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I did tests for weight loss. I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. (stay up all night and weigh your self repeatedly, in the morning, no loss, but

I did tests for weight loss. I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. (stay up all night and weigh your self repeatedly, in the morning, no loss, but after you sleep and wake, your weight goes back to "morning weight") I found that if you don't sleep well, you don't lose as much. If you eat too late before going to bed, you don't lose as much. If you adjust your diet (however you want is my experience) to always be hungry for around an hour before every meal, you will lose weight. (no exercise at all) What these guys are doing seems to be actual "work", I don't think stress alone makes you lose weight. With the anecdotal data I have observed over the years "stress eating" is more common that "stress based weight loss". Maybe the activity that causes the stress directly relates to it's effect? And not all stress is equal in this way? (tournament stress vs paying the bills stress)

sbmthakur 7y ago
Lack of sleep pretty much affects every system in the body. Metabolism being no exception. Mathew Walker covers this in detail in Why we sleep.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  Sure, but I found something more specific. I tracked weight loss for a month. Eating only one meal a day. I recorded multiple times a day my weight. Only in the morning did I actually record any "loss". So, I did some tests for this. I stayed up all night to see if I lost weight in the morning like every other day, but I didn't. I slept, woke up in the afternoon, and I had lost .5 pounds from the previous day. Something special happens during sleep that is unrelated to a general concept of metabolism, but instead a specific process. It's like some kind of processing the bodies does that is related to weight loss/waste management that does not occur at all (or maybe only a little?) when you are awake. (my amateur assessment)
  - throwaway_law 7y ago
    >Something special happens during sleep that is unrelated to a general concept of metabolism, but instead a specific process. Sure a number of your systems are shut down while sleeping that otherwise are active as you are awake, and other become more active. Just one example is the spike of human growth hormone (typically around 75% of HGH is released during sleep), HGH is directly related to metabolism and weight loss/gain. Also as You probably know actual fat loss (as opposed to water weight) is a function of breathing, as in fat isn't "burned" or you don't sweat out fat, but fat is metabolized a literally breathed out of the body, and during REM sleep breathing is increased. By no means is this an exhaustive list, but beyond maybe sweating a little more than normal (again water weight not fat loss) while sleeping, any actual weight loss is all a function of hormones/metabolism.
  - wysifnwyg 7y ago
    It's the point and time where the body spends energy on repair.
    - outworlder 7y ago
      But spends less energy everywhere else.
      - wysifnwyg 7y ago
        Repair is quite expensive.
  - maneesh 7y ago
    Did you ever test exercise? Just yesterday, before my workout (squats and bench press, no cardio), I weighed 202. Just after my workout, I weighed 200. I've seen myself lose up to 5lbs before and after a workout.
    - RobertRoberts 7y ago
      Yes, I weighed myself before and after exercising multiple times, and there was a slight shift, but a glass or two of water evened the weight back out immediately. So, I would chalk that up to simple water loss. (like you and other have as well)
  - balfirevic 7y ago
    > I stayed up all night to see if I lost weight in the morning like every other day, but I didn't. Did you drink water during that time?
    - RobertRoberts 7y ago
      No, I wanted to compare apples to apples to ensure it was a specific effect happening.
  - loco5niner 7y ago
    The special thing that happens during sleep is the subject does not generally eat or sleep during that time.
    - loco5niner 7y ago
      drink, not sleep (too late to edit)
specialp 7y ago
It is more of the effect of not eating or drinking for ~8 hours. 1 pint of water weighs around 500g. Also the average human exhales 1kg of CO2 a day which about a quarter of that is carbon weight. You will lose weight if you do not drink or eat for 8 hours awake. "Morning weight" == fasted and somewhat dehydrated weight.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  >"Morning weight" == fasted and somewhat dehydrated weight. I was tracking weight loss over time, so it's not just water loss. I tracked weight multiple times a day to see when weight loss actually happens. If it was simple dehydration then sleeping would be irrelevant, but sleep is when something is processed, an action occurs that expels the waste/water.
  - balfirevic 7y ago
    Wait.. Where does the weight go? Apart from water - sweated and breathed out, which you say isn't all that's happening.
    - defective 7y ago
      Most weight your body actually loses (as in not water) is lost as carbon in the CO2 you exhale.
      - balfirevic 7y ago
        Right, but that's just regular metabolism. In the context of this thread, parent poster claimed it wasn't all that's happening and it certainly won't account for 0.5 lbs of mass lost during the night (mentioned elsewhere in this thread).
        RobertRoberts 7y ago
        It seems I have to be careful about my statements. I lost .5 lbs of mass (on average it was over this like .57 lbs) every day for 30 days. Some days I lost more some less. What I found was that during the day I gained weight consistently from morning till night. I drank water, ran (2 miles then later 3 miles around 4:30pm) ate food (one meal at around 5:30pm), sweated on my runs, bowel movements were every couple days, urinated multiple times a day. But, consistently gained weight morning -> night. I measured my weight Morning > noon > evening (before meal) > night (before sleep). Only in the morning after urination did weight leave my body. Otherwise is consistent gains. People want to claim "it's all water", but that is nonsense, as I lost 15+ lbs that month. So, during a few days, I stayed up all night, no extra water in the night, no urination until morning to see if it was just that 8 hour period (approx) that caused the final loss of total weight to get me to my lowest measurement of the day. Nope. I had not lost any (or negligible weight, I was still at or near night weight). After I slept, (I'd wake in the afternoon) urinate, and I was back to my expected morning weight - with the average loss of .5 lbs. Sleep has an effect on the processing of urine related to the expulsion of waste and the metabolism of fat. That is my theory. A lot of people here are calling this asinine, so be it. If you are up for experimenting, weigh yourself in the morning and night for a week. Then stay up all night and weigh yourself in the morning, then after you get a nap. Then tell me I am crazy and there's nothing to this effect.
uptownfunk 7y ago
Totally this. I kid you not, I fasted the entire day and somehow weighted the same, and when I slept for three to four hours I literally woke up 2 lbs. less. It almost defies reason the importance of sleep in weight loss. Probably gives new hypothesis of “dad weight”, you gain weight because you don’t get good sleep after having a kid.
- saadshamim 7y ago
  a lot of that is water weight, I almost always have to average a weeks worth of weight to get a stable reading on the weight changes. I also, gain like +2lbs if I eat a salty meal the night before.
- crispyporkbites 7y ago
  > “dad weight”, you gain weight because you don’t get good sleep after having a kid. No this is because you've had a baby and don't need to be in good shape to keep or sleep with your partner, so you stop going to the gym, eating well, doing exercise etc. Applies to both sexes.
  - IanCal 7y ago
    As a new dad who has put back on some weight, I'd say the biggest reason is not about "keeping my partner" but purely how I rate different things I need to spend my effort, time and energy on. Less time and more stress makes me more likely to make some poor health decision - for example heading out for a walk or a run would help but right now I'm knackered and just want to sit down because it's the first break I've had today. Or order in food because my plan to cook earlier failed due to an unexpected _something_ or just plain comfort eating. Kids are great, but undeniably add time and stress. Maintaining good healthy habits is not impossible, but it's easier to let them slide.
oarabbus_ 7y ago
>I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. You may just not notice it until you wake up, but you can certainly lose weight during the day if you aren't eating and you are exerting yourself physically.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  I think I can "process fat" during the day, but I did not lose weight. I consistently gained weight from water and food in take from morning -> night. Only after a full night sleep did I go back to the previous morning weight - .5 lbs average loss.
riazrizvi 7y ago
The difference in the grandmaster situation is that their extreme focus on chess completely displaces their hunger, hunger which needs real estate in your attention to be effective, just like any other felt sensation. And this focus lasts for the majority of the tournament, months. This is different to most people. When you have an immersive job you can get in the zone for many hours of the day, but you do stop working, and your hunger returns. The closest thing I ever experienced to what they are describing was when I played the game Civilization for the first time in ‘93. I was so obsessed I played it for three days straight, night and day, before I took my first nap. The fluid drained from body, I looked like a skeleton with black holes for eyes. I also did not eat, I remember literally running to the store to get a single can of coke otherwise I just drank water from the bathroom faucet because it was next to my room. Within five days I had easily lost a couple of pounds of bodyfat. Having played chess competitively throughout school, it’s no surprise chess Grandmasters have this total level of focus in tournaments.
- Swizec 7y ago
  I used to get this with programming. I still do sometimes but it just isn’t as immersive anymore (probably not enough of a challenge or too many parallel concerns) Once upon a time video games did it. I’d fire up Empire Total War and 20 minutes later it was getting dark and I felt queasy. Oh wait it’s been 12 hours. Nowadays I only get that on my motorcycle. Fire up the engine, find an open road, and you don’t even know you’re hungry until you come home 6 hours later and sit down for dinner.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - vl 7y ago
    But you can't ride 6 hours on the single tank of gas?
    - Swizec 7y ago
      You’d be surprised. 3.5 gallon tank, about 80mpg on highway, 50mpg in spirited canyon riding. That lasts quite a while. And stopping at a gas station doesn’t take long enough to make you realize you’re starving.
gms 7y ago
This is very interesting; thanks for sharing your experiments!
- coldtea 7y ago
  The "experiments" are bogus, consult an actual doctor.
jniedrauer 7y ago
Your body is metabolically active whether or not you're asleep. You can definitely lose weight during the day. It's possible to burn an entire pound of bodyfat in a single day with sustained aerobic activity. It's not even difficult to lose 5+ lbs throughout the course of a day from muscle glycogen and corresponding water loss. Even on rest days, I find that I am sometimes lighter before bed than I was when I woke up.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  I agree completely that you "metabolise fat" all day long. I communicated this poorly in my original post. In my experiments (using the widely understood concept of "morning weight = true weight") the fat I burned did not come off my body in a measurable way until after I slept. If I didn't sleep, my weight did not diminish until I did. The worse/less sleep I had effected the amount of weight I lost.
danso 7y ago
I remember from high school wrestling that you could almost always count on losing 1 pound of weight between night time and early morning weigh-ins. A little less if you went to bed severely dehydrated.
ebg13 7y ago
> I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. Unless you stop breathing during the day, this is super absurd. All non-water non-food weight leaves the body as exhaled carbon (and I suppose also trivially as radiated heat energy). Or are you suggesting that people only exhale CO2 when they sleep?
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  I said "weight" not "mass". And yes, I consistently gained weight all day (water + food intake), and did not return to morning weight (minus actual fat used up, about .5 lbs a day on average) until after sleeping. I think the amount of weight lost through exhaling is minimal compared to urinating and defecation. And defecation is almost none at all. (my tests showed that bowel movements have very little affect on weight)
scarface74 7y ago
I hate to be blunt. But this is as much pseudoscience as the anti vaxers. Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. There is also a big difference between losing weight based on water weight and losing real body mass. I sweat like a pig anytime I work out. I use to teach two hour fitness classes and even now after the end of a workout, I’ve “lost 5 pounds” but that’s pure water weight. I’m burning around 1000-1200 calories during that time. If I rehydrate and drink lots of water afterwards, I’ll “gain” 3 pounds. If you are “losing weight” by being hungry or by limiting when you eat, you are losing weight because you are consuming less calories. The same was cited in the article. The chess players are forgetting to eat.
- partialrecall 7y ago
  > "The chess players are forgetting to eat. " This surprises me. I find that being hungry dulls my edge and makes me noticeably less clever. It's easy for me to forget to eat if I'm doing something mindless, but when I'm actively problem solving I find that I become more aware of my hunger (and other forms of general discomfort.)
  - Reedx 7y ago
    Interesting. For a lot of gamers and programmers it's the opposite. Intense focus and engagement often results in forgetting to eat and/or sleep. This is well known in the gaming community.
    - partialrecall 7y ago
      Gaming is an activity that I filed under mindless, I don't play many games these days but I have in the past and generally noticed myself eating less. Typically when I play games these days I listen to an audiobook or podcast at the same time and my attention is on the audio more than the game, for which I'm basically on autopilot. I never been big on puzzle games though, I prefer games like doom or quake. Fast games that focus on reaction time and spatial awareness, rather than problem solving. If I were playing something slow and complex (chess, minesweeper, etc), I expect I'd probably be more aware of my hunger.
outworlder 7y ago
> I did tests for weight loss. I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. What would be the physical mechanism that would account for this? You are probably just measuring hydration + gut contents.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  Gut contents were almost irrelevant in my tests. Logically I think this comes down to dehyrdated food weighs very, very little. So in general the weight of food is mostly from water. Therefore, gut contents don't contribute much to weight. Hydration wasn't the issue, because I weighed myself consistently at regular intervals. And "true weight" (if that is right term) is supposed to be based on morning weight. Well I could compare morning, noon, even and night weight across all days for a month. So I could tell when I weighed at any particular time. In my experiment I always was my lowest weight in the morning. The normal explanation is "because you pee'd and were dehydrated." Well, then if I stay up all night, don't drink anything extra, and pee in the morning as usual, then I should weigh the same as when I slept? But that is not what happened. I didn't lose weight. Then i went to sleep, woke, urinated, and then I had lost the expected .5 pounds that afternoon instead. Again, I only ate one meal a day (at the end of the day, 5pm, so this did not effect the sleep pattern), and I tested for water intake/urination. I lost on average .5 lbs a day, and that day I didn't lose that weight until after sleeping until the afternoon. I seem to have stirred up a hornets nest by making this claim, but I was careful about my testing, and it's not a crazy notion.
  - ebg13 7y ago
    It is a crazy notion and you weren't careful about your testing. So far it sounds like you didn't actually measure the weight of your consumption and excretion. You just assumed they stayed constant. You also assume other things like that you pee the same volume after sleeping as after not sleeping.
    - RobertRoberts 7y ago
      Yep, what if you pee more after sleeping? I agree. But I found that it affected total weight loss, I didn't lose as much when my sleep was affected. My assumption is that waste, fat, energy process is complicated, and that something happens during sleep that the body gets rid of stuff, and if it doesn't have enough time to do that, it will just leave some things in place. This is a logical conclusion based on limited resources = limited outcome. The assumption I am challenging is simply that "diet + exercise" = weight control. But I have found that you need "diet + exercise + quality sleep" = weight control in my tests. But then later, I found that "diet + sleep" = weight control. (I have not exercised for over 2 years now testing this, weighing myself daily) After this experiment a few years ago I gained almost all the weight lost in 6 months. But then lost _more_ weight without any exercise at all. (I stopped exercising entirely for more than a year to test this theory) And I found that I could eat 2 meals a day, no exercise, good sleep and I could lose weight. And as soon as I break my good patterns (any of the ones I mentioned in my comments already), weight will come back on.
jp555 7y ago
Insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951287/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951287/
olalonde 7y ago
> I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. That matches my experience as well. A little known fact is that lost weight mostly exits the body through the lungs as carbone dioxide. ［0］［0］ http://theconversation.com/when-we-lose-weight-where-does-it-go-91594 http://theconversation.com/when-we-lose-weight-where-does-it...
dpark 7y ago
> I did tests for weight loss. I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. Your test lacked any semblance of science. Aside from your unblinded sample of 1, you obviously didn’t run a control. Weigh yourself. Now don’t eat or drink anything for 8 hours. Now weigh yourself again. I bet the scale moves whether you’re sleeping for those 8 hours or not.
opportune 7y ago
This is just not true. As a counterpoint, I have done 48 hour wakeful crunch time sessions before with very little eating (about 400-800 kcal/day). I typically lost 5 lbs over that time (which I mostly gained back as much of it was water, but also lost some fat and muscle). Don’t extrapolate your anecdotal personal data like that. Your weight is mostly a function of how much stuff is in your bowels, glycogen, how hydrated you are (indirectly how much salt you have), your muscle mass, fat mass, and then a relatively static amount for the rest (organs, skeleton). Sleeping does not magically make you lose weight. You just lose a lot of water while you sleep due to breathing, and might lose a small amount of fat and/or glycogen
bscphil 7y ago
> I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. Hilariously, this implies that if you never sleep you don't need to eat. All we need to do now is figure out a way to put people on enough drugs that they never sleep, run them on treadmills, and voilà, FREE ENERGY!

sbmthakur 7y ago

Lack of sleep pretty much affects every system in the body. Metabolism being no exception. Mathew Walker covers this in detail in Why we sleep.

RobertRoberts 7y ago
Sure, but I found something more specific. I tracked weight loss for a month. Eating only one meal a day. I recorded multiple times a day my weight. Only in the morning did I actually record any "loss". So, I did some tests for this. I stayed up all night to see if I lost weight in the morning like every other day, but I didn't. I slept, woke up in the afternoon, and I had lost .5 pounds from the previous day. Something special happens during sleep that is unrelated to a general concept of metabolism, but instead a specific process. It's like some kind of processing the bodies does that is related to weight loss/waste management that does not occur at all (or maybe only a little?) when you are awake. (my amateur assessment)
- throwaway_law 7y ago
  >Something special happens during sleep that is unrelated to a general concept of metabolism, but instead a specific process. Sure a number of your systems are shut down while sleeping that otherwise are active as you are awake, and other become more active. Just one example is the spike of human growth hormone (typically around 75% of HGH is released during sleep), HGH is directly related to metabolism and weight loss/gain. Also as You probably know actual fat loss (as opposed to water weight) is a function of breathing, as in fat isn't "burned" or you don't sweat out fat, but fat is metabolized a literally breathed out of the body, and during REM sleep breathing is increased. By no means is this an exhaustive list, but beyond maybe sweating a little more than normal (again water weight not fat loss) while sleeping, any actual weight loss is all a function of hormones/metabolism.
- wysifnwyg 7y ago
  It's the point and time where the body spends energy on repair.
  - outworlder 7y ago
    But spends less energy everywhere else.
    - wysifnwyg 7y ago
      Repair is quite expensive.
- maneesh 7y ago
  Did you ever test exercise? Just yesterday, before my workout (squats and bench press, no cardio), I weighed 202. Just after my workout, I weighed 200. I've seen myself lose up to 5lbs before and after a workout.
  - RobertRoberts 7y ago
    Yes, I weighed myself before and after exercising multiple times, and there was a slight shift, but a glass or two of water evened the weight back out immediately. So, I would chalk that up to simple water loss. (like you and other have as well)
- balfirevic 7y ago
  > I stayed up all night to see if I lost weight in the morning like every other day, but I didn't. Did you drink water during that time?
  - RobertRoberts 7y ago
    No, I wanted to compare apples to apples to ensure it was a specific effect happening.
- loco5niner 7y ago
  The special thing that happens during sleep is the subject does not generally eat or sleep during that time.
  - loco5niner 7y ago
    drink, not sleep (too late to edit)

specialp 7y ago

It is more of the effect of not eating or drinking for ~8 hours. 1 pint of water weighs around 500g. Also the average human exhales 1kg of CO2 a day which about a quarter of that is carbon weight. You will lose weight if you do not drink or eat for 8 hours awake. "Morning weight" == fasted and somewhat dehydrated weight.

RobertRoberts 7y ago
>"Morning weight" == fasted and somewhat dehydrated weight. I was tracking weight loss over time, so it's not just water loss. I tracked weight multiple times a day to see when weight loss actually happens. If it was simple dehydration then sleeping would be irrelevant, but sleep is when something is processed, an action occurs that expels the waste/water.
- balfirevic 7y ago
  Wait.. Where does the weight go? Apart from water - sweated and breathed out, which you say isn't all that's happening.
  - defective 7y ago
    Most weight your body actually loses (as in not water) is lost as carbon in the CO2 you exhale.
    - balfirevic 7y ago
      Right, but that's just regular metabolism. In the context of this thread, parent poster claimed it wasn't all that's happening and it certainly won't account for 0.5 lbs of mass lost during the night (mentioned elsewhere in this thread).
      - RobertRoberts 7y ago
        It seems I have to be careful about my statements. I lost .5 lbs of mass (on average it was over this like .57 lbs) every day for 30 days. Some days I lost more some less. What I found was that during the day I gained weight consistently from morning till night. I drank water, ran (2 miles then later 3 miles around 4:30pm) ate food (one meal at around 5:30pm), sweated on my runs, bowel movements were every couple days, urinated multiple times a day. But, consistently gained weight morning -> night. I measured my weight Morning > noon > evening (before meal) > night (before sleep). Only in the morning after urination did weight leave my body. Otherwise is consistent gains. People want to claim "it's all water", but that is nonsense, as I lost 15+ lbs that month. So, during a few days, I stayed up all night, no extra water in the night, no urination until morning to see if it was just that 8 hour period (approx) that caused the final loss of total weight to get me to my lowest measurement of the day. Nope. I had not lost any (or negligible weight, I was still at or near night weight). After I slept, (I'd wake in the afternoon) urinate, and I was back to my expected morning weight - with the average loss of .5 lbs. Sleep has an effect on the processing of urine related to the expulsion of waste and the metabolism of fat. That is my theory. A lot of people here are calling this asinine, so be it. If you are up for experimenting, weigh yourself in the morning and night for a week. Then stay up all night and weigh yourself in the morning, then after you get a nap. Then tell me I am crazy and there's nothing to this effect.

uptownfunk 7y ago

Totally this. I kid you not, I fasted the entire day and somehow weighted the same, and when I slept for three to four hours I literally woke up 2 lbs. less. It almost defies reason the importance of sleep in weight loss. Probably gives new hypothesis of “dad weight”, you gain weight because you don’t get good sleep after having a kid.

saadshamim 7y ago
a lot of that is water weight, I almost always have to average a weeks worth of weight to get a stable reading on the weight changes. I also, gain like +2lbs if I eat a salty meal the night before.
crispyporkbites 7y ago
> “dad weight”, you gain weight because you don’t get good sleep after having a kid. No this is because you've had a baby and don't need to be in good shape to keep or sleep with your partner, so you stop going to the gym, eating well, doing exercise etc. Applies to both sexes.
- IanCal 7y ago
  As a new dad who has put back on some weight, I'd say the biggest reason is not about "keeping my partner" but purely how I rate different things I need to spend my effort, time and energy on. Less time and more stress makes me more likely to make some poor health decision - for example heading out for a walk or a run would help but right now I'm knackered and just want to sit down because it's the first break I've had today. Or order in food because my plan to cook earlier failed due to an unexpected _something_ or just plain comfort eating. Kids are great, but undeniably add time and stress. Maintaining good healthy habits is not impossible, but it's easier to let them slide.

oarabbus_ 7y ago

>I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. You may just not notice it until you wake up, but you can certainly lose weight during the day if you aren't eating and you are exerting yourself physically.

RobertRoberts 7y ago
I think I can "process fat" during the day, but I did not lose weight. I consistently gained weight from water and food in take from morning -> night. Only after a full night sleep did I go back to the previous morning weight - .5 lbs average loss.

riazrizvi 7y ago

The difference in the grandmaster situation is that their extreme focus on chess completely displaces their hunger, hunger which needs real estate in your attention to be effective, just like any other felt sensation. And this focus lasts for the majority of the tournament, months. This is different to most people. When you have an immersive job you can get in the zone for many hours of the day, but you do stop working, and your hunger returns. The closest thing I ever experienced to what they are describing was when I played the game Civilization for the first time in ‘93. I was so obsessed I played it for three days straight, night and day, before I took my first nap. The fluid drained from body, I looked like a skeleton with black holes for eyes. I also did not eat, I remember literally running to the store to get a single can of coke otherwise I just drank water from the bathroom faucet because it was next to my room. Within five days I had easily lost a couple of pounds of bodyfat. Having played chess competitively throughout school, it’s no surprise chess Grandmasters have this total level of focus in tournaments.

Swizec 7y ago
I used to get this with programming. I still do sometimes but it just isn’t as immersive anymore (probably not enough of a challenge or too many parallel concerns) Once upon a time video games did it. I’d fire up Empire Total War and 20 minutes later it was getting dark and I felt queasy. Oh wait it’s been 12 hours. Nowadays I only get that on my motorcycle. Fire up the engine, find an open road, and you don’t even know you’re hungry until you come home 6 hours later and sit down for dinner.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- vl 7y ago
  But you can't ride 6 hours on the single tank of gas?
  - Swizec 7y ago
    You’d be surprised. 3.5 gallon tank, about 80mpg on highway, 50mpg in spirited canyon riding. That lasts quite a while. And stopping at a gas station doesn’t take long enough to make you realize you’re starving.

gms 7y ago

This is very interesting; thanks for sharing your experiments!

coldtea 7y ago
The "experiments" are bogus, consult an actual doctor.

jniedrauer 7y ago

Your body is metabolically active whether or not you're asleep. You can definitely lose weight during the day. It's possible to burn an entire pound of bodyfat in a single day with sustained aerobic activity. It's not even difficult to lose 5+ lbs throughout the course of a day from muscle glycogen and corresponding water loss. Even on rest days, I find that I am sometimes lighter before bed than I was when I woke up.

RobertRoberts 7y ago
I agree completely that you "metabolise fat" all day long. I communicated this poorly in my original post. In my experiments (using the widely understood concept of "morning weight = true weight") the fat I burned did not come off my body in a measurable way until after I slept. If I didn't sleep, my weight did not diminish until I did. The worse/less sleep I had effected the amount of weight I lost.

danso 7y ago

I remember from high school wrestling that you could almost always count on losing 1 pound of weight between night time and early morning weigh-ins. A little less if you went to bed severely dehydrated.

ebg13 7y ago

> I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. Unless you stop breathing during the day, this is super absurd. All non-water non-food weight leaves the body as exhaled carbon (and I suppose also trivially as radiated heat energy). Or are you suggesting that people only exhale CO2 when they sleep?

RobertRoberts 7y ago
I said "weight" not "mass". And yes, I consistently gained weight all day (water + food intake), and did not return to morning weight (minus actual fat used up, about .5 lbs a day on average) until after sleeping. I think the amount of weight lost through exhaling is minimal compared to urinating and defecation. And defecation is almost none at all. (my tests showed that bowel movements have very little affect on weight)

scarface74 7y ago

I hate to be blunt. But this is as much pseudoscience as the anti vaxers. Losing weight and gaining weight is simple physics. There is also a big difference between losing weight based on water weight and losing real body mass. I sweat like a pig anytime I work out. I use to teach two hour fitness classes and even now after the end of a workout, I’ve “lost 5 pounds” but that’s pure water weight. I’m burning around 1000-1200 calories during that time. If I rehydrate and drink lots of water afterwards, I’ll “gain” 3 pounds. If you are “losing weight” by being hungry or by limiting when you eat, you are losing weight because you are consuming less calories. The same was cited in the article. The chess players are forgetting to eat.

partialrecall 7y ago
> "The chess players are forgetting to eat. " This surprises me. I find that being hungry dulls my edge and makes me noticeably less clever. It's easy for me to forget to eat if I'm doing something mindless, but when I'm actively problem solving I find that I become more aware of my hunger (and other forms of general discomfort.)
- Reedx 7y ago
  Interesting. For a lot of gamers and programmers it's the opposite. Intense focus and engagement often results in forgetting to eat and/or sleep. This is well known in the gaming community.
  - partialrecall 7y ago
    Gaming is an activity that I filed under mindless, I don't play many games these days but I have in the past and generally noticed myself eating less. Typically when I play games these days I listen to an audiobook or podcast at the same time and my attention is on the audio more than the game, for which I'm basically on autopilot. I never been big on puzzle games though, I prefer games like doom or quake. Fast games that focus on reaction time and spatial awareness, rather than problem solving. If I were playing something slow and complex (chess, minesweeper, etc), I expect I'd probably be more aware of my hunger.

outworlder 7y ago

> I did tests for weight loss. I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. What would be the physical mechanism that would account for this? You are probably just measuring hydration + gut contents.

RobertRoberts 7y ago
Gut contents were almost irrelevant in my tests. Logically I think this comes down to dehyrdated food weighs very, very little. So in general the weight of food is mostly from water. Therefore, gut contents don't contribute much to weight. Hydration wasn't the issue, because I weighed myself consistently at regular intervals. And "true weight" (if that is right term) is supposed to be based on morning weight. Well I could compare morning, noon, even and night weight across all days for a month. So I could tell when I weighed at any particular time. In my experiment I always was my lowest weight in the morning. The normal explanation is "because you pee'd and were dehydrated." Well, then if I stay up all night, don't drink anything extra, and pee in the morning as usual, then I should weigh the same as when I slept? But that is not what happened. I didn't lose weight. Then i went to sleep, woke, urinated, and then I had lost the expected .5 pounds that afternoon instead. Again, I only ate one meal a day (at the end of the day, 5pm, so this did not effect the sleep pattern), and I tested for water intake/urination. I lost on average .5 lbs a day, and that day I didn't lose that weight until after sleeping until the afternoon. I seem to have stirred up a hornets nest by making this claim, but I was careful about my testing, and it's not a crazy notion.
- ebg13 7y ago
  It is a crazy notion and you weren't careful about your testing. So far it sounds like you didn't actually measure the weight of your consumption and excretion. You just assumed they stayed constant. You also assume other things like that you pee the same volume after sleeping as after not sleeping.
  - RobertRoberts 7y ago
    Yep, what if you pee more after sleeping? I agree. But I found that it affected total weight loss, I didn't lose as much when my sleep was affected. My assumption is that waste, fat, energy process is complicated, and that something happens during sleep that the body gets rid of stuff, and if it doesn't have enough time to do that, it will just leave some things in place. This is a logical conclusion based on limited resources = limited outcome. The assumption I am challenging is simply that "diet + exercise" = weight control. But I have found that you need "diet + exercise + quality sleep" = weight control in my tests. But then later, I found that "diet + sleep" = weight control. (I have not exercised for over 2 years now testing this, weighing myself daily) After this experiment a few years ago I gained almost all the weight lost in 6 months. But then lost _more_ weight without any exercise at all. (I stopped exercising entirely for more than a year to test this theory) And I found that I could eat 2 meals a day, no exercise, good sleep and I could lose weight. And as soon as I break my good patterns (any of the ones I mentioned in my comments already), weight will come back on.

jp555 7y ago

Insufficient sleep undermines dietary efforts to reduce adiposity - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951287/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2951287/

olalonde 7y ago

> I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. That matches my experience as well. A little known fact is that lost weight mostly exits the body through the lungs as carbone dioxide. ［0］［0］ http://theconversation.com/when-we-lose-weight-where-does-it-go-91594 http://theconversation.com/when-we-lose-weight-where-does-it...

dpark 7y ago

> I did tests for weight loss. I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. Your test lacked any semblance of science. Aside from your unblinded sample of 1, you obviously didn’t run a control. Weigh yourself. Now don’t eat or drink anything for 8 hours. Now weigh yourself again. I bet the scale moves whether you’re sleeping for those 8 hours or not.

opportune 7y ago

This is just not true. As a counterpoint, I have done 48 hour wakeful crunch time sessions before with very little eating (about 400-800 kcal/day). I typically lost 5 lbs over that time (which I mostly gained back as much of it was water, but also lost some fat and muscle). Don’t extrapolate your anecdotal personal data like that. Your weight is mostly a function of how much stuff is in your bowels, glycogen, how hydrated you are (indirectly how much salt you have), your muscle mass, fat mass, and then a relatively static amount for the rest (organs, skeleton). Sleeping does not magically make you lose weight. You just lose a lot of water while you sleep due to breathing, and might lose a small amount of fat and/or glycogen

bscphil 7y ago

> I found that you don't lose weight until you sleep. Hilariously, this implies that if you never sleep you don't need to eat. All we need to do now is figure out a way to put people on enough drugs that they never sleep, run them on treadmills, and voilà, FREE ENERGY!