7 ms·

As someone trying to lose weight, all the conflicting advice out there is so frustrating. Should I eat ‘n’ times a day or just once? Is fasting good, or will i

As someone trying to lose weight, all the conflicting advice out there is so frustrating. Should I eat ‘n’ times a day or just once? Is fasting good, or will it put me in ‘starvation mode’? Why is it that when I was young I didn’t even need to think about my food intake and stayed really, really lean? Do we have a set-point and if so, has mine gone up and am I going to be forever hungry if I want to get back to a sensible weight? Do antidepressants cause weight gain, or don’t they? Is there a way we can measure actual calories-in with a device? Sorry, just needed to vent.

p10_user 7y ago
You know you have to eat less. Counting your calories with a food journal is a very successful way to keep yourself accountable for how much you’re eating. Any special diet or strategy is making it more complicated than it is.
- ses1984 7y ago
  Some of us find it incredibly hard, almost impossible, to just eat less. Also some would argue that keeping a food journal and measuring every calorie you eat is far more complicated than special diets like "don't eat carbs" which are successful for some people without measuring or recording anything.
  - amanaplanacanal 7y ago
    Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Counting calories is fairly simple if you are eating fast food or out of packages. I found it to be a huge pain in the ass when eating whole foods.
    - bittercynic 7y ago
      That's an unfortunate alignment, because those foods that are packaged and marked with calorie counts are the very ones that are more likely to leave you wanting to eat more calories than you need. Whole foods are harder to get an accurate count for, but seem to leave me feeling full after consuming a more reasonable number of calories.
    - Retric 7y ago
      You don’t need extreme precision when counting calories. The trick is to A develop a reasonable baseline for breaking even at your weight and activity level. Then B make a significant reduction sufficient to lose weight in a reasonable timeframe. You can call them calories or magic beans, as long as the energy ratio is about right that’s plenty. Really, the difference between say 2,500 calories a day and 1,800 is about the magnitude you want and not that hard to differentiate.
    - blaser-waffle 7y ago
      Seconded. When I used to cut weight for HS and college wrestling it was considerably easier to plan around fast food and pre-packaged options. Those aren't always awesome choices, but they're highly consistent and I can get accurate counts as to how much calories/protein/fiber/fat/carbs I've had. Doesn't mean I was eating it 3 meals a day, mind you; still mostly brown rice, broc, and chicken breasts. But I could plan around a lunch at Wendy's, while the local steak house was a crapshoot.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - debatem1 7y ago
    The challenge is that diets that rely on how your body metabolizes certain foods inherently depend on a lot of details about your digestive and metabolic processes. Some of those things probably are very generalizable, but many of them will vary widely in how well they work depending on genetic factors, gut flora, and lifestyle. By contrast, calorie counting requires only that you obey the laws of thermodynamics. At some level of reduced intake it will produce weight loss for literally anyone. Having said that, if not eating carbs gets you there that's great-- I don't want to diminish anyone else's experience with weight loss. I just think more people should be up-front when talking about their new diet that any surprisingly easy way to lose weight is surprising because things don't normally work that way.
    - levythe 7y ago
      One could spin it around and argue that what that maintenance level is depends heavily upon the individual's metabolic processes, which depend upon gut flora, diet, weight, exercise levels, timing of consumption...
  - copperx 7y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree. Eating less for some people with strong hunger pains can be almost impossible. I was one of them. Skipping breakfast would make me irrationally angry, and the pain of having an empty stomach was too much to bear. I could not concentrate even if I had mild hunger. I'm going to plug in a program that changed my life, even though I have never done that, and I don't really agree with their business model, but their methodology for training yourself to eat less is top-notch and incredibly simple. The program is called Naturally Slim, and many insurance companies cover it. I think their $50/month fee for non-insured people is a bit outrageous because the principles are simple: * Eat really slowly and stop eating when you're not hungry anymore (not full, just not hungry). Throw away the rest of the food or store it for later. * Only eat when you're really hungry. * Drink diluted orange juice at a 1:8 ratio throughout the day to maintain a steady glucose level and prevent hunger. * Your meals should consist of about 1/3 vegetable or animal protein to keep hunger away. * Instead of having breakfast, drink plenty of water or the diluted orange juice. Most people aren't really hungry in the morning. The beauty is that as your body weight drops, your caloric requirements drop, and if you're following the first rule, you're eating less every week. Probably that's how anorexia sufferers get to eat so little without feeling devastating hunger.
  - scarejunba 7y ago
    The right drugs can kill your appetite and they're very effective and ensuring weight loss. For me, just caffeine can ensure I don't eat for the whole day and then I can still go climbing.
    - casefields 7y ago
      Throw in some Bronkaid and you have a proper EC stack. Be careful if you have family history of heart disease and especially if you have heart issues yourself. Also, like anything don't overdue it. And research the heck out of it first please.
      - ses1984 7y ago
        I've done ec stack and I develop a tolerance to the appetite suppressive effects in a couple weeks, also I don't like how I feel on it. Two or cups of coffee per day is enough stim for me, more than that makes me feel awful.
  - asokoloski 7y ago
    As an alternative, check out a whole-food plant based diet. Many foods in the standard American diet (junk food like chips and sweets, meat, dairy, eggs, oils, even fish) are generally very calorie-dense -- you don't have to eat much of them to be over-eating calories, and eating an appropriate amount doesn't fill you up. If you switch to getting your calories from whole grains, beans and legumes, potatoes, rice (ideally brown rice), fruit, etc, and don't add fat or oil when you cook, you can eat until you're full and still not gain weight. Nuts and seeds are the only whole plant food you may have to watch out for a bit -- the oil in them makes them relatively high-calorie. The downside to this diet is that you'll probably have to do a lot of the cooking yourself at home, because virtually all the prepared food you can buy has had oil of some sort added to it. You can buy some things like pasta sauce, but you have to pay close attention to the nutrition label and try to get ones with minimal added oil. It takes a little while to get used to it, but it soon becomes pretty intuitive. And of course, cutting out dairy and meat means that you'll want to supplement B12. The upside is that this diet has health benefits (based on research, not just anecdotes) that go way beyond weight loss, though. Reduced risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, reduced fatigue, less pain from inflammatory conditions, less anxiety, better digestion, etc. Although, the anecdotes are generally impressive and fun to read, so if you want those: https://www.forksoverknives.com/success-stories/#gs.6onygn https://www.forksoverknives.com/success-stories/#gs.6onygn
    - ses1984 7y ago
      If I don't make a conscious effort to reduce my intake I can easily eat 5k calories a day of beans, potatoes, or rice.
  - timbit42 7y ago
    The way to eat less is to reduce carbs and increase healthy fats. Carbs spike your blood sugar, which your body then works at removing, causing a sugar crash a couple of hours later where you are hungry, which is why people snack between meals. If you avoid carbs, you avoid the sugar spike and crash. Instead of carbs, eat healthy fats. Fats don't spike your sugar and they keep you satiated for hours on end. Keep your protein at a normal level. Protein increases blood sugar some but not enough to cause a sugar spike and crash and make you hungry.
- newnewpdro 7y ago
  You don't have to eat less, if by less you mean by volume. When I go 100% raw unprocessed vegetarian for weeks at a time, I'm eating so much plain lettuce and fruits/vegetables by volume my jaw has to adapt. It's very effective at controlling weight in my experience FWIW, while still eating huge volumes of food.
- merpnderp 7y ago
  People who say that you have to eat less must have never met someone on the keto diet. Your body just doesn’t store the fat when you’re not eating carbs.
  - whenchamenia 7y ago
    While fats satiate you faster, and people tend to lose weight, I have absolutely gained plenty of weight on a keto diet. Please dont spread BS. Keto is awesome but it isnt magic.
    - timbit42 7y ago
      That's because keto isn't really a weight loss diet. It can be, but it was designed to reduce seizures in people with epilepsy. It's a healthy diet with the side effect of reducing weight if calories are reduced. It is popular as a way to lose weight because the fats keep you satiated for hours, reducing hunger and the feeling of needing to eat. Also, the reduction of carbs reduces the blood sugar spike and the subsequent sugar crash later that makes you feel hungry.
    - merpnderp 7y ago
      It isn't BS as I've lost a considerable amount of weight in a very short time on it, eating nothing but vegetables and meat. Usually eating (far) over 1,000 calories per meal, dripping tons of butter on literally everything, 3x a day, going from 223lbs to 180lbs in 3 months. I know nearly a dozen people at work who've lost as much or more weight than me, eating like I did. In fact you're the first person I've ever heard of gaining weight on keto, on or off the internet.
- hrktb 7y ago
  This is a rabbit hole where any actual advice needs to be prefaced with pages worth of what else you are doing on the side. There are countless of people who instead of eating less move to higher protein diets and exercice more, while doing many many more small adjustments that make it work for them. Some can eat dramatically less while keeping roughly the same level of everyday activity, while for other it will become hell on earth and put so much stress on them that they will rebound very hard after losing only a small amounts. I personaly think any advice that is summed up in a sentence or two should be seen as some proverbial saying and be considered applicable only after reaching the same conclusion by ourself.
ryacko 7y ago
Eat slowly until you feel satisfied. No single person has the same metabolism, and only processed food has exact measures of nutrition that can be measured.
TJSomething 7y ago
I suspect that a lot of those answers depend on your genes and gut microbiota. Except that last one, because reliably measuring calories requires destroying the food.
Medicalidiot 7y ago
All the fad diets, trendy diet suggestions, are bullshit. Cogent science has delineated what we should be eating: lots of vegetables(3-5 cups of carrots, peas, green beans, spinach), complex carbohydrates(think fiber, whole wheat), lean meats(fish and chicken), and unsaturated oils (olive oil). It doesn't matter if you eat them all at once, what matters is that you go after vegetables first then go after the rest. Sugar is the worst thing in the world and I'm waiting for the water shed moment where we realize that strong insulin responses are terrible for the body. I could go on and on, but Hardvard my plate is the definite guide for what you should be eating. This is the non lobbyist, highly educated PhD take on what current science says we should eat. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/
- dmix 7y ago
  Not eating bread, cereal, or sugar had a big impact for me. I haven’t gone full keto but I’ve found just doing that is sufficiently challenging and effective for long term weight loss. Especially once you hit 30 it’s should be something you start drilling into your head and simply stop buying it. Replacing sugar with Erythritol and monk fruit has been more than sufficient replacement for things like coffee and small treats. It’s hard to find commercial products with Erythritol which is a shame but that seems to be slowly changing. Sadly most “sugar free” products have Maltodextrin or Xylitol which is awful for me as I have colitis and I’ve read they aren’t keto friendly. If every product that contained those two switched to the former two my life shopping for groceries would be so much easier. I also don’t go hard at restaurants (nothing worse than having to be picky at a restaurant) mostly for practicality reasons but that would be the 2nd area I'd focus on next if I started to care more. Starting small and simple (ie just no bread) at the beginning is the best way. Abrupt changes usually have A abrupt endings as you significantly increase the workload.
copperx 7y ago
I was really frustrated for a few years asking the same questions. It comes down to this: most health outcomes are achieved by eating less and getting slim if you're overweight (cancer, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver risks decrease). Eat significantly less. Like about 1/2 to 1/3 of what you're eating now. The food that you consume then becomes largely irrelevant (just avoid fried stuff, red meat, and processed meat as much as possible -- the things that have shown conclusively to be carcinogenic). If you're worried about nutrition, take a dive on PubMed and you'll see that many research studies show, for some reason, less risk of cancer for people with nutrient deficiencies. > Is fasting good, or will it put me in ‘starvation mode’? Starvation mode is what you want if you're overweight. Many diets urge you to exercise or to eat often to keep a fast metabolism. But if you want to live longer, you WANT your metabolism to be slow, not fast. That will require you to keep a low-calorie intake for the rest of your life. Fortunately, your hunger pangs will go away after about 5-10 weeks and undereating will actually become a problem.
sgdpk 7y ago
Unfortunately the most compelling evidence I've seen seems to confirm the weight set-point (or set-interval) theory. A good book that summarizes main results is Sandra Aamodt's "Why diets don't work". That's not to say weight loss is impossible. If you're overeating as a habit you may be keeping your weight above your set-point. Learning to "listen" to hunger cues may then bring your weight down. It happened to me 2 years ago and I managed to keep the weight down, and I'm not feeling hungry. There are other ways of lowering the set-point, but not very recommendable in general. I think focusing on hunger cues and eating a balanced diet is good advice, together with exercise and avoiding drinking and smoking. These will (statistically) reduce morbidity risks to normal-weight levels. Note that I am not a doctor, though, so take this information with the proper grain of salt.
- tobib 7y ago
  > Note that I am not a doctor, though, so take this information with the proper grain of salt. In moderation though, too much sodium is bad for you
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Evidence does not appear to bear that out. "... a meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in the American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure." [1] [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-the-war-on-salt/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-t...
    - vlan0 7y ago
      Some people do have a sensitivity to salt. I am one of those people. Excessive salt does weird things to my body. My grandmother is the same way.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
nearbuy 7y ago
One piece of advice that won't change: maintaining a calorie deficit causes weight loss. It's a basic property of physics that the extra energy used has to come from somewhere if don't eat enough to cover it. Tracking your calorie deficit/surplus isn't the easiest method, but unlike fad diets, it's guaranteed to work (provided, of course, that you stick with it and count accurately).
- deegles 7y ago
  “Calorie counting doesn’t work for you because you’re not good enough at counting calories” frames the problem in a way impossible to disprove. Maybe people aren’t arguing that they’re breaking the laws of physics, but that they’re having trouble with estimating the caloric surplus in the first place.
  - vlan0 7y ago
    Maybe, but that’s more of an excuse than a true reason. It means their methodology for determining caloric content is flawed and they aren’t turning the right knobs to find accuracy. At which point they should work with a nutritionist.
  - nearbuy 7y ago
    I've used calorie counting before, and I don't think it's hard to do - just a bit inconvenient. Having a little digital scale helps a lot. Measuring out the calories in a recipe can be a pain, but people tend to repeat the same recipes. It's inconvenient in the beginning, but gets better once you've already calculated most of your standard recipes. There are apps that will help you track it. Pack a lunch or buy something with a known number of calories. If you only rarely go out to restaurants, just give the meal your best estimate and don't worry about it too much. If you eat out every day, it'll be hard to estimate. Fast food chains are often (ironically?) helpful here because many of them list the calories in their meals. You don't really need to estimate your calorie expenditure. Just keep your activity level roughly even, count calorie intake, and track your weight. If your weight doesn't decrease after a couple weeks, subtract a couple hundred calories from your intake. Eventually, you'll get a deficit and your weight will decrease.
adrianmonk 7y ago
I did it through calorie counting. I wasn't surprised that I lost weight, but I was surprised by something else: it made me re-examine everything I ate. One of the key insights was that I was eating a lot of foods that were fattening but weren't filling. It turns out that the ratio of "how full does this make me feel" to "how many calories does this contain" is not a constant across foods. Sugar has probably the worst ratio. Protein and fiber probably have the best, at least in my experience. Fat is a little trickier, but probably also decent if consumed in moderation. Anyway, as a result, I eat a LOT of vegetables and lean meat. For dinner (my large meal), I often have 1/2 to 3/4 pound (225-340g) of something like chicken breast and 3/4 to 1 pound (340-450g) of steamed veggies. Sometimes I feel like I can barely finish it all. The other part of the equation was I really did have to change a lot of long-time habits. I was accustomed to just eating whatever and whenever I wanted. That had to end, and the adjustment was painful. It probably also helps to stay physically active, but I was active before undertaking the weight loss, so I can't comment on the effect of changing that. The closest thing to device that measures actual calories in is a scale (or measuring cup) and a nutrition label. Yes, this is limiting and tedious. Your favorite local restaurant probably doesn't have any nutrition info available at all. To some extent, you can get around this by looking up equivalents. When you're at your local burrito place, just look up the closest Chipotle menu item. If you only need to that occasionally (not every other meal), your overall totals will be pretty close.
parliament32 7y ago
Agreed, it's pretty ridiculous. At the same time, you need to look at yourself and make sure you don't fall into the analysis paralysis trap: it's not as complicated as it seems, despite the fountain of garbage information about edge cases and insignificant tweaks. Eat real food (processed food is bad), not too much (caloric deficit = weight loss), mostly plants (but not only plants, humans are omnivores for a reason). Basically everything else doesn't matter at all: it's not worth tracking your prai alkalinity because it might give you an extra 1% rate of weight loss or whatever the current fad is.

p10_user 7y ago

You know you have to eat less. Counting your calories with a food journal is a very successful way to keep yourself accountable for how much you’re eating. Any special diet or strategy is making it more complicated than it is.

ses1984 7y ago
Some of us find it incredibly hard, almost impossible, to just eat less. Also some would argue that keeping a food journal and measuring every calorie you eat is far more complicated than special diets like "don't eat carbs" which are successful for some people without measuring or recording anything.
- amanaplanacanal 7y ago
  Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Counting calories is fairly simple if you are eating fast food or out of packages. I found it to be a huge pain in the ass when eating whole foods.
  - bittercynic 7y ago
    That's an unfortunate alignment, because those foods that are packaged and marked with calorie counts are the very ones that are more likely to leave you wanting to eat more calories than you need. Whole foods are harder to get an accurate count for, but seem to leave me feeling full after consuming a more reasonable number of calories.
  - Retric 7y ago
    You don’t need extreme precision when counting calories. The trick is to A develop a reasonable baseline for breaking even at your weight and activity level. Then B make a significant reduction sufficient to lose weight in a reasonable timeframe. You can call them calories or magic beans, as long as the energy ratio is about right that’s plenty. Really, the difference between say 2,500 calories a day and 1,800 is about the magnitude you want and not that hard to differentiate.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Seconded. When I used to cut weight for HS and college wrestling it was considerably easier to plan around fast food and pre-packaged options. Those aren't always awesome choices, but they're highly consistent and I can get accurate counts as to how much calories/protein/fiber/fat/carbs I've had. Doesn't mean I was eating it 3 meals a day, mind you; still mostly brown rice, broc, and chicken breasts. But I could plan around a lunch at Wendy's, while the local steak house was a crapshoot.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- debatem1 7y ago
  The challenge is that diets that rely on how your body metabolizes certain foods inherently depend on a lot of details about your digestive and metabolic processes. Some of those things probably are very generalizable, but many of them will vary widely in how well they work depending on genetic factors, gut flora, and lifestyle. By contrast, calorie counting requires only that you obey the laws of thermodynamics. At some level of reduced intake it will produce weight loss for literally anyone. Having said that, if not eating carbs gets you there that's great-- I don't want to diminish anyone else's experience with weight loss. I just think more people should be up-front when talking about their new diet that any surprisingly easy way to lose weight is surprising because things don't normally work that way.
  - levythe 7y ago
    One could spin it around and argue that what that maintenance level is depends heavily upon the individual's metabolic processes, which depend upon gut flora, diet, weight, exercise levels, timing of consumption...
- copperx 7y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree. Eating less for some people with strong hunger pains can be almost impossible. I was one of them. Skipping breakfast would make me irrationally angry, and the pain of having an empty stomach was too much to bear. I could not concentrate even if I had mild hunger. I'm going to plug in a program that changed my life, even though I have never done that, and I don't really agree with their business model, but their methodology for training yourself to eat less is top-notch and incredibly simple. The program is called Naturally Slim, and many insurance companies cover it. I think their $50/month fee for non-insured people is a bit outrageous because the principles are simple: * Eat really slowly and stop eating when you're not hungry anymore (not full, just not hungry). Throw away the rest of the food or store it for later. * Only eat when you're really hungry. * Drink diluted orange juice at a 1:8 ratio throughout the day to maintain a steady glucose level and prevent hunger. * Your meals should consist of about 1/3 vegetable or animal protein to keep hunger away. * Instead of having breakfast, drink plenty of water or the diluted orange juice. Most people aren't really hungry in the morning. The beauty is that as your body weight drops, your caloric requirements drop, and if you're following the first rule, you're eating less every week. Probably that's how anorexia sufferers get to eat so little without feeling devastating hunger.
- scarejunba 7y ago
  The right drugs can kill your appetite and they're very effective and ensuring weight loss. For me, just caffeine can ensure I don't eat for the whole day and then I can still go climbing.
  - casefields 7y ago
    Throw in some Bronkaid and you have a proper EC stack. Be careful if you have family history of heart disease and especially if you have heart issues yourself. Also, like anything don't overdue it. And research the heck out of it first please.
    - ses1984 7y ago
      I've done ec stack and I develop a tolerance to the appetite suppressive effects in a couple weeks, also I don't like how I feel on it. Two or cups of coffee per day is enough stim for me, more than that makes me feel awful.
- asokoloski 7y ago
  As an alternative, check out a whole-food plant based diet. Many foods in the standard American diet (junk food like chips and sweets, meat, dairy, eggs, oils, even fish) are generally very calorie-dense -- you don't have to eat much of them to be over-eating calories, and eating an appropriate amount doesn't fill you up. If you switch to getting your calories from whole grains, beans and legumes, potatoes, rice (ideally brown rice), fruit, etc, and don't add fat or oil when you cook, you can eat until you're full and still not gain weight. Nuts and seeds are the only whole plant food you may have to watch out for a bit -- the oil in them makes them relatively high-calorie. The downside to this diet is that you'll probably have to do a lot of the cooking yourself at home, because virtually all the prepared food you can buy has had oil of some sort added to it. You can buy some things like pasta sauce, but you have to pay close attention to the nutrition label and try to get ones with minimal added oil. It takes a little while to get used to it, but it soon becomes pretty intuitive. And of course, cutting out dairy and meat means that you'll want to supplement B12. The upside is that this diet has health benefits (based on research, not just anecdotes) that go way beyond weight loss, though. Reduced risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetes, reduced fatigue, less pain from inflammatory conditions, less anxiety, better digestion, etc. Although, the anecdotes are generally impressive and fun to read, so if you want those: https://www.forksoverknives.com/success-stories/#gs.6onygn https://www.forksoverknives.com/success-stories/#gs.6onygn
  - ses1984 7y ago
    If I don't make a conscious effort to reduce my intake I can easily eat 5k calories a day of beans, potatoes, or rice.
- timbit42 7y ago
  The way to eat less is to reduce carbs and increase healthy fats. Carbs spike your blood sugar, which your body then works at removing, causing a sugar crash a couple of hours later where you are hungry, which is why people snack between meals. If you avoid carbs, you avoid the sugar spike and crash. Instead of carbs, eat healthy fats. Fats don't spike your sugar and they keep you satiated for hours on end. Keep your protein at a normal level. Protein increases blood sugar some but not enough to cause a sugar spike and crash and make you hungry.
newnewpdro 7y ago
You don't have to eat less, if by less you mean by volume. When I go 100% raw unprocessed vegetarian for weeks at a time, I'm eating so much plain lettuce and fruits/vegetables by volume my jaw has to adapt. It's very effective at controlling weight in my experience FWIW, while still eating huge volumes of food.
merpnderp 7y ago
People who say that you have to eat less must have never met someone on the keto diet. Your body just doesn’t store the fat when you’re not eating carbs.
- whenchamenia 7y ago
  While fats satiate you faster, and people tend to lose weight, I have absolutely gained plenty of weight on a keto diet. Please dont spread BS. Keto is awesome but it isnt magic.
  - timbit42 7y ago
    That's because keto isn't really a weight loss diet. It can be, but it was designed to reduce seizures in people with epilepsy. It's a healthy diet with the side effect of reducing weight if calories are reduced. It is popular as a way to lose weight because the fats keep you satiated for hours, reducing hunger and the feeling of needing to eat. Also, the reduction of carbs reduces the blood sugar spike and the subsequent sugar crash later that makes you feel hungry.
  - merpnderp 7y ago
    It isn't BS as I've lost a considerable amount of weight in a very short time on it, eating nothing but vegetables and meat. Usually eating (far) over 1,000 calories per meal, dripping tons of butter on literally everything, 3x a day, going from 223lbs to 180lbs in 3 months. I know nearly a dozen people at work who've lost as much or more weight than me, eating like I did. In fact you're the first person I've ever heard of gaining weight on keto, on or off the internet.
hrktb 7y ago
This is a rabbit hole where any actual advice needs to be prefaced with pages worth of what else you are doing on the side. There are countless of people who instead of eating less move to higher protein diets and exercice more, while doing many many more small adjustments that make it work for them. Some can eat dramatically less while keeping roughly the same level of everyday activity, while for other it will become hell on earth and put so much stress on them that they will rebound very hard after losing only a small amounts. I personaly think any advice that is summed up in a sentence or two should be seen as some proverbial saying and be considered applicable only after reaching the same conclusion by ourself.

ryacko 7y ago

Eat slowly until you feel satisfied. No single person has the same metabolism, and only processed food has exact measures of nutrition that can be measured.

TJSomething 7y ago

I suspect that a lot of those answers depend on your genes and gut microbiota. Except that last one, because reliably measuring calories requires destroying the food.

Medicalidiot 7y ago

All the fad diets, trendy diet suggestions, are bullshit. Cogent science has delineated what we should be eating: lots of vegetables(3-5 cups of carrots, peas, green beans, spinach), complex carbohydrates(think fiber, whole wheat), lean meats(fish and chicken), and unsaturated oils (olive oil). It doesn't matter if you eat them all at once, what matters is that you go after vegetables first then go after the rest. Sugar is the worst thing in the world and I'm waiting for the water shed moment where we realize that strong insulin responses are terrible for the body. I could go on and on, but Hardvard my plate is the definite guide for what you should be eating. This is the non lobbyist, highly educated PhD take on what current science says we should eat. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/ https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/

dmix 7y ago
Not eating bread, cereal, or sugar had a big impact for me. I haven’t gone full keto but I’ve found just doing that is sufficiently challenging and effective for long term weight loss. Especially once you hit 30 it’s should be something you start drilling into your head and simply stop buying it. Replacing sugar with Erythritol and monk fruit has been more than sufficient replacement for things like coffee and small treats. It’s hard to find commercial products with Erythritol which is a shame but that seems to be slowly changing. Sadly most “sugar free” products have Maltodextrin or Xylitol which is awful for me as I have colitis and I’ve read they aren’t keto friendly. If every product that contained those two switched to the former two my life shopping for groceries would be so much easier. I also don’t go hard at restaurants (nothing worse than having to be picky at a restaurant) mostly for practicality reasons but that would be the 2nd area I'd focus on next if I started to care more. Starting small and simple (ie just no bread) at the beginning is the best way. Abrupt changes usually have A abrupt endings as you significantly increase the workload.

copperx 7y ago

I was really frustrated for a few years asking the same questions. It comes down to this: most health outcomes are achieved by eating less and getting slim if you're overweight (cancer, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver risks decrease). Eat significantly less. Like about 1/2 to 1/3 of what you're eating now. The food that you consume then becomes largely irrelevant (just avoid fried stuff, red meat, and processed meat as much as possible -- the things that have shown conclusively to be carcinogenic). If you're worried about nutrition, take a dive on PubMed and you'll see that many research studies show, for some reason, less risk of cancer for people with nutrient deficiencies. > Is fasting good, or will it put me in ‘starvation mode’? Starvation mode is what you want if you're overweight. Many diets urge you to exercise or to eat often to keep a fast metabolism. But if you want to live longer, you WANT your metabolism to be slow, not fast. That will require you to keep a low-calorie intake for the rest of your life. Fortunately, your hunger pangs will go away after about 5-10 weeks and undereating will actually become a problem.

sgdpk 7y ago

Unfortunately the most compelling evidence I've seen seems to confirm the weight set-point (or set-interval) theory. A good book that summarizes main results is Sandra Aamodt's "Why diets don't work". That's not to say weight loss is impossible. If you're overeating as a habit you may be keeping your weight above your set-point. Learning to "listen" to hunger cues may then bring your weight down. It happened to me 2 years ago and I managed to keep the weight down, and I'm not feeling hungry. There are other ways of lowering the set-point, but not very recommendable in general. I think focusing on hunger cues and eating a balanced diet is good advice, together with exercise and avoiding drinking and smoking. These will (statistically) reduce morbidity risks to normal-weight levels. Note that I am not a doctor, though, so take this information with the proper grain of salt.

tobib 7y ago
> Note that I am not a doctor, though, so take this information with the proper grain of salt. In moderation though, too much sodium is bad for you
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Evidence does not appear to bear that out. "... a meta-analysis of seven studies involving a total of 6,250 subjects in the American Journal of Hypertension found no strong evidence that cutting salt intake reduces the risk for heart attacks, strokes or death in people with normal or high blood pressure." [1] [1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-the-war-on-salt/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/its-time-to-end-t...
  - vlan0 7y ago
    Some people do have a sensitivity to salt. I am one of those people. Excessive salt does weird things to my body. My grandmother is the same way.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

nearbuy 7y ago

One piece of advice that won't change: maintaining a calorie deficit causes weight loss. It's a basic property of physics that the extra energy used has to come from somewhere if don't eat enough to cover it. Tracking your calorie deficit/surplus isn't the easiest method, but unlike fad diets, it's guaranteed to work (provided, of course, that you stick with it and count accurately).

deegles 7y ago
“Calorie counting doesn’t work for you because you’re not good enough at counting calories” frames the problem in a way impossible to disprove. Maybe people aren’t arguing that they’re breaking the laws of physics, but that they’re having trouble with estimating the caloric surplus in the first place.
- vlan0 7y ago
  Maybe, but that’s more of an excuse than a true reason. It means their methodology for determining caloric content is flawed and they aren’t turning the right knobs to find accuracy. At which point they should work with a nutritionist.
- nearbuy 7y ago
  I've used calorie counting before, and I don't think it's hard to do - just a bit inconvenient. Having a little digital scale helps a lot. Measuring out the calories in a recipe can be a pain, but people tend to repeat the same recipes. It's inconvenient in the beginning, but gets better once you've already calculated most of your standard recipes. There are apps that will help you track it. Pack a lunch or buy something with a known number of calories. If you only rarely go out to restaurants, just give the meal your best estimate and don't worry about it too much. If you eat out every day, it'll be hard to estimate. Fast food chains are often (ironically?) helpful here because many of them list the calories in their meals. You don't really need to estimate your calorie expenditure. Just keep your activity level roughly even, count calorie intake, and track your weight. If your weight doesn't decrease after a couple weeks, subtract a couple hundred calories from your intake. Eventually, you'll get a deficit and your weight will decrease.

adrianmonk 7y ago

I did it through calorie counting. I wasn't surprised that I lost weight, but I was surprised by something else: it made me re-examine everything I ate. One of the key insights was that I was eating a lot of foods that were fattening but weren't filling. It turns out that the ratio of "how full does this make me feel" to "how many calories does this contain" is not a constant across foods. Sugar has probably the worst ratio. Protein and fiber probably have the best, at least in my experience. Fat is a little trickier, but probably also decent if consumed in moderation. Anyway, as a result, I eat a LOT of vegetables and lean meat. For dinner (my large meal), I often have 1/2 to 3/4 pound (225-340g) of something like chicken breast and 3/4 to 1 pound (340-450g) of steamed veggies. Sometimes I feel like I can barely finish it all. The other part of the equation was I really did have to change a lot of long-time habits. I was accustomed to just eating whatever and whenever I wanted. That had to end, and the adjustment was painful. It probably also helps to stay physically active, but I was active before undertaking the weight loss, so I can't comment on the effect of changing that. The closest thing to device that measures actual calories in is a scale (or measuring cup) and a nutrition label. Yes, this is limiting and tedious. Your favorite local restaurant probably doesn't have any nutrition info available at all. To some extent, you can get around this by looking up equivalents. When you're at your local burrito place, just look up the closest Chipotle menu item. If you only need to that occasionally (not every other meal), your overall totals will be pretty close.

parliament32 7y ago

Agreed, it's pretty ridiculous. At the same time, you need to look at yourself and make sure you don't fall into the analysis paralysis trap: it's not as complicated as it seems, despite the fountain of garbage information about edge cases and insignificant tweaks. Eat real food (processed food is bad), not too much (caloric deficit = weight loss), mostly plants (but not only plants, humans are omnivores for a reason). Basically everything else doesn't matter at all: it's not worth tracking your prai alkalinity because it might give you an extra 1% rate of weight loss or whatever the current fad is.