

I lost 60 pounds this year. How can I best share what I've learned? - melindajb

I am bootstrapping a startup, and went on quite a journey this year to losing 60 pounds.  I&#x27;ve learned a lot.  I have requests to write about what I learned but the last thing anyone overweight needs is another preachy, judgy post that says, &quot;it&#x27;s easy!&quot;<p>to that end, if you tell me what you want to know, I&#x27;m hoping to make it more useful to the community as a whole.<p>Here are some potential topics:<p>diet, aka &quot;yes, this stuff is hard.&quot;
exercise, aka &quot;how I learned to love running after being a couch potato for 40 years&quot;
Psychology: managing all the crap around this and the feelings it brought up. 
resources: books, apps, tools, inspiration, playlists. 
Gut Health: what I&#x27;ve learned about probiotics<p>I&#x27;m no expert at all in anything other than myself, but I&#x27;ve had so many requests to tell how it was done, I thought this would be more scalable than 1x1 conversations.  And where else but Hacker News would I get the unvarnished feedback on how to present it.<p>Watch the fat shaming please in your responses.  While I could care less what you call me, there are a lot of your peers out there struggling mightily with this issue who feel pretty bad about themselves. Think of them before you speak.  Thanks.
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Wogef
First off- congratulations, that’s an awesome accomplishment.

On fitness “advice”, solicited and otherwise. I am a long time fitness
enthusiast, I look like a bodybuilder. This makes one a bit of a pariah in the
startup/tech community. Geeks are not muscular, if you are into body
modification from a transhumanist perspective you’d best do it in some
socially acceptable way like piercing or tattoos. This means people are
perfectly comfortable telling you, positive or negative precisely what they
think of how you look in a manner that they would never consider doing with an
overweight person.

Part of this is posing fitness “questions” under the impression that in a
business environment, dressed in professional attire, what I really want to
talk about how I happen to look. 90% of these are not really questions, they
are round about ways of making it clear to me they are not responsible for how
they look- as if I care or am judging them somehow.

The other 10% of questions there is nothing really you can do for them even if
you were inclined- “tightening their core”, “get cut and put on some muscle”,
“Best exercise for a six-pack” are no more answerable than “My Internet is
slow, what is the best computer to buy to make it go faster?”. All you can do
is shake the Magic 8 ball and give them a spectacularly oversimplified answer
that won’t do any harm, but unless it’s the answer they already have in mind
they will just ignore you. The real answer for "where do I start" is not
something they want or will do so I never bother giving it anymore.

It may feel like you had a great epiphany, but it’s highly unlikely that you
discovered some groundbreaking new method for body recomposition. Outside of
the realm of very, very elite athletes none of this data is proprietary or
secret. All of the information that most people need to achieve a reasonable
fitness goal is freely available- they just have other priorities and there is
nothing wrong with that. These people are not unfit because they have not
heard your secrets to losing 60lbs in a year, they are unfit because that goal
is not a priority in the same way it was for you. Trumpeting, or in my
experience even relaying your own methods does not achieve much unless you are
a professional in the business of charging for that information.

That being said, if it it personally satisfying it’s certainly something you
should do.

~~~
melindajb
There is nothing new at all about what I did. I do not claim to have new or
proprietary information. In fact as I've met with friends who seek me out to
learn more, that's what I start my answers with. "I have bad news for you,
it's mostly what you already know."

Again, I said said to the poster below, I continue to be fascinated with how
others interpret words in their own filter. I never claimed anything I did was
"proprietary or secret"\--that assumption came from you.

That said, I learned things that appear, at least in early conversations to be
useful to others, or new to them. What is perhaps driving me is how many
people are asking for more information. Perhaps because I was so overweight
for so long people see it differently. I am surprised to find people telling
me I inspire them. If I can help others figure some part of this out, or it
unlocks just one good habit for them, it'll be worth it. I'm definitely not
looking to get rich or sell anything. I see this as my gift to my friends or
anyone else who cares to read it. I see this as a gift to myself, a
celebration of my own accomplishment, a record and a motivation, and the gift
of not having to have 20 more 2 hour conversations about it. :)

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logn
Random idea... what about a browser plugin that presents a random tip on
opening a new tab or starting up? I can't imagine you'll rise above the noise
with books, videos, or blogs.

~~~
melindajb
now that's some hacker news ingenuity. exactly why I came here. Love it.

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ScottWhigham
I don't really know how to "answer" here. Do what you want in the manner you
want to do it. At some point, you have to question the "Why am I interested in
doing this?" question. Is it ego? Is it to be helpful? Is it to show off? Do
you ultimately want to become the next Jared [1]? What's the end goal here?

I'm not judging - I'm pointing out a valid discussion you need to have
internally. This post makes it seem more ego-driven - and there's nothing
wrong with that. But having that internal discussion will help you solve a lot
of this.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Fogle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Fogle)

~~~
melindajb
the end goal is to help people in a scalable way. Sorry it comes off as ego
driven. I'm sincerely trying to find out what people care about before being
one of those people who write about themselves.

I've wrestled with a few different structures and thought it would be fun to
put this out there and see what happens.

I find it interesting how often others want to assign motivations to each
other. Reminds me of the time I was at a professional function, and ordered
the fruit. All of a sudden half the table was staring at me, and making
comments, like "oh I worked out today, I can have this" even though I'd said
absolutely nothing.

for now, I'm asking you to trust that my motivations are sincere and trying to
find the best way to share.

~~~
eshvk
It is still not clear how you wish to help people. Maybe, posting your story
in reddit/r/loseit would help? Otherwise, write a blog or go on a tour and
talk about what you did.

P.S: Congrats on the weight loss. It is a hard long process and I hope you
were able to learn good habits which make it a lifestyle rather than a
question of going on periodic diets.

~~~
melindajb
thanks. the answer is yes. otherwise I wouldn't feel I had much to share. I've
been a/b testing on myself, in series, for awhile.

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thejteam
You could start a MLM life-coaching business. I met a lady in an
entrepreneurship class I was taking was was working in one of those. She had a
similar weight story to you.

I don't necessarily advocate this by the way. The point I want to make is that
the best way to scale 1-1 conversations is to have other people participate in
the conversation as well. For some things, weight loss being of them I think,
1-1 conversations with a person telling their story is more powerful than
other methods of communication. Even books(which are my favorite, you can
always write a book).

~~~
melindajb
LOL! no, I'm a product/tech geek through and through. running a pure services
business is _not_ for me. That said, the idea of scaling the conversation with
others is exactly the type of idea I was seeking on hacker news.

Writing a book? I've thought perhaps if any writing I were to do were well
received, I might try an ebook, but given the work of the startup it's not a
priority.

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Bahamut
Two of the most important things when it comes to weight loss are motivation
and dedication. You have to want to lose weight to an almost emotional degree,
and the dedication to keep at what you need to do to continue to lose weight
even if your body starts to create excuses.

It's hard to get people inspired to do so though. It's often something that
person has to become driven to do.

Alternatively, one can join the Marine Corps and let the drill instructors in
boot camp motivate you to exercise.

~~~
jaredsohn
>Alternatively, one can join the Marine Corps and let the drill instructors in
boot camp motivate you to exercise.

Except weight loss is more about diet than exercise. If you're looking for
that motivation (while not strictly necessary for weight loss, exercise can be
motivating toward being healthy), a less drastic alternative it to get private
instruction at a gym or through an activity such as pilates.

Many people have written about their weight loss / body transformation
experiences on reddit.com/r/loseit and reddit.com/r/fitness; do some searches
to get an idea about what others have written and the responses they got.

~~~
melindajb
excellent suggestions of resources. thank you!

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dpweb
I lost 40. Put on a fitbit, set the weight goal and did what it says to do -
EVERY DAY. Took about 2-3 months. I didn't find it hard.

I know many people struggle. What fascinates me about the experience - I'm no
different than anyone else, but this was not painful or even difficult. I just
kinda blindly did what it says to do. People fail. Isn't the trick not what to
do, everyone knows how a body loses weight. How do you trigger in people's
minds the motivation and discipline? Now, I'm generally pretty lazy. I don't
like chores. I just walked my 10k steps logged my food and it didn't seem like
work.

~~~
lifeisstillgood
errr - tell me more ... the fit it tells you what to do?

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lazylizard
in singapore, we have a conscript army. after our stint in the army, theres 10
years of reservist activities and a requirement to pass a fitness test yearly.
failing that fitness test generally means 2mths of 2-3 2+ hours' remedial
training sessions/week. a couple of years ago an option became available to
overweight people to lose weight and hit some sort of bmi target in lieu of
passing the fitness test. that is the motivation. i lost ~20 kgs(waaaay
overdid it) in a couple of months by replacing all the rice in my diet to
brocolli or tofu and smoking more instead of snacking. the problem i have this
year is i dont qualify for that weight loss program anymore..

