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Hacking Weight Loss: What I Learned Losing 30 Pounds
reifman writes The CDC reports that 69% of adult Americans are overweight or obese. Techies like us are at increased risk because of our sedentary lifestyles. Perhaps you even scoffed at Neilsen's recent finding that some Americans spend only 11 hours daily of screen time. Over the last nine months, I've lost 30 pounds and learned a lot about hacking weight loss and I did it without fad diets, step trackers, running or going paleo. No such discussion is complete without a link to the Hacker Diet.
I did it by eliminating extra sugar. Doc warned me I was pushing hte pre-diabetic stage with my morning blood sugar.
No more sweet tea, coke, or adding sugar to my coffee. Sucked for about a week, after that, no problems, and I've dropped 30lbs with no real effort other than breaking the sugar habit in that first week.
Quit smoking 2 weeks ago, we'll see how that part goes and if I end up gaining weight back ('cause food will taste better, supposedly, or maybe just noshing as a replacement for having a smoke ... so far hasn't happened)
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Another thing is to eat slower. Put your knife and fork down between mouthfulls.
More lean meats and proteins (fish, chicken breast, etc). Cut back on the carbs, cut back on the sugars. More fiber in your diet. Drink more water and less soda.
Eat well.
Exercice
Everything else is plain wishful thinking.
How fricking complicated is it to eat less than you burn?
Calories and Macros
Basic Terminology
1/ BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate): The amount of calories you need to consume to maintain if you were comatose (base level).
2/ NEAT (Non-Exercise Associated Thermogenesis): The calorie of daily activity that is NOT exercise (eg: washing, walking, talking, shopping, working). ie: INCIDENTAL EXERCISE! It is something that everyone has a good amount of control over.
3/ EAT (Exercise Associated Thermogenesis): The calorie requirements associated with planned exercise. Unless someone is doing a whole heap of exercise (eg: two or more hrs training a day) it usually doesn't add a stack of calories to your requirements (30 minutes of 'elliptical training' isn't going to burn 6000 cals)
4/ TEF (Thermic effect of feeding): The calorie expenditure associated with eating. This is NOT dependent on MEAL FREQUENCY. It is a % of TOTAL CALORIES CONSUMED (and 15% of 3 x 600 cal meals is the same as 15% of 6 x 300 cal meals). It varies according to MACRONUTRIENT and FIBER content. For most mixed diets, it is something around 15%. Protein is higher (up to 25%), carbs are variable (between 5-25%), and fats are low (usually less than 5%). So more protein, more carbs, and more fiber = HIGHER TEF. More FAT = LOWER TEF.
5/ TEE (Total Energy Expenditure): The total calories you require. It = sum of the above (BMR + NEAT + EAT + TEF).
To make things simple, NEAT + EAT + TEF is often just calculated through a daily ACTIVITY FACTOR.
How much do I Need?
A multitude of things impact MAINTENANCE calorie needs.
- Age & sex (males generally need > females)
- Total weight & lean mass (more lean mass = more needed)
- Physiological status (eg: sick or injured, pregnant, growth')
- Hormones
- Exercise level (more activity = more needed)
- Daily activity level (more activity = more needed)
- Diet (that is - macronutrient intake)
In order to calculate your requirements the most accurate measure is Calorimetry [the measure of 'chemical reactions' in your body & the heat produced by these reactions], either directly (via a calorimeter where the heat you produce is measured) or indirectly (eg: HOOD studies where they monitor how much oxygen you use/ carbon dioxide and nitrogen you excrete over a given time). But these are completely impractical for most people & we rely on pre-set formula to calculate our needs.
Estimating Requirements
The simplest method uses a standard 'calories per unit weight (usually kgs)'. They calculate a TOTAL CAL REQUIREMENT (TEE). That means you DO NOT need to x by an ACTIVITY FACTOR. They are:
- 26 to 30 kcals/kg/day for normal, healthy individuals with sedentary lifestyles doing little physical activity [12.0-14 kcal/pound]
- 31 to 37 kcal/kg/day for those involved in light to moderate activity 3-5 x a week with moderately active lifestyles [14-16 kcal/ pound]
- 38 to 40 kcals/kg/day for those involved in vigorous activity and highly active jobs [16-18 kcal/ pound].
For those involved in HEAVY training (eg: athletes) - the demand is greater:
- 41 to 50 kcals/kg/day for those involved in moderate to heavy training (for example: 15-20 hrs/ week training) [18.5-22 kcal/ pound]
- 50 or above kcals/kg/day for those involved in heavy to extreme training [> 22 kcal/ pound]
THEN - There are also other formula which calculate BMR. For these you then ADD AN ACTIVITY FACTOR TO REACH TEE. These are:
1/ Harris-Benedict formula: Very inaccurate & derived from studies on LEAN, YOUNG, ACTIVE males in 1919. Notorious for OVERESTIMATING requirements, especially in the overweight. DON'T USE IT!
MEN: BMR = 66 + [13.7 x weight (kg)] + [5 x height (cm)] - [6.76 x age (years)]
WOMEN: BMR = 655 + [9.6 x weight (kg)] + [1.8 x height (cm)] - [4.7 x age (years)]
2/Mifflin-St Jeor: Developed in the 1990s and more realistic in todays settings. Still doesn't cons
.
If you want to lose weight, you have to go into the process with the goal of changing your lifestyle permanently, otherwise the weight will return when you finish the diet.
Go into the weight loss process with the right mindset - a permanent change of what and how you eat, along with any changes in your activity regimen.
The reason most people regain the wieght they lose on a diet is that they view a diet as something temporary, which it is.
Don't go on a diet (Hacker's Diet or otherwise), but do make a permanent change to your lifestyle.
"Techies like us are at increased risk because of our sedentary lifestyles."
Um, which demographic plays Dance Dance Revolution again? Slight oversight there. That's why I'm still so skinny.
Wow! The guy ate less calories, and he lost weight!
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
East less calories? Gotcha.
The problem isn't so much "too many calories" consumed, but that the sedimentary lifestyle people are accustomed doesn't require even close to the 2000 calorie "standard diet". If you drive to work, sit behind a desk all day, go home and even do mundane, unimpactful chores, like vacuuming and wiping things down, and average person would be lucky to need maybe 1200-1300 calories as their TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). Even drinking nothing but water, and consuming mostly calorie empty foods like lettuce/salad, you still need your macronutrients, which when adding carbs and fat now will take you to your quite low TDEE with very little food/effort.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Was I the only one who went to his site hoping for an Arduino mod for my dyson that will turn it into a liposuction machine?
... by heating it in hot water before pressing the Brew button on your Keurig 2.0.
Cold cups suck the heat out of your Sumatra dark roast just like TFS/TFA sucks time out of your day..
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I realize that randomized, controlled trials in peer-reviewed journals may not be the whole, final truth, but this is a nice catalog of everything that you can argue over.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/1...
Myths, Presumptions, and Facts about Obesity
Krista Casazza, Kevin R. Fontaine, Arne Astrup, et al.
N Engl J Med 2013; 368:446-454. January 31, 2013. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMsa1208051 [FREE]
Results. We identified seven obesity-related myths concerning the effects of small sustained increases in energy intake or expenditure, establishment of realistic goals for weight loss, rapid weight loss, weight-loss readiness, physical-education classes, breast-feeding, and energy expended during sexual activity. We also identified six presumptions about the purported effects of regularly eating breakfast, early childhood experiences, eating fruits and vegetables, weight cycling, snacking, and the built (i.e., human-made) environment. Finally, we identified nine evidence-supported facts that are relevant for the formulation of sound public health, policy, or clinical recommendations.
Don't forget to read the excellent Brain Over Brawn from brainoverbrawn.com. It's free and you will learn a lot.
That's it really...
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Stop eating so much and exercise more. And at a societal level stop normalizing obesity.
Just eat WHOLE, unprocessed foods. Tons of veggies and fruit (you can't really over do these, seriously people this is where we get our nutrients). Nuts and seeds and other healthy fats, avocados and some meat protein. It really is that simple. STOP EATING PROCESSED "food". Start with completely cutting out junk, no cookies, cake, donuts, candy, nothing from a box. Eat only bread that is made using WHOLE ingredients, which means 99.99% of the bread in the grocery store is off limits and if you're in the mid-west/south probably 100% of the bread is off limits. Eat as much organic food and ingredients as possible. Yes people the GMO'd and herbicide and pesticides are actually bad. The science isn't there to support it because the money isn't there to do the research. Monsanto has seen to that. Stick with what nature actually intended and we as a whole will become a healthier population and see diseases drop, cancer drop, autism drop, and people will be happier.
THIS IS NOT A DIET to lose weight, it's a diet in the sense of what you eat for living, permanently for the rest of your life.
STOP EATING OUT!!!!!
60 years ago families rarely ate out, now few kids have ever sat at a dinner table, let alone had a real meal that wasn't McDonald's or mac-n-cheese or some other microwave, heat up frozen "food" bullshit.
My Fitness Pay is a great "Food log" which was told I should use 25 years ago when I first started noticing the "behind the desk" effect. I still play sports constantly but the weight gain was huge.
I lost 50+ lbs on MyfitnessPal. I didn't need to eat the crappy "whey" and other tasteless stuff. I chose to eat a bowl of cereal in the morning, low cal lunch (100-200 cals from a frozen quick meal) and I would eat a big dinner. Big dinner? Steak and Potato with a Salad at Outback. All that under the calorie limit to sit sedentary and lose 1.5 lbs a week.
When I stopped Myfitnesspal, I gained weight. Its a simple equation: Get a real Food Diary and use it.
Now, to get that my fitness pal back on track.
Oh, and avoid Diet Drinks. This guy mentions he ate high protein to make sure he burned FAT but diet drinks just make you crave food. I really think high protein foods = less sugar = less cravings. Thus the steaks are much better than burgers effect for losing weight. They stay in you longer and are half the calories.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
You didn't hack crap. You just acted like a reasonable person and not a mindless sedentary eating machine. That's like walking and saying you "hacked sitting" to get you from point A to point B.
The best way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume. One problem is that it is really easy in our society to consume calories. You just ate a plate of whole wheat pasta with veggies. Healthy right? No, because you likely had about 3 servings of pasta.
I used MyFitnessPal to help me track my calorie intake. One helpful feature is the bar code scanner. You can scan almost any product and get the nutritional information right into your mobile device. I dropped about 20 pounds while using that.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
To (miss)quote Mark Twain: Nothing is easier than loosing 70 pounds, I've done it several times ;-).
Original quote: http://www.goodreads.com/quote...
Loosing weight is always easy, not picking it up again is the hard part.
Want to change your life for the good? Watch Fathead the movie below to learn how we have been eating all wrong for a long time. Then watch the followup below to the original 2009 movie for important updates.
Since the movie came out 5 years ago, the government has changed its guidance against high saturated fat/high cholesterol diets, saying there is no link to cardiovascular disease. The real cause of cardio-vascular disease is diets of high processed carbs/sugars and wheat. Change to a diet of high natural fats from animals, nuts and vegetables, and you will be happier, healthier and slimmer.
I've lost 20 pounds in 1 month by cutting the sugar/starch, high carbs and wheat. No more pasta, rice, cereal, bread, potatoes, sodas,fast food, etc. Instead, I eat natural fat from grass fed animals, nuts, and vegetables like broccoli, kale, cauliflower, asparagus, and spinach. My very low testosterone I've had for the past 8 years is now back to normal and no more insulin spikes. My blood sugar is low and steady. I'm not sick and tired anymore. I am full of energy all day long. No more acne, etc, the list goes on.
Original movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evcNPfZlrZs
Update to movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRkcSI9P1_I&feature=youtu.be
The problem isn't so much "too many calories" consumed, but that the sedimentary lifestyle people are accustomed
Yeah, sediment doesn't digest too well. No wonder people are fat.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
You need very little fat. You can cut most of it out and not have any problems (besides hunger). You can cut most of the carbs too. The real problem is protein rather than fat or carbs.
Carbs and fat are for energy. They're pretty much what you need less of.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Dunno about that. I would think being stuck in the mud would cause you to expend all sorts of calories in an attempt to get out.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
"Whee! 30 pounds! I'm a weight loss wonder story fit for the front page!" It's a good start. Maybe it was all you needed to lose. I know several people (myself included) down by a hundred or more. None of us claim to be experts.
Among young people with all this attention to detailed fitness numbers and the gadgets that generate them.
You need very little fat. You can cut most of it out and not have any problems (besides hunger).
Well aside from rabbit starvation if you go too low and the fact that your testosterone production will drop through the floor, but hey who needs to feel good anyways?
I know I am obese, and way a far bit more than Jeff does, but what what was his initial height because that does factor into weight loss.
Place something witty here
Eat right, Exercise Properly, Manage your hormones.
I too had problems losing weight and keeping it off. 2 1/2 years ago I tried loseit.com and lost a pound a week (roughly) for a year and have kept it off. I went from 210 lbs. to 160 lbs. and my knees don't hurt anymore and I don't take glucosamine any longer.
Lose It! is a simple free app that runs in a browser and on IOS and Android devices.
There is also MyFitnessPal.com which is similar.
Either one will get you the weight loss you want if you are serious enough to stick with a weight loss and exercise program.
If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.
ANY effective weight loss is going to be counter to your instincts. You will have to fight your inner animal. It won't be easy. It WILL be unpleasant.
STARVING is never fun.
Your inner animal is basically holding it's breath for the duration.
If it were easy, anyone could do it and it wouldn't be such a problem.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Proper exercise can give you much more brain power
It better, because reducing the number of calories I eat makes my brain stop, and that is more painful than all the downsides of my weight combined.
Eat less.
Not losing weight?
Eat less.
Still not losing weight.
Eat less.
Granted, you still want to be having a mix of foods and not just less "burgers and only burgers 24/7", but it's a pretty simple rule to follow.
So long as you're eating a mix, you won't veer into malnutrition like this unless you ACTUALLY have a medical problem that requires constant treatment.
Of every person I ever see who diets, or who over-exercises in order to compensate, etc. I'm always just shocked that - rather than follow some faddy diet that's complicated and expensive and has all sorts of problems with it - they don't think to weigh what they eat over the course of a week and eat less the next week.
I've gone through the drill of losing weight by dieting, then gradually putting it back on again a few times.
I'm in my late 60s now. In my early 60s I was overweight by about 20 pounds. In my last go at it, I lost the weight slowly over a period of years, and I've kept it off for a couple of years now, without ever 'suffering' (much). Mostly all I did was think before I ate something, asking myself do I really want this food? Since my metabolism has apparently slowed down, I can't go by old habits. I've learned not to eat meals at night, just something very light (some nuts, or a slice of toast with olive oil, something like that) at night if I'm really bothered by an empty stomach.
I don't know what's different this time that I'm keeping it off, except maybe practice makes perfect. Also, I'm old enough now that I get serious feedback (backpain, hard to sleep at night, sciatica) if I don't take care of myself. I see other people my age who are out of shape and I don't know how they can stand it. Maybe they are actually tougher than me intrinsically and that's why they can endure it. I don't consider it to be a question of will power or character on my part.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
you make it sound like its hard to maintain. Not to belittle a 30lb loss in 9mos, but after 9mos of my lifestyle change (including a shift to paleo nutrition) I had lost ALL of my excess body fat. That turned out to be about 100lb from my heaviest. But, had I been heavier, I have no doubt I still would have shed every bit of excess weight, whatever that number has been. I often encourage people to take up the paleo diet because its fairly simple to maintain (avoid grains, starchy foods, legumes, and the oils derived from them for the most part) and, due to the nature of protein having a high satiation effect, effectively also reduces your consumption of food in general. If someone wants to burn fat they first have to train their body to actually USE fat. That's never going to happen if you continue to eat a lot of carbs. Carbs are the low hanging fruit of fuel for your body. As long as there is plenty of that sort of fuel laying around your body is going to use it and never use fat. In an absence of glycogen, your body will begin converting a 9cal fat gram into a 7cal ketone; which, once converted, cannot be re-absorbed as fat. You either use it or piss it away. So before you've made any other lifestyle change, you're already getting a 25% bonus to your BMR out of basic inefficiencies.
Compound this by training your muscles to burn more fat for fuel instead of carbs and you accelerate the weight loss significantly. White, fast-twitch, muscle fibers burn glucose and cannot oxidize during use, resulting in tired sore muscles after a short stent of activity. Whereas red muscle fibers of both fast and slow twitch burn fat directly and can self-oxidize during use. The calves of an Olympic sprinter are majority white muscle fibers, whereas a Olympic marathon runner re quite the opposite where 80% of the muscles in their calves are red fibers. This can be achieved by structuring your workouts to focus more on endurance and increasing workout times than trying to first increase resistance. Enough resistance to keep your HR within the cardio/peak ranges, but once there, focus on endurance building.
Different kinds of fatty acids also also needed as essential building blocks for all kinds of stuff the body needs. Carbs are just for energy.
I've lost over 45 pounds and kept it off for over three years so far. And best of all, I didn't do it by starving myself.
I've considered myself overweight for most of my adult and childhood life. Oddly enough, I had always been fairly athletic, and exercised regularly throughout my life. I had strong willpower. But I just couldn't seem to keep weight off.
I lost my weight by signing up for weight watchers online. Weight watchers online is a program that allows you to conveniently keep track of the food you eat. All of it. I don't think weight watchers is magic; instead, I think the process of making eating a deliberate and measured action is what helped me. I like numbers. I can do numbers.
What I found by recording everything I ate is that a small number of foods accounted for a large amount of calories. Beef, fries, bread, snacks. I've largely eliminated these foods from my diet. It's not that I can't eat them, I just don't feel that the value is high enough for the calories to eat them a lot. I was able to decrease the number of calories I ate without starving myself by eating smart. The other benefit of recording food is that there are some replacement foods that are significantly healthier. For me, I started snacking more on pretzels, which I found a lot more filling, but contained less calories than many of the other snacks I ate.
After about a year, I stopped using weight watchers. I had internalized most of the good behaviors, and no longer needed to record everything I ate. I continued to lose weight, slowly but steadily. Eventually I stopped at a healthy weight, and I feel great. Over time, even though I was never starving myself, I started eating higher calorie foods and exercising more regularly to offset it. On that note, for burning calories, exercising longer and with lower intensity is better than short, intense workouts. I like to use the elliptical; I can exercise for 90 minutes without killing myself, and burn over 1000 calories. I've found that playing video games at the same time really distracts me from the act of exercising, and even makes it enjoyable.
If you're skeptical, and think you know enough about dieting to not record everything, think again. There are simply too many surprises. Go to your favorite restuarant's website and look at the nutrition information. I used to go to Chili's quite often. I haven't been there for a long time. I don't know how they cook their food, but it's insanely high in calories. Even seemingly safe foods like salad can be high in calories depending on the dressing. The opposite is true as well. Some fast food, like KFC, can be very low in calories (although probably bad for other reasons). Over time, you'll learn what fills you up and doesn't have a ton of calories. If you just start "eating less" without any data, you'll still be eating the same inefficient foods, and you'll probably gain your weight back after you can't take it anymore.
Carbs aren't crap. In fact, they're essential to having a well run body.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I'm sitting at a computer for 12+ hours a day yet I have normal BMI and I am healthy.
Some of you seem to have a switch that tells you to store fat. Study my DNA and make a cure.
It won't be easy. It WILL be unpleasant.
Of course, but that's no reason to make it harder than necessary by doing it stupidly.
I lost 110lbs by watching my portions, better food choices and getting 60 min of cardio a day. 30 in the morning and 30 in the evening. That was 10 years ago and I still do 30min of cardio a day and it keeps in the 190 range (plus minus 5lbs).
I lost 160 pounds a few years ago, and I too did it the hard way. Count calories, exercise. If you're not eating that much you have to eat well, and I'm now so healthy it's slightly stupid. I like it.
I didn't gain it overnight, and I couldn't expect to lose it overnight. It took a year and a half. No major skin sagging issues except for a residual flab roll, eliminated with a tummy tuck.
People often ask me what my secret was, and I tell them it's motivation: you have to have a reason. For me it was wanting to learn to fly, but I couldn't get the seatbelt around me.
...laura
Person with horrible diet practices who was moderately overweight lost that weight by changing their diet practices in obvious ways. Meanwhile I'm sitting here with fewer obvious changes to make and appreciably more weight than the person in the article.
I think your numbers are a bit off, unless you think the average person weighs a little over 100 pounds. I'm 6'3", and weigh about 250ish. If I eat 1700 calories per day, I lose 2 pounds a week, like clockwork. If I eat ~2400 calories per day, my weight does not change, and I lead a pretty sedentary lifestyle. I sit at a desk all day, drive home, take the dog for a walk and sporadically go to the gym.
My dentist once told me that I obviously have viking blood. (He was right; I'm essentially half Scot and half Russian.) I am also a diabetic. I'm not alone. Roughly a third of Americans at this point are either diabetic or on the road to diabetes. If I ate the kind of carbs this guy eats, I'd have to load up on hundreds of units of insulin, and I'd never lose a pound. That's not speculation, I've tried that sort of diet. (Was a vegetarian for years, and couldn't lose weight on a 1200 Calorie vegetarian diet. And I was ravenously hungry and depressed all the time.)
Instead, the diet that has worked for me (very successfully) has been cutting the carbs. Most of my calories come from meat. I eat 4 or more eggs and bacon for breakfast. I quickly learned, by following my blood sugar meter, that I simply could not tolerate the 200+ grams of carbs that the government recommends. Since making the decision to follow my blood sugar 100% and ignore studies that, at best, present an average of what worked for someone else, I've lost well over 100 lbs. while increasing my lean body mass. My trigclycerides, once over 1000, have plunged. My HDL is high, my LDL is low, and most importantly my last A1c (a measure of blood sugar over time) was normal for a non-diabetic at 4.9%.
I'm glad his diet worked for him. It wouldn't work for me. No doubt, my diet wouldn't work for him. And that's ok. The notion that there's one perfect diet for everyone is virtually idiotic. And, most importantly, it doesn't work. That's not to say that there aren't some useful general principles, some patterns that are more likely to work for you. But at the end of the day it's your health; take the time to figure out what will work for you.
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
Um, which demographic plays Dance Dance Revolution again?
That would be young people, mostly still high school age or younger.
The guy said "techies like us are at increased risk because of our sedentary lifestyles" which is true for lots of techies. Increased risk != destiny. You may be the exception but people who largely sit at their desks and type all day are not as a general rule considered active.
The flip side of the question is "Why are skinny people not fat?".
It's a more interesting question than you may think. One bit of semi-famous research is the 1970s Vermont 'prisoner overfeeding study' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5Rv8JnFgw4). Like bits of Nazi science, this is probably irreproducible, as it'd *never* get past a human subject review committee today.
A number of lifetime-normal-weight prisoners were fed substantially over their basal metabolic needs for an extended period. Their input was rigorously controlled (being prisoners), and their exercise regimen was pretty easy to monitor and control. Most of them gained weight, but almost none of them nearly as much as the standard "3500 kCal is a pound of fat" Standard Model would predict. Several plateaued on weight gain, and a few lucky (?) prisoners were *never* able gain 10% of their body weight when eating nearly 10,000 Calories a day. Simply couldn't do it.
A lot of people are overeating in the western culture. A lot more that, by the numbers, should be in the 300-pound range. And while there are no shortage of very-very-fat people, they're not nearly as common as they should be if you study individual diet patterns. This is part of the problem. People look at their skinny friends' diets, and some of those skinny friends are like the luckier Vermont prisoners.
Carbs aren't crap. In fact, they're essential to having a well run body.
No, they aren't. Your body will get along quite well on zero carbohydrate. The metabolic pathways that process protein and fat into energy will kick in and you'll feel less hunger during the day. You may have to urinate more often as you start to produce ketones (byproduct of using protein for energy), but that's a minor annoyance.
What you WON'T get are massive blood sugar spikes as you ingest and digest carbs directly into glucose (or overload your system with HFCS), and then your insulin kicks in and your levels plummet.
I've been doing it for years. I've watched the spikes when I eat carbs, and I've watched the "not spikes" when I don't.
When I was about 36 I stopped drinking all pop and juices and reduced as much sugar as I could. I lost 20 LB in about 4 months. 41 now and have been attempting the same thing with 0 weight loss results. At this time in my life looks like burning more calories than I intake need to be done along with the sugar reduction.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Personally, I prefer an igneous lifestyle.
You also forgot to mention that he saw a nutritionalist, which could cost anywhere between $100-$200/hour where I live. Seeking professional advice (and paying for it) is hardly hacking. Also, body fat percentage and muscle mass, IMO, are much more important indicators than weight. I'd rather be over weight than under muscle. Extra weight vs. not being able to life/carry heavy things, etc.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I read TFA and I don't see any hacking going on, here. What I saw instead was a pretty sound approach to health and wellness through dietary changes and continued moderate exercise. I don't see what's been "hacked", here. The "eat less and exercise" approach, wonder of wonders, seems to have worked again!
Honestly, I like hearing about experiences like this, because it gives me hope that I can make my own similar lifestyle changes, but there was no "hack" involved here -- no shortcut, no fast-track, no way to get it done without the work and self discipline. When I get a good checkup at the dentist, am I "hacking" dental hygiene? I think not.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
No connection just a happy customer. You don't need to go to meeting or buy there food or any other BS. Just follow the program (and there is an app for that).
The biggest thing for me was that whenever I would diet I wouldn't eat enough. In that case your body goes into starvation mode and you can actually gain weight while dieting - very frustrating. WW takes into account the amount you eat and the amount you exercise and keeps them balanced. I lost 20% or my weight over a couple rounds and will probably go another round this summer.
Worth a shot, especially if other approaches aren't working.
To summarize the article, it comes down to 2 keys: Diet and Exercise. What is never talked about (sometimes hinted at or briefly touched on) is the 3rd Key:
Emotional Bandwidth (or perhaps, emotional strength or support.)
The author did say that at 1 or 2 points that weightloss certainly requires discipline, but that doesn't really explain it fully.
In order to be truly successful at achieving a healthy weight on a long term basis, one needs a good deal of emotional support/strength/will-power/whathaveyou. This is why when you're part of a Weight Watchers group or are part of a team that trains regularly or you have a personal trainer, things tend to go well.
When life is not going so well, many of us compensate by stopping the hard workouts and eating more (both of which make us feel better in the short term.) Then once we get used to the extra feeling of more food and sitting around, it becomes habit.
More needs to be said about how to bolster Emotional Bandwidth (strength, support, discipline, etc.)
Doesn't a diet like that eventually cause heart and circulatory system problems?
I thought there was really something we didn't know about, cause hacking something is like doing something cool by twisting the rules in ways most people wouldn't think about. In his case, he lost 30lbs doing nothing more than what a nutritionist and a gym coach told him to do. I personnaly lost 100lbs over 5 years doing all that by myself, cutting the crap and exercising more. I didn't "hack" anything, I went by the rules: less calories input, more calories output.
Hacking would have been like: I changed nothing to my habits but took (whatever pill/electrode/juice/miracle crap) and BAM, I lost 30 pounds in a month. These things don't work, and reading the title and summary, it's like the guy found some crap that actually works at losing weight without efforts with no side effects.
> "How fricking complicated is it to eat less than you burn?"
Given the recent study that many of our guts are colonized with bacteria who can manipulate our food choices:
http://www.medicaldaily.com/gut-bacteria-control-our-minds-get-food-they-want-how-countering-can-fight-obesity-298394
Pretty complicated.
Anyone else notice this? You kinda loose a bit of geek-cred when you mention that you buy into treatments that are not based on evidence...
That's not gneiss.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
And at your size, any exercise at all ramps that number up pretty quickly. My wife was always jealous that when I started exercising at or near her exercise schedule, I burned a ton more calories than she did. The analogy I used was, "You're a Toyota Prius cruising along on electric half the time. I'm one of those Hummers with the tattered American flag rumbling down the freeway." I'm not as big as you are, but I was surprised at how quickly I dropped weight just by doing yoga, which isn't exactly high on the list of calorie burning exercises. There's a world of difference between what it takes to do some of those movements when you weigh 115 pounds vs 205.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
Doesn't a diet like that eventually cause heart and circulatory system problems?
I have yet to have any doctor tell me that.
The fact that Dr. Atkins died from something related to a heart issue is a wonderful correlation but not scientific evidence. He could have died from being run over by a bus and it wouldn't mean that people using the Atkins diet are more likely to be run over by a bus.
Since we're talking about hacking your diet, this is something that has worked incredibly well for me. I fast on Mondays (most Mondays, not all)--I don't consume anything with calories. I drink water, and that's it. I usually end up eating dinner Sunday night and then the next meal I eat will be lunch or dinner on Tuesday.
The strangest thing to me is that I end up feeling really good on Tuesdays! It's somewhat difficult to describe, but when I wake up, I just feel good (and not particularly hungry). The best description I can think of is an extreme opposite of that feeling of "I ate too much!" Mondays are sometimes hard in the evenings when I do get hungry, though I don't get headaches (sometimes people report getting headaches when fasting). I do think that fasting is somewhat addictive, and I can see why pretty much every culture and religion around the world incorporates some form of fasting.
If you have never tried fasting for an extended period, I would give it a try. It's an interesting experience, and for me, not at all unpleasant.
I started fasting because I wanted to try it as an exercise of personal discipline, but I have ended up loosing around 30 lbs over the course of the first year (and keeping it off for 2 more years). I don't calorie count on other days, but I do--and did before fasting--eat reasonably healthily.
I had a very similar experience last year, gradually dropping 40 lbs over 8 months.
Very simple habit changes: exercise slightly more, eat slightly less.
Like the TFA, I found it very useful to weigh myself EVERY DAY (I used the Wii Fit.)
Checking your weight is easy; subconscious reactions to this knowledge made of lot of difference for me.
That's to make you appreciate all the hard work involved in keeping with the diet - counting calories, reducing caloric intake month after month, huddling with a nutritionist, extra exercise and lots of yoga. Also there is stigma involved - some people have a very negative view of crossfit, and hate paleo by association. Some people just think that only an idiot would remove entire classes of food from their diet. Vegans avoid paleo because it involves eating animals or animal products.
He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
Friend Jedidiah, I am disappointed at this statement. Fat is what you need, it is your lifesource, we are not made to pull energy from weeds and carbs are not that healthy for us. We also can't take a diet heavy in protein as our digestive system isn't built for that either (see rabbit starvation). Thus we are left with fat as our most valuable and viable energy source. Protein is needed as a building block and some veggies are probably good too. We definitely don't need sugar in the diet as we can create our own through gluconeogenesis.
Only I can judge you.
No, it does not, heart and circulatory issues arise due to inflammation which is now believed to be caused by inflammation. Many people are intolerant to grains, so the culprit is likely to be grains and carbs.
Only I can judge you.
You misread Obfuscant's statement, he was stating they are equivalent.
Only I can judge you.
First of all a nutritional ketogenic diet is high in fat, moderate in protein and low in carbohydrates. If you eat to little protein you start breaking down muscle. If you eat way to much protein then excess protein is converted to sugar. As a generic range, lets say 75% fat, 20% protein and 5% carbohydrates (primarily from vegetables)
It has been shown that people who already have kidney damage can do more harm on a high protein diet. However this is not the case for people with healthy kidneys. Which is all still academic, sine a well formulated nutritional ketosis style diet is moderate in protein, not high in protein.
I also would not blame carbohydrates for all evils in the world. However, the combination of your genetics, diet and exercise can lead you to a place where your body does not do well with a carbohydrate rich diet. I am talking about people who are diabetic or pre-diabetic. A very low carb diet for them can be incredibly beneficial.
A good source for information about a ketogenic/very low carb diet, both how to do it and debunking common myths would be http://reddit.com/r/keto
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Dr Atkins died because he slipped on an icy sidewalk outside of his New York City office. He later died while in a coma. While in the coma he suffered from swelling. His autopsy shows he had heart damage. This is the headline most people have heard. The full story is that he had heart damage as a young man and the corner did note there was heart damage, but did not attribute it to his diet.
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The figure I've heard is that 10 calories per pound is a rough average for maintenance. It goes up if you have more muscle.
Congratulations. I initially lost the 50+ lbs and I gained 10 back but that was due to offseason from sports and 3 Kidney Stone surgeries. Yea, another reason to avoid Sodas!
Keep it up! good deal!
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
One way to passively burn more energy that I don't see mentioned enough is to simply lower the ambient temperature (and don't add more clothing). Staying in a cooler room (or not using a heavy blanket when sleeping, etc) can use a significant amount of extra energy. Sleeping humans use between 20 and 80 kCal/hour, depending on ambient temperature, blankets, etc. (80-20)*8=480kCal potential burn, per night of sleep. Over the course of a week that's 3360kCal, or nearly a pound of body fat's worth of energy. Use your basal metabolic rate to burn more energy by staying in cooler environments.
Not a sentence!
Oh.. I did forget to put that on the baked Potato was BUTTER, just button only.. and LOTS of it. And Thousand Island on the Salad.
No bread though. Its almost like the Calorie counters push you towards a more Atkins style life anyways.
I can program myself out of a Hello World Contest!!
I think if I cut beer out of my life, I'd drop 30 pounds in a year. But then life would be too boring.
The author did a good job of outlining what worked for him. I also lost about 40 lbs over the last year (from 190lbs down to 150 now, which is a good weight for me). I've held around 150-152 for the last 3 months or so and feel great.
For me, it's less about the diet and more about the exercise. For me the key was making my health my own #1 priority. I had to make time for myself to go the gym. I had to stop putting work, or spending time with my significant other/family/friends/pets ahead of my gym schedule. I also learned to stop depending on others - having a gym buddy or going to class with a friend is great, but at the end of the day you need to go whether they do or don't.
Yes, I watched what I ate, and yes, I looked at the calorie counts to roughly budget, but I never kept logs of how many calories I was eating over a week. I'd just weigh myself once in a while to ensure I was still progressing. For me, I found the more I exercised, the more I naturally wanted healthier foods. Something like a donut or a dessert seemed revolting after spending a couple hours cycling. As with his calorie intake needing to be reduced has he progressed, if you keep working out, your ability to burn more calories increases along with your stamina. I can easily knock out 800 calories in a spin class now.
Find healthy foods and forms of exercise that you actually enjoy so you can keep the weight off. My breakfast/snack of choice is now greek yogurt, and I've found that I have a great time taking group fitness classes.
Really? Are you sure you need a lot less calories then 2000? Even sitting on your butt all day? http://www.health-calc.com/die... Being in your mid thirties, ~155 pounds, and sitting or sleeping all day shows a total calorie count of over 2000.
I lost my last 30 lbs using "Hacker's Diet" (tracking my weight every day with a 20-day exponentially-smoothed rolling average chart) and tracking my food intake with My Fitness Pal. I exercise a lot, but that didn't do it. In 2012, I averaged 64 minutes a day of vigorous physical exercise, but lost only about 3 pounds. But in 2013, I used Hacker's Diet and MFP and went from 180 to 155 in six months, then slowly tapered down to 150, where I've now been for over a year (fluctuating +/- 3-4 pounds). (And this at 54 years of age!) I wrote a few newspaper columns about it, including this one: http://arneberg.com/columns/ch...
This is slashdot, home of that kind of behavior.
If you are interested in what nutritional ketosis is and want a quick way to do it right without buying $100 in books this is an excellent place to start.
If you see article X and then ask in the group about it, they will point you to article Y or citation Z. As always common sense is left up to the reader. Read both X and Y and make a decision for yourself.
I can tell you if I eat the typical "heart healthy" diet with plenty of grains, fruits and vegetables and avoid sweets...I am still pre-diabetic.
However if I eat a diet very low in carbohydrates, my blood sugar is fine. So I have 4 options
It really is not a religious issue. For me and my body, the only question I have to ask, "is it worth the extra effort to stay below 25grams of carbs a day to reap whatever benefits nutritional ketosis will give me or is standard low carb going to work better for me?"
For anyone interested, get a blood glucose meter and some testing strips and test your blood sugar levels, if you ever get above 120, the odds are a low carb diet will reap you some major health benefits. Also the words "keto" and "low carb" when used on pinterest will yield a butt load of delicious recipes that are low carb.
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Crackers, pizza crust, etc are carbs, and carbs are sugar, unless I'm missing something.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
You make it sound like starvation is necessary for effective weight loss. This is extremely incorrect.
The way fat (especially saturated) has been maligned by "experts" in 80s, 90s and early 2000s - millions of people have gained weight just by eating too much carbohydrate. Just replacing some of it by fat makes for tastier, more filling, body weight reducing, and health giving food. Quite the opposite of starvation.
For very rapid body fat loss, you might have to go on very low carbohydrates - which while not starving, does need to fight the other animal in the body which craves carbohydrates, simpler the better.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
It's difficult, but reliable.
No way. Impossible. Simplicity is prerequisite for reliability - Edsger Dijkstra.
Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
I think you're missing my point. Define "sugar". Which subset of saccharides are you talking about skipping out on?
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Yup, before winter came I was walking 1 hour 5 times a week at a brisk pace(6.3km/hour). I was losing 4lbs/week at 340lbs. Too bad I only started walking a few weeks before snow hit and -20 degree weather. Just started walking(and jogging) again this week so we will see if it ramps back up again.
I'd rather be overweight and addicted to sugar than consume aspartame.
Mental health matters more to me than physical.
However, this whole conversation (including your post) has urged me to try and cut down on sugar consumption. I'm very unlikely to try and cut it out entirely though.
That was a much more reasoned and informative post than most of the others I've seen in this thread, thank you. Generally, what I've been seeing is a lot of "If you do X, then fuck you! Why? You're an asshole, that's why! Evidence? Details? We don't need no stinkin' information!" Seeing something with at least a fair amount of explanation behind it is refreshing.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
First you have to be committed. Doc told me I wouldn't make 50, I was 43 at the time. Sent me to the fat doc. I was the lightest there at the clinic, even the women were heavier than I was. They do bariatric surgery. They said they'll shrink my stomach down. For this I'll need to take vitamin supplements, or I'll lose my hair. Then I found out I don't have a bariatric benefit on my health insurance. Might now, didn't then. Thank goodness.
Dude in the next cube was heavier than I was, and I was 305 at the time. He said go HCG diet. I though yea, yea.. yet another fad diet. Then I watched him lose 30, then 60 Lbs. I started at that point. I asked if he were ready to eat dirt at that point, he wasn't. Wasn't hungry. Here's why:
HCG protocol. Google it and read it. AS LONG AS YOU DO WHAT THEY SAY, YOU'RE GOING TO BE SUCCESSFUL EVERY DAY. No, really. Everyone I know that has tried this has been successful. At first you'll gain about 6 Lbs, then you'll lose those 6 lbs and expect to lose a pound every day. Sometimes you won't, don't get upset. Keep with it, you'll lose the next day. Whatever you do, don't cheat. Think of breaking a toe if you cheat, because that'll be about how it is. You'll get those cravings back and it's really hard to keep on it. Just don't do it. Believe me, I know.
Start weighing yourself every day and keep a record. No exercise bullshit. In fact, don't exercise or you'll likely end up on the floor. Exercise is the crazy left's way of doing things. Sure it works, however you're far better off not consuming the calories in the first place. Work for an hour to burn off 400 calories IF YOU'RE LUCKY? I don't think so. They say you burn 3500 calories/pound. For me 1 Lbs is more like 1500 calories. I can lose 1 Lbs in a day, or spend 3 hours at the gym under heavy exercise? If you have 50 Lbs to lose, you see how stupid that is.
1) Build up fat for two days - eat whatever you want and as much as you want. Be careful, if you over eat too much you'll be sick later in the day. Here's what I did (Start drops now. HCG diet drops, hcgdiet.com, I use hcglean2000 drops. Make sure it's homeopathic. There's no HCG in there, however it works. It's the protocol that works. No you won't grow boobs or anything to do with being female):
A) Breakfast at Duncan Donuts. 3 donuts.
B) Lunch at 5 guys, dessert at Cold Stone - large sunday
C) Dinner at another fatty place, pick up a half gallon of (hersheys) ice cream on the way home.
D) Have half that half gallon of ice cream at night.
Next day repeat.
2) Next 38 days you'll be eating 500 calories. Take vitamins, and potassium if you get cramps/charlie horses.
You can have each day:
Meal:
A) 6 ounces of meat - 3 for lunch, 3 for dinner - other types of meat. Like chicken and steak, chicken and shrimp, etc.
B) Veggie - like a whole tomato.
Snack - afternoon and evening - one fruit. Like one apple, or 5 strawberries. Note, you cannot have 2 small apples. Just one.
3) Next 3 weeks you'll add in more food to level off. If you gain, you must lose it the next day.
4) Next 3 weeks start adding in more carbs and sugars. Again if you gain you must lose it right away.
Now you can start all over again.
If you stop, continue to weight yourself every day. Do not let yourself gain. Always remember - you are the easiest person in the world to fool. Is that cake worth it? Bag of cookies? Of course not. You'll feel bad if you gain again.
I'm 5 years out and 75 Lbs down. I'd like to lose some more, just haven't started again yet. I think my skin is about ready to do that now.
*YOU* CAN do it.
BTW, on the way down I had a LOT more energy. Some days I felt like I had to run around the outside of the building or I'd explode with energy. I mean like I was when I was in the 1st grade. I also got acne back as I got rid of stuff inside. All normal. Goes away when you level off.
Hope this helps someone out there.
Lost 30lbs in a month. Great for keeping in shape. Natural inability to digest many junk foods, chocolate, soda, etc. It's great!*
__________________________
*Not really great
average person would be lucky to need maybe 1200-1300 calories as their TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure)
This is just not true. Not unless you're talking about the average sub-5'-tall postmenopausal woman.
As a sedentary middle aged dude, I need about 1900 calories, and will lose weight if I consume less. 1300 calories would be starvation-level for me.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
That guy's chart is proof that html makes you fat. See that little downward tick around 2011 when everyone started abandoning the web for mobile apps. Then BOOM - Bootstrap brings him back to html pages. And that steep recent drop. He thinks it's from his diet and exercise but it's really because all the time he spends looking at his Fit Bit he's not on the web.
Every rule has more than one consequence.
Finding the perfect weight loss diet plan can be confusing at times, but it should not be a struggle. You should see fast results when starting a healthy diet, regardless of whether or not you limit calories, because your body will be happy not having to fend off all the bad foods it was being stuffed with before. http://aboutbmicalculator.blog...