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Hackers On Atkins
`Sean writes "Salon.com has published a story about Hackers on Atkins. Although going on a diet is the last thing on the minds of the stereotypical geek basking in the ambient radiation of multiple monitors for 15 hours per day, many hackers have been embracing Atkins because utilizing low-carb methods to modify the metabolism is analogous to hacking and overclocking the body. Others have been combining Atkins with other systems, such as John Walker's The Hacker's Diet. I've personally lost a hundred pounds so far and will toss in the obligatory if I can do it, anyone can ism."
I myself am not a vegan, but my mother is. She's nearly 50 and she only requires about 5-6 hours of sleep, and is way more hyperactive than I am (I'm 20, and about 10lbs over where I'd like to be). She didn't go on the diet to lose weight or anything, just for health reasons.
I don't have the will power to do such a thing, but I know I'd be more mentally and physically active if I did.. And although the high meat intake of the Akins diet may cause people to lose weight, I know it would make me feel like crap in the long run, and give me cancer or something. I've also heard of people on the Atkins diet having real problems with energy, although most geeks don't expend much physical energy, the mental energy is still required.
utilizing low-carb methods to modify the metabolism is analogous to hacking and overclocking the body
Yeah, and overclocking often causes equipment to have a slightly shorter life span, doesn't sound good to me.
If anything I need to give up the coffee and start eating more plants.. And if anyone is interested in learning more about the diet here it is.
- Klowner
[Klown's Wallpapers]
Oh, and there's a difference between "getting thin" and "reducing your weight" for a lot of people -- for many, the risk of kidney damage from an Atkins-like diet is far lower than the risks of not losing that weight (high blood pressure, cardiovascular damage, heart disease, back and knee problems from the extra weight, etc, etc).
I fully appreciate that some people definitely need to reduce their weight simply for health reasons. But if you're so weak-willed that you'd rather damage your body than make an effort then you're setting yourself up for having to stay on that diet forever, aren't you? And that can't be good...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
I can back this up. I've lost 65 pounds on Atkins (down to 215) and I have to say that, if anything, I'm eating MORE fruits & vegtables than I was before. YMMV though.
Wood Shavings!
- Godai
Okay, this is from the perspective of one who has done Atkins, and been successful at it. Not "I heard from this guy" or "my sister's friend told me". Real experience.
I've struggled with my weight since I was in high school over 20 years ago. I've been up and down, weight wise, for a long time. Tried low fat, exercising like crazy, and just failed at it.
Finally, in February of this year, I went on Atkins for the third time (first was just a fad that I didn't do seriously, back in the 80s, second took me from about 250 lbs to 230 about three years ago,) determined to finish the plan and get to my goal weight. I also began exercising by walking on my treadmill and walking when golfing instead of using a cart.
To do Atkins properly, you spend a minimum of two weeks on "induction," which reduces your carbohydrate intake to 20 grams a day or less. This forces your body to stop using simple sugars and other carbs for fuel and start burning fat. You will most likely feel like crap for a couple of days during this phase, but it will pass.
Right about then, two wonderful things happen very quickly which are what makes the diet successful for so many people. First, you will begin to notice, within those two weeks, that your clothes are looser and, if you are weighing daily, a pretty dramatic loss of weight. This positive feedback is mostly water weight, but not entirely, and you feel like you're making progress.
Secondly, and more importantly, changing from consuming mostly carbs to mostly fats and proteins has the effect of making you feel full on much less food. In addition, your blood sugar levels stabelize and most people see "food cravings" (like eating a box of cookies!) going away. A low fat diet simply replaces fat with sugars to make the food more pallatable, and you end up with a bunch of empty calories and you're hungry a short time later.
You're told that you can eat as much as you want, so long as you keep the carbs low -- I'm not sure that I agree with that, you still need to keep an eye on calories, but the point is that after a couple of days, you could eat ten burger patties, but you'll be full after two and won't want to keep eating.
Once you've gone through induction, you can either stick with it (as I did) or start adding carbs back, a bit at a time, until you're eating a more balanced diet but still losing weight. You do have to stay away from sugars and simple carbs, though, because that will screw up your blood sugar levels.
Now, onto the myths. First, I have never seen (and I've looked) any reputable study that says that kidney damage has resulted from a healthy person (healthy in that they don't have existing kidney problems or AIDS or something) following this diet. Pointers to such a report (not something sponsored by the "American Bread Makers Association") would be appreciated, if they exist.
Secondly, people will tell you that it's unhealthy because you can't eat anything but meat. That's crap. There are loads of veggies that you can eat during induction, and you can add more, plus fruits, as you progress through the diet. I stayed on induction for seven months, and enjoyed salad every day, along with green beans, cauliflower, broccoli, etc.
Again, the proof is in the pudding (sugar free, if you please) -- in September of this year, I finished the diet, weighing 180 pounds, the first time in about 25 years that I've been the weight I'm supposed to be for my height. Now, I just check my weight periodically, and if it starts going up, I watch things for a couple of days.
Finally, the greatest help for this (or any) diet is a website I'd encourage you to use. It's free, and it tracks your caloric intake, exercise and weight. It's at Fitday
Good luck to anyone trying to lose weight. Regardless of how you go about it, it's the best thing that you can do for yourself.
Personally, I consider that one of the best aspects of exercise. My day is full of enough nonstop distractions from ringing phones, clients "just stopping by", tight coding deadlines, meetings, wife demanding attention, kids demanding attention, yards demanding attention...it never ends. That 45 minutes of solitude every morning, when it's just me, my thoughts, and the foggy trail ahead, are the only things that keep me sane.
And for reference: A year ago I was 6' 285lbs. Today I'm 6'1" 179lbs. No fancy diets, no gimmicks, no body abuse. I just reduced the number of calories going into my body (1300-1600 a day depending on activity level) and made a point to exercise whether I wanted to or not. I don't pay attention to things like fat content, carb content, protein content, or any of those other distractions that make dieting seem so complex, I just watch the bottom line....daily caloric intake. It works for me with NO risk of health problems, it's worked for my wife (30 lbs in 4 months), and it's worked for everybody else who's tried it and stuck to it. The human body evolved to deal with two realities: 1) That people are constantly active. 2) That high calorie meals are rare. That we have eliminated these realities in the last 100 years says a lot for humanity, but the underlying fact still remains...if you want your body to operate at its peak, you have to subject it to the conditions it was optimized for. Just like computers. GIGO.
There is nothing so pathetic as seeing a beautiful young theory roughed up by a tough gang of facts.
A bit more than two years ago, I weighed 107 kg (you SI-challenged folks can surely do the math yourselves). Stopped eating sugar and starch, meaning no potatoes, rice, pasta, or bread. Started eating more salad and green veggies, but also stuff that in principle has lots of energy, like cheese. Lost 30 kg within half a year. Currently up a few kilos from low of 76 kg's because I've chosen to eat the occasional pizza. I didn't stop eating all carbs, just those I just named. Also, I didn't take up exercise, or try to eat less - just different.
Downside: had to get rid of all my clothes and get new ones.
Now, I don't claim to be an expert on nutrition, but this worked for me, and I plan to keep on eating this way. Had my cholesterol levels checked a year ago, everything was A-OK.
Those who don't know Lisp are doomed to reimplement it.
The weight-loss phase of Atkins-like diets is quite different from the maintenance phase. Atkins and others don't advocate steak, bacon, and cheese for a lifetime.
After you reach your target, healthy weight, you gradually add more whole grains, vegetables, and fruits and cut back on protein. You still avoid simple sugars and high glycemic-index carbohydrates, though. That's the hardest part for me. I love good crusty white bread and desserts.
It was hunted animals (PROTEIN), nuts (PROTEIN), and the occasional bit of wild vegetable, fruit or honey.
No. It was roughage, roughage, the occasional bit of small game (i.e. a bird/rodent/etc. probably 2-3 times a week) and very rarely a big game animal (once or twice per season). 60-80% of human caloric intake in hunter-gatherer populations was from vegetable matter.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Surprisingly enough, Guinness is one of the best low-carb beers to drink. The South Beach diet, a gentler less radical alternative to Atkins, recommends that you drink Guinness whenever you want a beer.
:)
So, next time you want to indulge in a pint of the black stuff, you can do so happily...just as long as it's just one or two pints. Any more than that, and you should plan on drinking your dinner.
Mother Nature did not intend for us to sit on our asses all day, eating cheeseburgers and french fries.
Well FUCK Mother Nature then.
Who needs that old CUNT anyway.
There's a reason our bodies have a such mode as lipolysis; it was meant to be used once in a while.
:-) My rate of weight loss and other physical indicators were all dead on to predictions made by Atkins in his book. I've tried lots of the popular diets, and none of them delivered on their promises except Atkins.
I'll go a little farther and say that it's meant to be used most of the time. Our evolutionary background was in low-carbohydrate environments, which is why the Atkins diet is sometimes called "the Caveman diet". Contrary to nutritional folk wisdom, it's the current high-carbohydrate agricultural environment that's unnatural.
Atkins discovered his diet when he started ingnoring nutrionists. He started as a cardiologist, and despite the high-carb and low-fat diets traditional nutritionists recommend, his patients continued to get fat and die of heart attacks. When he looked into existing studies, he found that carbohydrate deprivation has minimal effect on the human body, and that it caused rapid weight loss by shifting metabolic modes and burning fat.
I've been on Atkins, and I lost over 25 kilos of fat in about six months while eating 3500 calories a day, including downing entire pints of sour cream with a spoon. My exercise program was non-existent unless you count clicking the remote.
Five percent of one year's DoD budget puts us on Mars.
I got one practical piece of advice for you. Buy a bicycle. Far less boring than jogging plus you can actually go to places with it.
Won't do much for your calorie burn, but neither will jogging. At least you'll be a bit more healthy because you're getting some excercise, plus those muscles require more energy even at rest.
I'd actually suggest eating more fat. If you eat fat, the body is more willing to burn fat; the absolute fastest fat-loss diet (according to Dr. Atkins, anyway) is about 1000 calories per day of fat, with nothing else. You shold not, nowever, do a diet that drastic without medical supervision.
Fat is NOT EVIL.... as long as you're on a low-carb diet. If you are getting lots of carbs, the body burns carbs first and stores fat... so the traditional wisdom of low-fat diets *in the presence of carbs* is true. But on a low-carb diet, the conventional wisdom is wrong. In fact, conventional wisdom is just simply wrong in general about dieting; why else would we, as a country, spend SO MUCH money on low-fat goods, but get fatter every year?
If you're eating mostly protein, the body tends to burn protein. This means it will cannibalize your muscles, which is Not Good. The high-protein diets are what actually gave Atkins a bad rep, back in the 70s... some people were trying pure liquid-protein diets, so their bodies burned protein only -- and eventually they keeled over and died of heart attacks after their hearts had been too badly cannibalized to function anymore.
If, on the other hand, you're eating lots of fat, the body burns fat. This is what you WANT. You will probably lose fat (not necessarily weight) faster if you increase your fat intake. Muscle weighs more than fat, so your pounds-lost on the scale will slow, but your fat percentage should drop much faster. With a good, healthy, low-carb diet that's high in fat, you should lose almost 100% fat and leave your muscle essentially untouched. You may actually gain muscle mass if you are exercising steadily (as you should).
Atkins warns VERY SPECIFICALLY in his book not to avoid fat. In fact, Atkins is best described as a high-FAT diet, not a high-PROTEIN one.
Also, oils are very important; most Americans are badly, badly depleted of what are called "essential fatty acids", which are necessary to good health but which we cannot synthesize ourselves. You can get oil blends at most health food stores that are very good for you, and help you both nutritionally and calorically.
I have also personally had very good luck with MSM, which is a form of bio-available sulfur. In almost all of its forms, sulfur is very, very bad for the body, because it's so aggressive about combining with almost anything. Yet, a healthy body has something like 3% sulfur in it. Normally, apparently, we get sulfur (via MSM) through rainwater, but we don't drink rainwater anymore; instead, all our water is heavily processed, and we simply don't get as much as we need.
I have never before reacted to a supplement like I did to MSM when I first took it; my stomach felt incredibly GOOD (normally I only notice my stomach if something is *wrong* with it.), and I absolutely craved the stuff and ate it like candy for several weeks. I'm down to a capsule a day now and have no reaction to it or craving for it at all, so it's not like it's addictive... I was, I believe, just desperately short of it. I also note that my brain feels a lot more fluid and flexible as long as I keep taking it -- I've stopped a few times, and after a week or two I start to feel a little mentally sluggish. It's not expensive, so I just added it to the daily regimen.
If you're an over-30 techie who's been feeling kinda slow and stupid, I'd suggest trying it out for a couple weeks. Sure helps me.
Now here's someone to mod up!
I think this is exactly the right answer. No one "diet" fits all. It is universally agreed that increasing exercise (at least from the typical American computer programmer level -- totally inert) is good for you. Now, if you are obese, you need to change the way you eat.
When I was quite young, I balooned up to just shy of 300 pounds. I went on Weight Watchers and dropped wieght like a stone. I got down to 190 pounds. Over the next 15 years, I gained wieght steadily (inert programmer lifestyle) up to about 270 pounds. Less than my max, but I got back to where just standing up for an extended period would make me perspire.
That is just not right.
Back on Weight Watchers I went. But I didn't lose wieght. I stopped gaining, but I didn't lose. Any fluctuation I saw in the scale was not only within normal variance for water weight, but frankly within the accuracy of the scale.
Atkins worked for me. I'm down to 210 and losing weight slowly.
I feel good and I look good (well, better than my former walrus-self).
The point is that to lose wieght, you must go into ketosis. Diets vary on how often and for how long. The insight that I think Atkins has that the rest of the world hasn't quite caught on to is the effect of wildly oscillating blood sugar levels on the pacreas and on the habituation of cells to insulin. I think his insight that it is better to eat lower on the glycemic index than higher, and better yet to let the body find its glucose through the longer slower lypolitic reactions is his main acheivement.
I scold him, though, for not being a scientist. He made an industry out of it, and more power to him, there's no reason not to profit from a good idea, but he didn't do the science. His work amounts to a collection of anecdotes.
His book cites a vast amount of scattered research that tends to support his thesis, but he had an opportunity to use his patients as a source of research data, and he never bothered. Heck, he could have had med students do the hard work.
Fortunately, studies on this approach are underway. The data will be there. But it will be ten to fifteen years yet before the data are in on possible negative effects (cancer rates, kidney disease rates, etc.). There's data on how it is good for heart disease, diabetes, artery disease. But there are long-term questions about cancer, kidney disease, and stroke that are simply not known.
That annoys me.
However, the risk of premature death from heart disease is so much greater than all other health risks (apart from toboacco -- the number one killer), that it seems reasonable to trade a small increase in colon cancer risk for a huge risk of heart attack.
Still, I think the person who "discovers" something like this should feel obligated to do the science.
Of course, I'm no MD. I get the impression this is a common dividing line: Research doctor versus practicing doctor -- similar to the line between law professor and practicing lawyer. It seems academic medicine and practice medicine are often separated.
Still, it is sad that Dr. Atkins' data aren't useful for population studies.
This old logical fallacy? Haven't you ever read "Candide", man? Modern civilization is THE TESTAMENT to the triumphs of technology over "Mother Nature". Try this on for size, ebusinessmedia1:
"Human beings did not evolve to hunt using guns, or to farm using plows. We evolved as hunter-gatherers who browsed and hunted for food without implements."
Fact is, evolution is NOT, NOT an intentional, planned affair, as your second sentence implies (and upon which your entire argument depends). Evolution produces, in each generation, an organism that can thrive in a range of possibile scenarios. The state of a current generation DOES depend on the conditions under which its parent population evolved, but that doesn't mean that the population can't deal with different conditions. Conditional changes occur in nature all the time that put organisms into environments that differ from the conditions under which those organisms evolved... in fact, that's what CAUSES evolution. They don't always deal well with it, but they thrive often enough.
So you build a "best of all possible worlds" fallacy on top of a confusion of "sufficient" conditions with "necessary" conditions, enough to reverse the factual relationship between the cause and the effect.
Look at the theoretical picture, by analyzing the whole class of phenomena: the human immune system didn't evolve in the presence of antibiotic treatments. But we're not objectively worse for the wear. Same thing with cars or horses (as opposed to walking). Sure, there are costs of these kinds of advances (pollution) or hidden risk-shifts (a population with substantially lower native bacterial resistance, after a while). And those costs may or may not outweigh the benefits of the technology. But by and large, technological advancement helps rather than hurts. As evidence, I would point out that the human race has generally exploited technology to minimize environmental threats and increase productivity, both of which contribute to a greater short-term and long-term survivability of the species.
I like the book "Hammer of the Gods" (ripped off as "Armageddon") for the super-example: the dinosaurs all died because they couldn't do anything about a massive asteroid impact. While humans may or may not be able to actually detect and prevent/minimize an asteroid impact, we can at least discuss the possibility and make a reasonable attempt. Give us 50-100 more years of technological growth, and we will certainly be able to stop an asteroid. We are the most successful organism in the history of the planet, because we have the potential to become nearly un-extinctable, as a species. All because we say "FUCK YOU!" and flip the finger to Mother Nature, and we try to take an active control over our destiny.
Oh, and for the record, I'm with you on the Atkins topic, specifically: they're just now starting to see cancer risk accumulations associated with regular pot smoking, but only over a 30-40 year span. I'll wait on Atkins until a substantially larger population has guinea-pigged it and found out the REAL risks.
This is such a load of crap. Hackers aren't fat, they're skinny and wear black.
This diet is going to do nothing for them... gaining weight is hard, unlike losing weight, which is easy.
Stop eating like a pig, then go to the gym and break a bit of a sweat with some cardio. Wow, that's a hard lifestyle change.
Try gaining some muscle-weight after the age of 25, and you'll wish you were a lard-ass with easily fixed problems.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Bleah.... I call pure B.S. on this one!
Yes, you want to treat the body in a healthy manner. By that, I think it just means using good common sense. If you're a smoker, stop smoking. Don't drink excessive amounts of alcohol, or anything else. (Even too much water can kill a person.) Eat a variety of foods in moderation, and the law of averages will be on your side. (With enough food variety, you're bound to be ingesting some of each of the minerals and vitamins your body needs to function properly.)
Where I disagree is the "serious amounts of exercise". This will certainly help a person lose weight, but like a car that's constantly raced (instead of driven normally), parts just wear out faster and break more often.
In our distant past, we might have been out running around all day, hunting, but our lifespans were MUCH shorter than what they are today too.
Exercise, like everything else, is good - but in MODERATION. Too much of a good thing quickly becomes a bad thing. Just ask any ex pro-athlete, and they'll have plenty of stories and gripes about their bad joints, torn ligaments/tendons, and permanent injuries that are luckily paid for because they earned so much money while playing the sport. If you ask too much of your body, things will fail on you eventually.
Personally, I think Weight Watchers is a total geek diet. I know most people think of it as mainly for middle-aged women, but it works even better for young guys.
Mainly, the thing I like is that they generalized foods and forms of exercise into a points system, so you can easily figure out how much you need to eat and how much exercise helps. It's like playing a dieting RPG, or something. The best part is that it gives you a really good sense of how much you actually should eat, rather than how much to think you should. You can keep your weight down much more easily that way later on.
[insert witty quote here]
jogging can be boring as hell, and more interesting activities like basketball leave you sore and injured often
This is why DDR is the best video game ever invented. It makes exercise fun, even when it's just you.
The only thing that could top it would be a hack & slash video game that worked both upper body and lower body, but I think we'll have to wait for holodeck technology for that one.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Well, I should have said southern Europe: Spain, Italy, France. The UK isn't known for great food or healthy eating habits :)
It is true that many of these countries are beginning to catch up with the US. Doesn't mean you individually have to do that too. There are lots of fit people in the US -- in fact people in New York are about as thin as people in Europe, perhaps because they walk and use public transport.
In the most basic way, this is what the WeightWatchers diet is. After trying just about every diet out there (with little success) I started on the WeightWatchers program. I must say that it is the most reasonable and straight forward diet that CONTINUES to work in the long term. The one and only rule of the plan:
:-) My first month I lost 10 pounds (199lbs down from 209 at 5'10") and am continuing to drop. And, I still eat cheesecake; just now on days where I exercize enough to make up for it.
CaloriesIn = CaloriesOut
Basically, the WeightWatchers plan just simplifies the calculation of how many calories you are taking in and burning so that you can keep the ratio appropriate. When I first started last month I was quite surprized to find out that on my average day I was eating about TWICE what I needed. I eat pretty healthily in general, bike to work, and do ~15 hours of aerobic exercize per week, but it was all those little things that kept blowing my calorie intake through the roof and preventing weightloss. A perfectly healthy meal can be completely ruined by ranch dressing, cream in my coffee, a butter pat, and a cookie.
Anyway, to make an increasingly long story short, via the WeightWatchers program I learned where my food choices could be slightly modified in order to drastically cut my calorie intake. You only loose 2 pounds per week, but you just keep loosing it without any cravings, since there are no "banned" items. If you want cheesecake or a big night out, bank up points the rest of the week or exercize that day. Just keep that "CaloriesIn = CaloriesOut" equation true.
Oh a more geek note: The WeightWatchers site is pretty awesome. Their browser sniffer doesn't like Mozilla Firebird, but spoofing to Netscape fixes that. The main part is a "Points tracker" interface where you search for and enter what you ate for the day. Its really easy and they have a HUGE database of the "Points (TM)" values for just about every food. No need to read the nutrition info on packages. Lots of other cool stuff like a weight-tracker which plots your weekly weight progress. Just well designed stuff (with the exception of the browser sniffer bit).
Sorry to keep ranting on, but this has been the most helpful thing for me primarily because there is no gimmick. There's just education on where to find and how to go about eating fewer calories in every-day fair.
Anyway, I hope this helps someone. The $45 fee for the online service is DEFINATELY worth it. If nothing else, it gives you a monitary guilt trip for sticking to it for the first month.
"When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind." -- Bill Moyers
Another vote for bicycle.
Better for your knees & hips and you can actually get some upper body exercise.
Bikes let you see more of the world: you can go farther then jogging or walking, you see, hear & experience more of the world then you would ever see in a car (cars are very isolating).
Plus, a bike is pretty geeky. Alot of mechanical parts to tweak, tune your own gears, design your own lighting system, hook a generator up to your rims. Use your GPS, take a camera.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
Since I wrote the above, I've gotten off Atkins. The possibility of the diet causing the skin problems was a reason, of course, but it was primarily because I was getting frustrated at not being able to move beyond the 5-6 pound loss plateau in the 6 weeks I was in induction.
The biopsy proved inconclusive. Fotunately, my skin has been clearing up well, with no particular treatment used; the only reminders are dark pigmentation patches in the affected areas, and they'll presumably go away soon. Still, I'd be curious to hear whether others have experienced what I went through.
On the other hand, there is no such thing as a "good" carbohydrate. There are rapidly and not rapidly digested carbohydrates, which may be what you mean, but fructose is not one of them. It's pretty readily converted.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Here's something plenty of people probably haven't heard about: GOUT.
I went on Atkins, and was totally successful. I lost thirty pounds, and dropped a couple of pants sizes. I was totally happy. So far so good, right?
So one morning, out of the clear blue sky, I woke up in scarlet, hot-as-fire pain. My left big toe's joint swelled up and turned shiny and red, and it felt as though a metal spike had been pounded straight through the joint. Within a week I couldn't walk without a cane. I immediately stopped eating meat entirely, and started eating lots of cranberries, cherries, cranberry, cherry and grape juice, and loading up on carbs. Even with all that, and some NSAID horse-pills my doctor gave me, it took FOUR WEEKS for my foot to go back to normal. It was absolutely fucking horrible.
Gout is caused when an individual is sensitive to purines, i.e. he/she doesn't eliminate uric acid from his/her blood fast enough. A normal diet won't generally cause a gout attack, but Atkins is protein-rich, and protein is high in purines, which get turned into uric acid in the blood. So you're loading up on protein, and your body is building up the amount of uric acid in your blood, and before too long (maybe a few weeks) uric acid crystals start building up in the large joints of your feet. Which HURTS like NOTHING you have EVER EXPERIENCED.
Atkins is great for most people. BUT, if you're susceptible to gout, boy, oh boy are you in for it. And, there's no way to tell whether you are or aren't until you have an attack. It's only like about 1% of people who suffer this, but you should know it's possible before you start the diet.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
For those doubting the low calorie system, consider this. Your body needs a certain number of calories per day to operate. An average for a male office worker is supposed to be about 2000 per day. If you eat less (say, 1200), there is no way your body can possibly store any of that, because it needs to be used to keep you alive.
This is what fat is for - it's backup calories to use in case you suddenly find you can't get enough. So, when you are only getting 1200, your body has no choice but to burn some fat, otherwise it will starve to death.
My own personal experience is that I have so far lost 13 Kg (um... 29lbs?) in about six or seven months by cutting down on calories. At the moment I alternate between one day on reduced calories and one day on normal calories (about 2000 for me, but you need to find your own level). By eating 2000 on day it stops by body thinking I'm starving and I feel less hungry.
One other thing that I found helped was multi-vitamin and mineral tablets (including iron and zinc). I don't know if it really works if it's just a placebo, but when I get enough of all that stuff from a tablet each day I seem to feel less hungry, as my body craves them less.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC