
How I have lost over 100 pounds and don’t know how - mooreds
https://medium.com/what-i-learned-today/d5da698ee2ba
======
jmduke
There's a massive signal-to-noise issue in the fitness world, particularly
because there's so much value to be made just by making some noise.

For anyone reading this post and inspired to lose weight, I recommend you keep
the following basic tenets in mind when researching a plan/regimen:

1\. You lose weight by eating less calories than your body uses. (As a
corollary, you almost definitely consume more calories than you think you do.
Get a calorie-counting app.)

2\. Being active isn't necessarily crucial to losing weight, but it is crucial
to being more healthy. In particular, lifting weights will help your overall
physique even if you're eating at a caloric deficit -- but the most important
activity is the one that you like enough to make a habit. (Mine is biking, and
occasionally soccer.)

There are a lot of huge fads right now -- in particular, intermittent fasting
(eat once per day), ketogenic diet (eat lots of fat, eat no carbs), and liquid
diets (drink lots of things) seem to be the rage. The reason fads can be
successful usually have less to do with the specific mechanics and minutiae of
their gospel and more to do with the fact that you're conscientious about what
you're putting into your body and diligent about treating it well.

~~~
TelmoMenezes
> 1\. You lose weight by eating less calories than your body uses. (As a
> corollary, you almost definitely consume more calories than you think you
> do. Get a calorie-counting app.)

If this is true, why don't we become incredibly fat or skinny over time? It
would require incredible precision to maintain weight. But a lot of people
seem to be able to do it with no effort...

The reason why this is not true is simple: our organism is not a closed
system, so this thermodynamics truism does not apply. We are able, for
example, to excrete nutrients without digesting them. Our organism is way too
complex for this bromide to have any merit.

~~~
codyb
Also a 1000 calories of sugar are going to do far different things to your
body than a 1000 calories of protein. That's why focusing on calories always
seemed to be the wrong metric to me.

~~~
encoderer
If you mean "far different things" relating to weight gain or loss, I
completely, completely disagree.

In terms of weight gain or loss, a calorie is a calorie is a calorie. That's
why there are fad diets that have and do work for people that each cut
different things. Low carbs in one. Low protein in another. The Cookie Diet
for chrissakes. They work because the common thread between them is caloric
restriction.

Now, if you consume nothing but 2000 calories of Ice Cream every day, you will
surely develop some nutritional issues. And yes that totally will affect your
overall health. But that's something different than what the GP was discussing
(though that may well have been your entire point which is fair.)

One interesting thing I picked up from a Pollan talk on NPR (but have not yet
read the underlying research myself) is that there is some evidence that in
one way all calories are not the same: The mechanics of digestion is affected
by the texture and composition of the food. So 100 calories of crunch granola
seems to be metabolized differently than 100 calories of soft chewy brownie.
But the affect here is how many calories are extracted from the input.

My source for this is a lot of reading and my own personal experiences going
from 6'2, 210 and flabby to 170 and toned, cutting down from 36" waist to 32",
from XL shirts to Medium in the process. I did this primarily over 14 months
and did quite a bit of experimentation in there (Fruit cleanses, Juice
cleanses, egg white protein supplements -- as i'm not a fan of protein
powders), and for the 6 months since, as I've maintained weight and increased
muscle tone.

The composition of my diet has changed but the pattern has held the same and I
believe the pattern is what has had the most effect for me. Without realizing
it, I devised a diet that other people call "intermittent fasting." I consume,
literally, 95% of my calories in 6 hours between 2PM and 8PM (when I have my
lunch, dinner and dessert). I had no idea that this was a "thing" and not just
something peculiar to myself. It works beautifully for me. I gym in the
morning 3 days a week. I feel healthy and skinny and look good in tight
clothing and finally, finally at age 30 feel good about myself physically.

~~~
dkersten
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM)

Also, random internet sites suggest _a calorie is not a calorie is not a
calorie_. For example:

[http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/06/when-a-
calorie...](http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/06/when-a-calorie-is-
not-just-a-calorie/)

------
justindhill
Am I the only person who enjoyed reading this guy's story? I'm happy that he's
found a lifestyle that works for him. The amount of skepticism and criticism
in this thread is off the charts...

~~~
dalmaer
I appreciate that. It is very interesting to see people jump on what I did or
even more _did not_ say in one post about a personal experience.

I think people need to realize that:

People are just trying their best!

Holy negativity. And in that I appreciate your comment Justin :)

~~~
supercanuck
I just noticed you are the author, but I am a lurker and very much enjoyed
some of your book recommendations and personal anecdotes. It has inspired me
because I can tell your thought processes are similar to my own, so it
resonates.

In the sea of HN pessimism, I thought you'd appreciate hearing from a
stranger.

------
voidlogic
When it comes to exercise I'm always concerned by how many people, when making
changes like this, omit strength training. Don't do that-

1\. Without strength training (and adequate protein consumption) during
negative calorie periods, you will loose muscle. Without strength training
your body will happily shed muscle and fat, most of use really just want to
loose the fat.

2\. Muscle increases your base resting calorie use, and is a multiplier of any
other exercise you do.

3\. Muscle is important for maintaining bone health and general health as we
age.

I have even had health professionals tell me that when it comes to daily
routines, diet + 30-60 min walking + 30 min weight training is better for your
body then regular intense cardio. Thats not to say you should shy away from a
tennis match or soccer game, or fencing a couple times a week, but if we are
talking about what we do every day-

------
mahyarm
\- Don't eat 600 calorie bombs from carls jr that fit inside the palm of your
hand and don't fill you up still. Eat more satiating food for the calories,
which is fibrous vegetables and proteins. Avoid liquid calories and other such
things that are easy to overeat.

\- Eat like my skinny indian friend. He takes a bite, chews it for quite a
while, and then take another bite about a few minutes later. He doesn't do
this on purpose, it's completely habitual. Such a slow eating speed really
helps him stay skinny.

\- Stop snacking on high calorie nuts, chips and bars. If you just habitually
nibble on food that is in front of you until it's gone, recognize that and
don't put food infront of you.

~~~
Someone
Alternatively, and easier for some: put low calory food in front of you. It
may be possible to grow fat from eating raw celery and tomatoes, but it
certainly is harder than growing fat from eating burgers and chocolate.

~~~
voidlogic
>It may be possible to grow fat from eating raw celery and tomatoes

Doing this with celery will be more difficult as it takes more energy to
digest than is gained from it.

I had a humorous image in my mind of someone trying to get fat via only
veggies, imagine the volume of food they would have to eat every day!

Examples: The Kimchi I had with lunch was 15 calories, the half bag of russels
sprout I had last night (excluding the oil oil cooked in) 130 calories.

Edit: Why the downvote?

~~~
cwzwarich
> Examples: The Kimchi I had with lunch was 15 calories, the half bag of
> russels sprout I had last night (excluding the oil oil cooked in) 130
> calories.

I'm not one of the downvoters, but "satiety of eating unrestricted quantities
of vegetables outweighs any caloric intake" approach only works if you don't
add fats or sugar sauces.

~~~
voidlogic
I'm pretty sure I didn't recommend eating unrestricted amounts of veggies, I
did laugh about the idea. After all, I would have to eat a walmart/target size
bag FULL of brussel sprouts to get my daily allowance of calories from brussel
sprouts. That is a huge volume of food! I'm not sure if would be possible.

I was responding to someone talking about eating "raw celery". Vegetables in
general are low in calories (before as you and I mentioned, oil sugar etc are
added), BUT raw celery is well known to have a net negative impact.

~~~
celeryreally
Celery does not have a negative net impact.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celery#Nutrition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celery#Nutrition)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_calorie_food](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_calorie_food)

It's a common misconception.

~~~
voidlogic
I stand corrected- thats what I get for believing what I was talk in
highschool health class. Celery is simply very low in calories.

Btw, why would you create a user name just to post the above?

~~~
celeryreally
Because I didn't have an account (having previously nothing to contribute).

------
ry0ohki
I thought the article was going somewhere different, but it appears the answer
is "diet and exercise"...

~~~
whazzmaster
It's tough to for any author to reduce the concepts of weight management
beyond 'calories in' and 'calories out.'

I've been on a weight rollercoaster for the past 10 years, varying between 180
and 230 lbs and I've read many of the same books the author names, and while
they all may lead to self-discovery on what makes YOUR body tick, none of them
contain the mystical ONE THING that will cause you to lose 20 lbs in one week.
In this I agree whole-heartedly with the author.

For those that are very overweight, I do highly recommend the advice to change
your diet first, without starting an extensive exercise regimen. Many folks'
regular diet is so bad that just eating healthy food and drinking water will
cause them to lose 5+ lbs in the first week. You need to buy-in early on to
the idea that exercise isn't about burning off the food you ate (as that's
impossible) but about raising your metabolism and conditioning your body.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It's also not very hard to lose 5lb if you are morbidly obese.

Harris-Benedict predicts that an individual should have an equilibrium
bodyweight depending on their activity level and mean caloric intake. When
your actual weight deviates from equilibrium, you will approach it along an
exponential curve.

This means that if you alter your diet, your initial loss (or gain) will be
rapid, while later losses/gains will be very slow. Graphs here:

[http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/weight_stability.html](http://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2011/weight_stability.html)

------
dhughes
ctrl+f "gluten" and "paleo" yup, circle jerk is on.

I'm sorry to be negative but it seems such a fad people convince themselves
and others gluten is equivalent to cyanide. We've been through the Atkins junk
he even died from it. I know people with Celiac and it's a daily struggle it's
not a trendy disease if you actually have it, you can't even have pepper since
most commercial pepper is dusted with wheat flour.

Can't we all agree to valid nutritional information from independent double-
blind studies nothing with "supports" or a pil helping your immune system (an
extremely complex...you guess it a 'system' not one thing that can be affected
by one molecule.)

I weight more now than I ever have and I know why it's because I started
working shift work, stopped going to the gym, drank energy drinks and went to
Starbucks daily. To get back to being healthy I reverse what I did wrong so
back to eating buckets of gluten and carbs but be active.

I'm all for health and good nutrition but these days it seems like nothing is
good unless it's some extreme diet. US and Canada beverages are extreme, food
portions are extreme, exercise is extreme (bootcamps jogging? bah!), vehicles
are extreme now diets are extreme.

------
vmarsy
Interesting post, the author can be proud. Not being from the united states,
and now living there since one year , here is my 2 cent , I think these are
the most important points of the post and my own advices:

\- Drink water only, no soda, even diet coke and whatnot.

\- Avoid sugars (I'd say especially high corn fructose syrup).

\- Eat vegetables, cooked in good olive oil in a pan, it's really good. I
don't know about other oils, the Mediterranean lifestyle with olive oil works
great, and olive oil tastes better.

\- Avoid too salty food (preprocessed food will be too salty.)

\- Sleep well, stop watching at screens (TV/computer/ipad) an hour before
sleeping. reading a book before going to sleep is great.

Attempting to reduce the problem to : >" it's basically a physics problem
(calories_in < calories_out to lose weight)" is completely wrong I think, the
"Try eating 2,000 calories of pasta versus 2,000 calories of chicken" comment
speaks by itself.

I disagree with the " “listen to your body, and eat when it is hungry, not
because it is a certain time” routine. " Stick to regular hours for eating,
breakfast, meal and dinner. But the most important is not to eat in between
the meals. If you eat good food you won't even feel hungry

Finally, stop trying to measure everything, relax.

~~~
Proleps
> _no soda, even diet coke and whatnot._

Why?, there are a lot of diet sodas that do not contain any calories.

> _Avoid too salty food (preprocessed food will be too salty.)_

Why, salt doesn't contain any calories.

Going on a diet is very hard in the first place, giving up these two things
doesn't seem to make much sense. It will only make a difficult lifestyle
change even more difficult.

~~~
mike_herrera
Aspartame, the artificial sweetener in many diet soda products, is a
controversial topic. For many years it was thought that it may cause insulin
spikes or even increase the risk of cancer. But studies have shown that the
folk-lore links between aspartame and cancer have been unmerited.

The most convincing argument to avoid aspartame has been a behavioral reason.
Sweets beget sweets. By enjoying an artificially-sweet diet soda it will be
easier to choose a conventional sweet treat if you wander back into the
kitchen.

Also, as anyone who has abstained from sweets can attest, after a few days the
idea of sweet candies just don't sound appealing.

------
boneheadmed
There is a real problem for a subset of people regarding food addiction -
particularly to sugar and certain carbohydrates. I am personally aware of
people who have lost 50 to as much as 300+ lbs through a 12 step program
called FA. It is not for everyone, but for some it has been a life-saver.
[http://www.foodaddicts.org/](http://www.foodaddicts.org/)

------
cliveowen
That's an awful lot of words for saying that eating right leads to a healthier
life.

Way too many people tend to write a poem to express even the simplest idea.
Concision is paramount in communicating.

~~~
unclebucknasty
As I read the article, I became pleasantly surprised at how it evolved into a
story about a guy learning to live a more holistic life vs just one of losing
weight.

I think that evolution was the author's journey, and it was what he was trying
to communicate by recounting it for us.

~~~
dalmaer
Thank you. This is not a post from a diet guru trying to sell anything. This
is a personal story about how one change is leading to a mindset change. The
details of labeling a diet are not the point. Thanks for seeing a bigger
picture.

~~~
unclebucknasty
Absolutely. I encourage and am encouraged by anyone who is on a quest for
personal development. That you additionally chose to share your story
(including your struggles) in such detail was an act of generosity. I
appreciate the many references, novel insights, and opportunities for my own
self-reflection.

Continued success to you.

------
nmerouze
He doesn't know how but he knows he loses weight by dieting and exercise, link
bait title.

Furthermore, what he describes is a typical low-carb diet which works by
suppressing your immune system (my experience with a low-carb diet, and the
experiences of most people I know who have done a low-carb diet for long
enough). After burning all your fat, you will get sick as hell (I had a 1
month fever at my lowest weight before deciding to stop it).

People with great metabolism can be fine on low-carb. But if you're seriously
overweight, your metabolism is probably not great.

Slow carb diet by Tim Ferriss is a bit better because you ingest more carbs
(and the cheating day maintain your immune system).

If you have cold feets/hands, inflammation (swollen gums for example),
bloating, slow pulse, low libido or anything not normal, then your diet is not
the right one.

~~~
sethammons
How low did your body fat percentage get down to? I've been 'mostly paleo-ish'
for two years. I know people who have been strict on the lifestyle. There are
only health-gains talked about. By low carb, do you mean you avoided vegetable
carbs too? Did you try "no wheat/gluten/processed foods" but still a metric
tonne of veggies and non-lean meats?

~~~
nmerouze
I did paleo for 9 months. No wheat, gluten. Veggies, some sweet potatoes and
nuts, lots of meat (lean and non-lean). I lost 30 pounds (I wasn't really
overweight). I don't know my body fat % at that time but I pretty sure it was
lower than 15%. Exercising 3 times a week (Weight training).

I had carb craving all-day long even after eating 2000+ calories. I was
between 50g and 100g of carb per day (as recommended by Mark's Daily Apple and
some others). At the end I feel bad, always tired (exact opposite than at the
beginning) and I got very sick for a month (first time in my life).

I'm now eating fruits and protein (no wheat, gluten, processed food) and
sometimes dairy. I feel far better for more than a year now (without
fluctuations like with paleo). I've gained some weight (because my metabolism
was really low) but I'm now dropping weight without any change. It is a long-
term diet I'm not expecting to drop 10 pounds in a month (I've tried paleo
again for a week recently and didn't even lost a pound BTW).

~~~
rjh29
A lot of people lose the carb craving after a few days, but it doesn't work
for everybody. While I didn't "crave" carbs per se, I really did not enjoy not
eating bread. What really worked for me is skipping breakfast and skipping
carbs for dinner (just meat and veg). Even though I don't do that every day
due to social events, I can lose 1lb/week or so without much trouble.

30lb/9 month is pretty impressive, good luck with your endeavours!

------
johnchristopher
I am more interested in his next post: "Five years later and I am going to
tell you how I managed to keep the lost weight off"

> I took some pills, specifically raspberry ketones, a multi-vitamin, and cod
> liver / fish oil. I went back and forth on these, and then decided to drop
> them. I may go back to the oils, but I think vitamins may be snake oil. It
> is hard to really tell though.

Vitamins are snake oil. Ok.

(And what the hell is a "dev aggregator" ?)

Calories in, calories out. Abs are 90% made in the kitchen. Go to the doctor
when it hurts or feel unusual.

~~~
johnking
Agreed up until calories in, calories out. I know what you mean, but that way
of thinking is quite dated. It's clear these days that the macronutrient
composition of the diet also needs to be taken seriously.

~~~
carbocation
Doesn't matter from a chemical perspective, because the law of conservation of
energy/mass is not violated. But it is true that hormonal response makes it
easier or harder to stay with a diet.

~~~
johnchristopher
It is also about feeling good, being healthy and not obese versus feeling bad,
being sick and not obese.

~~~
carbocation
Yes, I agree with you re: the emotional effect of different dietary choices.

------
Jedd
Seems to be a lengthy yet incomplete summary of the first 1/5th of The Four
Hour Body (cited, at least).

Likewise I don't know where the 'I don't know how' bit fits in, given there's
a massive explanation of how provided.

I am guessing written by a North American, given the 'we' in "I am frustrated
with the lack of understanding that we have around nutrition, exercise and
health". I shall assume the 'we' refers to 'people near me'.

------
espeed
Wow, this is almost exactly what I did last year, and I had the same results
-- went from ~260 lbs to 180 lbs.

Cut out wheat, cut out sugar except whole fruits (no fruit juice because as
Lustig pointed out, "you get all the fructose and none of the fiber" to
counter balance), cut out diet soda and caffine and now only drink water
(spring, filtered, or distilled), cut out peanuts (they were causing
inflammation --
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4344167](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4344167)),
eat protein in the morning and make sure I consume enough nutrients throughout
the day to keep my system in balance.

For me, cutting out wheat was one of the key factors
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5693679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5693679))
because I suspect the wheat/yeast was throwing my intestinal microbes out of
balance ([http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/health/studies-focus-on-
gu...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/28/health/studies-focus-on-gut-bacteria-
in-weight-loss.html)) and causing inflamation so when I cut it out, things
returned to homeostasis.

------
shanev
Despite the sensationalist headline, the author knew exactly what he was
doing. He basically did a paleo diet, and references a bunch of books that are
popular in the community. Mark's Daily Apple features a success story like
this every Friday:
[http://www.marksdailyapple.com](http://www.marksdailyapple.com).

~~~
dirtyvagabond
Agreed. I found the author's account inspiring, and I immediately recognized
his overall outline as a basic paleo diet. I started down a paleo path fairly
recently, hoping to lose a few pounds. I surprised myself by realizing after
about a week that I was feeling so much better physically, I wasn't very
concerned anymore about a relatively few extra pounds.

FWIW, it was the "Latest in Paleo" podcast that inspired me to try a paleo
approach to life. It's one of the overall best podcasts I've had the pleasure
of subscribing to:
[http://www.latestinpaleo.com/podcast/](http://www.latestinpaleo.com/podcast/)

I wish Dion all the best with making his success long term!

~~~
shanev
Latest in Paleo is a great resource to keep up with health news, and Anthony
Coppola is a very inspiring guy. I really like Robb Wolf's podcast as well as
it occasionally has some science (scary!) for us who like to geek out on this
stuff: [http://robbwolf.com/podcast/](http://robbwolf.com/podcast/). I lost 45
lbs within the first three months. There's no way I'd eat any differently
anymore.

------
BrentRitterbeck
I've suffered with excess weight most of my life. It doesn't help that sit at
a desk for up to twelve hours a day. There's more to losing weight than just
calories out are more than calories in. You have to be active. I've been on a
reduced calorie diet. Sure, you'll lose weight at first; however, if you don't
develop a healthy lifestyle (getting out and doing things on a regular basis)
the weight will just come back.

When I left for undergrad over ten years ago, I was heavy. During my undergrad
years, I walked everywhere or rode a bike everywhere. I lost about fifty
pounds in two years. I put all of it back on and more once I graduated and
started working at a desk all day. I feel miserable everyday now because of
all this excess weight I carry, which is why I've decided to start riding a
bike again everywhere when I get back to California on Monday. I'm finally
going to put the car to rest.

------
jstsch
> Within two weeks I lost ~20 pounds.

More than a pound a day, I can almost not believe this. In pure fat that would
be about 5000kcal a day.

~~~
VLM
Well, about twenty implies not much better than one sig fig, so I'm not
willing to go more precise than around a pound/day.

A pound of fat is a mere 3500 calories. Why can he only be losing pure 100%
fat? As a farmer rule of thumb a pound of raw cow is only about 1000 calories.
I looked it up on google and its actually closer to 1300. Anyway the point is
that your average people-of-walmart dieter probably biologically internally
resembles a cow more than, say, a tank of olive oil, so I'd expect a delta-
one-pound for a human to be much closer than 1300 or so input calories. If on
the other hand you are a tank of biodiesel wondering how many calories of
olive oil to add to weight one more pound, then sure it'll take 3500, but us
mammals are more "a bit over a thousand cal per pound" in overall bulk
average. Not this 3500 foolishness.

Finally maybe TMI but at the fattest weight I was ever at, given my height, a
basal metabolic rate calculator estimated me at around 2500 calories just
laying around doing nothing, like in a coma. But I like long distance hikes
and stuff like that and even just housework burns more than the catatonic
basal estimate. So I can easily see 3500 cal going out per day, cutting intake
back to a "mere" 2200 calories per day coming in, net big mammal carcass
equivalent of 1300 cal per pound, ta da, loss of a pound a day still eating a
chezeburger for dinner.

Its quite achievable.

~~~
zerohp
Obese humans are nothing like a cow internally. Cows going to slaughter have
between 19 and 26% body fat. Obesity in humans starts around 26% for men and
the people-of-walmart you're imaging are 40-50% body fat. Cows are also
herbivores and process food in a different way than humans.

This kind of bad logic is why people have such a hard time tracking calories
to lose weight.

------
garysweaver
You can gain back a lot more than you lose, even if you get into a habit of
"better" eating and more exercise for months.

You probably think that exercising and eating "better" should be fine, because
anything you do for three weeks becomes a habit, right? Well, not exactly. Bad
habits can be much harder to break, and you may not have really broken them
the way you think you have: [http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/form-a-
habit.htm](http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/form-a-habit.htm)

Be really careful before a drastic change to your diet and exercise habits
just to lose 10-15 lbs, especially if your doctor and the majority of those
close to you don't think you need to lose weight. It can backfire.

However, a gradual change, especially when you can do it in a reasonable,
sustainable way, can be a great idea.

------
raymondduke
I think he contradicts himself by saying,

"I am the same person now as I was then. I am not a better person,"

and then, a few paragraphs down...

"Mentally I was so much happier, my mood changed and I was able to deal with
other things so much better."

I think when you shed weight, you change -- both physically and mentally.

I wrote an article about phantom buzzing/ringing (when you feel/hear your
phone ringing when it's not) and its occurrence follows the same principle of
your brain making adjustments to your body. I think the key takeaway in this
article is you have to "re-program" your mind, over time, to get certain
outcomes.

------
billb2112
I don't get the title at all. It seems like a very concerted effort using a
bit of trial and error, changing things, seeing what works, what doesn't and
having success. Or did I miss the joke?

~~~
rjh29
Agreed. At first I thought he'd just woke up on morning and been like "Wow,
I've lost a lot of weight".

~~~
kokey
I was thinking more along the lines of the title being what most people in
London are thinking on a Saturday morning.

------
vajrasar
I've read an awful lot on the topic of weight reduction. I wont say that the
article states something unique but I do appreciate the detailing. Good read.

------
b0rsuk
“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” ― Hippocrates

As for myself, I don't know whom to trust anymore, but there are a few common
themes: \- varied diet is better \- raw food (not processed) is better. You
haven't evolved eating processed food. \- use very little or no sugar. It's
related to be above, really - humans used to be unable to get so much sugar.

------
bestest
front page? seriously? you guys don't cease to surprise.

~~~
jacques_chester
HN has lots of people who read a diet book that taught them a Deep Secret
about weight; they're bursting to share it with the unenlightened masses. So
up they go.

------
iooi
Figured I might as well take advantage of this thread to ask the opposite
question: what is the best way to _gain_ weight?

I stopped gaining weight at around 17 and have weighed 120 since. I wish I
could eat more but I am just not that hungry every day, it's hard getting in
my 3 meals.

~~~
dmourati
[http://www.scrawnytobrawny.com/](http://www.scrawnytobrawny.com/)

------
antidaily
Weight loss always seems to be the most compelling of all personal
transformations. Maybe its the before and after pics.

------
everyone
Misleading title. Was expecting article on some mystery disease.

------
suki
> 20 pounds in first 2 weeks... > vegetables... high protein... no sugar... >
> purposefully didn’t start exercising yet... > Gary Taubes ...

I've seen exactly this a few times. None of those people were _very_ fat to
begin with.

------
bpatrianakos
3/4 of the way through I thought I might be reading a big ad. But I'm glad
this guy is doing well anyway.

------
rfnslyr
I've lost over 120 pounds. It's not very hard. I started powerlifting and
eating extremely clean, counting all my calories, getting in 8-9 hours of
sleep a night.

Now I can squat 315lbs+, Deadlift 450+, and bench 250+. Feels good.

------
moron4hire
If losing fat were as easy as "calories in = calories out", then more people
would do it. While it is strictly true, the problem is that you we don't
understand the exact equations for both calories in and calories out, and we
often don't have control over the parameters. What will you do about you gut
flora, which can alter just how efficiently calories in concerts to calories
out?

There are many and powerful issues at hand. You cannot just dismiss the issue
as thermogenic.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>If losing fat were as easy as "calories in = calories out", then more people
would do it.

It is _simple_ , not easy. Do not confuse the two.

~~~
moron4hire
Bite me, Poindexter.

------
readme
>I am annoyed at myself for letting me get to be ~300 pounds in the first
place (the main point about that is that I let myself get that unhealthy, to a
point where I increased my risk of death, which was irresponsible given the
fact that I have family and friends)

Though I would feel worse about it if you did not have friends, either way
becoming unhealthy is irresponsible because it causes a public burden. If you
die, someone is going to have to come clean your body up. Whether any of your
money makes it to the pocket of those people is irrelevant.

No one likes cleaning up dead bodies. Just because you are paying a doctor,
does not mean you are 100% entitled and you _aren 't_ creating a burden.
Doctors take an oath to help the sick. They _have_ to help you in an
emergency. Whether you are paying or not.

This for me is one of the major holes in libertarianism.

~~~
jes
I consider becoming unhealthy as irrational, because it leads to a diminished
quality of life for me and the people I care about.

~~~
readme
I agree. Also, I did not mean "you" specifically in my comment. I meant it
generally.

The OP (your) story in general is great. I was just trying to pontificate on
something unpopular.

