-weight resistance training (pushups, situps, pullups, air-
squats), helps to reduce the amount of muscle you are losing while you are
losing weight

Can you explain why archaeologists, astronomers and professors have the
highest life expectancy and athletes and body builders have that among the
lowest?

~~~
ark15
>Can you explain why archaeologists, astronomers and professors have the
highest life expectancy and athletes and body builders have that among the
lowest?

That's a pretty serious statement hidden as a question. Can you point to your
source(s) claiming this to be true? I am sure a huge % of HN population would
be interested in this.

For those interested, I found parent's claim very intriguing so I spent a few
minutes Googling and the best I came close to answering yes/no was this -

 _The life-prolonging benefits of a scrupulous life have come to light from a
comparison of 20 previous studies which together rated 8900 people for
conscientiousness using a standard psychological survey, and also recorded the
age they died.

Howard Friedman and Margaret Kern at the University of California at Riverside
found that people who were less conscientious were 50 per cent more likely to
die at any given age, on average, than those of the same age who scored highly
(Health Psychology, DOI: 10.1037/0278-6133.27.5.505). This exceeds the effects
of socioeconomic status and intelligence, which are also known to increase
longevity._

[https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026794-800-conscien...](https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026794-800-conscientiousness-
is-the-secret-to-a-long-life/)

 _Do elite athletes live longer?_ TLDR; - In most cases, not really
[http://www.athletesheart.org/2013/11/do-elite-athletes-
live-...](http://www.athletesheart.org/2013/11/do-elite-athletes-live-longer/)

[https://www.quora.com/Which-professions-have-the-longest-
lif...](https://www.quora.com/Which-professions-have-the-longest-life-
expectancy-Which-ones-have-the-shortest)

------
onetwotree
I'd really like to see this kind of analysis applied to a larger sample.

If someone were to put together a little app to make this sort of data
collection trivial and upload it to a central (preferably cheap) repository,
would people be interested in contributing their data in exchange for
analysis?

Also, since this is HN, is anyone interested in building something like this?
I've got an hour or two a week of spare time to chip in.

Unrelated question, mostly for OP: do you know of any publicly available
databases of GI/GL info? It's really important for people with type 1 diabetes
(a subject rather dear to my heart), and could also be useful for OpenAPS
stuff ([https://github.com/openaps](https://github.com/openaps)).

~~~
lbhnact
We are working with a few groups to make this sort of this possible. Feel free
to reach out if you are interested.

~~~
clockwerx
I'm interested!

------
gtrubetskoy
I don't have a weight problem, I learned about ketosis researching natural
ways for improving focus and concentration, and somehow came across
"bulletproof coffee". (I'm only using BP for lack of a better name and I don't
endorse the stuff they sell online).

To my utter surprise, something as stupidly simple as coffee blended with
butter with coconut oil (or MCT) first thing in the morning did unbelievable
things for mental productivity. After much googling I learned that this is not
a fluke, and that there is real science behind it - beta-oxidation, etc, all
that good stuff.

What's most incredible to me is that (1) I didn't know about it, I always
thought glucose is the only fuel (and I consider myself fairly knowledgeable
as far as basic physiology is concerned) and (2) that sugar, especially the
industrially produced kind, is about as close to being the root of all evil as
it gets and there is nothing wrong with fat at all.

~~~
zelcon
"Bulletproof Coffee"(TM) is snake oil stuff. It's based on the assumption that
all other coffee on the market has mycotoxins, yet literally none of the
brands in first world countries have them anyway. This was confirmed by tests.

~~~
astrange
He started off by selling high-fat coffee creamer and sugar-free hot
chocolate, which are reasonable. It's only later he's gone on to try to
convince everyone coffee and wine are full of secret mold toxins.

------
benkuhn
It's astonishing (and really awesome) that they were able to extract such a
strong signal from daily weight swings! This makes me a lot more optimistic
about the possibilities of quantified-self-type stuff.

Three things I'm really curious about:

\- How significant are the estimates of lifestyle factors? Do you have
p-values? If you bootstrap resample, how much do the rankings change at the
extremes?

\- How much cognitive overhead did it impose to collect the data for this? Did
you put a lot of effort into designing the tags beforehand or making sure you
weighed yourself at a consistent time?

\- It looks like the predicted delta from going from a "nosleep" day to a
"sleep" days is about 1.4 pounds (sleep coef minus nosleep coef). That seems
fishy, or at least like it will stop working fairly soon because you can't
actually lose 1.4 pounds/day sustainably. Is it possible there's something
weird going on with the data or those variables don't have the obvious
meanings?

~~~
aab0
> \- How significant are the estimates of lifestyle factors? Do you have
> p-values? If you bootstrap resample, how much do the rankings change at the
> extremes?

His VW script does do bootstrapping ('\--bootstrap 16') but he doesn't report
it anywhere I see. [https://github.com/JohnLangford/vowpal_wabbit/wiki/using-
vw-...](https://github.com/JohnLangford/vowpal_wabbit/wiki/using-vw-varinfo)
seems to not report any sort of p-value or confidence interval which might be
derived from the bootstrapping. (The 'relevance' is 'the relative distance of
each variable from the best constant prediction', not sure what that means.)

So if you want to know, it looks like you'll have to run it yourself and
visualize the output. I would guess that the uncertainties are huge and none
of them reach even p<0.05 - it simply should not be possible to get mean loss
of like 0.2 and reliable estimates of hundreds of variables like 'melon' out
of less than 4 months of data when the random measurement error of the scale
itself is on the order of half a pound (I have an Omron body fat scale, and
even taking 2-3 measurements daily, there's a lot of error) unless his VW
regression is grossly overfitting.

~~~
benkuhn
I mean, the uncertainties in the middle are less interesting than the
uncertainties at the extremes. I'm sure you can't say anything useful about
melon, but it would be interesting to know if (e.g.) "sleep" was consistently
that big. He did regularize somewhat (`--l2 1.85201e-08`) but unclear whether
that's enough regularization.

Basically I'd love to see some actual diagnostics I guess :)

PS I believe the "relevance" is just the coefficient divided by the biggest
coefficient (the `RelScore` column in the printout in the README file).

~~~
aab0
Well, he also disables the holdout set (`--holdout_off ariel.train`), so
between that and not reporting the uncertainties and his absolutely tiny
dataset with high measurement error and the low prior probability that any of
these effects could be that big... Nah. It's just overfitting noise.

I tried to run the makefile, but apparently the version of Vowpal Rabbit that
ships on my Ubuntu (7.3) is so outdated that it doesn't support the bootstrap
option.

~~~
ariel-faigon
Thanks so much for all the excellent comments. There was definitely an over-
fit with 4-passes.

No more. I've updated the Makefile to run only one pass, changed the options
so it runs with older-version vw, Fixed misspellings of 'gioza', removed
'mayo' which found itself on the wrong side because it appeared only twice and
always alongside the bun and regenerated the chart.

All the main conclusions remain intact.

In the end, I urge everyone to use their own data, that was the main purpose
of sharing this code. My data-set is small, awfully noisy and insufficient.
There are no p-values and no rigorous statistics, so please don't read too
much into the minute details. It is the discovery journey into the _top
factors_ that is the important part, in my view. The ML was just one aid in
this discovery process. The proof for me was my actual, and sustainable,
weight loss that came after (very slowly) realizing the top factors that
eventually worked for me. Thanks again.

~~~
aab0
I don't think it matters whether you run 4 passes or 1 pass, it's still going
to overfit. You can run an online linear regression in a single pass too, but
that doesn't magick away the uncertainties. The results are still going to be
garbage, and any effects you get are due to your health-consciousness and not
any specific dietary choices you make (how could it be, when the data is so
weak and noisy that each item can easily flip signs?).

~~~
ariel-faigon
Thanks so much. Your comments are really helpful.

I realized early on that the data is hopelessly noisy, due to the small daily
changes and the scales resolution so rather than trying to build a perfect
model to gauge the variable importance of each and every kind of food, I
focused on the few days when weight change was more significant hoping I could
detect some signal in those, and extrapolate and further explore from that.
That's why I sorted the data-set by abs(delta) and that's what consistently
pointed me towards sleep/fasting as the #1 factor. I do agree that the full
list/model is garbage in the sense that probably 80% or so of it is woefully
inaccurate/flipped, noisy, overfitted etc. The main point was to lead me in
the right direction by looking at the big picture and what stood out.

And what stood out were 2 things 1) sleep (fasting duration), and 2) fat vs
carbs. I think everything else should be ignored. I think we're in total
agreement on this point.

Does this sound more sensible to you?

~~~
Chris2048
Is it possible weight loss made you sleepy?

------
tunnuz
This is all good if your goal is weight loss. However weight loss doesn't
necessarily means higher fitness. Glycogen is fundamental if you do sports,
and exercise is a major ingredient in getting fit. If I read correctly,
exercise was not a big part of your experiment, how would you suggest
modifying the experiment to accommodate one's exercising needs?

On a side note, I reached a similar conclusion on the role of "carbs at
night", sleeping, and fats, and I read this interesting article
[https://aeon.co/essays/hunger-is-psychological-and-
dieting-o...](https://aeon.co/essays/hunger-is-psychological-and-dieting-only-
makes-it-worse) on the importance, for effective weight loss, of feeling
satisfied (I believe there is also a reference to the relationship between
eating fats and feeling satisfied).

~~~
PerfectElement
Another anecdote. I tried keto on and off for 2 years while trying to achieve
my former triathlete performance. I felt good at the beginning; lost some
weight and felt more energy, but it quickly declined and I was never able to
perform well.

Last year I was introduced to books like Finding Ultra, Whole and
Proteinaholic, and went on a high carb diet.

Today my diet is based on beans, lentils, potatoes and fruits and I'm
performing 15-20% better than my previous peak from 15 years ago (I'm 37 now).
As a bonus, with the amount of fibber I consume, I never had digestive issues
again.

~~~
mrfusion
Any good ways to prepare lentils?

~~~
Joof
Too many to count. I like allrecipes or some website like that.

Dal Bhat is one of my favorites after living in Colorado.

------
fernly
Just for what it's worth, there are several Soylent-like meal replacement
products that are explicitly formulated for ketogenesis. This could be an aid
for a person who wants to try a keto diet without having to research a lot of
new recipes.

Biolent has a keto variant: [http://biolent.ca/](http://biolent.ca/)

Keto Chow: [https://www.thebairs.net/product-
category/ketochow/](https://www.thebairs.net/product-category/ketochow/)

Keto Fuel: [http://superbodyfuel.com/shop/keto-
fuel/](http://superbodyfuel.com/shop/keto-fuel/)

KetoSoy: [https://www.ketosoy.com/](https://www.ketosoy.com/)

PrimalKind is "paleo": [http://primalkind.com/](http://primalkind.com/)

Edit: added Keto Chow, which I forgot on first pass!

~~~
lqdc13
Also remember, his diet is a function of not taking carbs at all (or very
little) for a short time.

For someone who eats lots of carbs already, a plum/orange isn't going to cause
an increase in weight. It is primarily just calories. It is of course easier
to eat more calories in carbs than in protein, but overall, carbs aren't
"bad".

Moreover, such Atkins diets tend to work only temporarily, until atkins-diet
homeostasis is achieved, unless calorie restriction is practiced as well
[1,2].

[1] Many studies show that long-term weight rebounds if you forgo carbs and
overall weight loss depends only on calories. One article:
[http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/90/1/23.long](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/90/1/23.long)

[2]
[http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=200094](http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=200094)

~~~
bkanber
Atkins is not a keto diet. Atkins starts keto, then reintroduces carbs.

Weight loss is simple: calorie deficit. However, switching from carbs to fats
and taking advantage of some of the metabolic processes your body has to offer
makes the process easier for many people. Calorie deficit with less hunger and
decent energy. It helps a lot.

~~~
amasad
>Weight loss is simple: calorie deficit

Not that simple. People touting this are usually genetically endowed with
great metabolism. I've tried this many times and reach a plateau pretty
quickly and have to keep decreasing calories until it's not practical anymore.

On the other hand, watching the glycemic index/load does the magic for me.

~~~
IanCal
What do you mean by "great metabolism"?

Metabolic rate does not vary that much:
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15534426](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15534426)

And to be clear, you can't not lose weight with a calorie deficit.

~~~
DanBC
> And to be clear, you can't not lose weight with a calorie deficit

That's true, but in a useless way.

You can't die of cancer if you get rid of all the cancer cells in your body --
that doesn't help us treat cancer.

The problem isn't whether caloric deficit works. The problem is why some
people are unable to maintain caloric deficit.

This appears to be complex, and includes stuff like gut flora, medication,
strong cognitive biases, among others.

------
cel1ne
I lost 15 kg (33 lb) over a period of 7 months.

* Stopped drinking juice, coke etc. completely * Ate sweets strictly only once a week (like one cake every sunday) * Ate carbs mainly at lunch when doing sport afterwards. In the evening I ate carbs too, but much less.

There's one thing that all these fasting-guides and tips fail to mention:

The fastest way to loose weight is to heighten your resting-energy-
consumption, and the fastest way to do this is to gain muscle mass by
training.

~~~
ihsw
Indeed. A muscular person at 185lb will burn more energy sitting still than
their more rotund counterparts.

Another thing to keep in mind -- muscle weighs more than fat. When
participating in a workout regimen, some may be discouraged by their lack of
weight loss and mistake it for stalling. This should be overcome.

Frankly I think the greatest innovation in this would be a bathroom scale that
shows both body-fat percentage and weight.

~~~
maaaats
Such scales exists, but they do it by measuring electric resistance between
your feet. So not very accurate. However, if you do it under the same
conditions every day (same amount of water in your body etc) you can at least
show the trend.

------
frankus
Totally anecdotal, but I want to second the recommendation of a longer fasting
period.

I switched to a strict-but-not-religious "no food between 7 pm and 11 am"
system (with exceptions for weekends and social occasions).

Within a few months I was down 15 pounds (~182 to around ~167) and had shed 4
inches off my waist (~34 to ~30). I'm about 5'10" and 41 years old.

It's definitely helped with physical activity (mostly parkour/free running)
and I look better. It's also _more_ convenient than what I was doing before,
since I don't have to cook breakfast.

The only negative side effect (possibly unrelated) has been that I need a much
cooler sleeping environment to be comfortable.

The only thing I would add is that I'm starting to (upside-down) plateau at
around 165 and (what my scale says is) 20% body fat. I would love to lose
another 5-10 pounds but it'll probably be a slow process.

~~~
ghshephard
If you can afford it (usually around $150 here in Singapore), it might be
worthwhile going into a sports clinic to get a RMR reading. It's possible that
your body has significantly dropped your metabolism after the weight loss, and
is fighting to restore its previous weight - making further fat loss
(particularly while retaining most of your lean body mass) really difficult.

Ironically, in that scenario, it might be worth occasional days of _increased_
caloric input, to attempt to trigger your body into believing that it isn't
starving, and really can continue to run a high BMR.

At the very least, having the data in hand is pretty cool - and it only takes
about 40 minutes, inclusive of the time they need to set up the gear (just an
face mask) and get you into a calm/resting state.

~~~
IanCal
I'm sorry, this sounds like you're talking about "starvation mode". Do you
have a decent source for this because everything I've seen around it is
pseudoscience. You're suggesting that they, while feeling fine, have an
enormous problem with one of the most fundamental processes which keeps us
alive.

Your BMR drops as you lose weight, it might simply be that this hasn't been
taken into account.

Or they're not tracking their calories.

~~~
ghshephard
Fair point. There is research which shows your BMR may drop after sustained
reduction in caloric intake, far below what your body weight would indicate.
Probably one of the more well known recent ones was:
[http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/abstrac...](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/abstract)
\- which shows the effect can go on for several years.

Here's a really good article discussing caloric-reduction, impact on Leptin
(key hormone involved in regulating the body metabolism):
[http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/calorie-
partiti...](http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/calorie-partitioning-
part-1.html)

Though, careful reading suggests that the author believes that a day of
refeeding (ala 4-hour body), is unlikely sufficient to trigger Leptin such
that the body's BMR kicks back into high gear.

------
philip1209
I've been doing ketosis for about 6 months, after having done twice in the
past. From my heaviest to today over the last 2 years, I'm down 50 pounds.

The data in this post was cool. I found Dr. Peter Addia's analysis to be one
of my favorite resources. He's a medical doctor who was an overweight
endurance athlete, then began doing ketosis. I appreciated an honest
scientific analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of ketosis.

His blog:

[http://eatingacademy.com/](http://eatingacademy.com/)

As an aside, I think that our attitude toward insulin from a public health
perspective is going to change a lot in the next few years.

~~~
mrfusion
What do you mean about insulin?

~~~
will_brown
I am very interested as well and hope there is a response. Since he was
working with an MD, my guess is as follows: insulin is the devil.

Whereas if you look at the old FDA food pyramid and the new food plate,
carbs/sugars/fruits take up a significant percentage of the recommended daily
diet. Take fruit for example, prevailing norm would be fruit is healthy
(especially in its natural state where it is accompanied by fiber), fruit
aside most people would believe carbs (especially in whole grain form) are
perfectly fine in moderation. My big guess is that an M.D. recognizes any
amount of carb (fruit or whole grain being no different that high fructose
corn syrup) triggers the bodies production of insulin. More and more, I think
M.D.'s will have negative perspective on any/all insulin production if it can
be avoided. I have more thoughts on the impacts of insulin on the body, but I
hope OP will chime in with a response to see if my instincts are on point.

~~~
philip1209
Basically this. I think it's more about insulin spiking, though, because
insulin stops healthy people on a nutritional ketogenic diet from going into
diabetic ketoacidosis.

------
ryeguy
This is delightfully nerdy and overly analytical, but I can't believe someone
would go to the extent of creating this yet never think to look for
counterarguments against their dieting regimen. Doing this would have given
him the answer much sooner.

Trying to figure out how the consumption of certain foods correlates with
weight gain/loss is a waste of time because it's simply the caloric content,
not the macronutritional content (eg protein vs carbs vs fats). There are
dozens of studies showing that only calories matter for weight loss, including
vs low-carb, low-fat, and more[1].

The author is acting like each food has arbitrary properties that make them
food or bad for weight loss. It's a good reason to play with ML, but it's
easier to just count calories. I hate seeing people go down the "good food/bad
food" path of thinking because they end up overanalyzing the shit out of
everything they eat and for no good reason.

The glycemic index doesn't realistically matter either for a ton of reasons.
It hasn't been taken seriously as a useful marker when chosing foods for quite
some time now. It's not a reliable indicator of anything. I posted a summary a
few years back that debunks all the insulin/GI spike voodoo[2].

Low carb diets work, but they only work because they're a trick to get you to
reduce calories. Look at what you're eating and remove all the carb foods.
Notice how much your calorie intake dropped. It's a simple way of losing
weight without counting calories, but that's it. The weight loss on keto,
atkins, etc have nothing to do with carbs, and everything to do with calorie
restriction.

It's worth noting that low carb diets have great health benefits, however [3].

[1]: [http://examine.com/nutrition/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-
lo...](http://examine.com/nutrition/what-should-i-eat-for-weight-loss/)

[2]:
[https://reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/j853z/insulin_an_undes...](https://reddit.com/r/Fitness/comments/j853z/insulin_an_undeserved_bad_reputation_plus_notes/)

[3]: [http://examine.com/nutrition/are-there-health-benefits-
of-a-...](http://examine.com/nutrition/are-there-health-benefits-of-a-low-
carb-diet/)

~~~
WillPostForFood
Food does have properties (not arbitrary) that make them good or bad for
weight loss. I agree, calories count. But if you eat food that makes you
hungry, it is harder to cut calories. The reason low-carb high fat diets work
is that you feel full on fewer calories.

~~~
notyourloops
All calories are not equal. Ask a diabetic to chow down on carbs. The body
clearly doesn't treat all the macronutrients as interchangeable units of
energy. To say, "a calorie is a calorie" helps none and allows people to
behave as thought-terminating parrots.

------
sangd
I really like your reading because I went to a time period when everything I
read was so misleading even words from doctors. That's the time when I tried
very hard to improve my health (I gained about 30 lbs since the time I came to
this country 15 years ago). To do that, I ate less fat, avoid carbs, getting a
lot of exercises (1-3hrs a day, at least 5 days a week), eating oatmeal, even
taking statins. And all one failed after another. I went through a lot of
things mentioned here. And finally I decided to forget about everything
doctors and researchers said. I look at my parents diet and how I was raised
and started slowly from there. My health then got improved much better. I'm
glad that you wrote something here for everybody to read. But there's one
point I would like to add to the recipe: improve mental state by listening to
the body (meditation, yoga, brisk walking are good methods), eat only when the
body feels hungry and stop eating when it feels full, eat the food that it
feels good after eating (you will develop your own list). I lost about 10lbs
and I don't gain/lose any weight for the last 3 years.

------
hoodwink
As a long-term ketogenic eater (10 years), here are my top simple tips.
Unfortunately they were not gleaned using machine learning.

1\. Watch your protein. Most people when first going keto will eat too much
protein and not enough fat. Protein has an insulinogenic effect when eaten in
quantity. Keep protein below 8 oz per meal. Don't be afraid to eat more fat.

2\. Avoid cheese. Yes, it's technically low carb, but it repeatedly throws me
and my girlfriend off (also a low carber).

3\. Avoid nuts. Yes, like cheese, nuts are delicious. But they're a slippery
slope. Life will be easier if you avoid them.

~~~
ceocoder
Apoligies, what is LCer?

~~~
hoodwink
Low carber

------
zzleeper
> The 'stayhome' lifestlye, which fell mostly on weekends, is a red-herring, I
> simply slept longer when I didn't have to commute to work.

Is it?

First, whatever method you use should already take into account that _sleep_
happens together with _stayathome_. Even basic regressions take into account
that.

Second, staying at home means your eating binges are constrained by what's
around you. If it is healthy stuff it might mean weight loss, if it is bread
and chips the opposite

~~~
ariel-faigon
Thanks for the comment. You're absolutely right. I stand corrected and updated
the README accordingly.

------
bmarkovic
The author is wrong that sleeping more just gives less time for eating. Truth
is that sleeping more reduces insulin resistance, increases testosterone
production in males and puts leptin under control. All three reduce carb
craving, push us towards meat and fat and increase natural fat burning.

~~~
rdiddly
Thank you. Getting plenty of sleep also lowers levels of "stress hormones"
like cortisol, which tend to promote fat storage.

Which is sort of what those hormones are for. It's easy to see how ancient
humans or proto-humans who had this tendency to store extra calories during
times of stress, would've had survival/evolutionary advantages.

Therefore don't mimic times of high stress by shorting yourself on sleep!

------
Borkdude
Warning: unpopular opinion here. Long term low carb dieting and ketosis is not
without risk. Yes, you will see weight loss, but what about other health
markers? Check out some of the information here:
[http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/low-carb-
diets/](http://nutritionfacts.org/topics/low-carb-diets/) What has worked for
me was a plant based diet without added oil and processed foods:
[https://medium.com/@borkdude/tl-dr-of-my-long-term-weight-
lo...](https://medium.com/@borkdude/tl-dr-of-my-long-term-weight-loss-and-
maintenance-success-49cb43f62a1a) Been doing that for five years now. Never
hungry, still happy with it.

~~~
splintercell
For once I want someone who isn't morally opposed to eating animals tell me
that low carb diets are bad.

Vegans and animal lovers don't like low-carb-high-fat diets because it
requires eating a lot of animals, so I find it hard to trust them.

~~~
Borkdude
OK, then watch this lecture by Denise Minger. She is known within paleo
circles and is pretty unbiased when it comes to eating animal foods:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFfK27B_qZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFfK27B_qZY)

------
lucidguppy
Carbohydrates do not make you fat. I am eating a high carb vegan diet and have
lost 63 pounds since last October.

My weight loss: [http://imgur.com/a/cGb4X](http://imgur.com/a/cGb4X)

I do not restrict the amount of food I eat. I snack and have big meals.

Carbs do not make you fat. Eating high caloric density foods makes you fat.

More resources: [http://nutritionfacts.org/](http://nutritionfacts.org/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5wfMNNr3ak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5wfMNNr3ak)

[http://www.forksoverknives.com/category/success-
stories/](http://www.forksoverknives.com/category/success-stories/)

~~~
notyourloops
Carbohydrates make me fat. Maybe not you, but definitely me. There is no way
around that and I've made peace with it.

~~~
lucidguppy
Have you tried going on the starch solution strictly for two weeks? How do you
eat your carbs - is there any oil along with those carbs? Any meats or dairy?

------
raffy
I guess if we're sharing fitness plots, here's 1300 measurements and 7 DXA
scans:

[http://i.imgur.com/J4Ls2bQ.png](http://i.imgur.com/J4Ls2bQ.png)

~~~
spearo77
Woah!

I thought I might be over-doing it with 2 DXA scans :)

I should dig mine up, I got down to 10% body fat a few weeks before completing
my first Ironman. I'm normally around 17-19% from memory.

------
samuelbrin
I might have missed it, but doesn't look like ketone levels was one of the
factors being measured. You can actually buy ketone pee strips at any
drugstore for cheap. Would have been an interesting thing to track, since
conventional wisdom says that ketosis is binary, you're in it or your not, and
the actual ketone level doesn't affect the weight loss. I'm sure this has been
put to the test in some experiments already, but maybe applying learning could
teach us more and validate/invalidate this hypothesis

~~~
aantix
On a related note; NuSI (Gary Taubes's Nutrition Science Initiative for better
nutritional testing) has not published their first results for the
carbohydrate/insulin link to obesity, but Dr. Kevin Hall discusses the
upcoming results in this video and some people may be surprised (including
Gary).

_No Metabolic Advantage for Ketosis Found_

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUyjMjuLl0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiUyjMjuLl0)

~~~
samuelbrin
I wish I had data to back this up, but there is no chance I was in caloric
deficit on the keto diet. I lost lots of weight at the time. Not claiming my
body violated energy conservation, but clearly this is more complex than "you
don't get weight loss for free so you have to exercise more". So many folks
doing the keto diet are sucking down ungodly amounts of bacon, heavy cream,
etc and losing weight

~~~
ghshephard
They are replacing even _more_ ungodly amounts of calories in the form of
carbohydrates with that bacon/cream. Honestly, you can only eat so much bacon
before you get sick of it, and your body just screams "Yuck. Stop eating. I'm
full".

That's not true of things like rice, noodles, bread, etc.. where for many
people eat some, and your body is like, "Awesome. Bring it on" in a never
ending cycle.

Put another way - Satiation happens a lot faster, and lasts longer, when you
are eating protein/fats, than it does when you are eating refined
carbohydrates.

I think that what made it clear to me, is that there are _no_ metabolic
chamber studies (where people's activity and diet are perfectly controlled)
that have ever demonstrated significant variation from the calories
in/calories out model. Carbs, Protein, Fats - doesn't seem to make a
difference, your weight is simply a reflection of your metabolic output and
caloric-intake.

Stephan Guyenet also has an interesting perspective here:

[http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.sg/2011/08/carbohydrate-
hy...](http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.sg/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-
of-obesity.html)

~~~
samuelbrin
I don't doubt for many that reduction in carbs amounts to reduction in
calories. For others though, eating a lot, and not worrying about
consequences, is a coping mechanism for how shitty the diet is. I'm super
biased from my own past experience, but I was having 3000+ calorie days with
minimal exercise and losing weight on keto. Open to the idea that I'm somehow
wrong though :-)

~~~
ghshephard
They've tried all sorts of diets in metabolic chambers - and it's really quite
amazing how closely the observed results track the predicted results.
Determine a person's BMR, and then feed them a variety of diets higher, or
lower, than that BMR, and watch their body mass (exc. water) increase, or
decrease as expected.

Possibly the case that when you were eating carbs, you were putting away 3500
calories a day, and that dropped to 3000 calories a day when it was just meat?
I know that just a casual stroll through the mall on a refeed day for me, I
have zero difficulty putting away 6000+ calories - refined carbs are
shockingly calorically dense.

Also - for some time on a Keto Diet, you are going to be dropping a ton of
water - so the scale will be dropping like a rock, regardless of what your
actual body weight is doing. Getting a DexaScan, or whatever lean/fat body
mass assessment you prefer to see what's really going on.

~~~
barney54
The water loss is one thing I like about a low carb diet--you get positive
feedback right away. It isn't real weight loss, but that doesn't matter. The
point is to get started and feel like you have made progress in the right
direction. Then the real, much slower, weight loss can begin.

~~~
ghshephard
Completely agree with you. And, even though I realize exactly what's
happening, I also like it. You can even make the up/down swings work for you.
The 4-hour body slow-carb approach has you "refeed/binge" once a week, where
you usually put on 8-10 pounds in a single day. But because you _know_ it's
going to happen, it's not particularly worrisome, and then you get the bonus
the next week of dropping 2-3 pounds on the scale every day.

But, I think it's also a good idea, _in addition_ to enjoying that little bit
of gamification on your scale numbers, to also have a good sense of what's
actually happening in the body mechanics.

That way, you get the best of both worlds.

------
elo_
I collect some of my own data in 1/0 form in regard to whether I was
productive the day before as well as a few other things (I have a google form
for myself that I fill out each morning). I only have a month of data but here
is what it spat out:

    
    
      FeatureName       HashVal   MinVal   MaxVal    Weight   RelScore
      ^dreams         24546     0.00     1.00   +0.0705     47.11%
      ^shower           215555     0.00     1.00   -0.0239    -15.96%
      ^exercise         190069     0.00     1.00   -0.0350    -23.41%
      ^vitamins         252959     0.00     1.00   -0.0442    -29.56%
      ^write                129676     0.00     1.00   -0.0687    -45.90%
      ^publish            12600     0.00     1.00   -0.1496   -100.00%
    

Which is to say that when I write and publish I also have the willpower and
combined other factors to lose weight.

Interestingly I was tracking dreams because I made various changes all at
once:

    
    
      -phillips hue bulbs
      -new mattress
      -new exercise routine (up from nothing)
      -started taking vitamins
      -stricter on my diet

And was wondering what the cause might be.

When I say "dreams" I mean - "did I wake up remembering vivid dreams?". I
wonder now if it's related to caloric surplus.

I also have minutised step data, nightly minutised sleep data and hourly mood
self-reported data that I might try to throw in to the system and see what it
says.

~~~
ariel-faigon
This is pretty hilarious. Thanks for sharing. It may be showing how much noise
there is in a random data-set with too few data-points to draw statistically
significant conclusions. It might also mean that you're on the right track and
now that you have the tool, you can keep going until you find real
enlightenment.

I really like your comment because you're one of the very few that actually
tried the idea. Thats the #1 reason I put this on github, to help others
conduct their own experiments on whatever they care about. If you ignore all
my weight-loss journey story and data and just use some of these ideas to
improve your own life, it was all worth it for me.

------
clamprecht
This is awesome. I'd love to see something similar from someone who
(intentionally) gained muscle mass. Is it really about high-protein + high-
carbs + workout + sleep, or is there a more optimum diet for this.

------
iopq
Of course you're going to gain weight when you eat carbs. Glycogen contains
mostly water and carbs, so if you store glycogen you gain weight, up to 20 lbs
from completely depleted.

So let's say you eat low carb and train very hard for a week. Your muscles
will be depleted, your liver will be depleted. You see that you lost 10 lbs!
Great! But is it? Maybe you lost one pound of fat and 9 pounds of water. Then
you eat NOTHING BUT carbs for three days and you gain 20 lbs. Oh no! But
actually it's your muscles expanding their capacity to store glycogen (since
you trained hard and depleted yourself they will regain even more glycogen
than before). You may have not gained ANY FAT AT ALL!

I have had great success dieting with medium fat medium carb diets. I try to
keep between 180lbs and 220lbs (I'm 6'4"). I'm saying that this kind of
tracking is oversimplifying the issue of fat loss - you need to see that
you're losing fat tissue which involves at least caliper measurements.

~~~
ghshephard
I was wondering when someone was going to mention this. I can add about 11-12
pounds of body-weight by scale reading in a single day simply by eating food
rich in carbs the day prior. Cutting the Carbs out of my diet see's that
weight disappear (thought it takes 4-5 days). Adding Potassium, Sodium,
Magnesium supplements to meals reduces the water loss somewhat.

Agreed - that the real question isn't weight, per se, but Lean Body Mass.
DexaScan is also a good approach to nailing down that number.

~~~
iopq
Yeah, I had a DEXA scan T 191lbs and I was 16% BF. It's not practical to do
this every day, though.

But what I've found is that calipers actually do a good job at showing body
fat changes. They're horrible for absolute values (if they say 12%, they might
be off by 4%), even at multiple measurement sites. But if calipers measure
more or less, you can still be fairly sure that you have gained or lost fat
mass.

Measuring like that I found that nothing beats lots of caffeine and plain low
calorie diet.

------
laretluval
Interestingly "gioza" and "gyoza" as factors come out with opposite signs. I
guess that provides a heuristic confidence interval for the weights.

~~~
AgentME
Maybe there's a correlation between weight gain and spelling ability? /s

------
escoz
If anybody is reading this and curious about Ketosis, I'd recommend Taubes
book ([https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-
About/dp/0307474259](https://www.amazon.com/Why-We-Get-Fat-
About/dp/0307474259)). It's a great review of scientific studies done over the
years.

I read that 4 years ago, spent another 4 months reading the listed studies,
convinced myself it was a good plan, and lost 40 pounds with no exercises. I
still do LCHF after all these years, and likely will never go back to a
traditional diet, it feels great.

~~~
djsumdog
I was told about Keto diets about three years back by a friend of mine.
There's a lot of misinformation about food and health in the US and elsewhere,
and for the longest time I thought low-carb diets were stupid.

But after trying it and reading a lot of the research, I was pretty amazing. I
went from close to 70kg down to 58kg over the course of the next year
(although I've come up to around 62 ~ 63kg stable).

I like how this person mentions in the Github readme that it's not for
everyone and "listen to your body." Some people have bodies that do well with
high carb intakes. Every body type is different. With all that being said
though, a huge issue with being overweight is education. The food industry
wants you to buy fast food, pizzas and things that are cheap to create with
easy base ingredients (sugar, starch, corn, wheat, etc.)

Sadly, the only way for me to realize this was to experiment on myself, as did
this person (although with totally insane amounts of metrics). Kudos!

~~~
spearo77
Whenever I relate my ketosis experience to people who ask, the biggest
emphasis is on how "personal" diet is. You really can't just copy someone
else's eating habits and expect the same result.

Listening to your body is very underrated skill. You can learn it (helps to
have been an athlete at some point in your life) but you also have to do
something about it :)

------
thisisananth
This matches my experience of weight loss using high fat diet. I started it
after hearing Sarah Hallberg's Tedx talk.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da1vvigy5tQ&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da1vvigy5tQ&feature=youtu.be)
For a vegetarian, starting and continuing the high fat low carb diet is
difficult. Are there any resources for more vegetarian recipes for high fat
low carb food?

The article was very impressive. I liked the graphs and presentation.

~~~
philip1209
Many of these meals are vegetarian - it may be good inspiration:

[http://eatingacademy.com/personal/actually-eat-part-iii-
circ...](http://eatingacademy.com/personal/actually-eat-part-iii-
circa-q1-2014)

[http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/what-i-actually-
eat](http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/what-i-actually-eat)

[http://eatingacademy.com/personal/what-i-actually-eat-
part-i...](http://eatingacademy.com/personal/what-i-actually-eat-part-ii-
ifik-2)

~~~
thisisananth
thanks for the pointers. will check them out.

------
timeu
Sorry for the crosspost/copy-and-paste:

For me personally this worked quite well for reducing bodyfat:

Intermitted fasting[1] and lifting weights 3 times a week[2] and being on a
cutting regime[3] (cutting on the rest days with low carb and loading on the
workout days wiht more carbs).

In the beginning IF was quite difficult but after a while the body get used to
it and also I tend to have less cravings during the day. On the loading
days/workout days I often have a hard time to get enoug calories because I
feel full. I am using MyFitnessPal to track what I eat but it's more about the
macros and not so much about the exact calories (but it's also good to get a
feeling how much calories different kinds of food has)

[1] [http://www.leangains.com/2011/03/intermittent-fasting-for-
we...](http://www.leangains.com/2011/03/intermittent-fasting-for-weight-
loss.html) [2] [http://stronglifts.com/](http://stronglifts.com/) [3]
[http://www.lgmacros.com/standard-leangains-macro-
calculator/](http://www.lgmacros.com/standard-leangains-macro-calculator/)
reply

------
agentgt
It is funny but I had pretty much the exact weight loss as the OP had doing
intermittent fasting. Sadly I wasn't as rigorous on the recording of weight
loss but I went from 195 to 175 over roughly the same time period as the OP.

One thing I found is writing down a plan seems to really help you stick with
it.

I finally wrote down my workout routine after decade of on and off training. I
always logged my workouts but I never wrote the overall plan down. If you are
interested in my routine it is here (it has very little to do with diet as I
was going to write a follow up some day):
[https://gist.github.com/agentgt/f93b78dbe13870a6d0a1](https://gist.github.com/agentgt/f93b78dbe13870a6d0a1)

I have never publicly posted the routine so if you feel the need to trash it I
suppose you can do so in the comment area of the gist but routines are pretty
personal anyway (to the OPs point).

------
cpplinuxdude
A word of advice to those attempting a Ketogenic diet: get your blood work
done on a regular basis.

If possible, get heart scans done once a year.

It's easy to slip into a sloppy version of the Ketogenic diet, at which point
you're consuming lots of unhealthy fats and carbs, you triglycerides and
cholesterol could shoot up and put you in shit street.

This is a strict diet.

~~~
ghshephard
What is an unhealthy fat? Also, by definition, if you are eating more than
very minimal carbs, you aren't on a ketogenic diet.

Honestly, and with no sarcasm intended, I think your advice would be similarly
correct for anyone considering eating bread, or white noodles/rice - get your
blood work done on a regular basis, and heart scans done once a year, your
triglycerides and cholesterol could shoot up and put you in shit street.

I'm willing to wager that significantly more people have cholesterol problems
with rice/bread, than they do with eating meat and fat.

~~~
cpplinuxdude
> What is an unhealthy fat?

Fat consumed with high levels of sugar.

Not everyone has the capacity to be strict with their diet, habits, or health
in general. These people might still attempt the Keto diet.

The Ketogenic diet gets approached by lots of people with mental health issues
(bipolar for one), and people who have issues being strict with their diet.

Advising them to get their blood work done, and heart checked is normal, and
sensible. Getting your blood and heart checked regularly is a healthy habit,
and provides vital feedback to understand exactly how your diet is impacting
your health.

------
zachrose
Among words correlated to weight-gain, the least correlated of these is
cheeseburgers! Be still my heart (not literally)!

~~~
ariel-faigon
Good eye. May be random noise since most daily deltas in the data-set are so
small. See comments about over-fitting and noise elsewhere in the thread. Also
may be a veggie-style (without the bun) burger. It was over 2 years ago, so I
don't remember. I plan to write a separate machine-learning focused doc on
this exploratory experiment when I get more time.

------
vinnyp
The challenge for me is always knowing what to eat to help me accelerate my
weight loss. I need structure. If I don't have structure, it's easy for me to
eat things I shouldn't. I started a weight loss program 5 weeks ago called
"Ideal Protein," which uses the Ketosis method. They supply breakfast, lunch,
and a snack. I only need to make dinner (plus 2 cups of veggies for lunch). I
love how easy it is.

I'm wrapping up week 5 tomorrow and I'm down 25lbs (~14% of my body weight)!
They promise 2-5lbs of fat loss a week. I generally drop around a pound a day,
but I'll get stuck a few days here and there. This method really works for me.

The best part is how fast you lose it. When I did South Beach years ago, it
took me months to hit my goal. I have 14lbs left now and I should be able to
hit my goal by Labor Day.

Give it a try.

------
brandon
I appreciate that the author shared his data because it's interesting to
compare notes. I embarked on a strict ketogenic diet in 2012 from a
significantly higher initial weight and observed a very different pattern of
weight loss: [https://i.imgur.com/mOt6P.png](https://i.imgur.com/mOt6P.png)

I hit a loss plateau around 180 lbs that I couldn't break through until I
began eating on an 8-16 fasting schedule like Ariel mentions in his "Further
progress" section.

I gave up on the diet during 2015 and have since regained a significant amount
of weight, but I suppose that's just an opportunity to apply some of the
tracking techniques in this article to my next foray.

------
d23
I don't get it, and I've really tried. I'm referring to the keto diet (though
this person's approach is obviously extreme overkill). I absolutely love meat,
but when I go that low on carbs, I feel like crap. And sure, some people say
if I just wait 4 weeks to 6 months my body will adjust, but... why bother?

Get a calorie tracker like my fitness pal, set a goal weight loss, stick to
it, and 1 lb per week will be a breeze. You don't need a fad diet. For me,
meticulously paying attention to what I was putting into my body and putting a
number next to it made it a no brainer. It was almost gamified at that point.

~~~
disc
Congrats on finding on a solution that works for your body. For me, I find
eating keto gives me more even energy, allows me to sleep better, keeps me
from feeling hungry, and I also lose weight.

Humans are pretty diverse; perhaps certain eating patterns work better for
different body chemistries.

------
stickydink
Semi-related. For those who want to track their weight daily, efficiently, try
Fitbit Aria (or one of the cheaper no-brand WiFi scales). Hook it up to Fitbit
app, connect that to TrendWeight
([https://trendweight.com/](https://trendweight.com/)), then throw away the
Fitbit app.

Whatever your goals are, however serious you are, I find it a great way to
keep track. I just stand on this thing once a morning, and forget about it.
And now I have a near-daily record, smoothed out with a weekly moving average.

~~~
anamoulous
Cosign. I have one of the Withings scales and weigh in multiple times a day. I
don't fret over fluctuations -- and I might fluctuate 5lbs in a day -- it's
the long term trend line that matters and I can see it on the Withings site.
Adding more data just helps.

~~~
spearo77
Have you considered tracking skinfold measurements too? I know my weight can
fluctuate a lot just from inflammation response after a hard training run.
Weight seems to have too many factors that vary at different rates for
different reasons.

------
raverbashing
It's a great experiment

However I think the biggest issue with this is that it's considering only a 1
day window. Weight can vary a lot between every day (bladder and bowel
contents, muscular glycogen, etc)

~~~
ekidd
Yup. Current weight is a sum of several variables: body fat, muscle, water,
and digestive track contents. Nearly all day to day variation (up to three
pounds in my case) is water. The long term trend is mostly body fat, but I
need at least a week and sometimes up to three to see the underlying fat
changes. Sometimes my weight will remain almost level for two weeks, and I'll
then I'll drop 5 pounds in a few days, and wind up right back where the
underlying calorie consumption said I would.

By using a one day window, the author has mostly detected things that affect
water weight. Carb intake is a huge driver of water weight because of muscle
glycogen replacement, which includes a huge amount of water.

This isn't to knock ketosis: If you enjoy eating that way and it encourages
you not to overeat, then it's probably a great strategy for you. Might be
worth checking your lipids after a few months though: I've heard of the rare
person who tries the Atkins diet and shoots up to 400+ cholesterol.

------
mbrundle
Very interesting littlw study. The results seem to make sense, and I'm
impressed that his model can learn what causes his weight swings given the low
resolution delta-weight data he collects.

The author uses vowpal-wabbit to train his regression model. Anybody know what
learning algorithm it uses (eg random forest?) Here's the link:
[https://github.com/JohnLangford/vowpal_wabbit/wiki](https://github.com/JohnLangford/vowpal_wabbit/wiki)

~~~
ariel-faigon
Thanks mbrundle. I'm the person behind that git repository and honestly am in
a bit of a shock that this is making hacker-news.

As I say in the README.md: please ignore the noise, the scales I used had 0.2
pound resolution, and my data-set was too small (and as one snarky commenter
noticed, some words were misspelled). What is important is the big picture.
There are actually numerous contradictions and irregularities in the data. In
particular, any food item that appears only once or twice in the data-set, and
is randomly coinciding with other features that make it biased the wrong way
contributes to the error of the model.

So as I say in the README, I would ignore anything that's not near the top or
bottom, and even those should be taken with a healthy dose of (noise/modeling)
skepticism.

Anyway, the code is free for everyone to use so people are encouraged to run
the experiment on themselves using more accurate methods and contributing more
data. It only requires R+ggplot2 and vowpal wabbit. Cheers.

------
bluetwo
The impact of sleep/no sleep. Wow.

------
emptyroads
I'm pretty sure this is just an example of a "placebo diet"[1] at work.

[1] [http://www.placebodiet.org/](http://www.placebodiet.org/)

------
kensai
Remarkable work. I am really pleased about the contribution of "sleep" in the
whole weight loss experience. I have reached some similar anecdotal
conclusions; I bet this is similarly not surprising for many persons.

I am not entirely sure sleep contributes only as "a fasting period". Sleep
also means we are relaxed. All the other times of the day (when we are awake)
we are relatively stressed, meaning more stress hormones (ie cortisol) which
are known to be contributing to weight gain.

------
criddell
One thing I've never been able to get a clear answer on, is when you "lose"
fat, how long does it take for the number of fat cells to go down? As I
understand it, at first fat cells just deflate (not the right word) are will
easily plump up again and that's one reason why it's hard to keep weight off.
What's involved in actually ridding the body of the extra cells (outside of
mechanical means)?

------
ifemide06
If you're looking to extend this further, I'll be privileged to work on this
with you. Another great opportunity to be part of something! yay!

------
notyourloops
When I ditch the carbs and eliminate grain from my diet, there's no denying
that I look better and feel better. I've cycled on and off several times now
and there's no way to get around it: The carbs and grain have to go and they
have to go forever.

If you can eat them, no problem. However, there's many of us that can't and
we're going to talk about how to operate with that as baseline.

------
ermterm
I'd love to see something like this applied to the goal of gaining muscle.
I've been a twig my whole life. In college, I gained 20 lbs of "noob gains"
and then tapered off severely. I've maintained that weight, but can't gain
more with any reasonable effort.

Dear ddv,

You've got a potential million+ dollar business in the works. In fact, I'd
quit my job to be a programmer on your team.

~~~
peteretep
The conventional advice in this situation I believe is: unless you're eating
enough that you're also putting on some fat, you're not eating enough... Also
consider the Gallon Of Milk A Day method.

------
apineda
I just started my keto diet about 2 weeks ago and I feel great. Did have one
rough night of "keto flu" but then I started supplementing with minerals and
more water. I'm super low carb right now. Funny thing is to get (about 4 weeks
ago) I would get a double big mac or a double quarter pounder but no drink and
no fries and that was it till breakfast. That was fun.

~~~
MichaelGG
Do you supplement with sodium, potassium and magnesium? It might be placebo
but I seem to do better when adding sodium (I drink a gram or two via a
broth.) Potassium is easy to get from "lite" salt (hard to eat enough
otherwise). The amounts required (several grams of sodium, several of K),
according to random sites I've looked up, seem rather high for a non-keto
dieter. Dunno if they are accurate.

~~~
apineda
I bought a magnesium supplement that includes potassium and sodium, albeit the
sodium is the easiest to get anyway, just salt things. Apparently avocados are
the potassium go to as well. I've looked at the recommended numbers, and quite
frankly I'm not tracking enough to know if I'm hitting htem. The more I remind
myself of the recommended and the easier it is for me to calculate on the fly,
it's just a matter of looking at my bookmarked page, habit to build I guess
until I memorize it. For now I just go by how I'm feeling. If I think I'm
going to be frustrated I'll get a little more stringent and careful.

------
WhitneyLand
He advocates a book "The Truth About Statins".

Is it helpful info on evidence based science or mostly zealotry and
soapboxing?

~~~
ariel-faigon
"He" is me :)

Sorry, I've never read that book so rest assured, I'm not promoting it. Please
note that the link is not to the book, it is a just a google search for the
term "the truth about statins". Perhaps some sponsored ad for the book was
added by google? If so, my sincere apologies for the unintended consequences.

Here's my personal experience with statins, I may be wrong here, but I'm
following my compass and am open to be proven otherwise:

Doctor: "Your 'bad cholesterol' is borderline, I want you to take these
statins". Side observation: when the 'Lipitor' patent expired and it became a
cheap generic drug, the suggestion turned into 'Crestor' which I learned has a
bit longer effective half-life, and way higher price. Me, researching the
subject while adopting a different diet: "Hmm statins would have taken me
_maybe_ 3% lower and here I am 20% lower after a year of a simple, self-
studied, diet change. Maybe there are better ways to lower the so called 'bad
cholesterol'? Further study: there's always a new statin the moment patent
expires: check out: Compactin -> Simvastatin -> Fluvastatin -> Cerivastatin ->
Atorvastatin -> Rosuvastatin on wikipedia (these are chemical names, not brand
names, the last two are the brands: "Lipitor" and "Crestor")

So I don't know. I'm 100% sure all my doctors are well meaning and caring and
I have nothing against them, but my confidence in these health suggestions,
and in all the research that is funded by big-pharma, and in the new great
statin of the era while america keeps getting obese and less healthy, is, how
can I put it? a bit shaken.

No zealotry at all. Just prove me wrong, and I'll change my view.

------
zelcon
Maybe your weight loss rate accelerated because you started watching what you
eat more carefully, knowing that you want to provide the most sanitary input
to your program. Anyway this is impressive for a n=1 study. Glad it worked for
you.

Also, OP, what materials would you recommend for a machine learning newbie?

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etangent
One should be careful extrapolating this type of data to other individuals.
For example, sleep on its own may not actually be the primary factor in
weight-loss --- the weight gain during periods of lack of sleep may occur
simply because you have a habit of snacking while staying up late.

That said, awesome work.

~~~
Waterluvian
Very true. The nice thing about some of this is that it's harmless if wrong.
Extra sleep won't hurt me, but it'll make me feel better about sleeping rather
than feeling that it's wasted time I could have been spending trying to get
healthier or smarter.

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fb42
I think this shows how various factors correlates with the amount of
water/food still in the digestive system.

I'm not surprised that for example sleeping longer would make you having less
water in your body.

Most foods that gave "weight loss" were high energy foods that have lower mass
per calorie.

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quickpost
I've tried keto a couple times in the past, but struggled with serious acid
reflux / heartburn from having to digest so much fat all the time. Any one
else struggle with this and find a way to incorporate keto without negative
digestive consequences?

~~~
b34r
Tums and hydration will get you 90% of the way there. 10 months on keto so far
:)

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sytelus
The observation that "no breakfast" is #1 way to lose weight by extending
fasting period that includes sleep is pretty astonishing. Everything I have
read says no breakfast is one of the contributors to weight gain.

~~~
kensai
Maybe I missed it, did he say what time of the day he does the weight
measurements? Unless you do multiple measurements per day and take the average
(as my fancy device does automatically), a single weight measurement should be
done in the afteroon, ie after rehydrating and stopped the fasting of the
night and early morning.

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tim333
I've had weight graphs like that and the trouble always is that if you plot
further instead of it being a flat line at a constant weight it bounces back
up again. It's maintaining that's the hard part.

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arisAlexis
I understand the principles and found the low-carb diets sound scientifically
but I can't understand how eating a lot of fruits and potatoes would be bad
for you from an evolutionary perspective.

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jalopy
This is freaking genius. Kudos. I wish I could upvote this 1000x.

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bresc
I don't understand what exactly he did with the data and how the calculations
indicate weight loss/gain.

Can someone explain, please?

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catalystframe
Lol bacon is associated with weight loss by 32%

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swang
so i cannot give up rice. how much can i consume of rice/carbs per day and not
mess up this balance?

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valde
What about sex?

~~~
erikbye
Well, you do burn a few calories, say, anywhere from 100 - 200 calories an
hour depending on how active you are during the session, and like all exercise
that gets your heart pumping there is some health benefit.

More interesting is what sex and orgasms do for your emotional well-being
which is dependant upon your brain chemistry, if the sex is a positive
experience (e.g. not forced) there is release of endorphins which affects
cortisol levels. Simplified I believe this is how all exercise reduce stress.
Cortisol levels will fluctuate throughout the day but chronically high levels
are common for individuals too stressed out, that would be a real "starvation
mode". The ways in which cortisol affects metabolic, but not limited to,
processes in our bodies are intricate and many, it is very important to
understand cortisol in regards to weight loss, overall health and emotional
well-being.

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davidf18
In males, over time testosterone decreases which causes muscle mass to
decrease. Building up the large muscles through resistant exercise or any
exercise (eg, gluteus maximus -- thigh) increases the muscle mass. Increased
muscle mass increases the basic metabolic rate (BMR) which is the number of
calories consumed even while at rest, even while sleeping.

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dschiptsov
Yeah. I has been downvoted into oblivion by saying almost the same things
without any machine learning, just by observing eating habits and traditions
of "village folks" in Nepal, India, Tibet and Sri Lanka where I have spent
last few years.

The message was that traditional (evolved according to local food sources and
seasons) unprocessed foods of Asian tribes is the most natural and healthy.
Economic and habitat selection pressures implicitly works the same way as
machine learning, for hundreds of years.

Visit any rural area and try simple folk's foods. They will be way healthier
that any processed crap. The similar patterns could be notices really quickly.

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smokedoutraider
A couple a years ago I did keto for 8 months. During that time I lost 31 kg.
While this diet was amazing for losing weight it really affected my
concentration negatively, to the point where I was forced to drop the diet
because it was simply interfering with my performance at work. It's a real
shame though, as I've never been able to find a diet as easy and effective
since.

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stevenwiles
Ketosis is the greatest thing to ever happen to me. It has been life-changing
for myself and many of my closest friends. I lost over 200lbs doing keto and
it was one of the easiest, most ennjoyable things I have ever done in my life.

Keto is absolutely amazing and life-changing. I encourage everyone to try it.

