
Losing 100 pounds in 276 days - agrinman
https://posts.alexgr.in/losing-100-pounds-in-276-days/
======
rburhum
First of all, congrats - that is amazing and really shows true commitment. As
somebody that lost 30+ pounds (I am 5ft 65 and went from 205lbs to 172lbs), I
definitely understand can sympathize with the work it takes.

For anyone else embarking on the journey, I would add a few things:

\- When you are in caloric deficit and thus loosing weight, you can choose not
to go to the gym, but you will lose muscle mass faster. If you want to
_maintain_ muscle mass as much as possible you are better off doing _some_
weight lifting instead of running. You won't gain muscle mass, but you'll
reduce the loss.

\- Ghrelin is the hormone that you will need to control. It is what makes you
hungry and ultimately ruins your diet. Funny enough, you control it by
constantly eating low caloric foods. You want to eat a lot of veggies, fats
(avocado will be your friend) and protein throughout the day in low amounts.
Just stay under your target caloric intake.

\- The most difficult part is _not_ eating out. Meal preparation is key, and
this takes time. When you eat out, you just don't know how people prepared the
meal you are eating. Sadly, meals that you eat outside have a huge amount of
oil and counting calories will be next to impossible most of the time. Even in
the cases where a restaurant lists caloric numbers with their plates, you can
be certain that the cook is less interested in your caloric intake and more in
getting your order out the door. Six tablespoons of olive oil instead of the
one you are counting and you are off for the day already. The best you can
hope when eating out is maintaining weight.

\- Your body is designed for homeostasis and will fight you back to get you to
regain it (through Ghrelin, mood swings, etc). After loosing the target
weight, increase your caloric intake to stabilize it. If you can keep your
weight for a year, it will be easy to remain at that weight later on.

Good luck!

~~~
bad_good_guy
I would also add to your points:

\- If you are lifting weights at a decent intensity, as in squatting 80% of
your bodyweight for an example, you WILL gain muscle mass if you are new to it
despite a calorie deficit. Noob gains are a powerful thing. Most people just
curl 5 lb dumbbells or do some other motion with a weight that is barely
noticable.

\- This guy was eating at a very unhealthy calorie deficit (1000). You should
never go over 500 kcal deficit if you don't want to lose loads of muscle in
the process. A calorie deficit as high as his is comparable to a crash diet,
and is prone to result in a quick upswing in weight once the diet ends, as you
will have been starving yourself.

~~~
coryfklein
> Most people just curl 5 lb dumbbells or do some other motion with a weight
> that is barely noticable.

Are you recommending this as an approach to avoid noob gains?

EDIT: Why the downvotes? I'm asking this as a legitimate question. The OP's
tone sounds neutral and I can't tell if he is recommending low weight for
muscle maintenance, or disparaging folks who do so for thinking they will gain
muscle mass.

~~~
mywittyname
"Noob gains" is a reference to the spike in strength gains when a person first
starts working out.

~~~
coryfklein
Which one wouldn't, presumably, experience if only doing 5lb weights? I'm not
making judgment on whether "noob gains" are good or bad, just trying to
understand why the OP even made the comment about 5lb weights in the first
place.

~~~
zck
Lifting 5lb weights -- unless you're starting out not strong at all -- won't
do much to increase strength. You know how, say, a crane can lift a
20,000-pound rock 10,000 times before it breaks, but lifting a 20-pound rock
doesn't stress the crane one thousandth as much? Your muscles work the same
way: lifting a 5-pound weight is not going to make you stronger at all. If you
want to get stronger, you need to lift something your body thinks is heavy.

~~~
coryfklein
The post was in the context of dieting and maintaining muscle mass. If you
don't care about increasing strength but you just want to maintain muscle mass
while decreasing calorie count, could you do that by just exercising with
small weights, or would that be approximately the same as not weight lifting
at all?

~~~
GalacticDomin8r
You may want to see some evidence on those claims. For example:

[https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/if-you-want-
build...](https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/if-you-want-build-muscle-
and-gain-strength-lift-lighter-weights-more-reps/)

> “Lift to the point of exhaustion and it doesn’t matter whether the weights
> are heavy or light.”

~~~
pmoriarty
I would like to see this study on muscle gains supplemented by others showing
the effects of these different exercise regiments on bone density and
ligaments.

------
ericcholis
I've found that intermittent fasting was easies to implement in 12, 14, 16
hour increments. I do "cheat" just a bit with a coffee in the morning, and 14
hour cheat days on the weekends. Intermittent fasting, allegedly, has numerous
benefits. Stem cell regeneration of damaged, old immune system. Improved
dopamine levels in the brain. Increased growth hormone production.

I personally have found that I do feel "run down" which turned out to be lower
blood pressure. I attributed this to low sodium intake. So, I drink two very
low sugar (6g) recovery drinks for my first caloric intake around noon.

One thing that wasn't covered, and likely isn't in many of these weight loss
recaps, is not just caloric deficit; but also food content. Sugar's (and
carbs) relationship to fat and our bodies cannot be understated. There's
plenty of reading on how high sugar diets are detrimental. Here's an
interesting listen: [https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/refined-
sugar](https://www.foundmyfitness.com/episodes/refined-sugar)

This image alone scares the snot out of me: [http://reachingutopia.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/06/sugar-i...](http://reachingutopia.com/wp-
content/uploads/2013/06/sugar-in-drinks.jpg)

I think most people are aware of this in principle, but don't often associate
normal foods as being high in sugar. Orange juice is probably the worst
offender. All the sugar, none of the fiber.

~~~
anonu
Ive been hearing more and more about IF. Curious how you manage it - for lets
say 16 hours? Do you have a "dinner cutoff time" that works well? Does it mean
you're skipping breakfast?

I never believed that breakfast was "the most important meal of the day". IF
success sort of supports this & the fact that it was mostly marketing.

~~~
epaga
Yeah I always joke that "intermittent fasting" is really just fancy jargon for
"skipping breakfast" \- at least it is for me. Don't eat till noon, don't eat
after 8pm - congrats, you're part of the IF crowd.

And yes, it does seem to help burn a bit more fat than before - though I
wouldn't call it life-changing.

~~~
ivanche
These are the basics, yes, but it's not that simple. To me, IF means: from 8PM
to noon next day drink only water and (if you like) one black coffee in the
morning. Then, from noon until 4PM eat just proteins, healthy oils & fats and
raw vegetables - this is crucial, absoultely no carbs! Finally, from 4PM until
8PM eat everything.

That way you keep insulin under control for the 20 hours (out of 24). Your
concentration and focus will increase very soon.

~~~
stepvhen
Why only one cup of coffee? Is it the caffiene? Does decaf apply here too? (I
work in coffee and often skip breakfast.)

~~~
ivanche
Good question! I'm sorry I left out the details. Yes, it is the caffeine and
the book I followed (The Renegade Diet by Jason Ferrugia) recommends 1 cup
about 30-45 mins before the workout to burn fat even faster.

Even though I now rarely work out before going to work, I still start my day
by drinking a glass of water and then a cup of coffee and it still feels good
:) If you drink decaf, I think it would have no positive (but probably also no
negative) effect.

------
feintruled
I embarked on a similar course as the author - just after Christmas I realised
my BMI was well into the overweight category - and the same strategy of
calorie counting worked for me. I can especially recommend using an app, this
really helped me too. Turns it into a game almost - where can I cut out the
unnecessary calories? Whereas before you might help yourself to a biscuit with
a coffee now you know it is going to blow your budget right open. Makes it a
lot easier to resist.

And it was easier than I thought - a piece of fruit for breakfast, a small
lunch (single sandwich, down from two with crisps and chocolate bar on top
some days), and a normal evening meal. That would come to around 1500 calories
or less a day, easily enough to lose a few pounds a week. It becomes easier as
time goes on - your body expects less, I guess. And you do gravitate towards
healthier food, simply because you can eat so much more of it.

I've lost two and a half stone since then (I don't follow the diet at weekends
so I could have lost more) and am back in the green. Not as much as the
article's author - his loss was spectacular!

Alas I did not take a before and after picture, though others have commented,
which feels good.

So yeah, great article that I can fully endorse, and encourage others to
follow. Just set realistic targets, change will come eventually.

~~~
xevb3k
Downloaded the app, immediately deleted it because it asked me to create an
account.

Are there any similar apps which store the data locally?

~~~
waynecochran
If you just want to build your own iOS app you can fork mine (change the part
the sends email to me as a back up):

[https://github.com/wcochran/calfoo](https://github.com/wcochran/calfoo)

I just create my own "refrigerator" by manually adding foods I eat (no bar
code scanner or online database).

BTW, someone actually took forked my code and placed a version in the App
store without ever asking me. I was sort of dumbfounded that someone would do
this.

~~~
brazzledazzle
Looks like you don’t have a license so I think you could get it taken down if
you wanted to.

~~~
waynecochran
I should have thrown a license on this, but it was really just a personal
project and never meant it to be released into the wild (GitHub was just a
place to store the code)... I suppose I should go back and update this, add a
README, and a license.

~~~
haikuginger
GP is saying that since there is no license, the code is copyrighted and there
is no allowable use anyone could put it to. Therefore, since you own the
copyright, and did not license the code to a third party, you could have the
app using your code taken down from the App Store.

In contrast, if you had put an open source license on it, then anyone would be
well within their rights (assuming the license allows it) to compile and
release a version to whatever app store they want.

~~~
bscphil
> In contrast, if you had put an open source license on it, then anyone would
> be well within their rights (assuming the license allows it) to compile and
> release a version to whatever app store they want.

This is actually potentially untrue, as some versions of the GPL require that
the end user must not be restricted wrt the app they download, and that's not
compatible with the Apple's store requirements. See e.g.
[https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/6109/is-it-
possibl...](https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/6109/is-it-possible-to-
have-gpl-software-in-the-mac-app-store)

------
pottspotts
Really great data! Thank you for sharing.

The hard part for me is mindset and willpower. Unfortunately, knowing the
physics* behind weight loss doesn't make it any easier, and perhaps might make
it more stressful. Why can't I do this simple thing that logically is as
complex as 2+2. Our minds have their own prerogatives.

I wonder then what did you tell yourself? How many times did you have a bad
day? What was your mood like throughout? I'd love to know so much more about
the psychology. Great article though and thanks again for sharing!

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIlsN32WaE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIlsN32WaE)

~~~
jsty
In my experience, one of the easiest ways is to make the process enjoyable.
Try and find some sort of exercise you enjoy, or let yourself listen to your
favourite podcasts / music whilst you're exercising.

At the end of the day, if you're hating every minute of it, there's very
little likelihood you'll keep with your programme. So do whatever you need to
do in order that you enjoy yourself whilst doing it, and results will follow
:)

~~~
pottspotts
I like this idea. I have also been bad about picking podcasts that I like,
though. I think laziness and procrastination might be a huge factor for me.
:-?

~~~
time0ut
My approach is that I can only watch an episode of a show if I spend the first
30 minutes of it on my stationary bike. (I am currently following Westworld
Season 2 and The Expanse Season 3.) Tying my motivation to do cardio to my
motivation to see what happens next has worked well for me. Getting motivated
to lift 2x a week is another issue...

~~~
gavingmiller
> Getting motivated to lift 2x a week is another issue...

Was in the same boat until I started doing group classes. Used that to build
accountability, motivation, and a "vocabulary" of how the gym works. Now I
could spend hours at the gym by myself and love it. Find what works for you,
cuz lifting is a blast!

------
nonbel
> _" The only thing you really need to know is that you should be eating fewer
> calories than your body burns everyday. If you do this, you will lose weight
> – it’s science. Nothing else matters for weight loss. The magnitude of the
> caloric difference will regulate how quickly or slowly you lose the weight.
> [...] I naturally started eating healthy foods because I could eat more of
> them. If you eat a chocolate bar, you will still be hungry. For the same
> amount of calories, you could eat a few bowls of vegetables and be full.
> [...] Somewhere along the journey I picked up intermittent fasting. I like
> it but it’s also not necessary. I found that it helped reduce my appetite
> which means I can eat fewer calories."_

I don't really think this is consistent. Basically yes if you eat less
calories than are used you must lose weight, but the ease of doing this
depends on what you are eating.

~~~
bognition
The biggest challenges I've observed with people trying to lose weight with
CICO (calories in, calories out) it getting a reliable estimate of how much
your eating and how many calories your body is truly burning. Being off by 100
calories translates into roughly 12 pounds per year.

I know you can use a food scale to get a more accurate estimate of calories in
but I'm still at a loss to determine an accurate estimate of calories out.

~~~
EpicEng
It's really not that complicated. If after some amount of time you're not
losing/gaining what you expect per your numbers you tweak said numbers a bit.
That's all. You don't need to be accurate to the calorie, or even to ~100. If
you're on a deficit most days you will absolutely lose weight.

Calorie counting works and eating fewer calories than you burn is the only way
to lose weight. Far too many people start exercising a bit, continue to eat in
the manner they've become accustomed to, and wonder why they don't lose
weight. It's not rocket science; you just need to eat less and (probably) eat
better.

~~~
dalore
It's not so simple. What you eat and your hormones determine the fat storage
on your body. 1 calorie of carbs is different to 1 calorie of fat and 1
calorie of protein. Just because they give the same amount of energy, your
body uses them in different ways and required different hormones (like
insulin) to regulate the consumption of them. It's like saying electric energy
is the same as mechanical energy, they produce energy but we consume them in
different ways.

Counting calories doesn't really work. What's working is restricting insulin
in your system which allows your body to burn fat. When you have insulin it's
impossible to burn fat.

Suggest having a ready of some of Gary Taubes and something like
[https://www.dietdoctor.com/first-law-thermodynamics-
utterly-...](https://www.dietdoctor.com/first-law-thermodynamics-utterly-
irrelevant)

~~~
EpicEng
>It's not so simple. What you eat and your hormones determine the fat storage
on your body.

It is, for the most part, but you're right; insulin spikes are a problem and
you should not be gorging yourself on simple carbohydrates when on a diet. Of
course, protein and fats can also contribute (ask any keto fan), so you have
to eat in moderation and be mindful of your macros.

>Counting calories doesn't really work

Utter and complete nonsense. I have been actively monitoring and modifying my
weight via calorie counting for more than two decades. I started boxing at 10,
playing football and wrestling at 13, and to this day I still count calories
and strength train at an intermediate competitive level ('competitive' in
terms of what I lift in the big three at my weight, not to imply that I
actually compete.)

I have helped many other people lose weight via calorie counting. It works,
and to claim otherwise is simply ignorant. Of course quality of food is the
next subject you broach with anyone trying to lose weight. No one should
expect to lose weight and be healthy by eating 1200 calories of cake and
another 500 in potato chips each day.

When you eat good food (increase your fat and protein as a % of your macros,
stay away from processed sugars/carbs, increase your intake of vegetables,
etc.) and limit calorie intake you lose weight. Speaking to most people in
terms of insulin is a waste of time. They have no simple way to measure that,
but if they eat under maintenance and eat generally good food they _will_ lose
fat, and that's the goal.

~~~
virtuallynathan
I've tested eating 3lbs of meat and cheese, and had no change in blood sugar
or ketones. I don't have the ability to check my insulin, but blood sugar is a
good proxy.

~~~
EpicEng
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycogenesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycogenesis)

That is why it is important to keep protein under a certain threshold when on
keto.

------
mstaoru
Great progress and tips! We're developing a "MyFitnessPal + UberEats" food
delivery service that automatically counts calories and macros here in
Shanghai, where ~16 million people order their food instead of cooking or
eating out. I wonder why nobody did this in the Bay Area at least? Is it
generally lower penetration of food delivery? Or gathering the data is just
too much work? It's easier here with Chinese food: orders naturally consist of
2-3 dishes at least, and for 2-3 people it can be 5-6 dishes, making it
possible for us to pick a right "combo" for the right macros. I think with
Western food, most people would stick to one dish with a side, which is much
harder to "configure" and meet the right target.

Also, of course, even a modest amount of exercise will kick off metabolic
processes that speed up weight loss, not mentioning that increasing muscle
mass will naturally increase the basal metabolic rate. Weight lifting routines
like 5x5 or Greyskull LP can be squeezed into 20-30 minutes every other day,
and provide lasting benefits almost immediately.

------
wukerplank
> [...] you should be eating fewer calories than your body burns everyday

and

> I never understood how simple it was before starting this.

Sounds so trivial, but sadly true for a lot of things in life. You read and
hear something multiple times, but you have to make the experience yourself to
get your eyes opened.

~~~
Delmania
Well, this is another one of those weight loss articles that tries to say
"calories in, calories out" and then laughs at the research that refutes that.
I'm referring to this:

>There’s a lot of “science” that say low insulin levels in the fasted state
lead to more fat burning.

That "science" he smirks at is the research primarily of Dr. Jason Fung, who
specializes in diabetes and obesity. He wrote a book called the obesity code
that advocates for intermittent fasting. I think I'll take the word of a man
who has spent hours researching and analyzing over the snarky comments of some
software engineer.

Some more examples: > If you’re in a caloric deficit this will happen anyways.

That's not true. I could eat a reduced caloric deficit of bread every day and
still not burn fat. The basis of intermittent fasting and the ketogenic diet
is to force your body to break fat for energy as opposed to carbs. They take
different approaches, but the end result is the same - to lower the amount of
insulin. Keto is bit more restrictive in food because so much of the carbs in
out food is sugar.

So, why did achieve results? Easy:

> I naturally started eating healthy foods because I could eat more of them.
> If you eat a chocolate bar, you will still be hungry. For the same amount of
> calories, you could eat a few bowls of vegetables and be full. That said,
> the best part about this overall approach is that you can still eat whatever
> you want – just count the calories.

There's a wide difference between how your body reacts to 100 calories of
chocolate bars (sugar) and 100 calories of broccoli (fiber).

This is more junk science and using anecdotal data as opposed to research and
science. If you want to lose weight, what you eat is just as important as how
much you eat. End of story; caloric restriction alone isn't enough. However,
this article is also incredibly short sighted. Losing weight is very much like
getting married. People focus on the event and not the afterwards. You can't
modify your diet, hit your target weight, and then stop. You need to keep
going; fighting obesity is life long battle. I believe the majority of people
who lose weight will regain that weight within 7 years. There's horror stories
from the biggest loser.

My story, by the way, is that when I got married, I was 280 lbs. One night, I
remember coming home from my in-laws house and deciding I was tired of being
fat. I changed my diet. I cut out chips and soda at lunch and put in carrots
and water. I stopped eating white bread and pasta in favor of whole grain
foods. I cut the number of nights I had dessert to 1 to 2 a week. I picked up
regular exercise. I tracked and measured my food. It worked. At my lowest, I
was ~170 lbs. It's gone back up to 203 right now, but that's because I'm
currently focusing on strength training. I will say that eating less is not
enough. You have to pick the right food. As a friend of mine once wisely said,
you simply cannot outwork a crappy diet.

~~~
kup0
I've lost weight at separate times in my life doing:

1) Low carb 2) Caloric restriction (CICO)

On both I lost weight. On CICO I still ate "less healthy" foods (processed,
breads, fast food, desserts) quite often but kept within a certain calorie
range. Neither weight loss involved exercise. I'm convinced #1 was just a
fancy way to acheive #2. Were there separate benefits to #2? Yes (less
cravings) but not enough to convince me to go back to it. Low carb is too
difficult to stick to for me personally, have tried it numerous times (no need
to give me advice on how to make it work for me, I'm losing weight on CICO
right now and fine with that!)

Why would both work if CICO is bunk?

~~~
Delmania
You answered your own question, the cravings. People who only do CICO with
junk food will lose some weight, but a good number of people who do that don't
have the will power to overcome the cravings and they regain all their weight.

However, if I'm not mistaken, you've lost weight, gained, and lost it back
again, right? The so-called yo-yo effect, another harbinger of people who only
do CICO. The vast majority of people who lose weight regain it back within 5
years. As someone who kept it off for a decade and only started gaining it
back when I start taking my resistance training a lot more seriously, I can
say that if I only did CICO, I would not have kept it off. The only way to
take off weight and keep it off for long periods of time is to change what you
eat, get regular exercise, and know this is something you will be doing for
the rest of your life.

~~~
kup0
I have yo-yo'd, but I've done low carb more than I have CICO, and low carb is
not sustainable at all for me- while day to day cravings went down, overall
"hunger" feeling went up. Low carb made almost every meal feel unsatisfying. I
have meals with more carbs now that are much more satisfying, while still
losing weight. Low carb caused me to want to cheat, eat carbs again, etc.

CICO has been the easiest to "stick with", I can fulfill my cravings without
regaining, because I'm not truly cutting anything out, just having less. When
I want unhealthy snacks, instead of eating a bag of doritos, a fudge round,
and a swiss roll, I have just the doritos and that's it. Moderation is key. I
got to the point where I was basically bingeing food and not caring, which is
a bad spot to be in.

The only reason I fell off of CICO once before was absolutely a decision on my
part to "screw it, gonna eat what I want and however much I want because I
love food, life is short" and really had nothing to do with regular here-and-
there cravings. It was a conscious choice of food over health, as bad as that
is. Before I made that choice, under CICO, I lost 40 pounds and kept that 40
pounds off with no problem, super easy to maintain.

Yes, I will admit that CICO causes me occasionally to choose a healthier food,
because they're much less calorie dense- but day-to-day I still have bread,
pasta, fruit, and sometimes dessert. I just add in some good, less dense
things along the way, and overall eat less, while still enjoying it all. Seems
to work. I guess time will tell, eh? :)

------
jokoon
You should really exercise, no matter what people tell you, or how difficult
it feels.

Controlling your diet seems like the easy way, and I don't think it's really
healthy because you will lack energy, and it's easy to slip.

You should already stop drinking sodas and eating unnecessary snacks, but I'll
never believe that it's the only thing you can do.

Remember that exercise gets easier over time, so just hang in there and take
the pain. Sweating is good, all your body will be restarting if you exercise.
All existing biology reacts to simulation, and dies if it stops moving. Just
imagine your cells getting reorganized, cheese particles bring breathed out,
and toxins getting filtered out.

Exercise will counter the problems created by bad diets but not only vascular.
It will rebalance a lot of things. You will also sleep better.

There is truth in people living longer because they keep asking their body for
more even when they age. All life forms thrived around biological movement.
Sedentary lifestyle is the antithesis of living.

------
seshagiric
I lost 15 pounds over a period of 3 months. Just want to share the following,

a. remove sugar from all diet including coffee etc.

b. double protein intake and halve carbs. One way to do is make your dinners
protein only. Find Greek yogurt with low sugar content (or its easy to make at
home too). This is especially important if you are above 35.

c. Read about the difference between fat and carbs. Till the time you reach
target weight, eat carbs as little as possible.

d. If exercising try things like HIIT or weights that make you 'exert'
yourself. Even if its just 5 minutes per day.

Regarding motivation to avoid over eating, make sure your diets includes
periodic snacks. There are lot of benefits of eating frequent but light meals
(trail mixes with nuts, boiled eggs, green tea, fruits are good examples).
Trail mixes with little bit of sugar are ok as they help stop the sugar
craving if you have one.

~~~
htoe8n324nt
Personally, I found it much easier to not focus on my diet and instead focus
on my exercise. Using a fitness tracking watch meant not changing many of my
eating habits. (I gave up the small soda I would have at lunch and limited
alcohol to only on the weekends, and not more than 1-2 drinks per weekend
night.)

Changing what you eat is very hard for many people and can be the main thing
stopping them from even trying.

------
hazz99
Damn dude, that's awesome progress! I love the consistency.

    
    
        On average, it takes about 3,500 calories to burn 1 pound of fat.
        Suppose you eat 1,000 fewer calories than your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).
        After a week your body will burn 7,000 calories or 2 lbs of fat.
    

I'm almost surprised that the weight curve dropped off linearly -- I always
thought weight fell off quickly at the beginning, before plateauing towards
the end. Great personal "myth" to have dispelled.

Can I also compliment the site design? It's very clean, and presented the
information well.

~~~
masklinn
> I'm almost surprised that the weight curve dropped off linearly -- I always
> thought weight fell off quickly at the beginning, before plateauing towards
> the end. Great personal "myth" to have dispelled.

Commonly there's a sharp initial weight loss due to "water weight" loss:
changing to a diet with lower sugars (simple sugar and carbs) and salt leads
to retaining less water, which in turn yields a sharp initial weight loss.
_That_ doesn't keep going.

However as the essay notes you have to either keep cutting calories and/or
start exercising[0]: as weight drops so will BMR, carrying less weight means
making less effort (for the same result) and fatty tissues are still living
tissue so they do burn some energy. And since "weight change" is a factor of
calorie intake / metabolic rate, if BMR drops you have to drop calorie intake
for it to remain below BMR (and sustain a ratio < 1).

In the Data chart you can see that TFA's calorie intake drops by ~500 _after_
the initial cut. They do note this issue in the conclusion, and that they
attempted the exercise route but didn't care for it so stopped after 3 months.

[0] sustained exercise builds up muscle mass, and muscle increases BMR
counteracting the BMR drop from the diet

------
nigelk
I lost 50 pounds in under 200 days, and then another 20 over the next year.

Here's what worked for me:

    
    
      * Calorie counting to work out baselines
      * Accept the feeling of being hungry and learn to relish it ("I'm losing weight if I'm hungry")
      * Do light weightlifting at home
      * Exercise naked in front of a mirror for positive and negative reinforcement

------
fbnlsr
I've been struggling with weight problems and my self-image for as long as I
can remember. I've tried the Dukan diet ten years ago, which was a total
disaster. At my heaviest I was 84kg for 174cm. That's a BMI of 27.

Two years ago, I had a minor motorcycle crash, and at the hospital the doctor
was scared about my heart rate. It was fast and it was loud, around 100 bpm at
rest. I always had a heart with a fast beat so I didn't really care about it.
Then, my son was born. At that moment I decided that I needed to take care of
myself and started going to the gym. Alas, being a new parent takes a lot of
time and energy, and I had to cancel my membership last year.

So I've been experimenting with intermittent fasting since then, and it's been
the best thing I've done in a long time.

I started doing the usual "16/8", that is fast for 16 hours and eat during the
following 8 hours window. Basically it meant skipping breakfast and having
lunch at around 1pm, which is extremely easy to do.

The past two months, I cranked the notch a bit and I've been doing OMAD (One
Meal A Day). I eat from 7pm to 9pm and the rest of the time I only drink water
or black coffee. It just changed my life.

In the past two months I've lost 9kg, so now I'm at 73kg, and I've never felt
so good in my life.

My mind feels sharper throughout the day, and I've developed a completely
different relationship with food. I now consider it to be fuel, and I've
started thinking about the quality of fuel I'm putting in my body. So now I
cook and I try to chose good meat and vegetables, and I'm trying to cut on
sugar and pasta. I still eat lunch sometimes (when I'm visiting my parents or
I'm having lunch with a client) but I don't really care as I know that my
weight is going to regulate itself in the few following days.

And my heart rate is now normal. At rest, it's beating at around 65 bpm.

If anyone's interested, I highly recommend watching Jason Fung on Youtube. His
talks about fasting have been an eye opener for me. His approach on obesity
through hormonal regulation is amazing.

------
Mashimo
> I tried running – about 30m, every morning, for 3 months.

For a few seconds I was confused as to how much running 30 meters would help
:D But I guess he means 30 minutes.

------
bluedino
I'm always amazed at the people who can drop a hundred lbs in a year. "I just
changed my diet to 1500 calories and bam, the weight fell off."

Not that it isn't that simple, because it is. But, because for most people who
are 100lbs overweight, they have a very unhealthy relationship with food. They
stress eat, binge eat, binge drink, purge...

I guess it's kind of like the people who can just all of a sudden quit
smoking, cold-turkey one day. Maybe they weren't addicted to nicotine in the
first place?

~~~
koolba
> Not that it isn't that simple, because it is. But, because for most people
> who are 100lbs overweight, they have a very unhealthy relationship with
> food. They stress eat, binge eat, binge drink, purge...

I've tried explaining this to people who claim, " _But X barely eats and doesn
't lose any weight._". While there may be some variation in body efficiency
and metabolism, if a person isn't losing weight over an extended period of
time then they're eating more than they're burning and they're probably doing
it when you can't see them.

~~~
RandallBrown
Saw a video about two women, one overweight and one skinny. They ate together
regularly and the skinny woman would always eat much more food. They followed
both around and while it was true that the skinny woman ate more at meals,
that was also pretty much the only time she ate anything. The overweight woman
was snacking all day long.

When I was working on losing weight, I very loosely did the calorie counting
thing and realized that the milk and cookies I would occasionally make after
dinner was like 700 calories. Before I would just think about my meals with
almost no thought about the extras.

------
Bedon292
I definitely need to lose some weight myself. Unfortunately I can never stick
with anything. Including this simple method. I have done MyFitnessPal for
weeks, and then fall out of the habit. Just never manage to stick with it, and
not sure how to keep myself motivated for it.

Of course its always hard, half the time I eat at the salad bar at work, and I
may not be able to estimate the amounts right. I always worry about
underestimating how much I ate. I have even considered eating pre-packaged
meals, but those always leave me hungry, and seem like a less healthy sodium
filled alternative.

Not sure what my point is, but I guess I am wondering if anyone has managed to
keep themselves motivated after years of failing to stay motivated? And if so,
how?

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
You have to really want it, to have a reason to do it that is more important
to you than your comfort because your body is going to have to eat itself and
that's just never going to be a pleasant experience. Additionally, weight loss
has permanent metabolic effects, so you'll have to keep doing it for the rest
of your life.

I found an athletic hobby I really enjoy, so that works for me, but everyone
has to find their own reason or come to the rational conclusion that it just
isn't worth it.

------
weliketocode
A friend was telling me about her latest date.

The guy refused to eat at dinner because he gets his energy from the sun using
photosynthesis.

As laughable as it sounds, it's not out-of-line compared to all the dietary
marketing myths and superstitions that somehow persist.

~~~
kyberias
He eats plants.

------
yoda_sl
Congrats! I have started a similar approach for the last 2 months using LoseIt
as my app to count calories, and the goal to loose around 64 pounds by end of
the year (going from 244 to 180 pounds).

I did join a gym, and this weekend decided to get a personal trainer for a
couple months to be sure that I build some muscle mass too: my core is
definitely weak, and gaining some muscle will not hurt to strengthen my body:
had a few injuries (ankle/knee) where having muscles will probably avoid it.

So far on track, with almost 20 pounds lost (19.4 as of yesterday), and going
to the gym 4 to 5 times a week 45 minutes to 1 hour at a time...

------
notacoward
Losing weight is all about triggering the body's mechanisms to convert fat
into energy, and not triggering its mechanisms to turn food into fat. Counting
calories or exercising more are the most basic attempts to do this. If you
want to add a bit of nuance you can play around with _what_ you eat, _how_ you
exercise, _when_ you do each. But the key thing is this:

    
    
      We're all different.
    

I've decided to lose weight a couple of times, on the order of 20-40 pounds
each time. What has worked _for me_ has been a combination of generally
eating/drinking less, concentrating almost all of that into a small time
window, and a fair bit of running. But the reason it works for me is very
specific to what it takes to kick _my_ body into fat-burning mode, how fast
and how long _my_ body sustains that, how this affects _my_ energy levels,
_my_ physical ability to perform various kinds of exercise or tolerate various
kinds of discomfort (e.g. I don't mind running on an empty stomach but I hate
sleeping that way), and so on.

Something vaguely similar to what I do might work for a lot of people, but the
devil's in the details. My _specific_ formula won't work for you. Experiment
and find your own. The best thing about the recent IF/TRF/OMAD/whatever fad is
not that it provides a specific blueprint but that it encourages people to
experiment with different variations to find _their own_ balance points.

------
jillesvangurp
Welcome to middle age ;-). I had a stern talking to a few years ago by my
doctor and was forced to take measures as well or face the prospect of likely
complications.

This stuff is hard because we people are not very rational. So, here's a few
simple practical things.

\- Get a scale, put it in your bathroom, and use it as often as you can. Step
0 is simply knowing how you are doing. I know down to a few hundred grams what
I weigh most of the time and I've learned the impact of my behavior on the
scale. A big dinner, excessive drinking, etc. has a measurable impact that
peters out over several days before I'm back to "normal". Simply knowing, has
a moderating effect on what I do.

\- Make changes in your behavior that you can turn into habits. Starving
yourself definitely works short term but you'll bounce right back as soon as
you resume your old habits. Kind of pointless. Regular fasting is great though
because it becomes a habit and you don't have to take decisions.

\- Try not to set your self up for being tempted to eat too much. In my case,
going shopping after work when I'm tired and hungry leads to predictably bad
decision making. Make sure you eat before you shop.

\- Be honest about alcohol. I actually quit drinking completely for a while.
Turns out that going for after work beers multiple times per week has a
insanely huge caloric impact. I identified it as the single biggest thing that
was impacting my weight and duly eliminated it for two years. These days I
drink but much less than I used to. In my case I found it easier to not drink
than to drink a little. One of the side-effects of alcohol is bad decision
making. 1 Beer always leads to more beers. If this is hard for you, that's a
good sign of being addicted. All the more reason to try to change things.

------
dalbasal
Counting calories in/out _is_ a way to lose weight that works for a lot of
people. It also works well in clinical & research settings, where control
mechanisms are strong. That said:

" _The only thing you really need to know is that you should be eating fewer
calories than your body burns everyday. If you do this, you will lose weight –
it’s science. Nothing else matters for weight loss_ "

This may be one of the most harmful statements about diet. It's mostly true,
but in a fairly banal sense. A baby will have a caloric surpluss as it grow.
So will a potato. Without the calories, growth will stunt. This is the trivial
fact.

The growth trajectory of a potato or baby is not trivially _determined by_
caloric surplusses. One big factor is genetics, which tell babies and potatoes
to grow. There are environmental factors, many of which are calorie related.

"This is a scientific fact" is in the context it's used, an empty tautology.
Caloric surplusses can be used in exactly the same way to "explain" why an
elephant is bigger than a mouse, why there are 6 billion people on the planet,
how a bodybuilder got his biceps or why you got fat. This makes it a
nonexplanation.

A less abstract hint that we're dealing with a nonexplanation is apples. Add
one apple a day to your diet, and calorie counting will tell you that amounts
to 5kg fat per year.

We know from experience that people do not gain/lose 10 lbs per year by adding
an apple a day to their diet. Your apetite or metabolism (these are related)
will compensate for the apple.

That doesn't mean that intentional caloric restriction isn't a good method. It
works well for some. Other things work well for others. We don't have perfect
knowledge about what works "in the wild" or even in the lab.

~~~
mlrtime
After all that you typed out it still doesn't matter, the only way to loose
weight is to consume less calories than you "burn". Everything else you talk
about is either different ways to accomplish this or excuses. There is no
beating conservation of energy.

~~~
freehunter
This is one of those inconvenient truths that no one likes talking about. Keto
works, ultimately, because you're consuming fewer calories than you're
burning. Low carb works, ultimately, because you're consuming fewer calories
than you're burning. Exercising more works, ultimately, because you're
consuming fewer calories than you're burning. Counting calories works,
ultimately, because you're consuming fewer calories than you're burning.

Yes people will jump in and say "but but but but macros" and "but but but
ketosis" but ultimately it's calories in < calories out.

Much like programming, everything eventually gets translated to machine code.
Putting Assembly on that, and C on _that_ , and then using Python just makes
programming easier. But it doesn't change the fact that ultimately, it's all
machine code. The Atkins diet is just syntactic sugar on top of the machine
code of your body.

That's not to say it's a useless abstraction... there are plenty of
programmers who wouldn't be doing the job, and plenty of jobs that wouldn't
get done, if everyone had to program in machine code. Making it more
accessible is a good thing, as long as you understand that Python ultimately
becomes machine code, and your diet plan ultimately becomes calories in <
calories out.

~~~
dalbasal
It's not an inconvenient truth, it's a trivial truth.

"You can make this program in any Turing complete language" is true. That
truth is interesting to a computer science class. It's completeky useless and
meaningless to a person writing a program. Say you want a program that does
something with a relational database. The right advice is "you can do this
with SQL."

The fact that human bodies follow the laws of physics ads no information. It
is a logical red herring.

~~~
freehunter
I wouldn't say it's trivial at all. I'd consider it the most important piece
of knowledge there is on the subject.

You can be on a keto diet and gain weight. You can be on a low carb diet and
gain weight. And if you don't understand the basic principles of why that is,
you'll think that losing weight is impossible. If you believe that keto is the
only way to lose weight and you _gained_ weight while following it, you're
going to quit.

You need to understand _why_ various diet plans work. Ultimately, they all
work because they help you eat fewer calories than you're burning. If you
follow the diet exactly but still consume more calories than you're burning,
you will gain weight. If you don't understand that fact, you've already lost.

I can't think of a single more important fact to understand than that.

~~~
Delmania
> You can be on a keto diet and gain weight.

Yes, but is it fat or protein? If an adult human male weights 203 lbs at 25%
body fat undergoes a transformation and goes to 250 lbs at 10% body fat, I
think you'd be hard pressed to call him overweight. I think the NFL would like
to have a talk with him.

~~~
freehunter
If you manage to gain 50lbs of muscle just from keto and nothing else, yes you
should be in the NFL.

But you should realize gaining muscle is actually difficult, and you should
realize that it's basically impossible to lose weight and add substantial
muscle at the same time since one requires a calorie deficit and the other
requires a calorie surplus. Possible, but extremely extremely difficult and
time consuming.

There's a reason professional athletes go through bulking/cutting cycles. No
one is accidentally putting on 50lbs of muscle just by switching to keto.

------
Asooka
For those who do calorie counting - how do you deal with all the work? E.g. if
I want to make a sandwich, the process is

1\. Find the nutritional information on the back of the bread bag. Enter that
into the app.

2\. Put slice of bread on the scale. Record weight, put into app.

3\. Zero out scale with slice of bread still on it.

4\. Put slice of ham on slice of bread, record weight. Enter into app... that
brand of ham is not on the app.

5\. Enter ham nutritional information into app. Enter ham slice weight into
app.

6\. Put a big amount of green salad on the sandwich. We're not counting the
calories in that, but we need it to zero out the scale.

7\. Put a second slice of ham on the sandwich, measure its weight, enter into
app.

8\. Put a second slice of bread, measure its weight, enter into app.

9\. You have now spent 20 minutes making a sandwich and wrestling with an
infuriating mobile interface for entering information.

And this is the most basic of foods. If I decide to actually cook something,
things get super hairy, because I have to first measure the raw ingredients,
then measure the weight of the cooked food, then divide the amount of calories
in the ingredients by the weight of the cooked food to obtain calories/gram,
then use that to calculate portion size. The ingredients I use are constrained
in variety and quantity by what's available in my local stores, so I can't
even make the exact same thing every time, so I have to repeat this process
every day.

It also meant I couldn't eat out at most restaurants, because there was no
nutritional information available, which is the point when I gave up trying to
count calories, because having to make everything from scratch myself, while
also measuring and entering ingredients in the app means spending 2-3 hours
per day on just making food, which is time I don't really have.

~~~
lostapathy
Set the complete sandwich up as a single food in your app. Every time you make
one, tell it you made that sandwich. Make it the same way and don't sweat the
tiny differences in how thick your slice of bread is each time.

------
jsty
> The only thing you really need to know is that you should be eating fewer
> calories than your body burns everyday. If you do this, you will lose weight
> – it’s science. Nothing else matters for weight loss. The magnitude of the
> caloric difference will regulate how quickly or slowly you lose the weight.

One important point to note is that past a certain level, usually around a
500kcal per day deficit, it becomes extremely hard to maintain. Performance
physically + mentally will start dropping off quickly. If you do want / need a
larger deficit, do more low-intensity exercise rather than reducing caloric
intake, and make sure you have a reasonably varied diet (or at least take a
multivitamin).

(I used to do competitive sport with weight classes, and messing up your
weight plan was never fun ...). Standard disclaimer: I am not a doctor or
nutritionist etc.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Low-intensity exercise burns such a remarkably tiny amount of calories that it
basically worthless. A 200lb person running will burn about 150kcal/mile,
which is a single can of soda, a third of a donut, 1.5 apples, 2 eggs, or 1.5
slices of bread.

~~~
ssijak
Why is that low? One mile is very little. But running at least 3-4 miles it is
about 500kcal for that person. Is that little? Even 150-200kcal daily will
make big difference in a year. And that is not even accounting for health
benefits beside weight.

~~~
freehunter
I doubt an overweight person is running 3-4 miles per day, that would be
incredibly strenuous amounts of exercise.

~~~
tsenkov
Sure, but they can probably walk at least that. And (not) surprisingly walking
is comparable (usually about 1/2 from jogging) as energy expenditure. Low
intensity exercise (cardio) is the biggest burner of energy, since you can
sustain it for long periods of time. Try burning 500 Kcal with weight lifting.
You will quickly see that an hour long walk is much easier thing to do.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
It's still easier to just not eat that 500kcal.

~~~
tsenkov
Is it?

When you are losing weight for more than a month, I guarantee you, if you are
a reasonable person, you wouldn't be losing a donut with those 500 Kcal. You'd
instead be giving up 500grams (almost 2 pounds) of tomatoes + 80 grams of
cheese + slice of wholegrain bread. That's a meal right there.

BTW, training during weight loss (by caloric restriction, at least) is mostly
done to keep your existing muscle mass + keep metabolic rate up. You wouldn't
train to create a bigger deficiency. So every calorie you burn through
training (even low-intensity) you should intake back as food.

I will be walking for about an 1.5h tonight to "gather" some calories for
dinner. I spend my rations for a bit more caloric lunch and now I will have to
pay for it. :)

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Yeah, I lost and kept off half my body weight so clearly I have no idea what
I'm talking about random internet know-it-all.

~~~
tsenkov
Correction: 500 grams -> ~ 1.1 pounds, not 2.

I've also done a substantial weight loss, while staying healthy (you can check
my 1st-level comment in this same discussion).

I guess the "random internet know-it-all" is supposed to be me. I am in no way
anonymous, btw (you can check my profile for links, in case you want to learn
more about me), so maybe you can search for something that I have EVER posted
that you are 100% sure was a lie and then try to label me? I find your comment
rude and your username appropriate, Ms./Mr. AnIdiotOnTheNet.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Half my bodyweight was roughly 160lbs, that's nearly 4 times what you seem to
consider "substantial" so you'll forgive me if I think I have a somewhat
different perspective on weight loss than you do.

Besides which, here's what you've missed in your calculations: Precisely
because there are lower calorie foods that you can eat, choosing not to eat
500 extra calories is much easier than 500 calories of walking. You can eat
three of the meals you described every day (assuming your math is correct, I
didn't check) and only consume 1500kcal, right? Since that's bound to be a
deficit for pretty much anybody who actually needs this advice, you don't even
need to walk at all. You probably should, just don't kid yourself into
thinking that it makes up for poor dietary choices.

~~~
tsenkov
160 lbs loss and that being half of your weight is a huge accomplishment.
Congrats! I hope you did it in a healthy and sustainable way and now feel much
better than before. If you don't mind me asking - how tall are you, how long
did the weight loss last and for how long have you kept the new weight?

44 lbs is about 1/4 of what you needed to do, yes, but that doesn't mean that
my accomplishment is not significant. I wouldn't call a 6-month-long
starvation insignificant effort. And 1/4 from a billion dollars is still a lot
of money, isn't it? In my case it was 19% of my body weight that I trimmed, I
am 6ft 1 and I am about 6 lbs above that previous mark, 6 months after I
finished my weight-loss sprint (and this year I will continue to go down).

As I said - I wouldn't exercise to create a deficit. I would do it after I
have achieved a big-enough deficit, and would replenish any calories expended
through it with food.

So I don't try to argue you should "work" instead of "starve" \- I am arguing
that you should "starve" to get that deficit in and then "work to preserve
muscle; continue burning on a good rate; eat more". Does that make sense?

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
It's the "eat more" that I don't agree with. That is seriously bad advice for
food addicts because your brain will convince you of crazy things in its
desire to eat and my experience is that you should never give it any room for
excuses.

I'm 5'11". I achieved my lowest weight about 2 years ago and have managed to
keep off all but 10lbs of it, much of which I'm confident is muscle. It took
me 4-5 years to hit the low mark.

I didn't mean to imply that 44lbs was insubstantial, rather that I've had to
operate at a different scale and so have a different perspective on what works
and what doesn't.

~~~
tsenkov
> I achieved my lowest weight about 2 years ago and have managed to keep off
> all but 10lbs of it, much of which I'm confident is muscle. It took me 4-5
> years to hit the low mark.

Good job.

------
edpichler
I used the same approach explained in the article and it also worked very very
fast for me. The most pain to me was using MyFitnesPal, that is really
annoying because of its usability. It was a pain to use it. I will try to use
pencil and paper, and one time a day, type it all on the app.

~~~
thermodynthrway
Myfitnesspal and and fatsecret (the two most popular apps) are annoying as
hell in the same way. They make it very difficult to just add calories because
they want you to help fill in their food database.

Anyone know of an app that only tracks calories? I personally don't care about
my "macros" and salt etc . There's almost no chance of going over recommended
values at 1600 calories a day anyways unless you only eat gas station food

~~~
edpichler
Yes, and one of the things that makes me sad is when the screen delays to
update. When you touch on the screen to add a food, it goes to a blog post
(the slow UI update make you do mistake several times each use). I wish to
have time to develop a better app, but I already busy with another. There is a
big opportunity for solving this problem.

PS: I reported the bugs but I always was ignored, even being a paid user.

------
pwthornton
Here is what I recently started doing after fits and starts to get into better
shape over the years. Losing weight is relatively easy. Keeping it off long
term is hard.

So instead of trying to be small, I've started to embrace the fact that I am a
larger person whose body wants to be on the larger side. I started lifting
really heavy weights, focusing more on adding muscle and gaining strength and
a lot less on weight. I'm doing the Starting Strength program, which is a
basic power lifting program.

I started in early May at around 240 at 6'1\. I'm now about 236, so a little
bit of gradual weight loss, but I've dropped a lot of fat and added on muscle.

I am trying to make sure I eat healthy and clean, but don't do calories
counting or anything like that.

The other benefit of power lifting is that it requires you to take care of
yourself in other parts of your life. You must get good sleep. The more, the
better. Otherwise, your body can't require from all of the stress. You also
need to eat good foods to help your body recover from muscle tears and add on
new muscle.

I can understand the allure of mostly focusing on calorie counting as
technically just eating less doesn't require additional time, but I have found
the 3x 1-1.5 hour lifting sessions well worth it. I feel and look a lot
better. Also, the focus and commitment required to do power lifting well
spills over to the rest of your life. I'll provide an update after six months.

------
Spoom
This is great! Congratulations.

I recently lost a little less than 50 pounds doing Whole30 (for 30 days,
followed by a lighter version with occasional exceptions). I liked it because
I didn't really need to count calories. Yes, it technically falls into the
"fancy diet" category since you're eliminating food groups. It had a few
advantages that I think straight calorie counting didn't, though.

Its restriction from any added sugar or sweetener both naturally reduces
calorie intake massively _and_ tends to stabilize energy levels throughout the
day, while eliminating cravings over time. I've found that I don't really want
to eat many of the things I used to.

The foods that Whole30 eliminates tend to be emptier calories than others.
There is some science behind the choices but admittedly it's not peer reviewed
or anything. That said, again, I don't really miss toast, bread, or cereal
that much. Dairy was hard at first but easy now (and again, swapping for water
eliminates a bunch of calories). I think not drinking Diet Coke helped my
health, but I have a harder time identifying why.

Also, I don't really have to try on this plan. My weight just tends to drop
off without thinking about it.

I did Weight Watchers before, which kinda worked but left me both hungry
fairly constantly and frustrated by the constant food lookups and logging.

Some consider Whole30 woo or unhealthy, which is fine, but it works pretty
well for me.

------
pards
The most critical part of this story is that _he was consistent_. When it
comes to health, diet and exercise consistency is the most important factor.

------
davidlago
Nutrition and weight regulation is not as simple as a direct function of
calorie intake. The storage of fat in our bodies does not follow the "laws of
physics" like someone down in the comments mentioned. This field is actively
being studied (and heavily lobbied/backed by some food companies).

I'm glad this strategy worked for you, but I hope people don't take this as
advice that is easily generalized.

~~~
mlrtime
The only wait to loose weight is to consume less calories than you burn.

~~~
auntienomen
Yes, duh. You keep saying this like it's a revelation to people who're
discussing which mechanisms are available to a) control how many calories
consumed and b) control how many calories are burned, and c) what feedback
loops exists between a) and b).

For a lot of people here, I suspect, it's like getting a lecture on if
statements when discussing multi-threaded control flow.

------
htoe8n324nt
> The second greatest feature is the food database. MyFitnessPal has fairly
> accurate calorie estimates for almost anything you’d ever eat. I recorded
> what I ate, every single meal and snack, every single day, and even now I
> still do it. I’ll probably do it for many years to come. It’s amazingly
> helpful to stay on track.

I did this for about 6 months to a year, and yes, it absolutely works. But it
is soooo tedious as to be almost impossible to keep up with.

I found that using my fitness tracking watch to measure how many calories I
burn while taking daily walks and going to the gym 2x a week was far easier
and more rewarding than the calorie counting.

I find the calorie counting apps often have a limited database of foods, and
if you're eating healthy, and not buying packaged foods as much, you have to
enter tons more data, and it's much less accurate because you don't know how
much of a given food you're eating unless you measure everything before
cooking it (which is also tedious). It works, but not without a lot of effort,
which is what turns most people off from losing weight.

------
bad_good_guy
I would wager that hackernews is probably one of the worst places for
misinformation in terms of discussing health/fitness/weight loss.

I am seeing a lot of disregard for exercise and in particular heavy
weightlifting which has a ton of benefits to daily life.

The original post itself shows a guy who goes for 1000 kcal deficit which is
widely known as being twice as much as the healthy maximum.

~~~
Pimpus
For losing weight, diet is much more important than exercise.

Studies have shown that very few people can successfully lose weight through
exercise alone, and that dieting is much more effective.

Which is easier, cutting out soda and sweets or running every day? Keep in
mind that running one mile burns about 100 calories. Dessert can easily be
upwards of 500 calories. [https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-
exercise/running-b...](https://www.healthline.com/health/fitness-
exercise/running-burn-calories-per-mile)

Also, exercise stimulates hunger and you will naturally eat more to compensate
for the lost calories.

~~~
bad_good_guy
Sorry if I was unclear. I know that it's all about diet for losing weight. But
lifting weights is necessary to prevent yourself ending losing lots of muscle
during calorie deficits. Especially in the case of the OP - having a calorie
deficit as high as his is likely to cause the body to burn muscle mass at a
much higher rate than a lower deficit would - so lifting helps to prevent this
among other clear benefits

------
crazygringo
> _Caloric Deficit == Weight Loss. The only thing you really need to know is
> that you should be eating fewer calories than your body burns everyday. If
> you do this, you will lose weight – it’s science. Nothing else matters for
> weight loss._

True but completely disingenuous. If you normally eat 3,000 calories/day, and
cut it to 2,000 calories/day, you won't necessarily lose weight -- many
people's metabolisms will simply slow down equivalently.

Happy for this guy that it worked, but not all of us are so lucky. Turns out
there are a lot of different factors that affect our metabolism, which can be
just as important (if not more).

Edit: see Gary Taubes' work on this, extremely detailed stuff on what
regulates metabolism and fat storage, there's nothing simple about it -- e.g.
[https://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-
Scien...](https://www.amazon.com/Good-Calories-Bad-Controversial-
Science/dp/1400033462)

~~~
grecy
> _If you normally eat 3,000 calories /day, and cut it to 2,000 calories/day,
> you won't necessarily lose weight _

You're absolutely correct, because what you said has nothing to do with what
the article said.

What the article said: If you normally put 10 gallons in your car every day,
but you only burn 5, you need to put in less than 5 every day to make sure you
will eventually run out (ie lose weight)

What you said: if you normally put 10 gallons in your car every day, but you
only burn 5, cutting down to only 7 gallons a day doesn't mean you'll run out
eventually (i.e. lose weight).

In conclusion: It doesn't matter how much you've been eating, it only matters
that from now on you eat less than you're burning!

~~~
crazygringo
I'm not sure you're understanding.

> _What the article said: If you normally put 10 gallons in your car every
> day, but you only burn 5, you need to put in less than 5 every day to make
> sure you will eventually run out (ie lose weight)_

I'm saying that if you respond by putting 4 in your body, your body may
respond by only burning 4 instead of burning its usual 5 -- and you don't lose
weight. This is why weight loss can be so much more difficult for some people
than others. (In practice, people trying to lose weight can feel a loss of
mental energy, get cold easily and start wearing hoodies instead of t-shirts
at the office, they no longer fidget, etc. -- there are lots of ways for your
body to slow down in response to less fuel, and they don't always include
weight loss.)

~~~
grecy
> _your body may respond by only burning 4 instead of burning its usual 5_

Absolutely. In fact your body _will_ repsond and burn less (because you weigh
less).

So what that means is this is an iterative process. Put 4 in your body and
watch how much you're burning. If you're now burning less than 4, put 3 in
your body. Now watch how much you're burning. If you're now burning less than
3, put 2 in your body.

It's an ongoing process of re-evaluation and adjustment, and every _body_ is
different. But they are very much the same in the one way that science limits
to universe.

If you put in less energy than you use, your body can't invent that extra
energy it needs to function, and therefore your body must start to consume
it's energy reserves. It's not possible for anything else to happen.

------
coryfklein
For anybody interested in accurate monitoring of body weight, I highly
recommend checking out a Bod Pod near you. You step in this pod, it vacuum
seals, and it uses air displacement to measure your body fat percentage
(accuracy usually around 0.5% [1]). Afterwards they print out a sheet that has
specific measurements of everything: weight, height, body fat %, non-body fat
%, etc.

Last I tried, it cost $30 at a local university and took about 30 minutes.
Once you know your current body fat % it is much easier to figure exactly how
many lbs you need to lose to reach your target %. When going by BMI much of
that is guesswork.

Locations here: [http://www.cosmed.com/en/contact-us/test-site-
locator](http://www.cosmed.com/en/contact-us/test-site-locator)

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10487380](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10487380)

~~~
fbnlsr
That sounds amazing. Too bad the nearest center is 500km away :(

------
virtuallynathan
Many people in this thread are talking about CICO (Calories In/Calories Out).
While this does "work", I quite like this paper to explain why it's only a
proximate cause of weight gain/loss.

"How calorie-focused thinking about obesity and related diseases may mislead
and harm public health. An alternative"

"Abstract: Prevailing thinking about obesity and related diseases holds that
quantifying calories should be a principal concern and target for
intervention. Part of this thinking is that consumed calories – regardless of
their sources – are equivalent; i.e. ‘a calorie is a calorie’. The present
commentary discusses various problems with the idea that ‘a calorie is a
calorie’ and with a primarily quantitative focus on food calories. Instead,
the authors argue for a greater qualitative focus on the sources of calories
consumed (i.e. a greater focus on types of foods) and on the metabolic changes
that result from consuming foods of different types. In particular, the
authors consider how calorie-focused thinking is inherently biased against
high-fat foods, many of which may be protective against obesity and related
diseases, and supportive of starchy and sugary replacements, which are likely
detrimental. Shifting the focus to qualitative food distinctions, a central
argument of the paper is that obesity and related diseases are problems due
largely to food-induced physiology (e.g. neurohormonal pathways) not
addressable through arithmetic dieting (i.e. calorie counting). The paper
considers potential harms of public health initiatives framed around calorie
balance sheets – targeting ‘calories in’ and/or ‘calories out’ – that
reinforce messages of overeating and inactivity as underlying causes, rather
than intermediate effects, of obesity. Finally, the paper concludes that
public health should work primarily to support the consumption of whole foods
that help protect against obesity-promoting energy imbalance and metabolic
dysfunction and not continue to promote calorie directed messages that may
create and blame victims and possibly exacerbate epidemics of obesity and
related diseases."

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-
core/c...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-
core/content/view/7203F27BFDE14B828C50F20548BCC49C/S1368980014002559a.pdf/how_caloriefocused_thinking_about_obesity_and_related_diseases_may_mislead_and_harm_public_health_an_alternative.pdf)

------
spoiler
I started body weight exercises with a friend who guided me—and is very
experienced in the area, and also started being in a slight [1] calories
deficit.

I've been at it for about 5 months now and I've dropped 30 kg as of a few days
ago (from 118kg), which is 66lbs (from 260lbs).

The added benefit of exercise is that my energy levels are much more stable
throughout the day, and my mood is generally better and more positive.

Also, this wasn't so much of a diet as a lifestyle change. I always wanted to
get into body weight exercises and gymnastics, but got discouraged by injuries
and lack of knowledge/guidance. So, I'm very lucky to have met my friend (in
more ways than one) who helped set me on the path I wanted to be!

[1]: The deficit might not be so slight anymore, given I gained strength and
increased my intnesity whilst keeping the calories the same. I've started
eating a bit more to compensate for that now, but I'm still in a net deficit.

------
tsenkov
Last year I lost 44 pounds (20kg) by counting calories (I also used
MyFitnessPal to count and record everything).

My advice to people who want to be successful into this, would be:

1\. Be realistic with the calories you consume. Use an app to track everything
down. Eat more raw vegetables and lean protein-source foods that are easy to
account for and will fill you up (so you will not feel hungry all of the
time). Measure everything to the gram. Buy a scale and try preparing most of
your food yourself.

2\. Don't have cheat-days. Get to your goal and then, you add a few hundred
calories a day to equalize intake/expenditure (so you stop losing weight), so
you will have a few hundred more calories a day to eat - now you can
(hopefully) have what you want and would not be cheating.

3\. Be realistic with the calories you spend. Get an armband to measure your
movement throughout the day, measure yourself on the scale every week and if
things don't add-up - correct for the error.

4\. Don't go for more than 0.5kg loss per week. Having such a huge deficit to
make 1kg of fat go away within a week can render you in a very unproductive
state where you barely can get anything done during the day (that's ~1285 Kcal
deficit a day, which is half of your normal calories per day if you are 30 yo
male, not gaining or loosing weight and you weigh-in at 220 punds / 100kg, you
would usually be expending about 2600 Kcal if you have at least some activity
during the day like an hour of walking).

5\. Don't listen to people's stories about weight loss and "what worked for
them", if they are in their early 20's (I am 30 yo). Younger bodies (and
minds) are more susceptible to magic.

If at the start of your journey you maintain some muscle through training -
you will have to continue training during this period of weight loss, or that
is the first thing you will lose. Even then, you have to know you will lose
some muscle. I personally don't care about looks (I run and I train in Boxing)
and losing some of that muscle doesn't bother me, since at the end I feel
lighter, quicker and (compared to my new weight-class) stronger.

Good luck!

P.S.

\- Even if you weren't training when you started and you are not trying to
maintain gained muscle - doing some interval training during the weight loss
will help keep your metabolic rate from falling. Your body will (partially)
adjust to the weight loss by lowering your metabolism and this will solve part
of the hunger, but you will feel sleepy, slow and tired and you will be
burning less fat overall. Pushing yourself for just a few minutes a day with
some HIIT or something similar, can offset this.

~~~
notacoward
> Don't listen to people's stories about weight loss and "what worked for
> them", if they are in their early 20's

 _Especially_ if they're much younger, but not only then. We're all different
- in our bodies' responses to different stimuli, in our schedules and other
constraints, in our tolerance for different kinds of privation or discomfort.
Even among people of similar ages and life circumstances, results will vary
widely. The important thing is to _experiment_ with different kinds of diet
and exercise, different schedules of when to do which, and _observe_ what's
working vs. what's not.

------
mathw
So the really hard part is not knowing what to do but managing to do it -
willpower, feeling hungry, craving sugars, whatever.

I've lost 15kg (so far) following the current (they keep changing it) Weight
Watchers plan, which is mostly a series of tricks designed to create a
calorific deficit without me feeling hungry and miserable all the time. Works
for me. Okay, so I have to pay, but it works and that's important (and I can
afford it).

I don't think any one method is going to work for everyone, because so much of
effective weight loss is a mental game and you need to find the game that
works for you. Research, think, consider yourself and your needs and then go
for it. Personally, I tried calorie counting and I just couldn't handle the
nitpicking nature of it. WW turn everything into much broader units, which are
rather crude but it all seems to work out in the end.

Although that said I'm currently stuck 3kg away from my goal weight because
having crossed into the "healthy" BMI category and experienced a huge boost in
my energy levels, physical fitness and capability my motivation has faded
somewhat. I look better (people have commented, which is nice). I can dance
more (I'm a morris dancer, yesterday I danced a solo jig after three other
dances in blazing sunshine and I was fine, couldn't have done that last year)
and I can do much, much better at aikido training (not only do I have more
stamina throwing people around, I can also be thrown much better as I can fall
better because I've got less excess mass to worry about when I hit the floor -
I've been told it's much more fun to train with me than it was when I was at
my heaviest).

So however you do it... it's worth it. But it's impossible to say there's just
one method anybody needs, because you have to get over your own mental hurdles
first.

Which is not just the system btw... I had to change jobs to give me the mental
space to pull it off, as I was miserable and depressed and comfort eating
constantly.

------
Tade0
_You don’t have to exercise._

I tried that last year and lost... 1kg over the course of three months on a
decent calorie deficit(or so I thought). Gained that much - and more - in two
weeks or so during Christmas. Granted I didn't move _at all_ , because I was
working remotely and had no incentive to go out.

I guess when you're obese your diaphragm working to keep you oxygenated is
enough "exercise", so that may be sound advice if you're on that end of the
scale.

I know my last year's approach led me to lose a significant amount of muscle
mass, so I recommend some light exercise - yoga works well because you only
need 2m x 2m of real estate, a mat and thirty minutes of your time daily. At
this rate you're well within the recommended amount of physical activity.

~~~
freehunter
I'm not trying to discount your progress, but you likely didn't lose 1kg of
fat. If you were actively trying to change your diet, you probably consumed
fewer carbs or less salt, which having fewer carbs and less salt causes your
body to retain less water. Low carb diets often show a very dramatic weight
loss in the first week because as carbs are flushed from your body, the water
they're holding onto is flushed as well.

~~~
dpark
I think you misread the parent comment. 1kg is not much weight and is not
presented as if it is. He’s saying he didn’t exercise and essentially lost no
weight.

~~~
freehunter
I understand that, the point I was trying to make is the "I gained that back
over the holiday" isn't actually gaining the weight back, it's just putting
more carbs and salt into your body so the scale goes up, but the fat levels
likely didn't change.

I understand they were dancing around saying "I didn't lose anything", I was
just trying to make the point that they likely didn't gain much either. Tiny
fluctuations like that happen more around water weight than fat weight.

------
woodandsteel
Key paragraph

"

I naturally started eating healthy foods because I could eat more of them. If
you eat a chocolate bar, you will still be hungry. For the same amount of
calories, you could eat a few bowls of vegetables and be full. That said, the
best part about this overall approach is that you can still eat whatever you
want – just count the calories."

That is essential to both taking the weight off and keeping it off. I followed
only this rule, which meant avoiding refined carbs and fatty foods,and I
didn't even count calories and I took off 50 pounds over about three years,
and have kept it off.

I still don't count calories, I eat as much as I want, I just make sure it is
mostly high in bulk with a fair amount of protein, and reasonably low in fat.

------
bscphil
See also: the hacker's diet, which is basically this plan writ large.
[https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/)

What clicked for me with this plan was that you can _automatically_ adjust
your caloric intake on the basis of how well you're tracking your goal weight
loss rate. You don't even have to count calories well: if you're
undercounting, the system corrects for that by telling you to lower your
intake goal.

Realizing that it was mathematically impossible not to succeed if I just
followed the simple steps was the spark I needed to get started.

------
bmn__
[https://fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/](https://fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/)

The Hacker's Diet – How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor
nutrition

first published 1994, also comes with software tools

------
rcatcher
You don't have to exercise, but keep in mind that way you'll go from being fat
to being skinny fat. I made that mistake myself and to be honest my body
looked better before losing weight.

~~~
tjr225
I went from 260 to 160 and I my body looked way better at 160 than it did at
260 so ymmv...

------
afpx
For people who accomplish things like this, I often wonder about how often
they tried and failed in the past and what factors changed to make them
finally succeed.

~~~
cm2187
The approach I have to lose weight is fasting. One meal a day for a long
period of time (3+ months) + daily exercise. The hard part is to get into the
diet. Fighting appetite is very hard, it's what drives us to leave our cave to
hunt a mammoth. So the hard part is to get into a habit of eating less. After
a couple of weeks, appetite has reduced, and it is easy to follow. One way to
get into this habit is the Ulysses approach (tying oneself to a mast, i.e.
going to a place where you can't snack). Another is to utilize a period of
depression or after having catched a bug which results in no appetite for a
few days. And then the secret is zero exception. A single weekend of
indulgence and the appetite comes back and the diet is dead.

Another secret is also to do that in a period of low stress. High stress will
kill any diet.

------
iod
So where does all the fat go?

I find the answer rather interesting as for 10 units of fat you burn, you
breath out about 8.4 units of carbon dioxide and 1.6 units of water. Applying
this to imperial pounds means that:

1 lb fat -> 0.84 lbs CO2 and 0.16 lb water.

¹[https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141216212047.h...](https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/12/141216212047.htm)

------
nlavezzo
Does anyone here have any good science they can point to that would help us
understand what the short and longer term effects of prolonged Calorie Deficit
are on your Basal Metabolic Rate? I've heard a lot about the BMR going down
significantly and staying down, after significant calorie deficit weight loss,
leading to people gaining back a lot of weight even if they are eating a lot
less than they were before.

~~~
berbec
Contestants on the "Biggest Loser" have massive changes to their BMR burn
rates making it very difficult to keep weight off long-term. [1]

1: [https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-
weig...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-
loss.html?_r=1)

------
maerF0x0
@agrinman On the days where you dipped into really low calories (say <1000) do
you recall if that was real consumption or just a lack of tracking?

I find my MFP calories are not good data because somedays I say "screw it" and
stop counting or don't try and track because I really don't know how much I'm
eating (is it 6oz, 4oz or 8oz of chicken, not sure because its just a pile)

------
AJRF
I feel like there are some parralels between understanding how you lose weight
and how you retain money / stop yourself living paycheck to paycheck.

The Calories in / Calories out dichotomy is similar to the double accounting
Assets = Liabilities + Capital in that it is so simple, but until you start to
pay attention you can make that equation massively unbalanced to the point it
starts to hurt you.

------
bitL
I have one rule - I eat cake only when I do ~1000kCal aero training on that
given day. That's like pushing on a bike for an hour for me (hilly terrain
with interval sprints). I've noticed that if I don't do that, I gain weight,
if I do that, I keep the weight and when I do only training, I lose weight,
given everything else stays the same.

------
alistairSH
1358 kcal/day? Is that sustainable/healthy for an average sized male? That
sounds really low - low enough that I feel like I'd be missing other
components of my diet (vitamins).

Simple online BMR calculators put my BMR at >1500 kcal/day. Add life on top of
that, plus some exercise, and that value needs to be 2000+, sometimes much
higher.

~~~
hrnnnnnn
What has happened in my experience, and as the author mentions, is that to
keep yourself from feeling hungry all the time on a low-calorie diet you will
automatically start eating low-calorie-density food.

The most obvious choice here are things with lots of mass that are readily
available and suitable for snacking on. For me that's cherry tomatoes and
carrots dipped in hummous.

While low in calories, these foods (vegetables) tend to have a high density of
nutrients, so I believe what happens is you end up getting more or the same
amount of nutrients for fewer overall calories.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
When you add the hummus, vegetables are no longer low-calorie.

~~~
hrnnnnnn
There are degrees of hummous.

I'm sure store-bought is made with lots of oil. When I make it at home it's
mostly chickpeas with a little tahini, usually about 1tbsp per carton of
beans.

Tahini = ~90kcal / tbsp Chickpeas = ~150kcal / carton

= 240kcal / bowl of homemade hummous

If I'm eating it with carrots I'll get about eight servings from a bowl. So
say 100g carrots is 40kcal, plus 240/8, equals 70kcal.

Right enough it about doubles the calories from the carrot, but it is a _lot_
tastier, and 70kcal isn't going to break your budget too hard if you're being
careful generally.

------
brohoolio
Congrats! This is a great achievement. It’s not easy. Don’t let up!
Maintenance of your current weight can be just as tough.

------
k__
You don't need to exercise, but you'll lose more muscle if you don't.

But yes, diet is much more important than exercise.

~~~
tsenkov
Well, to be fair you will lose it if you had it in first place. People who
don't bulk up by training, only cary the muscle that... carries them. As long
as you keep your protein intake as recommended, you will keep the muscle you
need in your regular physical activity level.

~~~
k__
Sure, but doesn't have a person more muscle, when they have more weight to
carry?

~~~
tsenkov
Yep. As I said: > ... you will keep the muscle you need in your regular
physical activity level

------
dalore
> Caloric Deficit == Weight Loss

> The only thing you really need to know is that you should be eating fewer
> calories than your body burns everyday. If you do this, you will lose weight
> – it’s science. Nothing else matters for weight loss. The magnitude of the
> caloric difference will regulate how quickly or slowly you lose the weight.

This is actually not so clear cut. It's currently being debated if this model
is right or the hormonal model is right. [https://peterattiamd.com/do-
calories-matter/](https://peterattiamd.com/do-calories-matter/)

What I suspect with the author was that his caloric deficit was also
restricting carbs and once the carbs was restricted his body started to burn
fat when there was no more insulin in his blood.

Counting carbs and restricting them leads to an easier lifestyle to follow
where you don't worry about getting hungry and making sure you're burning more
then you eat (Vs counting calories).

------
sbr464
Congrats man! Nice write up. I realize this isn’t a good hn reply but wanted
to give support!

------
AH2mdte8kPnJS
What about going the other way - gaining weight? Does anyone have tips or
reccomendations on how I can gain weight. I'm 6'3" and 160lbs and have always
wanted to gain weight but I struggle with consistently eating 5 meals a day.

~~~
meowzero
Gaining weight is simple, it's the other way around. You need to eat more
calories than you burn. So just like with losing weight, track everything with
a scale and a food log (like myfitnesspal). See how many calories you need to
start gaining weight and start tracking. Maybe you'll notice you're not eating
at a surplus at your age, activity level, etc. And just like losing weight, it
will take a while, depending on how much your surplus is. You might gain 1-2
lbs a week.

------
acconrad
Averaging 1350 calories for an adult male at over 275 lbs is incredible
willpower. I cut 22 lbs in 6 months for a bodybuilding show and the lowest I
ever got down to was 1750 calories and that was very, very difficult. Amazing
work!

------
roevhat
Related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13413725](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13413725).
Here using closed-loop feedback for weight loss.

------
manuw
congrats!

You can find here[0] a lot of progress pics from ppl, who lost a lot of weight
with simple cico[1]. I do PSMF[2] sometimes for 1-2 Weeks when I feel to lose
1-4kg.

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/progresspics/](https://www.reddit.com/r/progresspics/)
[1] calories in, calories out [2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein-
sparing_modified_fast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein-
sparing_modified_fast)

------
npstr
Exercise isn't only great because it burns calories directly. What it does is
retain / build up muscle, and that in turn increases your base calories
burning rate, each day.

~~~
maxerickson
A pound of muscle (which is a _lot_ ) needs like 8 calories for maintenance.

------
nassyweazy
As someone who lost over 100 pounds (6"2 and from 279 to 169 pounds), I can
honestly say that loosing weight is way easier than it seems, provided you
have a good work-life balance.

I lost the first 45 pounds in 3 weeks by doing the following daily routine:

\- 4 hours of swimming

\- 1.5 hours of weights lifting

\- 3 hours of swimming

\- 2 hours of table tennis

1 BIG lunch, no other meal for the day, TONS of water.

Apps, books and all are completely overrated. Just be motivated and listen to
your body, stop exercise when you reach your limit, rest, repeat..

The other 55+ pounds were lost over 2 years and a half without much exercise,
just find the arrangement of fruits, lightweight cheese and vegetables + tuna
that you love and eat it as often as possible.

~~~
kyleknighted
> good work-life balance

> following daily routine

Honestly curious how you have 10.5 hours to spend at the gym every day, then 8
hours at work, and still have a life? Lost 85 lbs recently myself and have
extremely flexible remote developer hours and still don't think I could find
10 hours a week to spend at a gym.

~~~
nassyweazy
I took 1 month completely off to correct the trajectory of my health. Rest of
the time I just do 2 hours of gym/swimming.

------
forkLding
I lost quite some weight in the past, not as drastic as the writer, but I was
wondering if the writer had any issues with loose skin after losing weight.

------
jlebrech
that's a great result.

did you find exercise made you hungry? maybe that's why going for a run before
bed might be beneficial as you can sleep rather than eat.

~~~
toomanybeersies
I've found exercising right before lunch works really well to avoid this
problem.

Of course, not everyone has the luxury to exercise for half an hour, have a
shower, and then eat lunch in the middle of the day. Any company that doesn't
give their employees adequate time to exercise is just harming itself. Healthy
employees are productive employees.

~~~
jlebrech
maybe that's why walking desks are a good idea.

------
koreyb
Slow carb/4 Hour Body works really well for weight loss. No counting calories.
Just follow a few simple rules. Plus you get a cheat day!

------
googletron
Amazing work! I love [https://gyrosco.pe](https://gyrosco.pe) for this type of
thing.

------
throw7
Congrats on weight loss.

Now you should integrate exercising into your life. At least 150 minutes of
vigorous exercise per week. Do it.

------
_up
Myfitness Pal should publish some data. I would for example like to know if
weather/temp. has a role in appetite.

------
coleifer
Congratulations buddy, I can't imagine how hard that must have been. Thanks
for sharing what you experienced.

------
arsenico
Important to note, that only with metabolism of a young male, it is possible
to lose weight without exercise. I am 37 and restricting my calorie intake
helps, but not greatly. Exercising daily - helped a lot. Most women of 30+
must exercise to lose weight - metabolism is completely different.

~~~
marticode
You are mistaken - all life forms including humans obey the laws of physics.
If you eat at a caloric deficit you _will_ lose weight no matter your age or
if you do exercise.

~~~
FPGAhacker
Ok, this is true, but what happens is the calories burned part changes
dramatically based on hormones. And hormones change quite a bit as you age and
or gain weight, and not in favor of weight loss.

The hormone mix basically tells your body to store some percentage of calories
in as fat. When young and/or fit, this percentage is low. Calories above your
burn rate are stored as glycogen in your muscles, giving you usable energy
stores that will be used when you exercise.

When older or fat or both, calories above your burn rate go to fat cells
waiting to fill back up. As the weight packs on, the percentage increases and
more and more of the calories you consume are going to fat instead of being
burned. Your caloric burn alotment goes down. You lose muscle density.
Testosterone goes down, and the percentage of calories dedicated to fat stores
climbs.

So it is still true, calories in < calories out to lose weight. But perhaps it
would be better to say “calories in < (calories out + calories stored)”

Where calories stored will vary and for fat people it’s much higher than fit.

A fat man can eat the same food and calories as a fit person who does not
exercise, and gain weight and feel tired while the fit person feels an energy
boost.

~~~
LitFan
Your hormone levels and how your body responds to different types of calories
can be changed by changing your diet.

There's also the fact that muscles burn fat whereas fat begets fat storage.

I believe metabolism does slow year over year once you get to a certain age,
but it's difficult to find data on that.

------
2snakes
It will be very difficult to gain muscle eating a caloric deficit, but you CAN
still gain strength.

------
gymshoes
This is inspiring.

Don't skip logging even if you go over your goal and stay consistent. Very
nice points.

------
exabrial
All I have to say is WOW and congrats. That takes commitment!

------
jlebrech
it would be easier to meal prep a few days in advance rather than recording
everything you eat.

------
weatherlight
congrats....but is it healthy to lose 100lb in 276 days? what does that do to
your liver?

------
anonu
> Caloric Deficit == Weight Loss

This is generally contested by recent diet and nutrition research, as I
understand it.

~~~
apexalpha
it can't be. This is physics, not nutrition.

If you have a jar with €100 in it, and you put €9 more in every month but also
take out €10 then you will lose €1, no matter what an economist says.

There is still research being done in how the body reacts to different caloric
deficits, but the basics hold up.

~~~
anonu
Not if the jar pays you an interest rate. I'm being facetious.

But my point is calories out will vary depending on calories in. You can eat
2000 calories of carbs 1 day and 2000 calories of protein the next... turns
out your calories out will be higher when you eat protein because your
metabolism increases. This isn't physics. This is nutrition. And its still not
fully understood IMHO.

------
fapi1974
I think this is the simplest, most straightforward post on this topic I have
read. Congratulations.

------
scrollaway
I'm frustrated reading comments here that repeatedly say "Calories in,
calories out", "law of thermodynamics", etc.

Frustrated because, for one thing, this approach is extremely discouraging to
people who want to, or are in the process of, losing weight. "Jesus you're so
dumb, how can you not understand this one simple thing that you merely have to
eat less?"

1\. What works/worked for you/your friends/whoever you read about on the
internet may not work for everyone. That's because when talking to each other,
neither party has the full picture. Neither party knows exactly the level of
activity and food habits of the other.

"I simply cut X calories from my diet and it worked!" \-- yes, but you also
forgot to mention you bike to work and back home every day.

2\. Calories in != Calories out. CICO is an approximation, a pretty good one
in terms of nutrition, but different foods break down very differently in the
body. I recommend watching "Sugar: The Bitter Truth". TLDW: It's a long
presentation that talks about how glucose and fructose are broken down by the
body.

Furthermore, CICO is super misleading on two levels:

\- It completely ignores hunger. Telling someone "Go down to 1400 calories /
day" can be a horrible idea if they don't radically change their diet. It's
not just about cutting, it's about replacing. There's high-calorie-budget
things you can't keep eating/drinking, and low-calorie-budget things that make
you feel fuller that have to be introduced.

\- _Metabolism matters_. As I was saying further down in the thread, depending
on your metabolism (influenced both by genetics and overall activity level),
two people may burn different amounts of energy, both when they're active and
even passively by merely existing.

So, for all intents and purposes, yes, calories in == calories out. But that's
_not_ the only thing that matters. Get your diet sorted out, get your exercise
plan sorted out, find a strategy that works long term (not just a crash diet)
and that is and feels comfortable. Anything that is uncomfortable/unpleasant
is not something that can be maintained long term.

Also, like the post says, get a digital body scale to start recording your
weight. I got a Nokia Health smart scale which gives me graphs of my weight
automatically. Being able to see the trends is the most critical tool. Can you
imagine getting good performance at load on your servers without
instrumentation, merely by just running top once in a while?

PS, if you're downvoting, take the time to leave a comment. All the above is
from hard-earned experience.

~~~
radix07
CICO IS all that matters at the end of the day. Yes, some people may be
hungry, some may have a faster metabolism, some may do it better with less
carbs, some with less fat, some prefer to only eat within a 4 hour window,
others may just want to lift heavy or run far. That's all great, but we can't
do much about what works best for each individual and everyone needs to find
what works for them. In the end it's all just tricks and moving things around
to consume less calories than we use.

~~~
scrollaway
This is like saying "cpu instructions is all that matters [to programming] at
the end of the day".

CICO is what it breaks down to. But it implies that you can start counting
calories, mathing it out against exercise, and be done. The road to get to
that equation actually working is a long one, one that involves eating
_better_ (not just _less_ ), and getting long term strategies in place. (This
comment is excellent to that point:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17392744](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17392744))

~~~
radix07
CICO is more like Python: print 'hello world!'.

It's crazy simple and there is a ton going on beneath the hood, but nobody
needs to go that deep to get the job done. If you find some other
libraries/tricks that help make your life easier, use them!

If you really want to start optimizing metabolic timings and portioning and
macros and micros and all that, that's great too! But I don't see why getting
started with a healthy diet has to be so complicated: eat healthy, eat less,
burn calories. Don't over think it.

~~~
scrollaway
I'm ok with this analogy, but:

> _But I don 't see why getting started with a healthy diet has to be so
> complicated_

This is a failure on your part. Dieting is an extremely hard and complicated
thing for many, many people, as you can plainly see in this thread. That you
don't see what's so complicated about your suggestion is a hint that you're
missing a part of the picture.

Let's start with "Eat healthy": How do you do that? What do you define as
healthy? How do you do it when you're strapped for cash? How do you even find
healthy food, even if you know what to look for?

"Eat less": How do you determine what to cut? How much of it do you cut? Will
cutting something cause you to crave something else?

"Burn calories": This is the hardest one. There's no easy way of checking how
many calories you burn every day. "20 minutes of running" is very different
from one person to the next, so even timing yourself isn't always enough. At
the gym, machines sometimes have estimates for how much you're burning... but
that's all they are, and it's a tiny tiny portion of how much you are burning.

"Don't over think it": I like what a poster said elsewhere in the comments: We
need to start treating obesity as we treat mental illness. Just as "Just cheer
up" is not an appropriate thing to tell someone clinically depressed, your
suggestions are not useful to someone who is unable to lose weight. Do you
think they haven't tried? What do you think is supposed to happen when people
keep telling them "Just eat less" and it's not working, are they not supposed
to overthink it?

~~~
radix07
Yes, it is a hard thing for many people, I don't question that by any means.
But it's not technically hard, it's mentally and instinctually hard. We have
known how to eat healthy forever, you see something green or meaty that looks
appetizing, we eat it. Now that has gotten harder to filter of course, but we
all know what fruits and vegetables are and that things like Mc Donalds are
bad for you.

Perhaps I am a bit out of touch, but I have never met someone that didn't
really know these things or that more calories are bad, sugar is in everything
that is processed, and that exercise of any sort will help keep you healthy
and lose weight.

Psychologically there is a lot going on with people's relationship with food,
but by just putting more barriers and rules and reading material in front of
them is just confusing the situation.

Start small, cut back a single pop per day for example. That's 15 pounds a
year in calories! Do a couple pushups in the morning. Whatever it takes to get
started and build from there. If you just dump all these "what if's" and "how
to's" in front of everyone they will get distracted from what they need to do
and feel like they failed at something that doesn't need to be that complex.

------
toomanybeersies
To prove a point once, I lost a few kg while eating a diet that consisted
solely of pizza.

Upon saying that, I wouldn't recommend it. The best weight management methods
are holistic, the different facets of healthy weight management: exercise,
meal composition, and serving size, all play into each other.

You want to exercise more, eat less, and eat healthier.

If you eat healthier; whole grains instead of refined carbs, lots of leafy
greens, legumes to replace carbs, and avoid processed foods; then you'll feel
satiated while eating less, both in calories and in just bulk amount of food.

You'll have more energy from a diet consisting of whole foods instead of
refined carbs, which will allow you to exercise more and exercise harder.
There's no reason why you can't burn 800 calories in an hour of hard exercise
with the right diet and motivation. It might be different for other people,
but for me, exercising also makes me want to eat healthier.

I've found that group classes (crossfit, spin, etc.) are a great motivator to
exercise too. If you see the same people every time you go, you form a group
and it becomes a social activity. Obviously that's not for all of us, but I
always struggled with motivation to go to the gym solo. When I started doing
functional fitness group sessions, I couldn't stop. I went to every session (3
times a week) for 8 months, the only sessions I missed were when I was out of
town. Otherwise I'd turn up no matter how I felt, whether tired, sick, or
hungover, I'd drag my arse out.

The big thing is really motivation. Going solo, it's really easy to lose
motivation. If you have friends who are also eating healthy and working out
with you, it really helps. For me, it was other people in my coworking space.
The space was really big into healthy lifestyles, so there were a bunch of us
who would bring healthy food to work and go to the gym together. Another great
tip is to avoid buying any packaged food. Only eat food you've prepared
yourself, that way you don't accidentally eat a bunch of food you don't need
to as you need to physically go out of your way to make food to eat. That may
include cutting bread out of your diet, it's too easy to make a piece of toast
if you're peckish, it's a lot more work to cook a potato.

I didn't lose as much weight as I wanted to because alcohol was a major food
group, but I toned up a whole lot and felt a lot healthier in general. It also
had a positive mental health effect.

Unfortunately I moved overseas and lost my momentum. It's been 8 months since
I've gone to a gym and I've managed to pick up most of my old bad habits
again. At least I can still run 5 km (3 miles) in 30 minutes, so it's not all
gone.

Anyway, my point is: technically, yes, simply counting calories will work for
weight loss. But that's the hard way. You'll feel like shit, constantly hunger
and lacking energy. Take a holistic approach to your health. And if you don't
exercise and eat healthy food, you might get skinny, but you'll still be unfit
and unhealthy, you just won't get a heart attack at 30.

