5 ms·

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): meas

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.
- karpathy 6y ago
  Agree, I didn't mention this in the post but I've become a big fan of intermittent fasting, which is a fancy way of saying "skip breakfast". I only eat from 12-8pm and most days from 12-6pm. I also found that even if I wake up a bit hungry my morning coffee suppresses my appetite and I rarely struggle to get to lunch. A hard threshold on 8pm also avoids most of the unhealthy snacking that tends to happen in late hours. I find that as the body winds down for the day and is a bit more tired my defenses and motivation are down a bit and I feel tempted by snacks. With IF it's easy to blanket reject such ideas from my brain because I'm outside of my window. There is also a slight element to which the body "gets used to" the feeding schedule, and doesn't bother you as much outside of it with snacking ideas.
  - joshvm 6y ago
    I'm with you on the appetite suppression. I got into making decent coffee recently, probably from being stuck at home, and it's interesting how strong the effect is. Especially when coupled with a walk round the local park (e.g. 5k) I often don't feel hungry until mid afternoon. There is also the other reliable effect that I won't mention here! One other thing I realised post-lockdown is just how much I relied on exercise to keep my back/posture in check. I used to climb regularly, though I slacked off on the cardio. Since quarantining, I've done a lot less resistance exercise and it really shows. One day of poor posture - e.g. hunching over a workbench, or working from a non-optimal place like bed or the couch - is enough to cause quite a lot of backache and it only really goes away after doing some exercise (far more effective in my experience than icing/heating/NSAIDs). My plan is to get back into bodyweight/calisthenics ASAP. (Very interesting article by the way, the subway map would make a great poster)
  - agumonkey 6y ago
    I need some polls about the relationship between 'hunger' and boredom. I felt skipping meals was difficult for a few minutes but then I turned the eating-stress into action and it made me slightly manically motivated into doing some task (electronics, cleaning, jogging) and few minutes later the hunger disappeared.
    - 6y ago
- smichel17 6y ago
  > I also drank a lot less water than I thought. For me, the key to staying hydrated is large containers. When there is a glass of water on my desk in front of me, I sip it as I get thirsty. When it runs dry, I don't interrupt my current task to refill it, so it might sit empty for hours, and I won't drink enough later to make up for it. So, the fewer times I have to refill, the more water I drink. In college, when I moved between many locations, I used a 1-quart canning jar in a knitted sleeve (classier and a little fall protection -- just remember you still have to wash it). These days, it's a 1-liter jug (err, may technically be a vase) that sits on my desk. I refill it in the morning (or night before) and once in the middle of the day, after it runs out.
- shoes_for_thee 6y ago
  The idea of intermittent fasting from 12-8pm is kind of amusing to me because that's just when I tend to eat anyway. I guess I've been intermittent fasting my whole life!
- Accacin 6y ago
  Huh, so I tried intermittent fasting for probably six months and honestly it didn't make much difference for me personally. I'm 185cm and ~66-68kg so I was more trying to keep a consistent weight rather than lose weight though. For me, snacking was fixed by not buying snacks that I would consider too unhealthy. Generally the only snack foods I have in my house now are biscuits to dip in my tea in the evening (British..). Also I've never really liked fizzy drinks and pretty much drink water and black coffee (soya milk once a day for the B12 and protein). I do agree with the biggest thing for me being portion size, I'm one of those people that if there's food on the table I will finish it, and I'll finish my wife's food as well if she doesn't want it. My wife also doesn't help as if I mention I'm hungry to her, she'll assume that I want more than usual and have to try and remind her that the usual amount will be more than enough :)
jackschultz 6y ago
Big shoutout to saying low impact cardio. Running is the big example that can cause pain where people's bodies are so different that it's not clear what the correct form is for them or if there's even a good form. I play and follow golf and the big injury issue with Tiger that made him multiple surgeries, and also had to reshape his golf swing from the pain running caused. Here's an article[0] about that from Running Magazine. There's more to the story on this, like his background and mentality on Navy Seal training, with his body type and high impact running it caused huge problems he's still dealing with. As for funning form types, check out the video of Cliff Young and his running style[1] for the Sydney to Melbourne race at 61 but shuffling. What I'm saying, and what I'm glad you included, is the importance of cardio being low impacts, and to also not feel bad if you're not a running. Biking, and especially swimming are great alternatives and so much better on your body long term. [0] https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/tiger-woods-regrets-running-so-much-but-he-mightve-been-overtraining/ https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/tiger-woods-regrets-run... [1] https://vimeo.com/258718906 https://vimeo.com/258718906
- jaypeg25 6y ago
  I have a long history of back pain going back to college (32 now). As I've gotten older (and a bit bigger) I've started to get knee pain in addition if I run a lot. So I recently switched to biking which has honestly been way more fun, opened me up to exploring more parts of my city and the surrounding area than running did, and I haven't really had any associated pains since starting roughly a year ago. I still drink way too much so losing weight is an issue, but I do feel healthier at least.
  - thechao 6y ago
    Back pain is almost always an indicator of posterior chain weakness. Do daily squats (just up & down), and do toe-touch-stretches (legs about 2x shoulder width, right-hand-to-left-toe, stand up with arms in the air, left-hand-to-right-toe). Personally, I just do weighted squats & heavy deadlift, but if your knees are bad, that's a bad idea. You can chat with a PT for 50–80$ and they can tell you exactly what's wrong & how to fix it in less than an hour.
fudged71 6y ago
The problem with daily measurements is it can lead to frustration. The daily number may change constantly but it's the moving average that matters. Few people can track a number without asking themselves what that number means for them. I want a scale without a screen and a measuring tape without numbers. Track often but only see the trend when you ask for it.
- gen220 6y ago
  This is a super interesting idea, that maybe hasn't been explored deeply enough. Of course, for some people, the obsession with precise, day-to-day numbers is an almost-unmitigated inspiration. In my experience, the trick with body weight is that you actually do have almost perfect control over the day to day. Assuming you take it in the morning before breakfast and after the bathroom, it's almost a pure function of your weight yesterday and the caloric balance from the day prior. If you control your caloric balance with diet and exercise, you can predict your 1-2lb swings (aka constant swings) pretty accurately.
  - alach11 6y ago
    Perhaps if your macro ratio is consistent. The article’s author postulated that some daily weight swings he experienced were caused by increased water retention from glycogen after eating larger amounts of carbohydrates.
  - tom_mellior 6y ago
    > If you control your caloric balance with diet and exercise, you can predict your 1-2lb swings (aka constant swings) pretty accurately. The featured article tried and failed to do exactly this. As in, not just the magnitude but even the direction of the swing was often estimated incorrectly. My guess is that you would need to be very careful about accounting for water.

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.
karpathy 6y ago
Agree, I didn't mention this in the post but I've become a big fan of intermittent fasting, which is a fancy way of saying "skip breakfast". I only eat from 12-8pm and most days from 12-6pm. I also found that even if I wake up a bit hungry my morning coffee suppresses my appetite and I rarely struggle to get to lunch. A hard threshold on 8pm also avoids most of the unhealthy snacking that tends to happen in late hours. I find that as the body winds down for the day and is a bit more tired my defenses and motivation are down a bit and I feel tempted by snacks. With IF it's easy to blanket reject such ideas from my brain because I'm outside of my window. There is also a slight element to which the body "gets used to" the feeding schedule, and doesn't bother you as much outside of it with snacking ideas.
- joshvm 6y ago
  I'm with you on the appetite suppression. I got into making decent coffee recently, probably from being stuck at home, and it's interesting how strong the effect is. Especially when coupled with a walk round the local park (e.g. 5k) I often don't feel hungry until mid afternoon. There is also the other reliable effect that I won't mention here! One other thing I realised post-lockdown is just how much I relied on exercise to keep my back/posture in check. I used to climb regularly, though I slacked off on the cardio. Since quarantining, I've done a lot less resistance exercise and it really shows. One day of poor posture - e.g. hunching over a workbench, or working from a non-optimal place like bed or the couch - is enough to cause quite a lot of backache and it only really goes away after doing some exercise (far more effective in my experience than icing/heating/NSAIDs). My plan is to get back into bodyweight/calisthenics ASAP. (Very interesting article by the way, the subway map would make a great poster)
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I need some polls about the relationship between 'hunger' and boredom. I felt skipping meals was difficult for a few minutes but then I turned the eating-stress into action and it made me slightly manically motivated into doing some task (electronics, cleaning, jogging) and few minutes later the hunger disappeared.
  - 6y ago
smichel17 6y ago
> I also drank a lot less water than I thought. For me, the key to staying hydrated is large containers. When there is a glass of water on my desk in front of me, I sip it as I get thirsty. When it runs dry, I don't interrupt my current task to refill it, so it might sit empty for hours, and I won't drink enough later to make up for it. So, the fewer times I have to refill, the more water I drink. In college, when I moved between many locations, I used a 1-quart canning jar in a knitted sleeve (classier and a little fall protection -- just remember you still have to wash it). These days, it's a 1-liter jug (err, may technically be a vase) that sits on my desk. I refill it in the morning (or night before) and once in the middle of the day, after it runs out.
shoes_for_thee 6y ago
The idea of intermittent fasting from 12-8pm is kind of amusing to me because that's just when I tend to eat anyway. I guess I've been intermittent fasting my whole life!
Accacin 6y ago
Huh, so I tried intermittent fasting for probably six months and honestly it didn't make much difference for me personally. I'm 185cm and ~66-68kg so I was more trying to keep a consistent weight rather than lose weight though. For me, snacking was fixed by not buying snacks that I would consider too unhealthy. Generally the only snack foods I have in my house now are biscuits to dip in my tea in the evening (British..). Also I've never really liked fizzy drinks and pretty much drink water and black coffee (soya milk once a day for the B12 and protein). I do agree with the biggest thing for me being portion size, I'm one of those people that if there's food on the table I will finish it, and I'll finish my wife's food as well if she doesn't want it. My wife also doesn't help as if I mention I'm hungry to her, she'll assume that I want more than usual and have to try and remind her that the usual amount will be more than enough :)

jackschultz 6y ago

Big shoutout to saying low impact cardio. Running is the big example that can cause pain where people's bodies are so different that it's not clear what the correct form is for them or if there's even a good form. I play and follow golf and the big injury issue with Tiger that made him multiple surgeries, and also had to reshape his golf swing from the pain running caused. Here's an article[0] about that from Running Magazine. There's more to the story on this, like his background and mentality on Navy Seal training, with his body type and high impact running it caused huge problems he's still dealing with. As for funning form types, check out the video of Cliff Young and his running style[1] for the Sydney to Melbourne race at 61 but shuffling. What I'm saying, and what I'm glad you included, is the importance of cardio being low impacts, and to also not feel bad if you're not a running. Biking, and especially swimming are great alternatives and so much better on your body long term. [0] https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/tiger-woods-regrets-running-so-much-but-he-mightve-been-overtraining/ https://runningmagazine.ca/the-scene/tiger-woods-regrets-run... [1] https://vimeo.com/258718906 https://vimeo.com/258718906

jaypeg25 6y ago
I have a long history of back pain going back to college (32 now). As I've gotten older (and a bit bigger) I've started to get knee pain in addition if I run a lot. So I recently switched to biking which has honestly been way more fun, opened me up to exploring more parts of my city and the surrounding area than running did, and I haven't really had any associated pains since starting roughly a year ago. I still drink way too much so losing weight is an issue, but I do feel healthier at least.
- thechao 6y ago
  Back pain is almost always an indicator of posterior chain weakness. Do daily squats (just up & down), and do toe-touch-stretches (legs about 2x shoulder width, right-hand-to-left-toe, stand up with arms in the air, left-hand-to-right-toe). Personally, I just do weighted squats & heavy deadlift, but if your knees are bad, that's a bad idea. You can chat with a PT for 50–80$ and they can tell you exactly what's wrong & how to fix it in less than an hour.

fudged71 6y ago

The problem with daily measurements is it can lead to frustration. The daily number may change constantly but it's the moving average that matters. Few people can track a number without asking themselves what that number means for them. I want a scale without a screen and a measuring tape without numbers. Track often but only see the trend when you ask for it.

gen220 6y ago
This is a super interesting idea, that maybe hasn't been explored deeply enough. Of course, for some people, the obsession with precise, day-to-day numbers is an almost-unmitigated inspiration. In my experience, the trick with body weight is that you actually do have almost perfect control over the day to day. Assuming you take it in the morning before breakfast and after the bathroom, it's almost a pure function of your weight yesterday and the caloric balance from the day prior. If you control your caloric balance with diet and exercise, you can predict your 1-2lb swings (aka constant swings) pretty accurately.
- alach11 6y ago
  Perhaps if your macro ratio is consistent. The article’s author postulated that some daily weight swings he experienced were caused by increased water retention from glycogen after eating larger amounts of carbohydrates.
- tom_mellior 6y ago
  > If you control your caloric balance with diet and exercise, you can predict your 1-2lb swings (aka constant swings) pretty accurately. The featured article tried and failed to do exactly this. As in, not just the magnitude but even the direction of the swing was often estimated incorrectly. My guess is that you would need to be very careful about accounting for water.