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Biohacking Lite

• curiousgal 6y ago
  As someone struggling to gain weight it always bugs me how "being healthy" is only associated with weight loss.
  • dpcx 6y ago
    That's because, at least anecdotally, many more people are overweight than underweight, so "being healthy" involves weight loss more than weight gain.
    • kekebo 6y ago
      Not only anecdotally, according to the CDC "prevalence of obesity was 42.4% in 2017~2018" in the US[1]. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/adult.html
    • tkzed49 6y ago
      This may be true in a statistical sense, but I think it's important to not "explain it away" and instead realize that it is an important societal issue. This doesn't really apply to the original post, but it's important for us as a society to support both health conditions, and not just the more common one.
  • Swizec 6y ago
    My biggest concern about focus on weight loss as the metric instead of "healthy lifestyle" is that losing weight is easiest when you do it in an unhealthy way. Crash diets are a good example of unhealthy weight loss. Another funfact is that you can literally go to bed for a few weeks, let muscle atrophy kick in, and lose more weight than any diet+exercise regime. Won't make you healthier, but you'll lose the weight. Yay metrics!
    • asdff 6y ago
      Contestants on Alone loose like a lb a day. Loosing weight is so easy if you get used to feeling hungry and eat like a bird. Throw in cardio and you will end up looking cut. Gaining a pound a day of muscle, on the other hand, is probably impossible, even gaining a pound of any kind of mass a day is dubious and will lead to very unpleasant bowel movements at the very least.
    • tupac_speedrap 6y ago
      It doesn't help that BMI is still used even though it is such a crude measure as to be useless. Stuff like body fat% measurements and waist measurements are more direct indicators of losing fat.
      • balnaphone 6y ago
        We use PI/CI (Ponderal Index AKA Corpulence Index) in my lab and it's a huge improvement over BMI. Especially for modern heights in men and women. Still crude, but easy to apply. Wide margins.
    • JamesBarney 6y ago
      Despite all the lecturing, the research doesn't really agree. Crash(extreme) diets work just as well as slower diets and the people gain back weight at roughly the same rate.
  • filoleg 6y ago
    I think it is simply because a large number of adults in the US (as well as a lot of other countries) is struggling with this, at about 39% obesity rate and 71% overweight rate [0]. For comparison, only 1.5% of adults in the US are underweight [1]. While I agree that there is way more to "being healthy" than just not being overweight/underweight, I think it isn't a bad idea to approach this in the priority order. Solving the issue of being overweight is much simpler and much more impactful to the overall public health than trying to go after more rare and difficult problems. 0. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/obesity-overweight.htm 1. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/underweight_adult_15_16/underweight_adult_15_16.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/underweight_adult_15_16...
    • asdff 6y ago
      1.5% of the U.S. population is still over 4 million people, that's a huge market.
      • NikolaeVarius 6y ago
        Market for...
        • lrdd 6y ago
          food?
        • filoleg 6y ago
          Market for converting people with obesity problems into people without obesity problems.
      • filoleg 6y ago
        I mean, you have two markets and one is about 47 times the size of the other. If your goal is to minimize the total number of health problems in your country, it would make sense to throw more efforts at a problem that affects 47 times more people, given that everything else about the problems is about equal. We are not comparing cancer to heart disease here. We are comparing two problems that are two sides of the same coin.
  • hinkley 6y ago
    I was a bean pole into my early twenties, and would have been 20 lbs skinnier still if not for cycling. I never gained any more weight until I dumped the classical advice and did my own thing. Everyone tries to compress a workout into a single time interval in the day, where you do n sets of each exercise and then go home. To do three sets in three minutes, you're going to have to pick a very conservative goal. Doing 5 sets spread out over the entire day, I could lift more and saw results pretty much right away, and really for the first time. I'd exercise while waiting for things like the drier to ding or toast to pop up, a file to download, a commercial break or a cut scene to finish. But, I had to have exercises I could do at home, which takes some creativity (or a lot of money). Your body is conserving resources. The whole point of 'exercise' is to trick your body into thinking that you are an active person who needs to spend the extra resources to build and maintain large muscles, cardiac or lung capacity, or all three. If you are actually active you don't have to 'work out'. Your life is work, and your body adapts. Once I got past that initial roadblock, I got results even from the gym, but I was able to be more consistent doing it at home. The trouble with putting on a lot of bulk though, is if you stop. Exercise burns a lot of calories. Persistent exercise therefore changes your notion of what a 'normal' amount of food is. If you stop, it probably due to some major life event, and adjusting your notion of 'normal eating' might get lost in the mix. Which is probably why a lot of pro athletes chunk up when they retire (or get retired). Going from 3-4000 calories a day to under 2500 is quite a lifestyle change.
    • mettamage 6y ago
      I just started my exercise journey a few weeks ago, but I'm leaning towards this style of exercise as well.
    • kleinsch 6y ago
      What were the exercises you ended up doing at home spread out over the day? Given the current situation, seems like a unique time lots of us could try out that type of workout.
      • emanuensis 6y ago
        i just do laps around the house
  • fizixer 6y ago
    Do a Mark Rippetoe program for 1 year. Thank me later. edit: Caution: don't start on squats without coaching.
    • Enginerrrd 6y ago
      Seconded almost as strongly as I possibly can, but with added caveats! I was a bean pole for my entire life, struggling to gain weight. The answer was simple: I wasn't giving my body the signal to gain muscle by lifting some HEAVY weights. I read Starting Strength and followed the program. I put on ~30lbs over 3-4 months, and got WAY strong. That's after having done crossfit for at least 5-6 years. I took my squat from 185lbs to 300lbs. It took 2 months of rereading the squat chapter, filming myself, correcting myself, etc, before I finally got that one down. Now that I understand it, I can spot faults in others, but it took a while for it to click. Rereading the dbook helps, though a couple of Rippetoe's coaching cues set me on the wrong path. A starting strength specific coach can straighten you out in just a couple of sessions. DON'T think any other certification, personal trainer, or coach is a substitute, they are NOT. Don't do starting strength for a year. (If it takes you that long to do the novice linear progression, you are definitely doing something wrong.) Rippetoe's advice for intermediates is pretty marginal IMO and you can't possibly stay a novice for a year doing the program. Switch to Barbell Medicine's "the bridge" instead of resetting the weights a second time.
      • fizixer 6y ago
        Sorry you're right. I remember doing a 1 year program, only the first 7 months were Starting Strength. Remaining 5 months were a weight loss program.
    • fudged71 6y ago
      As a trainer, squats can be self-learned fairly easily, it's a pretty natural movement. Some guidance will help of course, but the general movement is usually there. That said, I recommend against people teaching themselves deadlift, because it's not nearly as intuitive, has more potential for injury, etc.
  • paulsutter 6y ago
    It's all in the terminology. You both say "weight", but they want to lose fat and you're looking to gain lean body mass. Many folks would like to do both, there's no contradiction.
  • cambalache 6y ago
    Gaining weight is easier. Drink your calories and you will balloon in no time.
• SupriseAnxiety 6y ago
  This is such beautiful work I’m speechless.
  • suyash 6y ago
    It's lot of technical details that basically proves the old adage "Eat Less, Exercise More" to see weight loss. He just did extensive tracking around it.
• an_opabinia 6y ago
  > Clearly, my actual weight loss (red) turned out to be slower than expected one based on our simple deficit math (blue). So this is where things get interesting... so we don’t get to fully resolve the mystery of the slower-than-expected weight loss. Weight loss is difficult and I think everyone, no matter how smart, dumb, famous or obscure they are, has trouble with it. It's always a surprise how difficult it is.
  • JamesBarney 6y ago
    The body basically has a bunch of tricks for tricking you into not losing weight. It starts making you subtly lazier, reduces random energy expenditures, slows down basal metabolic rate, it makes you hungrier, it makes you crave more calorie dense food, and it even starts to reduce willpower related to food.
    • fudged71 6y ago
      Absolutely this. Our body is constantly trying to maintain homeostasis, so when you make a big lifestyle change your body tries to react in the opposite direction. Most people don't understand that when you start a new habit it often replaces another. When you start going to the gym you might walk less. When you eat smaller meals you might snack more. etc. I'd love to see a list of all the unconscious decisions your body makes in response to fitness/nutrition interventions.
  • WorldMaker 6y ago
    I'd argue that it almost quite clearly indicates that focusing on calorie deficit is too simplistic a model to accurately predict/forecast weight loss. Just look at that subway map at the top of the article, there's no way that calorie deficit is an adequate model for the complex interaction of macro-nutrients and how different parts of that "subway" interact. Maybe you don't have to entirely agree with me that Nutrition science's idea of a calorie is the last bastion of phlogiston theory in any science, but surely you can admit that all of the evidence suggests the model isn't accurate enough, continues to give surprising results that do not match reality, (and arguably causes more harm than good in the way some diet plans use calorie deficits as a bludgeon to make people feel bad). The models need to be refined, the human body is not an ideal furnace nor a "spherical cow". (But yeah, I wish the Apple Watch would let me change all the displays that read "calorie" to just read "phlogiston" as useful as they "are" to me.)
• dmix 6y ago
  Unrelated but I just noticed `hydroxy-` (for ex: beta-hydroxybutyrate) means hydrogen + oxygen, whereas something like `hydro-` (for ex: hydrochloride) is just hydrogen. One of those obvious things you read all the time and not notice but obvious in retrospect.
• gandreani 6y ago
  > As a result I’ve improved a number of biomarkers (e.g. resting heart rate, resting blood glucose, strength, endurance, nutritional deficiencies, etc). I wish I could say I feel significantly better or sharper, but honestly I feel about the same. But the numbers tell me I’m supposed to be on a better path and I think I am content with that . I appreciate this honesty
  • byproxy 6y ago
    I think a lot of that last point can be attributed to gradual improvement and acclimation to that improvement. If you were able to snapshot mood and mental health like you could a picture of your body, you might see a marked improvement over pre-healthy-lifestyle vs., say, post-1-year-healthy-lifestyle. For example, I've been losing weight and doing body-weight training the last month-and-a-half and a picture of my body now vs. then shows a fairly drastic change. But I can' say that I feel like I weigh less or feel that I'm stronger. Though, the scale and reps of exercise that I can do say otherwise. Every day starts a "new normal."
    • gandreani 6y ago
      I don't doubt the author gained benefits from the lifestyle change. I just appreciate the lack of hyperbole when describing how they feel. It's hard to get nutrition and health advice without a product/service incentive attached to it nowadays. The excerpt I highlighted matched the qualitative and candid style of the rest of the post. It's refreshing
      • byproxy 6y ago
        Oh, yea. I agree. I suffer from panic attacks and general anxiety and when I picked up lifting/running a while back one of my friends asked if it helped and I gave him the same, honest "uh..not really.", which he was kinda bummed for me about. But I learned to enjoy those things on their own. Or, at least, I enjoyed being able to pat myself on the back after running for 4 miles straight.
        • 6y ago
• thechao 6y ago
  If anyone else wants to get into this, there are a few really strong measures that correlate fairly well to the DEXA scans. My favorite (because its easy): measure your waist just above your belly button. This area has virtually no "bulky" muscle and is one of the principle deposits of "internal" body fat. The two measures I take everyday are: 1. Body weight; and, 2. Waist size. I use the following routine for weight loss (I've lost about 50kg, and have kept it off for several years): 1. You must have a diet to weigh less; 2. You must have a distinct diet to lose weight; 3. You must do low impact cardio — I walk 3-5 miles a day; and, 4. You must do resistance training. Those four things have the following purpose: 1. Keep you at a stable weight; 2. Take off weight; 3. Increase background caloric burn from "super sedentary"; and, 4. Encourage fat loss over lean body mass loss. All of this is requires routine. You must develop a routine for the rest of your life, and not vary from it. It also requires honesty: you need to be honest with yourself about what you're eating, when; what exercise you're really doing; when. And, finally, if you're overweight you're at the mercy of millions of years of evolution, but you're the victim of our modern diet. It's not your fault, but there is something you can do about it.
  • andrewzah 6y ago
    Intermittent fasting also helps. Many people do 16:8 (16 hours of fasting) and only eat from 12-8 or 10-6. With IF, I lost about ~5 lbs doing nothing besides being more mindful. Once I added in daily runs / walks of ~4-5 miles, I lost another ~10 lbs easily. I think the biggest challenge for people looking to lose weight is mindless eating / snacking. Initially I kept a diet journal and wrote down everything I ate or drank, and realized I would get more snacks throughout the day than I thought. I also drank a lot less water than I thought. The other thing is portions. When I was at my largest, the portions I would set for myself were larger, and I would more often get a second round. All without really thinking about it, of course. Now I deliberately think about how big of a portion is appropriate and I never go for seconds except on some cheat days.
    • nwienert 6y ago
      IF only achieves point 1 of the four points above, I’ve done it for years but if I only do IF I’ll still carry usually a small belly. Also if you don’t do minimal exercise it does feel harder - your calorie budget goes down super low when you’re really sedentary. No room for snacks or any indulgence. Whereas if you workout daily even in a minimal form, suddenly you have a much easier budget.
• underdeserver 6y ago
  This is more evidence that weight loss happens in the kitchen, not the gym.
  • asdff 6y ago
    Of course it does. Famines tell us as much. Gyms increase your burn rate, though. Running for 5 miles a day will burn up a quarter of a 2000 calorie diet. That being said, a lot of gym activity that I see is basically useless and probably taken up just to feel good about going to a gym regularly (some examples in my gym: walking on treadmills instead of around the block, paying for membership every month to solely use the 5lb dumbbells for 30 minutes that go for $12 online).
    • bserge 6y ago
      I'm sorry, but 5 miles a day is just not possible for, I'd say, the vast majority of people. As an average chump, I can barely do 2 miles every other day. Any exercise does make me feel much better, so that alone is a good reason to do it, but for weight loss, eating less is the fastest way.
      • mariojv 6y ago
        Is there a reason other than time commitment you think this is not possible for most people? With 12 minute miles, it takes an hour. It takes time to build up endurance, but with pretty simple training - measuring weekly mileage and increasing that no more than 10% a week - building up to 5 miles is doable. It's challenging to and probably not advisable to do it every day due to injury risk, but I think 5 miles maybe 3-4 times a week is possible for many, barring any serious health conditions.
      • asdff 6y ago
        No one running 5 miles a day started by running 5 miles a day
  • fudged71 6y ago
    This is not the proper conclusion. He also started regular resistance training. I would say one of the biggest problems is seeing weight loss as either being nutrition or fitness, when it should ALWAYS be seen as a combination. Why? Because the goal is usually to lose fat. Without muscle stimulus, the body will include muscle in the weight loss. Muscle tissue is important long term for metabolism and other health aspects.
• praveen9920 6y ago
  As someone who is trying to lose weight and gone through similar phases, I can't stress enough on diet. In the world of cheap and yummy calories available in each and every thing we eat, it is hard maintain the low carb diet. Interestingly, my observation is that increased water consumption impacts metabolism a lot Note: I lost 4 kgs in 2 months
  • tw600040 6y ago
    // increased water consumption impacts metabolism a lot impacts as in it helps lose weight?
  • voisin 6y ago
    How much have you increased your water consumption and what was your baseline?
• barbegal 6y ago
  If you want to lose weight you need to change the energy balance. Less energy in and more out. For most people it is difficult to meaningfully affect energy out. Unless you go from being really sedentary to running for an hour a day (~500 kcal) then energy out will remain roughly the same. Eating less is much simpler but not necessarily easier, most people need help suppressing their appetite. Probably the best way to do this is by doing high intensity exercise (HIIT). Studies consistently show this affects weight loss more than longer periods of moderate exercise [1]. In addition, exercise can improve depression [2] which may also lead to less over-eating. [1] https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/53/10/655 https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/53/10/655 [2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29800984/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29800984/
• gtrubetskoy 6y ago
  I wouldn't rank glucose above fats. As I understand it, it's not exactly a "shorter battery" than fat - it is simply a form of energy that is abundant in plant life, but fat is still a (much) "better battery". The reason our body always favors burning glucose first is NOT because glucose is "better" but actually because it is an inferior type of fuel (it creates "pollution" and is difficult to burn - you can develop diabetes from too much of it) - so our evolved system tries to get rid of it first, while hanging on to the "good stuff" for as long as it can.
  • TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
    You don't develop type 2 diabetes from being fat, you develop diabetes from high average blood glucose levels triggering insulin resistance. Also, what is the pollution you are talking about? From what I understand, lipolysis generates ketones, which at normal lipolytic amounts aren't toxic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_2_diabetes?wprov=sfla1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_2_diabetes?wprov=sfla1
    • gtrubetskoy 6y ago
      > Also, what is the pollution you are talking about? For example reactive oxygen species. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1865572/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1865572/
      • TheAdamAndChe 6y ago
        Oh I see now that I read your parent comment completely wrong, you are right. Sorry, thanks for the citation!
  • JamesBarney 6y ago
    > The reason our body always favors burning glucose first is NOT because glucose is "better" but actually because it is an inferior type of fuel (it creates "pollution" and is difficult to burn - you can develop diabetes from too much of it) - so our evolved system tries to get rid of it first, while hanging on to the "good stuff" for as long as it can. This is not the standard textbook biological view of the bodies use of glucose and fats. I'm all for having heterodox opinions but I think you should let people know what is a heterodox position, and provide more supporting evidence than when giving a textbook explanation.
• adaisadais 6y ago
  Time-restricted eating has worked wonders for me. I typically eat between 11a-7p and I track it all through the Zero App. It can be very difficult to start initially but when you power through the first week you truly start to see some results. I stopped doing it and started eating later and later in mid-march. I weighed 153.2 (the heaviest) on May 31. I resumed time restricted eating on June 1 and have consistently done it. I currently weight 147.6 and I feel much better. Less cravings and my pants fit quite nicely again.
  • karpathy 6y ago
    Agree! (and wrote a bit more in a comment above). I think IF was the high order bit that enabled me to achieve a long-term consistent deficit. I used to track it with Zero but stopped later because there isn't much to track. I strictly stick to 12-8pm window (often 12-6), which does not need an app for tracking.
• yutopia 6y ago
  After years of experimentation, lately I’ve decided that eating like my grandparents (i.e., eating like a traditional Japanese) is the easiest way to keep myself lean and healthy. Traditional Japanese meals follow a standard format [1]: a bowl of rice, several small sides (which can change by the day), and an optional cup of miso soup. Sticking to this format every day can be boring, but it keeps my diet reasonably balanced without the need for conscious efforts like counting calories (which I'm too lazy to continue long-term). [1] https://elemental.medium.com/ichiju-sansai-how-to-construct-meals-like-a-japanese-centennial-7cb878366994 https://elemental.medium.com/ichiju-sansai-how-to-construct-... I think in modern cities we have too much freedom with regard to what we eat, which is great of course but the downside is that we’ve lost a great deal of local culinary tradition, and along with it intuitive understandings of what is and what isn’t healthy eating.
  • derefr 6y ago
    > the downside is that we’ve lost a great deal of local culinary tradition I don't think we've lost anything; it's just that, in an era of cheap economies of scale from mass-production, artisanal anything (including artisanal cooking) is going to cost more—possibly enough to put most "authentic" / "traditional" cuisine out of reach of the working class, unless they're willing to make it themselves. (And who has the time for that?) If you live in a city, look through restaurant reviews for a couple minutes and you'll probably be able to find a dozen local places in your own neighbourhood that have been open for 80 years or more, keeping up the tradition of serving the same food, the same way, that they always have. The only thing that such places have changed between then and now, are their prices.
    • voisin 6y ago
      Not sure where you live but I have never lived in a city with a dozen restaurants with an 80+ year history with the same way of traditional food prep/ingredients. Restaurants have exceptionally short lives as it is a brutal industry, and supply chains have absolutely changed over 80 years.
  • tvanantwerp 6y ago
    I honestly don't know how my grandparents ate. Between their generation and my parents', a lot of traditional food knowledge was lost. My maternal grandmother made all sorts of things from scratch--but I can't recall my mom making anything that didn't come in a box or a can. I've had great success losing weight and keeping it off with food logging (shout out to Cronometer, the best food logging app I've used), trying to adhere to a keto diet, and time-restricted feeding (18 hours fasted, 6 eating). If I tried to do an ancestral diet instead, I'd fail primarily from ignorance of just what that might be. (Also, I'm from the southern US, so it's not like that ancestral diet is necessarily good for me anyway.)
• davesque 6y ago
  > Adipose tissue (fat) is by far your primary super high density super high capacity battery pack. For example, as of June 2019, ~40lb of my 200lb weight was fat. Since fat is significantly more energy dense than carbohydrates (9 kcal/g instead of just 4 kcal/g), my fat was storing 40lb = 18kg = 18,000g x 9kcal/g = 162,000 kcal. This is a staggering amount of energy. If energy was the sole constraint, my body could run on this alone for 162,000/2,000 = 81 days. Since 1 stick of dynamite is about 1MJ of energy (239 kcal), we’re talking 678 sticks of dynamite. Or since a 100KWh Tesla battery pack stores 360MJ, if it came with a hand-crank I could in principle charge it almost twice! Hah. I'm not following this math here. 678 * 239kcal ~= 162Mcal. But that's a thousand times 162kcal. Seems like 40lb of fat only contains the energy of .678 sticks of dynamite.
  • timy2shoes 6y ago
    Seems pretty straight forward. 162,000 kcal / 239 kcal = 677.8
    • davesque 6y ago
      Ahh, yep. I dropped the ",000" :/.
• ve55 6y ago
  >all of which I won’t go into full details of because it lets a bit too much of the mad scientist crazy out. This is a bit disappointing, but I know how the author feels. I can definitely feel like I am going to be judged for being crazy telling people about the strange ways in which I try to empirically optimize my health. But, nothing is more important than our health, and I think it would have great effects on readers for the author to continue to expand on all of these other great health topics they're interested in. Speaking for myself, I became much more interested in this stuff just after reading some great detailed blog posts from others that are very into biohacking and related areas, and it had a wonderful effect on my life. I'd love for others to be able to receive the same, much of us often focus too much on technical endeavors and lack giving the proper attention to diet, exercise, and much more. It becomes a lot more interesting and fun to some people when they realize the level of detail, optimization, quantification, and so on, they can put into this. The best part is that instead of having your code run faster or your customer retention go up, you literally increase your life span and decrease your risk if diseases.
  • JamesBarney 6y ago
    What were the changes you made that had biggest impacts?
    • ve55 6y ago
      For myself the largest impact would have to be diet improvements, just like for most people. But, in general I want to be able to be much more preventative instead of reactive. I don't want to get diagnosed with atherosclerosis or diabetes in 10 years, I want to prevent the onset of them as best as I can now. But, to try to provide a more helpful answer, here is two examples of things I do now, with much more detail: 1) I get a lot of (mostly blood) tests, and work to optimize them past 'making sure they are okay'. A lot of basic tests can be kind of pass or fail, like "do you have enough iron?" or "do you have enough vitamins?". But, a lot of other tests are less quantized, and have a lot of room for improvement past just being in the standard range, which does not mean you are optimal, just not doing terribly. A good example for this is an advanced lipid panel, triglycerides, blood pressure, and insulin resistance. Just getting results of "you probably aren't going to have a cardiac event or get diabetes" is good, but they can be optimized much more than this to reduce your long-term probability of many problems to as low as possible. It's also fun to find out the diverse array of other tests you can get to learn more about yourself, and potentially optimize. Nerdy people generally like optimizing things, and having numbers to attach to how well you are doing makes this a lot more alluring, at least for me. 2) A lot of more speculative research on different dietary (whether food, supplements, or drugs) changes that I can make for hope of long-term noticeable improvements. More common examples here might be things like magnesium or Vitamin D, but there's countless rabbit holes you can go down of many, much more interesting examples (For example, metformin, rapamycin, and many many others). The reason I don't provide a list is mostly because everyone is very different and has different goals, and also because I'm not a fan of the (mostly terrible) supplements industry as a whole. But just because so many popular products use junk science and scam consumers, doesn't mean there are many real gems out there.
• k__ 6y ago
  Isn't the problem of many weight lifters that "lean body mass" isn't consumed before the fat, but at the same time?
  • meisterbrendan 6y ago
    I'd love someone qualified to answer this... feel like this happens to me all the time
  • RoidzForeva5p 6y ago
    Lean body mass is a misnomer (and DEXA scans aren't reliable). Lean body mass = Total Body Mass - Fat Mass That's "lean body mass," but it's not 1:1 "muscle mass," because bones, organs, and etc. do not constitute as skeletal muscle, but still take up weight. And muscle mass itself is a misnomer, because the actual weight of your muscle protein is not 1:1 to the actual weight of your entire muscles. Most people think muscle is made out of protein, but while that's true, it's not the main way you muscles get "bulk." The main compound that gives muscles "bulk" is water. Usually that's because your muscles have hydrophillic compounds like glycogen (stored sugar), electrolytes like potassium and sodium, and creatine. These latter compounds draw the water into the muscle, and make up for most of its weight and size. All these compounds get used up during exercise, so your muscle hold less water, and it's technically "consumed" during exercise, and needs to be replenished after. A coincidental fact is that once these stores are depleted, they become "super-sensitizied" that means they're much more likely to take up compounds out of the bloodstream than before. So, exercise depletes them, but if you eat enough after, you can fill them up to be bigger than where they were before.
• tonystubblebine 6y ago
  If people are looking for alternative approaches to weight loss, I would consider simply buying a blood glucose monitor. They cost about $100 on Amazon or less and test strips less than $0.50. The thing that makes it alternative is that it sets you up to be reactive rather than prescriptive. A lot of people end up rebelling against prescriptive rules for eating and then fall off the wagon in frustration. The Blood Glucose monitoring approach is to see what spikes your blood sugar on the idea that higher levels are more likely to lead to reduced insulin sensitivity which often leads to more of the calories you eat being stored as fat. I just take the measurement first thing in the morning. I find that how I eat shows up in my morning BGL and so I can be a little bit more reactive. If the level is high, then I need to pull harder on some of the levers that day. This way of thinking also sets you up to have a better personal sense of what levers matter. For me, pasta is much worse than chocolate chips. What really flips my levels though is two high carb meals in the same day.
  • tvanantwerp 6y ago
    I recently found this fairly thorough article on measuring blood glucose for self-experimentation: https://quantifiedself.com/blog/qs-guide-testing-food-with-blood-glucose/ https://quantifiedself.com/blog/qs-guide-testing-food-with-b...
  • ryeguy 6y ago
    Insulin does not lead to increased weight gain. If this approach does work, it's because it's a roundabout way of eating lower calorie foods and thus lowering daily caloric intake.
    • jacobedawson 6y ago
      Afaiu insulin in combination with elevated blood glucose levels specifically does lead directly to weight gain - it's like a vicious cycle in that high blood sugar = increased insulin levels = excess glucose is stored as fat.
      • mdomans 6y ago
• bserge 6y ago
  That looks like a really good chart I'd like to view, but can't (I've disabled uBlock and NoScript, no change). It's too small, please link the original! Thank you!
• downshun 6y ago
  Surprisingly well written and researched. One thing missing is the effect of testosterone on lean mass creation. Wonder if the fat to co2 process can be ventilator assisted without hurting the lungs .
  • suyash 6y ago
    It says he was going strength training, that should improve testosterone levels and prevent muscle loss.
• scythe 6y ago
  I've studied nutrition out of my own curiosity for more than ten years now. When I opened this article, one of the first things I did was ctrl+F "potassium" -- the most underrated nutrient. Average potassium intake is below recommended levels and resolving this may lead to significant reductions in mortality[1]. Potassium may also reduce the severity of osteoporosis[2], although I (male) don't need to worry about that. Improving potassium status is also associated with simply feeling better[3]. 1 - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025619613004631 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00256... 2 - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00198-008-0666-3 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00198-008-0666-3 3 - https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-nutrition/article/dietary-electrolytes-are-related-to-mood/261729C7B3C7D3D2D8D5E1CDF74932FF https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/british-journal-of-n... Good sources of potassium include fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts, milk, yogurt and eggs -- or, in other words, anything except meat, cheese, grains, and overly-processed crap. (When cheese precipitates from milk, most potassium remains in the liquid phase. I am not sure if the same happens with tofu.) I haven't ever really tried to lose weight, but I've always had very strong motivations to maintain low body fat: - my mother's family has a history of cardiovascular disease (grandfather d. stroke at 67, aunt d.m. type 2) - my father's family has a high prevalence of obesity - I have scoliosis with associated back pain With these factors in mind, I've spent a lot of time combing the USDA nutrient database: http://fdc.nal.usda.gov/ http://fdc.nal.usda.gov/ . I don't use an "energy out" calculator -- rather, I keep track of my intake and habits and correlate these to changes in my weight. The strategies I use are mostly quotidian: every meal must have some dietary fiber; avoid snacking -- drink water first and choose foods with fiber if you must; stay active etc. Possibly the most valuable thing I've learned, though, is how many things -- particularly vegetables -- you can prepare using nothing but an oven and aluminum foil, without making more dirty dishes. This is invaluable for continuing to make healthy choices when it's late and you're tired, or improving a meal that already requires substantial effort. Fatigue is your most formidable enemy, and "lazy cooking" techniques ward it off.
  • JamesBarney 6y ago
    Any websites for healthy lazy cooking options?
• gdebel 6y ago
  I'm French (and incidentally a doctor,and my post is not judgemental in any way, this is not the point). Everytime I travel to the USA, I'm puzzled by how difficult it is to "eat normally" (= by my own standards). You can find really good junk food everywhere, or pay a really high price to eat in high-level Italian restaurants for example, but it is very difficult to eat standard meat-with-vegetable-without-sugar-added, except in Asian restaurants (and even there, food is often sweetened). Of course it is biased because I have no access usually to a kitchen when I travel. I think sugar is the main problem (not fat) and I'm not convinced calory count is key. We did not evolved to eat processed sugar, which is not easily found naturally in the environment. My 2 cents: - eat as much vegetables as you want (learn to cook them, with a little bit of olive oil) - eat as much fish as you want (no need to cook! Low temperature baking, 1h at 70-80°, the best cooking you'll ever have) - eat meat in reasonable, "as-if-you-had-to-hunt-it-with-a-bow" quantities - ban every processed food, sauce, appetizer.... If you would not eat a spoon of every single ingredient of some food, don't eat it. - ban all added sugar, except (real) honey in reasonable proportions. This implies to know/learn how to cook (not so hard but this is easier when the local/family culture allowed you to learn passively). It looks like this is hard to do in the USA: you don't easily find, for example, yogurt without sugar added. (Or I didn't look at the right place, once again this is not judgemental). Generally speaking, it is easy to find online high-level cooking courses, but hard to learn the basics of how to cook your onions or tomatoes in different ways in everyday life, or make an healthy meal with what's left in the fridge; this could be interesting to have. --edited for typing errors
  • tvanantwerp 6y ago
    Last year I went to Europe for a two week vacation. I stuffed myself like a greedy pig for two weeks, but I barely gained any weight on my return to the US. The next week, I went on a staff retreat for only 3 days and stuffed myself again. That time, I gained more than twice what I'd gained in Europe. I'm convinced that the quality of European food is, on average, vastly superior to what's available in America.
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• tvanantwerp 6y ago
  I've had a similar DEXA experience. My last scan put me at 30% fat, whereas my scale estimate 16% and a 3D external scan estimated 18%. My appearance does not match typical pictures of someone at 30% body fat. In fact, at 30% I would be in the 99th percentile of % fat mass for my height and weight--something I think unlikely. Like the author, I was in a fasted state of ketosis at the time.
• SubiculumCode 6y ago
  I recommend the National Institutes of Health Body Weight Planner, which uses formulas that take into account lower metabolism with weight loss in its predictions and plans, the issue discussed in the excellent article. https://www.niddk.nih.gov/bwp https://www.niddk.nih.gov/bwp
• zan2434 6y ago
  I think the most sustainable way to lose fat (not weight ofc) is to gain lean muscle mass. You can substantially increase your basal metabolic rate and induce a calorie deficit to incur fat loss without actually eating any less. The problem of course is that your body does automatically increase your appetite commensurately as your BMR goes up, but calorie counting + discipline can help you stay lean as you gain muscle mass, and then lose the fat over time.
• centimeter 6y ago
  No mention of ketosis, which uses vastly different metabolic pathways. It transmits energy without using glucose - instead using ketone bodies like acetone. It's very likely that this was a frequent (perhaps the most frequent) state occupied by our megafauna-hunting ancestors.
• rland 6y ago
  I really liked the "subway map" in this article, it reminded me of the Roche Biochemical Pathways chart: http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1 http://biochemical-pathways.com/#/map/1
• julianeon 6y ago
  I was a little bit disappointed that the title promised an introduction to biohacking, but in practice, by the end, it amounted to how to lose weight. The "hacking" part is in understanding how the body processes energy and how eating affects that, I guess. Still, from that title, I think it was fair to expect a different article.
  • fudged71 6y ago
    Yes, I would have liked to hear more about his experiences with the other types of biohacking he mentioned!
  • andbberger 6y ago
    I mean.... what did you expect... "I CRISPR'd myself and now i'm photosynthetic?"
    • lordlic 6y ago
      Well, there are lots of people with unhealthy tolerances for risk who write about brain hacking with nootropics.
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• drewg123 6y ago
  I've lost about 60lbs over the last few years in 2 stages. (210lbs->150lbs) In the first stage, I lost about 30lbs. I did not modify my terrible diet, and mostly did cardio (running ~4-5 miles every other day). My health markers (heart rate, blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol) improved, but not a lot. I plateaued at 180 for a few years. Last year, I made some changes and cleaned up my diet. I avoided deserts and all "accidental" carbs (switched away from sandwiches for lunch, etc) and tried to run a bigger calorie deficit. I bought a rowing machine (waterrower like from House of Cards, highly recommend) and replaced running every other day with an hour of rowing, since its a full body workout. I started lifting weights on the alternate days when I was not rowing. I lost 30lbs over the course of about 5 months. After this, all my health markers improved markedly and my doctor stopped wanting to put me on a statin. In the 9 months since I reached my target weight, I've increased my carbs to make my diet more long-term sustainable, but maintained my activity. My weight has remained steady. Since COVID and the closure of gyms, I've replaced lifting weights with lots of pushups, situps, planks, etc, but I'm worried that is not quite as effective, and i'm looking forward returning to my gym.
  • milleramp 6y ago
    Yep there is a saying in cycling; ounces on the bike, pounds in the kitchen.
  • agumonkey 6y ago
    I'd love rowing machines plugged into an alternator so my health powers my laptop ~_~
• tinyhouse 6y ago
  I don't think the advice of not eating fruits is a good one. Nothing wrong with eating an orange every day let's say. The key is to eat things whole. Juice is indeed not recommended,
• fudged71 6y ago
  As a personal trainer I'm really impressed by the technical depth of this post, although it really only centers on the idea of caloric deficit, which is relatively basic compared to the other topics he mentioned. It's so hard to visualize small long-term biological changes without moving averages. "Trust the process" is so important. "Trust the algorithm" is even more apt: • what/when to eat, • what/when to train, and conversely • what/when to rest. If you haven't seen exercise/nutrition through an algorithmic lens, you might be surprised how straightforward it is to make progress day-to-day and how much progress you can really make in a short period of time. I wish strength training had more academics/coders and fewer 'meatheads' because the documentation around it is so anti-intellectual. Even as a trainer it's taken time to find reliable resources to optimize this algorithm, but I've been using a solid combination of tools and methodologies that make this complete and quantitative. I have clients that have lost a lot of weight and are lifting serious weight in a short span of time. It's great to see software engineers speak about health topics in general.
  • tomp 6y ago
    So... where can a non-PT find this kind of advice? Maybe you, or any other trainer you can recommend? Or some online resource? (Personally, I'm probably above-average knowledgeable about fitness, but I still find the information unmanageably overwhelming - train every day, every 3 days, every muscle once a week, every muscle 3 times a week, big muscles less often than small muscles, focus on strength, focus on growth, focus on flexibility, cardio, no cardio, ...)
    • fudged71 6y ago
      I think that's essentially what online training is these days: a cheaper way to get access to a fitness 'sherpa' to guide you. Someone who lives and breathes this stuff to save you a lot of time and effort. Most of the real, practical, and current knowledge right now is spread across a variety of $1000 courses for personal trainers. I'm in the process of building the largest online fitness database of its kind to democratize a lot of this information. I'm not sure what sort of business model I will pursue yet. But I want to collaborate with likeminded people and make the foundational information open to the public.
• nexuist 6y ago
  I must say I find it funny that the head of AI at Tesla used 1) computer memory 2) internal combustion engines as examples to relate to human biology :P
• jwilliams 6y ago
  I read “Molecular Biology of the Cell” when dabbling in bioinformatics (one of the books mentioned in the article). It’s an excellent textbook. You’ll need a base level of chemistry and biology - not two of my best subjects, But despite that I still got a lot of it.
• loughnane 6y ago
  Eat food. Not too much. Mostly vegetables. It is really easy to geek out on the complexity of metabolism and how our society interacts with it. Sometimes that's cool, but for getting through life I try to stick to the above.
• johnvega 6y ago
  Has anyone tried or looked into Carnivore Diet? https://carnivoremd.com/the-carnivore-diet-start-here/ https://carnivoremd.com/the-carnivore-diet-start-here/ https://www.carnivorecast.com/podcast https://www.carnivorecast.com/podcast
• ssijak 6y ago
  I do not understand the obsession with keto/low carb diets. There are no long term studies showing the touted magical benefits. Even Gary Taubes, author who amassed wealth bashing carbs and touting keto diet, funded studies that he thought would confirm what he was saying, but then results came in slight favor of high carb diets against low carb high fat diets in terms of losing weight. Yes, processed sugar is crap, but whole food carbs are not. People who eat mostly whole food plant based diets, in long term studies live the longest and are healthier. And why do people accept processed carbs to be bad but skip the same logic for oils (yeah, squeezed oil is processed food and also pretty much empty calories). I experimented with a lot of things during my life, one of which was keto diet. I tried it several times for months, but always abandoned it for several reasons. Firstly, I feel like I loose 20+ IQ points on it, I can not think clearly, have brain fog, and after strenuous exercise, I start to forget things. And no, it was not a transitional period, it was the same after 1+ months and I tested ketosis with urine sticks. And it is understandable because brain is the largest consummator of glucose. Second, you do not have the same amount of energy, especially for burst activity. Third, you stink more, my sweat stink more, and breath also (which is kind of normal for keto). And lastly, it is harder to maintain which is not a problem for me if I found it to be beneficial, but it could be problem for many. And one more thing, each time I tried keto, I got sick during the period. It could be coincidence, but probably not. Now I eat plant based whole food diet. And from all the things I have tried, it thicks all the good boxes. Eating plenty of very tasty foods, never hungry, never have sweets cravings, tons of energy (my libido went through the roof too), extremely easy to loose excess fat (while feeling good during the process), very good workouts and recovery and steady mental energy throughout the day, stool is regular and good, sleep better (and need less of it) and am much happier (yeah, carbs are precursor to serotonin, and fiber feed the gut microbiome which is extremely important for many things and most of serotonin is made in the gut also) etc. And tons of research which supports the benefits of it for longevity, health and sports. Still it boggles my mind that we somehow managed to vilify foods like a sweet potato or brown rice or whichever carb containing food. I think Pollan summarised it the best : "Eat food (food=unprocessed whole food stuff). Not too much. Mostly plants." That would give 95% of benefits to most people. We get bogged down with details and minute optimisations while loosing the sight of the big picture.
  • deleted 6y ago
• terrycody 6y ago
  I also bookmarked a very informative article regard biohacking written by a silicon valley CEO: https://hackernoon.com/im-32-and-spent-200k-on-biohacking-became-calmer-thinner-extroverted-healthier-happier-2a2e846ae113 https://hackernoon.com/im-32-and-spent-200k-on-biohacking-be... For those who interested with the topic.
• ilaksh 6y ago
  I wonder if anyone has any studies handy about "natural sugars" versus "processed sugars"? That is my biggest pet peeve in terms of dietary discussions. Many people seem to believe that there is a magical property of "natural sugar" (such as honey or the sugar in fruit) that means it doesn't affect your calorie intake or something and so is okay to add to things, whereas table sugar is processed and therefore somehow totally different. I believe this myth derives from the fact that high-fructose corn syrup does in fact concentrate sugar. But that doesn't mean it isn't metabolized the same way as other types of sugar, it just means you get the same amount of sweetness in less volume. So that is measured on labels and in the sweetness. The common thing I hear is something like people saying they had a really delicious mango smoothie but it was totally healthy because they did not add any sugar. Or they switched from putting sugar in their tea to using honey and so now they think they don't get calories from the sweetener in their tea.
• danieltanfh95 6y ago
  A little note from a systemic biology perspective, I've tried this for great results, it's amazing that we've this focus on sugars and fats and what not when we ignore the fact that our body is just more clever than we think. No matter what you eat and how much you eat, your body will always try to return to normalcy as soon as possible. However, this action itself, metabolizing the excess, is a very energy consuming act. As shown by multiple research, more fat and protein in your diet is harmful and counter-intuitively you need more carbs. Here we need to view the body as a full system. In fact, just looking at the metabolic cycles should hint at the real reason why people stay fat, but it's a very subtle message. Drink more water, and avoid ingesting cold things. Eat as normal when your body wants it. That's pretty much it. Water is needed almost everywhere in the metabolic cycle, and yet it's really dependent on our ability to drink and absorb water. Notably, cold water diffuses slower than warm water, so our body can't absorb it as well. Drinking water solutions like Coke where diffusion favours the Coke than your body cells also hampers absorption. So TLDR: drink warm water. Next would be eating. Sugars are easily metabolized by your body and are low investment food compared to everything else. However, eaten in excess when your body no longer needs it causes it to be stored as fat, which requires a lot of water and energy. You see where I'm going at? When your body feels hungry, most of the time it means it's processing something and it needs more energy, so we should give it something that's easier to process. So that's what I've been trying, it actually shocked me with the results. I've been testing with some TCM tea that helps with digestive system functions and it works even faster.
• simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  > if you’d like to shortcut my rambling my TLDR final diet in order of importance: Eat only from 12-8pm. Do not drink any calories (no soda, no alcohol, no juices, avoid milk). Avoid processed food (follow Michael Pollan’s heuristic of only shopping on the outer walls of a grocery store, staying clear of its center). Avoid sugar like the plague, including to a slightly lesser extent natural sugar (apples, bananas, pears, etc - we’ve “weaponized” these fruits via strong artificial selection into actual candy bars), berries are ~okay. For meat stick to fish, occasional chicken is okay, avoid beef/pork. Avoid carbohydrates and “empty calories” (bread, pasta, potatoes, rice), replace with fats and proteins. I admire this effort, but I have a huge problem with the conclusions. Simply "avoid carbohydrates" is silly advice. Billions of people live quite healthy lives eating carbs (pasta, bread, rice). How can you ignore this simple fact? I understand what the author is trying to achieve, but... I can't take this as good advice. Bits and pieces, yes. Everything? Unlikely.
• DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Water factor. Another fun thing I noticed is that my observed weight can fluctuate and rise a lot, even while my expected weight calculation expects a loss. I found that this discrepancy grows with the amount of carbohydrates in my diet (dessert, bread/pasta, potatoes, etc.). Eating these likely increases glycogen levels, which as I already mentioned briefly, acts as a sponge and soaks up water. I noticed that my weight can rise multiple pounds, but when I revert back to my typical low-carbohydrate pasketerianish diet these “fake” pounds evaporate in a matter of a few days. The final outcome are wild swings in my body weight depending mostly on how much candy I’ve succumbed to, or if I squeezed in some pizza at a party. Can anyone point me to more info on this? Yes, I can google it, but the immediate results are things like this: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320603 https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/320603 I would like to have something with a little more info about how this works at the molecular level or something.
  • meroes 6y ago
    No sources but it's common knowledge in fitness groups like bodybuilding. For every 1g for carb you intake, your body wants 3-4g of water to digest it. Also glycogen is what provides your muscles quick access to energy, and is stored within the tissue. It increases dramatically with higher carbs and water. All of these increase your weight temporarily, but they are not fat. Weight!=fat and you want high glycogen stores in prepartion for a workout. And bodybuilders further manipulate these facts to get a pump and more muscle defintion.
    • DoreenMichele 6y ago
      Thank you. I have a genetic disorder and I'm prone to edema. I've lost multiple dress sizes over the years, in part by altering my diet to account for the defective cell channel. I don't believe I have lost fat. I believe it's all water weight and it's substantial amounts of water weight. I have reason to believe that I actually have a higher amount of body fat than I have ever had before and it's a good thing. The right carbs plus the right fats plus the right kind of good quality salt is a powerful combination for me that helps heal my body and consuming them together in one sitting is typically followed by severe diarrhea. So eating certain carbs is one of the things helping me lose excess water weight. I really need to do some reading on the molecular processes involved to try to fit this into my mental models for what is happening because this information flies in the face of my first-hand experience. I've read what I can to understand what is going on at the cellular/molecular level. There are a number of weird things that go on with my condition, such as calcium hoarding and also hoarding of glutathione inside the cell (with too little glutathione occurring on the outside of the cell). High levels of calcium inside the cell are associated with cell apoptosis (cell death), so some people with the condition believe calcium is a bad thing and they avoid it. I believe the opposite. I believe the body is hoarding calcium and glutathione to buffer against extreme acidity and other chemical derangement. People with the condition are prone to developing osteoporosis at extremely early ages, sometimes in their teens. Glutathione has a strong, sour, skunk-like smell and I sometimes seem to dump it from my system as I go through periods where one or both armpits and/or my bowel movements have that smell. Afterwards, my baseline functioning is permanently improved. So I'm trying to figure out what is going on that I am so prone to edema and what I need to address to fix it because I think if I can resolve the remaining edema, I will be more or less "normal" and largely asymptomatic. I think the remaining edema is indicative of remaining issues and although I continue to make progress, it's harder to make progress than it used to be. I am looking for clues to help me figure out some new piece of the puzzle and find a path forward on resolving this.
• dishoom 6y ago
  I must say coming from a medical perspective (1/2 doctor),it's always interesting hearing peoples views about metabolism. Although the opinions are "valid", the bottom line to this discussion is that we need to simply eat less sugar, with the whole fruit as a notable exception to this rule. Ideally, our diets should be low in sugar and high in fiber, consisting primarily of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. By paying attention to the sugar in prepackaged foods, adding less sugar to our tea or coffee, limiting desserts, and drinking water instead of sugary beverages, it’s easy to reduce our sugar consumption. A change that I would want to see in the food industry is traffic light labeling. This is popular in Europe and in limited use in the US. In this system, food and beverages are labeled by color, with green indicating the healthiest options, and yellow and red less healthy ones. In the UK, total sugar content is used to determine a beverage’s rating, placing juice on par with soda. These simple systems help consumers especially in the western world make better choices, even when they don’t have the time to peruse a nutrition facts label.
• a_d 6y ago
  “ As a result I’ve improved a number of biomarkers (e.g. resting heart rate, resting blood glucose, strength, endurance, nutritional deficiencies, etc)” — how does one measure / track these things? ESP resting heart rate, blood glucose and nutritional deficiencies.
  • dmeeker 6y ago
    Resting heart rate is commonly tracked by wearables e.g. Apple Watch. Blood glucose can be self-monitored with the same tools diabetics use. Nutritional deficiencies can be measured with blood tests; WellnessFX was one of the early channels to get these but I believe Quest will let you self-order them now.
• damowangcy 6y ago
  Reading through the post makes me thinks that are we eating unnecessarily? 3 meals a day have become the basic necessity for most. Our ancestors used to eat as much as they could because there's no guarantee that they will have enough food until the next hunt. So, the body will go into a state we call "hungry", which reminds us to eat. However with such plentiful of food available (know it didn't came easily, at least for me, grateful for it, hope that more people is out of hunger), is the feeling of hunger just a placebo effect that we trained ourselves to feel? I am able to reduce my daily meals to 2 by having a bulletproof coffee in the morning. There's urge to eat between meals but even if I skip them, I'm fine. Since I have a desk job, I still have plentiful of energy left in the evening for gym time. One point to argue is nutritions but even if one is eating a lot, there's no guarantee that much of that intake is nutritional.
  • tom_mellior 6y ago
    > I am able to reduce my daily meals to 2 by having a bulletproof coffee in the morning. For whatever it's worth, two tablespoons of butter on your coffee is 204 kcal according to Wolfram Alpha. Even Bulletproof says things like "Bulletproof Coffee is breakfast" and "curbing your hunger with food that keeps you full for hours. Bulletproof Coffee checks those boxes." which I read as saying that they think of it as (liquid) food. https://www.bulletproof.com/recipes/bulletproof-diet-recipes/bulletproof-coffee-recipe/ https://www.bulletproof.com/recipes/bulletproof-diet-recipes... You're replacing a potentially less structured breakfast (I eat different breakfasts every day) with a single standardised one. If you buy Bulletproof's analysis, you might be doing something ketogenic which might be beneficial in some way. But you're not skipping a meal. Though there is a blurb on that page that says something like "you're having a meal without breaking your fast because [arbitrary definition we made up on the spot]". For whatever it's worth, I wouldn't take health advice from a product sold with an origin story of "the founder was dangerously overweight and at acute risk of stroke or heart attack at the age of 30, so the biohacker in them decided it would be smart to go on a difficult mountain trek in Nepal".
    • damowangcy 6y ago
      True, I don't believe anything that is marketed/advertised as "miraculous". While bullet coffee doesn't give me superpowers, it does however helped me to "replace" (skip is a superstitious word, I agreed with you) breakfasts that would otherwise be full of sugars and such. The hunger disappeared from 6am (when I wake up) until around noon. I think diet is not just about the food and nutrients but also the lifestyle. You can't expect someone to always be taking meticulous steps in measuring their intake, most will slip away. Start trying out small adjustments to see whether you can make it a habit, else it is not a good idea. For me, the coffee helps me stay full (physiological or physically) and don't make me grumpy the whole morning, yet still having the energy to crush it. I am actually looking for more replacements/practices that would allow me to eat just enough and suits my lifestyle, instead of following a specific regime that is coupled with courses that they sell you.
• ausbah 6y ago
  is it not enough to just focus on high level objectives like what you you, when you eat, when you sleep, your social activities, and reducing high level stresses? it's kinda cool reading about the really indepth analyses around health, but they strike me as overkill in some ways. I'm probably bias by my own lifestyle howefer
• trianglem 6y ago
  People tend to over complicate this. To lose weight you need to eat less. I lost 40 lbs in 3 months last year by simply switching from 2 meals a day to 1. It’s not rocket science, if you want to lose weight, eat less.
• Galus 6y ago
  I enjoy that you put this together, as one of my favorite CS guys out there you inspire both educationally in academics, and professionally in industry. You show it's possible to tackle any interests no matter your size/workload. I also have some weird interests in (synthetic) biology, chem, ML outside of the normal fitness/nutrition ones. You've introduced CNN and ML to me, thanks to your work at Stanford and I hope I can get to a point where I also branch out or work alongside a different domain like biology or law one day. ++Karpathy
• denfromufa 6y ago
  One of the most important things not mentioned in the article is sleep. Not enough sleep and your diet will change. Not enough sleep and your body will not finish recovering overnight. Read the book “Why we sleep”. It will change your life. P.S. I do marathon training and glycogen storing as well as activating the fat burning are essential!
• emanuensis 6y ago
  A bit surprising no one has mentioned the old traveling salesman trick: Eat at the local hospital.
• swyx 6y ago
  "More importantly, we studied the process by which our Sun’s free energy powers blog posts via a transformation of nuclear binding energy to electromagnetic radiation to heat." this was the key part of the post!