6 ms·

Not aiming this at you but just people in general, but I'm pretty sure one could lose weight in a much healthier way by just eating a balanced diet (eating REAL

by uhtred 10y ago

Not aiming this at you but just people in general, but I'm pretty sure one could lose weight in a much healthier way by just eating a balanced diet (eating REAL food, not processed junk), not overeating, cutting out as much added sugar as possible (under 30g a day is recommended) and getting a little light exercise regularly. Sorry but I hate these fad diets.

wyager 10y ago
> cutting out as much added sugar as possible Why do you count this separately from "not overeating"? The important thing is to be calorie-negative to lose weight.
- tzs 10y ago
  Foods with a lot of added sugar tend to be foods that aren't very good at keeping you feeling full, so if you have too many of them in your calorie-negative diet you can easily find yourself quite hungry so often that it takes a lot of willpower to stay calorie-negative...maybe more than you have and the diet falls apart.
cschmidt 10y ago
Keto isn't a fad diet at all, if a fad diet is one that you do for a while to drop weight quickly. I've been on Keto for about two years now, and plan to eat this way for the rest of my life. I've gone from 235 to 180. Going from 245 to 235 took forever on a "normal" low fat diet. My A1C and cholesterol have greatly improved.
- gnaritas 10y ago
  He said eat normal and healthy, not eat low fat; low fat is also a fad diet. And yes, keto is a fad diet with no empirical evidence to support its claims, testimonials are not evidence. There was actually a recent scientific study done and it found keto claims lacking. I've done keto, I'm well aware of what it is, but the weight loss is far more likely to come from eating less than from not eating carbs because it's fucking hard to consume a lot of calories once you cut out carbs so most people on a keto diet are actually on a calorie restricted diet as well which is why they're losing weight. You want to lose weight, don't eat anything in a box, buy fresh whole food, plenty of veggies and fruits, and meat, cut out sugar, and it'll happen automatically. We're fat because of processed foods that have far too many calories in far too small a bulk that makes overeating so easy you don't even know you're doing it.
  - snuxoll 10y ago
    You're also neglecting another benefit of keto for maintaining a low-caloric intake, it encourages you to eat fat. Fat takes a substantially longer amount of time for the stomach to process, meaning you feel satiated for a longer period of time. Whenever I eat carbs I try to supplement them with a good amount of fat to avoid this, yesterday I had a 300cal snack of 5 saltines topped with roughly 3tbsp of peanut butter and felt great for 4 hours, meanwhile this morning I had a single 240cal croissant for breakfast at 8:30 and have been dying for lunch since 10:00AM.
    - gnaritas 10y ago
      Normal and healthy diets are balanced; most people's diets are excessively heavy in carbs, so no, I didn't neglect that at all. People should eat less carbs and more fat until they're somewhat of a balance, going in either direction by cutting out one or the other is not eating healthy. Keeping your body in long term ketosis is neither healthy nor particularly pleasant. Yea, eating a pure carb snack is going to make you crash, so don't do that, eat something balanced and made of real whole food, not processed crap.
      - montecarl 10y ago
        The tricky part is that it isn't clear what "balanced" means. Our bodies can survive on vastly different allocations of the three macronutrients. Carbohydrates are not required at all to my knowledge, while some amino acids and fatty acids are essential and cannot be synthesized from other foodstuffs. Its possible to get most of your calories from carbohydrates, protein, or fat. The question is what is the right balance for optimum health? How much does this value change across different people (and possibly at different stages of life)? If you have epilepsy then a ketogenic diet might well be best. How about for other people? What macronutient profile is "balanced"? What do you even base it on? Should it be 33% of each? Should we eat protein and fat in just a little in excess of what we need (to get the essential fatty acids and amino acids) and get the rest from carbohydrates? I don't think we have clear answers to those questions yet. Although, I think we have ruled out some diets as unhealthy (e.g. eating a lot of refined carbohydrates can cause diabetes). Since eating too many refined carbohydrates is bad does that rule them out as a primary calorie source? Probably not, but we need more research. Personal Note: I've eaten a low carb, high fat, moderate protein diet for about 4 years. All my blood markers (cholesterol, triglycerides, etc) have improved significantly over that time period. Additionally, I used to get incredibly hungry all the time and feel bad if a meal was delayed. Now I can go much longer without eating and still feel well.
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  There is at least one person in these comments extolling the virtues of keto viz a viz quick weight loss without exercise. I don't know what a normal low fat diet is, but the overruling factor in weight loss/gain is the ratio of work (exercise) to energy input (calories).
  - DigitalJack 10y ago
    Calories_out = Calories_in - Calories_stored. Caloric source matters, your body does different things with different sources. Your metabolism will be reduced by reducing calories in. They are not independent variables.
  - will_brown 10y ago
    >but the overruling factor in weight loss/gain is the ratio of work (exercise) to energy input (calories). I don't think you are off, but the key is not weight loss/gain...the key is healthy weight loss/gain and that has everything to do with what you consume.
  - collyw 10y ago
    Physics, years of evidence and common sense down voted on HN where solyent is seen as a good thing.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      The physics is that exercise burns so few calories it's not worthwhile from a weight loss point of view.
      - jsprogrammer 10y ago
        Where have those physics been documented? I want to see the same person: 'immobile 'sitting most of the time, with short commutes and shopping trips 'intensely exercising 1 hr a day 'actively working out throughout the day while maintaining their current diet and weight.

by uhtred 10y ago

wyager 10y ago

> cutting out as much added sugar as possible Why do you count this separately from "not overeating"? The important thing is to be calorie-negative to lose weight.

tzs 10y ago
Foods with a lot of added sugar tend to be foods that aren't very good at keeping you feeling full, so if you have too many of them in your calorie-negative diet you can easily find yourself quite hungry so often that it takes a lot of willpower to stay calorie-negative...maybe more than you have and the diet falls apart.

cschmidt 10y ago

Keto isn't a fad diet at all, if a fad diet is one that you do for a while to drop weight quickly. I've been on Keto for about two years now, and plan to eat this way for the rest of my life. I've gone from 235 to 180. Going from 245 to 235 took forever on a "normal" low fat diet. My A1C and cholesterol have greatly improved.

gnaritas 10y ago
He said eat normal and healthy, not eat low fat; low fat is also a fad diet. And yes, keto is a fad diet with no empirical evidence to support its claims, testimonials are not evidence. There was actually a recent scientific study done and it found keto claims lacking. I've done keto, I'm well aware of what it is, but the weight loss is far more likely to come from eating less than from not eating carbs because it's fucking hard to consume a lot of calories once you cut out carbs so most people on a keto diet are actually on a calorie restricted diet as well which is why they're losing weight. You want to lose weight, don't eat anything in a box, buy fresh whole food, plenty of veggies and fruits, and meat, cut out sugar, and it'll happen automatically. We're fat because of processed foods that have far too many calories in far too small a bulk that makes overeating so easy you don't even know you're doing it.
- snuxoll 10y ago
  You're also neglecting another benefit of keto for maintaining a low-caloric intake, it encourages you to eat fat. Fat takes a substantially longer amount of time for the stomach to process, meaning you feel satiated for a longer period of time. Whenever I eat carbs I try to supplement them with a good amount of fat to avoid this, yesterday I had a 300cal snack of 5 saltines topped with roughly 3tbsp of peanut butter and felt great for 4 hours, meanwhile this morning I had a single 240cal croissant for breakfast at 8:30 and have been dying for lunch since 10:00AM.
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    Normal and healthy diets are balanced; most people's diets are excessively heavy in carbs, so no, I didn't neglect that at all. People should eat less carbs and more fat until they're somewhat of a balance, going in either direction by cutting out one or the other is not eating healthy. Keeping your body in long term ketosis is neither healthy nor particularly pleasant. Yea, eating a pure carb snack is going to make you crash, so don't do that, eat something balanced and made of real whole food, not processed crap.
    - montecarl 10y ago
      The tricky part is that it isn't clear what "balanced" means. Our bodies can survive on vastly different allocations of the three macronutrients. Carbohydrates are not required at all to my knowledge, while some amino acids and fatty acids are essential and cannot be synthesized from other foodstuffs. Its possible to get most of your calories from carbohydrates, protein, or fat. The question is what is the right balance for optimum health? How much does this value change across different people (and possibly at different stages of life)? If you have epilepsy then a ketogenic diet might well be best. How about for other people? What macronutient profile is "balanced"? What do you even base it on? Should it be 33% of each? Should we eat protein and fat in just a little in excess of what we need (to get the essential fatty acids and amino acids) and get the rest from carbohydrates? I don't think we have clear answers to those questions yet. Although, I think we have ruled out some diets as unhealthy (e.g. eating a lot of refined carbohydrates can cause diabetes). Since eating too many refined carbohydrates is bad does that rule them out as a primary calorie source? Probably not, but we need more research. Personal Note: I've eaten a low carb, high fat, moderate protein diet for about 4 years. All my blood markers (cholesterol, triglycerides, etc) have improved significantly over that time period. Additionally, I used to get incredibly hungry all the time and feel bad if a meal was delayed. Now I can go much longer without eating and still feel well.
jsprogrammer 10y ago
There is at least one person in these comments extolling the virtues of keto viz a viz quick weight loss without exercise. I don't know what a normal low fat diet is, but the overruling factor in weight loss/gain is the ratio of work (exercise) to energy input (calories).
- DigitalJack 10y ago
  Calories_out = Calories_in - Calories_stored. Caloric source matters, your body does different things with different sources. Your metabolism will be reduced by reducing calories in. They are not independent variables.
- will_brown 10y ago
  >but the overruling factor in weight loss/gain is the ratio of work (exercise) to energy input (calories). I don't think you are off, but the key is not weight loss/gain...the key is healthy weight loss/gain and that has everything to do with what you consume.
- collyw 10y ago
  Physics, years of evidence and common sense down voted on HN where solyent is seen as a good thing.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    The physics is that exercise burns so few calories it's not worthwhile from a weight loss point of view.
    - jsprogrammer 10y ago
      Where have those physics been documented? I want to see the same person: 'immobile 'sitting most of the time, with short commutes and shopping trips 'intensely exercising 1 hr a day 'actively working out throughout the day while maintaining their current diet and weight.