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Ah yes! The sanctimonious blame game. So very common with this problem. I do have to ask though, did you read the article at all? 'For example, men with severe

by lolo_ 10y ago

Ah yes! The sanctimonious blame game. So very common with this problem. I do have to ask though, did you read the article at all? 'For example, men with severe obesity have only one chance in 1,290 of reaching the normal weight range within a year; severely obese women have one chance in 677. A vast majority of those who beat the odds are likely to end up gaining the weight back over the next five years. In private, even the diet industry agrees that weight loss is rarely sustained. A report for members of the industry stated: “In 2002, 231 million Europeans attempted some form of diet. Of these only 1 percent will achieve permanent weight loss.”' I'm pretty certain studies generally conclude that people who lose weight are _overwhelmingly_ likely to regain it. Of course you can play the blame/shame game with them and say they're all just lazy, but you're really starting to walk away from the facts and towards the all-too-common ideology that surrounds weight. Also: 'After several months of eating fewer than 800 calories a day and spending an hour at the gym every morning, I hadn’t lost another ounce.' So the 'not much science involved' calorie balance really REALLY should have resulted in a loss at this rate, yet it didn't - how do you explain that? I mean that literally entirely contradicts your claim. I'm overweight. I take full responsibility for my situation and make no excuses. But losing weight is surprisingly, intensely difficult and your body fights you every damn inch of the way and this kind of blaming, sanctimonious 'it's simple' shite you hear so often does NOT fit reality. Congratulations on your loss, but don't assume you'll sustain it. I lost about the same amount of weight as you with the same calorie limit as you, and despite all this will likely try again and have good results at least initially. But I think longer term you have to think more carefully about how the hell you'll sustain it, it really _isn't_ simple.

parfe 10y ago
>'After several months of eating fewer than 800 calories a day and spending an hour at the gym every morning, I hadn’t lost another ounce.' >So the 'not much science involved' calorie balance really REALLY should have resulted in a loss at this rate, yet it didn't - how do you explain that? I mean that literally entirely contradicts your claim. Explanation is simple: The author either lied to herself or she lied to us. Her diet and workout plan did not violate the laws of physics, so she's wrong.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- bloat 10y ago
  Mass is not the same as energy. If she claimed to be eating 1.5kg of food a day, and excreting 1.55kg, then your explanation/accusation would hold. But she didn't - she talked about energy intake and expenditure which is not the same.
  - lqdc13 10y ago
    You would expend more than 800 calories from breathing alone at the weight of 125lb. The Base Metabolic Rate in the cited paper is still much higher than that even for people whose metabolism slowed down. Normally, it's calculated as (9.99 x weight_in_kg) + (6.25 x height_in_cm) – (4.92 x age) – 161 for women. So for her (assuming she is 5' tall and late 20's), to remain at normal weight and not move at all it would have been (9.99 x 56.699) + (6.25 x 152.4) – (4.92 x 27) – 161 = 1225 This is without any exercise. She must have missed some source of calories.
1stop 10y ago
I mean this with full empathy for your situation. It really is that simple. Several months of eating fewer than 800 calories and not going to the gym at all would result in massive weight loss... except for a very tiny person. It's not sanctimonious.
- lolo_ 10y ago
  I don't want any empathy nor do I have a 'situation' other than being fat :) I am responsible for being overweight it's totally my fault and responsibility, I make no excuses, I just dislike the often seemingly ideological discussions that result. I gave some thoughts on why you might be wrong on that in a separate reply... yes basic physics apply, but your ideas of what the energy in and energy out is might not be correct. The body is complicated. This can be observed by anybody who's dieted with a _strict_ food diary eating precisely the same things + quantities with known calories - weight change can vary surprisingly and significantly without the laws of physics being violated. The grandparent IS _very_ sanctimonious: 'This while article sounds like a justification for the author not losing weight. ... ...there's not much science involved, eat the right stuff and work out.' I hate this attitude of 'you're just making excuses' vs. overweight people - it's unfalsifiable as you put literally anything down to excuses. Losing weight is very hard because your body doesn't want you to do it for evolutionary reasons and weird shit happens even when you do everything right. Sanctimonious blame games are harmful not only because you might just be wrong, but because food is so often a crutch that when dieting you no longer have, and I've found that people tend to come out with the harshest comments when you are dieting and actually trying to fix things, which can be devastating when you literally have no crutch any longer. Also most of the time the people who make such comments are emphatically _not_ motivated by health concerns, and there's a culture where just being a dick is acceptable in this one area but no others. People don't like you telling them about their personality flaws and how they are just idiots and should stop being such a twat, and it's not socially acceptable, but the exact same approach to overweight-ness is totally acceptable, and does fuck all to help the situation. TL;DR The VAST majority of dieters fail in the long run, things are more complicated than just dieting and staying at low cals for the long run both physically and psychologically.
rangibaby 10y ago
Eating too little when cutting is a classic noob mistake. Starving yourself makes your body get protein from where it can, which turns out to be from your muscles. I think the most sustainable way for normal people to lose fat and not muscle is to try to stay as strong as you were during a bulk while maintaining a small calorie deficit.
dang 10y ago
> Ah yes! The sanctimonious blame game. So very common with this problem. I do have to ask though, did you read the article at all? This breaks the HN guidelines in two ways: by calling names ('sanctimonious') and by playing the 'did you read the article' card. Please follow the guidelines, even when someone else is wrong and the topic is personally charged. It's hard, but those are also the times it matters most. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

by lolo_ 10y ago

parfe 10y ago

>'After several months of eating fewer than 800 calories a day and spending an hour at the gym every morning, I hadn’t lost another ounce.' >So the 'not much science involved' calorie balance really REALLY should have resulted in a loss at this rate, yet it didn't - how do you explain that? I mean that literally entirely contradicts your claim. Explanation is simple: The author either lied to herself or she lied to us. Her diet and workout plan did not violate the laws of physics, so she's wrong.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
bloat 10y ago
Mass is not the same as energy. If she claimed to be eating 1.5kg of food a day, and excreting 1.55kg, then your explanation/accusation would hold. But she didn't - she talked about energy intake and expenditure which is not the same.
- lqdc13 10y ago
  You would expend more than 800 calories from breathing alone at the weight of 125lb. The Base Metabolic Rate in the cited paper is still much higher than that even for people whose metabolism slowed down. Normally, it's calculated as (9.99 x weight_in_kg) + (6.25 x height_in_cm) – (4.92 x age) – 161 for women. So for her (assuming she is 5' tall and late 20's), to remain at normal weight and not move at all it would have been (9.99 x 56.699) + (6.25 x 152.4) – (4.92 x 27) – 161 = 1225 This is without any exercise. She must have missed some source of calories.

1stop 10y ago

I mean this with full empathy for your situation. It really is that simple. Several months of eating fewer than 800 calories and not going to the gym at all would result in massive weight loss... except for a very tiny person. It's not sanctimonious.

lolo_ 10y ago
I don't want any empathy nor do I have a 'situation' other than being fat :) I am responsible for being overweight it's totally my fault and responsibility, I make no excuses, I just dislike the often seemingly ideological discussions that result. I gave some thoughts on why you might be wrong on that in a separate reply... yes basic physics apply, but your ideas of what the energy in and energy out is might not be correct. The body is complicated. This can be observed by anybody who's dieted with a _strict_ food diary eating precisely the same things + quantities with known calories - weight change can vary surprisingly and significantly without the laws of physics being violated. The grandparent IS _very_ sanctimonious: 'This while article sounds like a justification for the author not losing weight. ... ...there's not much science involved, eat the right stuff and work out.' I hate this attitude of 'you're just making excuses' vs. overweight people - it's unfalsifiable as you put literally anything down to excuses. Losing weight is very hard because your body doesn't want you to do it for evolutionary reasons and weird shit happens even when you do everything right. Sanctimonious blame games are harmful not only because you might just be wrong, but because food is so often a crutch that when dieting you no longer have, and I've found that people tend to come out with the harshest comments when you are dieting and actually trying to fix things, which can be devastating when you literally have no crutch any longer. Also most of the time the people who make such comments are emphatically _not_ motivated by health concerns, and there's a culture where just being a dick is acceptable in this one area but no others. People don't like you telling them about their personality flaws and how they are just idiots and should stop being such a twat, and it's not socially acceptable, but the exact same approach to overweight-ness is totally acceptable, and does fuck all to help the situation. TL;DR The VAST majority of dieters fail in the long run, things are more complicated than just dieting and staying at low cals for the long run both physically and psychologically.

rangibaby 10y ago

Eating too little when cutting is a classic noob mistake. Starving yourself makes your body get protein from where it can, which turns out to be from your muscles. I think the most sustainable way for normal people to lose fat and not muscle is to try to stay as strong as you were during a bulk while maintaining a small calorie deficit.

dang 10y ago

> Ah yes! The sanctimonious blame game. So very common with this problem. I do have to ask though, did you read the article at all? This breaks the HN guidelines in two ways: by calling names ('sanctimonious') and by playing the 'did you read the article' card. Please follow the guidelines, even when someone else is wrong and the topic is personally charged. It's hard, but those are also the times it matters most. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html