
Weight Loss Is Harder Than Rocket Science - vo2maxer
https://www.wsj.com/articles/weight-loss-is-harder-than-rocket-science-11580396067
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andrwm
I didn't find that this article stated much that was worthy of discussion, but
here are some random thoughts on the general topic:

A large number of our decisions are based on maximizing convenience while
moderating cost. Foods, especially convenient foods, are engineered to sell
and addict. It’s hard to maintain a healthy weight and body composition in a
modern world without some effort. I also think that the body is particularly
good at resisting change. It appears that if you’ve been overweight for a
while, the difficultly of losing extra weight increases dramatically. And the
toll on your health over time in terms of probability of disease is real.

I have never been particularly overweight, but I am aware of what I eat, and I
do weigh myself on a regular basis to ensure I stay within a somewhat
arbitrary range. The exercise part of the equation is easy for me to fulfill
because I naturally enjoy exercise, though some injuries have tested my
ability to stay active at times.

Preventing excessive weight gain is very important to long-term health.

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azhu
Weight loss is hard because it requires deep lifestyle change and deep
lifestyle change is most certainly harder than any science.

~~~
alfonsodev
I’d add that lifestyle change is hard(or not) because is subjective to oneself
experience of life.

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k__
It's simple in theory: Eat less than you need.

But the problems that can arise are manifold.

I don't know if there really is a maximum of calories your body can use per
day, but I read the number of 65000 kcal once.

This means, a "cheat day" or simply loosing control one day a week, can
destroy all your progress.

A calorie delta that is too high can easily lead to such losses of control,
especially if you are easily stressed.h

So you try to get a delta of around 500kcal a day, maybe 1000kcal if you can
handle this. But how do you know what you're using a day? There are many
methods to find out and they can be off more than 500kcal, so it could very
well be that your actual delta is much higher or lower than you think. So
you're either making really slow progress or can't keep it up for the months
you'd need to.

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simonblack
I don't know where I read it but this to me is the crux of the whole
situation:

"If you hate having to burn off those extra calories, don't put them in your
body in the first place."

By having a rough idea of what burning off off (say) 300 Calories takes in
physical exercise, and what the Calorie-content of your foods are, you'll find
it easier think of what you're eating in terms of hard work. A sushi roll is
roughly 200 Calories, or 30 minutes hard work.

The choice then becomes - "Would you rather have that sushi roll? Or would you
rather have to work out strenuously for 30 minutes? Choose now!"

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fian
If you are interested in a simple primer on the chemistry and biochemistry of
weight loss, check out this episode of ABC (Australia) Catalyst:

[https://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/where-does-fat-
go/11015048](https://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/where-does-fat-go/11015048)

The overall balanced equation is quite simple, showing fat molecules convert
to CO2 and H2O. It shows quite clearly that you have to breathe oxygen in and
carbon dioxide out in order to lose weight. I guess this is why high intensity
exercise or endurance exercise aid in weight loss - in both cases you are
elevating your breathing while at the same time exhausting your muscle
glycogen stores.

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js1909
If weight is proportional to volume and not area, then it should be a function
of height cubed, not height squared. This is why I came up with CBMI -- the
cubic body mass index. Just take your height in feet (expressed as a decimal,
so that 5'6" = 5.5') and cube it. That's your ideal weight. Much simpler and
much more forgiving than BMI.

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patrickaljord
Surprising it doesn't mention waist to height ratio which is more accurate to
me. I had a normal bmi but I was clearly overweight using the waist to height
ratio. Not perfect but better in my opinion than bmi [http://www.bmi-
calculator.net/waist-to-height-ratio-calculat...](http://www.bmi-
calculator.net/waist-to-height-ratio-calculator/)

~~~
texasbigdata
How about just body fat percentage?

~~~
dorfsmay
It is difficult/expensive to calculate accurately.

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tiew9Vii
You can get a "Resting Metabolic Rate Test" that takes 15 minutes. That will
tell you the base calories you need to maintain current body weight by
measuring the amount of oxygen your body burns while breathing. I think I paid
less than $100 for this.

You can also get a Dexta scan that tells you your body body composition, how
much fat, how much muscle mass. I think I pay $70 every scan and get one a
couple of times a year. You can use this data also to calculate estimated
required calories, body composition, are you loosing fat/muscle and gives data
to change diet accordingly.

You only need to be in a small 300 cal deficit to loose weight. If you want to
maintain muscle mass and drop body fat it's better to be in the smallest
deficit possible and this will also reduce hunger.

If you want to loose body weight quickly and maintain muscle that's hard! That
does require a bigger calorie deficit by reducing food, and increasing
activity (cardio) to burn more while getting macros exactly right to hold on
to as much muscle as possible although you will loose muscle. Bodybuilders are
experts at this, they pile on weight during the off season so they are in a
calorie surplus so they can gain muscle then diet down to single digit body
fat percentages trying to hold as much muscle as possible.

Everyone talks about loosing weight but you can not weigh much and be fat aka
skinny fat and unfit. Alot of 'slim' people will fit in to this category
unless they have an active lifestyle.

The modern normalized diet is terrible. It's carb / sugar heavy. There's
nothing wrong with carbs you need them but people are eating far to many of
them while not burning them and everything is sugar heavy which your body
naturally wants to eat more of.

My girlfriend has mental health issues and over the past few years has become
morbidly obese which causes bigger and bigger issues as I eat my veg, carbs,
protein mainly whole foods. I weigh the quantities, look good, in great health
medically etc. I eat well, 3500+cal a day as I burn it off with lifting
weights and doing cardio.

On the other end she eats complete rubbish, sugary comfort foods, lots of
fruit as it's good (high sugar), lots of full fat milk as it's good, lot's of
olive oil as it's good for you, and now morbidly obese and still gaining, high
cholesterol, deteriorating mental health yet somehow I'm the one with the
eating issue as I watch what I eat as I eat mainly for performance, going to
the gym after work most evenings isn't normal and shouldn't have to do it. She
wants to loose weight but doesn't want to put in the work, she sees the stuff
she's eating as normal, doesn't want to sacrifice them and sees going to the
gym as abnormal. She's right the gym is abnormal in the sense it's replacing
the active activity we used to do before sedate lifestyles but it's not
abnormal to make your body exercise it in a way no longer doing sat at desks
all day.

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Nuzzerino
Anyone got a non-paywall link? Incognito mode doesn't seem to work.

~~~
speedski1
Paste this into the console. It will redirect you to Facebook and then back to
WSJ without the paywall.

(Remove the space after ".com", kept link shortening without it)

javascript:window.location.href='[https://m.facebook.com](https://m.facebook.com)
/l.php?u='+encodeURIComponent(window.location.href);

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falcolas
A preview of coming attractions in this thread:

\- Weight loss isn't hard, just eat fewer calories than you burn.

\- Keto will obviously make you lose weight!

\- I lost N lbs by meditation and intermittent fasting!

\- Being hungry sucks.

\- Anybody can do it, this one trainer put on 100 lbs, and then took it all
off again!

\- Being fat is just another sign that you're lazy.

\- It's sugar's fault! (Alternatively: It's artificial sweetener's fault!)

\- A vegan diet will make you lose weight.

I'll get us started: Being in a caloric deficiency for weeks or months is one
of the most miserable experiences you can have. Constant hunger, no energy,
always hangry... Yeah. Being hungry sucks.

~~~
AmericanChopper
Weight loss might be hard, but it absolutely is not complicated. Perhaps the
metabolic processes are, but it does really boil down to calories in/calories
out, and absolutely no amount of contrivance can change that.

Life is also typically full of adversity and hardship, and managing weight is
a hardship that all people share, regardless of their status. Perhaps “lazy”
is a bit reductive, and everybody’s circumstance are different, but if
somebody is overweight, the solution is simply to put in the effort that
somebody who is not overweight puts in every day.

~~~
acdha
> Life is also typically full of adversity and hardship, and managing weight
> is a hardship that all people share, regardless of their status. Perhaps
> “lazy” is a bit reductive, and everybody’s circumstance are different, but
> if somebody is overweight, the solution is simply to put in the effort that
> somebody who is not overweight puts in every day.

“Effort” isn’t quite enough here: a huge factor is lifestyle related and many
people have significant barriers which are hard to change: moving to a
neighborhood which makes walking/biking/transit viable is often an expensive
choice and almost always disruptive. Most of the 20th century was spent
getting people to sit in cars, at desks, etc. and it’s not trivial to change
that.

~~~
AmericanChopper
> moving to a neighborhood which makes walking/biking/transit viable is often
> an expensive choice and almost always disruptive

Pretty weak excuse tbh. You don’t need a gym membership or a scenic park
across the street to get enough exercise into your day. There are valid
reasons to reserve judgement, but this isn’t one of them. Mental health
arguably is. Poverty can be in a couple of ways. The cheapest food is often
very unhealthy, and if you’re working for 16 hours a day then you likely have
less opportunity to eat healthily (for example look at how ~60% of nurses are
overweight, compared to ~40% of the general population). But for most cases,
the key personality difference between an overweight person and a healthy
weight person is laziness.

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oscilloscope
"But rocket science is arguably simpler than weight loss, in the sense that it
involves less unpredictability and variation. We control how rockets are made,
and they don’t change their material composition over time."

The composition of rockets _do_ change over time. Small fractures, corrosion,
wear-and-tear from reuse, and manufacturing defects can have catastrophic
consequences. The exposure of O-rings to extreme cold, leading to the
Challenger disaster, is one example.

