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> Just eat less man. It's pretty straight forward. Just eat one meal a day (lunch) and you'll see the weight fly off. You're suggesting a diet that requires a

> Just eat less man. It's pretty straight forward. Just eat one meal a day (lunch) and you'll see the weight fly off. You're suggesting a diet that requires a discipline that, empirically, is obviously beyond the reach of most people. Here's much, much simpler advice, that is also more enjoyable to do: Just eat better. Or just somewhat better, and do some exercise. You'd be surprised how easy it is to purchase or cook a meal that is delicious and filling, but not all too heavy on calories. Vegetables are boring when you boil them. Properly seasoned and roasted, grilled, braised, or sauteed, they can be an absolutely amazing side dish. Hell, throw a bit of cheese on them, that little bit of Parmesan or Gruyère won't make a difference calorie-wise but will add a divine dimension of flavor. It's easy to make a delicious desert that doesn't contain >50g of fat. Get some exercise. I enjoy lifting weights but you don't lose weight with that, you do it with endurance sport which I absolutely hate. Luckily, there's a solution for that: any halfway decent gym opened in the past decade has bikes, treadmills, cross-trainers etc. with built-in viewing screens and Netflix, Youtube, etc. An hour flies by when you're enjoying yourself, and with a heart rate of 130bpm or so, you're basically not even sweating, yet burning tons of calories. Imagine enjoying a full hour episode of House of Cards, Narcos, or whatever your thing is and getting healthy in the process. You're losing weight by watching TV. I think most advice that requires a dramatic change in lifestyle (like limiting yourself to one meal a day) is extremely poor because it requires effort that most of us aren't willing to expend. I enjoy food. A lot. I like to go out and try it, I like to cook it, I like to share it with others. For me, "eating one meal a day" is absolute punishment, I'm missing out on least two occasions to taste something enjoyable, maybe even remarkable. And it's easy to do that 3x a day when you just watch what you eat. Eat proper food for a while and you'll never crave a Big Mac again, because you can actually taste what crap it is.

znpy 5y ago
> do some exercise Don't underestimate walking! And stairs!
- Hir0ki 5y ago
  This I've noticed that since I have a car and don't walk as much anymore I have put on a lot of weight. Because I just didn't get my 10.000 Steps a day in anymore, because I didn't have to walk to the train station and to the grocery store any more.
- ckastner 5y ago
  Absolutely. One advantage that I have of living in the center of a big city is that there are literally hundreds of restaurants in walking distance from my home. Lockdowns are over but my employer is still mostly in WFH mode. I've made it a habit to try out a new dining place for lunch at least 3x a week, and since I'm more than familiar with all the places in my immediate vicinity, that often means a 15min walk to some place I found on Google Maps. The 30mins round trip are not about the exercise. All that's on my mind on my way to the place are the great tacos or banh mi or whatever I saw or heard about and that I'm about to try. I just happen to also get 2km of walking exercise out of it.
xaitv 5y ago
I'd say it's mostly personal. For me it was much easier to switch to one meal a day but not pay TOO much attention to what I eat than it was to keep eating multiple times per day but healthy all the time. The hardest part was only drinking water, but that's more a case of just not buying other drinks.
- user_named 5y ago
  Tea should work too
- ckastner 5y ago
  I never saw the goal as eating healthy all the time. Just more of it can already improve things dramatically. For example, I absolutely love good pizza (with the emphasis on good), and just get it whenever I crave it because I know that overall, I'm doing more than fine. I only ranted about Big Macs earlier because that particular product is crap; some restaurants here produce just absolutely fantastic cheese burgers and I enjoy them every now and then. But I also enjoy a good Pho, which is basically just hot water with some rice noodles, and an immense amount of flavor. I think the trick is just finding the balance of these things, not some form of overall abstinence.
  - smugma 5y ago
    A friend’s mom makes us pho about once a year. Definitely not just hot water. It takes hours of prep to make the broth. Easy for a restaurant to make in a bat, and relatively low calorie and fat, but it’s denigrating to call it hot water (Annie Chun makes instant pho, which is basically hot water and some spices)
    - hurflmurfl 5y ago
      I believe the poster didn't mean this as "denigrating", and were rather referring to the caloric contents, where "hot water" implies minimal amount of calories. Of course, making a proper broth takes time and does put some nutritional value into said "hot water" (as do onions fried on oil/butter, sauces you add and potentially sugar), but that doesn't really change the fact that the will be minimal amount of calories in that.
signal11 5y ago
The key to losing weight is to maintain a caloric deficit. You can do this and have the occasional celebratory meal. You don’t have to eat like a monk. Some people use strategies like IF (intermittent fasting), but just being sensible and accessing good nutritional advice is helpful. Eating more fresh fruit and vegetables, and drinking enough water, has been shown to be very helpful. Your point about cooking is also true. The science on caloric deficit seems pretty solid (unless you have other health complications eg thyroid issues). These days eg the UK’s National Health Service has a therapy[1] which is being rolled out to more and more people (morbidly obese people initially to control numbers) which puts them on an extremely restrictive diet to get them to lose weight. And asking people, especially people who “feel” heavy and inactive, to exercise is a hard problem. Again, you’re not wrong, but ensuring that an inactive person watches TV on a treadmill is … challenging. Exercise is helpful, but it really increases quality of life, and in reality most obese people won’t do the exercise needed to make a significant dent in their calorie budget. For most people (especially with 25..30 BMI — ie not quite at the extreme end of the spectrum), losing weight is mostly a psychological or motivational problem. This is the problem, because our ability to provide psychological or motivational therapy is limited. [1] https://www.england.nhs.uk/2022/01/nhs-soups-and-shakes-diet-helps-thousands-shed-the-pounds/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/2022/01/nhs-soups-and-shakes-diet...
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  > The key to losing weight is to maintain a caloric deficit. You can do this and have the occasional celebratory meal. How to maintain a caloric deficit is highly personal. I made my own strategy after thinking carefully about what would work and what would not work. I aimed for a fairly controlled daily calorie intake with a 500 kcal daily deficiency, and then thought hard about how to achieve that within my limits. Once I had a clear strategy and some meal plans, I put it into practice. For me personally that meant two meals per day, early lunch and dinner, as it was easier for me to avoid excessive calories with just two meals compared to three. I also never like to eat right after I've woken up, so win win. In order to not feel hungry eating just two meals per day, I focused on high protein, high fiber meals. Things like 95+% whole grain bread for lunch and replacing potatoes with vegetables for dinner. For salads I'd use romaine lettuce rather than more common iceberg lettuce due to its higher fiber content. Every bit helped. For me it was essential to not stress too much though. The way I thought about it was that if I messed up today, then the finishing line just moved another day or two further ahead. This lead to my personal mantra "it's not what you did today, but what you do each day that matters", which I stuck to.
brailsafe 5y ago
Even better, find something you enjoy doing that doesn't require you to binge media while doing it, and is just intrinsically motivating. If you can make enough of a lifestyle change to consistently show up at a gym, you're already past the difficult part of lifestyle changes in general, might as well find something that you want to spend your time on for the sake of it.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  Avoid consuming media while eating?
hunterb123 5y ago
> You're suggesting a diet that requires a discipline that, empirically, is obviously beyond the reach of most people. Personally, it's easier to eat less than to eat better. It's boils down to having a calorie deficit. It doesn't matter how you get there, malnutrition is a separate issue, you don't have to tackle both at once. You need to adjust your diet to calorie neutral once you lose your weight anyway. MAX the DEFICIT FIRST. Bottom line, don't eat so many meals. Eat less and less each day, your stomach will shrink, you'll get full faster. Snack for breakfast, snack for lunch. Enjoy whatever for dinner. If you want to eat pizza, fast food, or any other "bad" thing go right ahead, just do it once per day. High protein food like cheese and jerky is great. A bit of carbs like crackers or something to keep sugars level and make the protein last. When you're first reducing your calorie intake you will get hungry and you will get hunger pangs. Drink some water and eat a couple pieces of jerky / cheese, a couple crackers, or drink some chicken broth / V8 to fill your stomach up just enough to stop the pangs. DO NOT DRINK YOUR CALORIES (unless it's minimal & provides protein).
bin_bash 5y ago
You’re suggesting a strategy that, empirically, is obviously beyond the reach for most people. That’s the mainstream method of losing weight. Every single person that’s wanted to lose weight has tried it, likely many times. I’m not saying IF is the solution, but it’s insulting to say it’s as simple as “diet and exercise”. If it was, 80% of Americans wouldn’t be overweight.
- ckastner 5y ago
  Fair enough. Although my intention wasn't to imply that it was easy in general, just easier than the suggestion I was replying to. In any case, the first step in losing weight is actually wanting to do something about it, as the submitter of this story does. You mentioned Americans in particular, but I think that the problem with obesity in the U.S. is a kind of its own. When even the bread is sugared, I think a significant part of the 80% problem is systemic.
  - KyeRussell 5y ago
    I have spent a week in the US. The hotel buffet breakfast on its surface looked like any other. The typically ‘staple’ foods like bread was laden with sugar to the point where I couldn’t stand to eat them, and the typically “healthy” buffet breakfast options like fruit were remarkably low quality. I thought I had just picked a crappy hotel (though you wouldn’t know it for the price) but others have corroborated my experience. Losing weight in the US seems like pushing a rock uphill.
    - bin_bash 5y ago
      American breakfast is an abomination. Even the eggs and bacon taste worse than in Europe. In our family we only have it about once a month as a special treat. (My toddler gets it every day but it's not a typical breakfast) My British wife can't stand the bread in the US. She says it tastes like cake (and her UK friends agree). The funny thing is British bread doesn't taste any less sweet to my American palate.
    - tinco 5y ago
nkozyra 5y ago
> I enjoy lifting weights but you don't lose weight with that, you do it with endurance sport Weight lifting w/ hypertrophy is one of the most effective forms of exercise for weight (fat) loss. In addition to causing a longer rise in post exercise caloric burn, it also changes body composition such that your calorie requirements/quota increases over time. Cardio is not a particularly great option for fat losses for a number of reasons. Spend an hour on the treadmill and look at the caloric burn estimates for a glaring reason why. The best exercise for weight loss though is the one you enjoy and will do. Nothing burns fat for me better than full court basketball a few times a week. https://steelfitusa.com/blogs/exercise-and-training/why-cardio-is-not-the-answer-for-weight-loss https://steelfitusa.com/blogs/exercise-and-training/why-card... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/well/move/weight-training-fat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/well/move/weight-training...
- edanm 5y ago
  I used to think the same as you. I'm no longer convinced. The "afterburn" effect is, as far as I can tell, fairly minimal, on the order of 10s of calories per day only. As for body composition, while it's true that your "calories out" increases if you add muscle, the increase is, again, negligible. Just plug in higher bodyweight numbers into TDEE calculators and see how little difference it makes. (Though they undershoot it a bit, IMO, because they don't assume that all the weight gained was muscle... it's still fairly small). The only way to lose weight is to make sure you eat less than you burn. For most people, that means eating less, and possibly adding in a bit of exercise.
  - nkozyra 5y ago
    I don't think we're saying different things, you're just pointing out that exercise's contribution pales in comparison to diet.
dageshi 5y ago
That works for you because you enjoy cooking. If you hate cooking then one meal per day is much better because you only have to do the thing you don't like doing once per day instead of 3+.

znpy 5y ago

> do some exercise Don't underestimate walking! And stairs!

Hir0ki 5y ago
This I've noticed that since I have a car and don't walk as much anymore I have put on a lot of weight. Because I just didn't get my 10.000 Steps a day in anymore, because I didn't have to walk to the train station and to the grocery store any more.
ckastner 5y ago
Absolutely. One advantage that I have of living in the center of a big city is that there are literally hundreds of restaurants in walking distance from my home. Lockdowns are over but my employer is still mostly in WFH mode. I've made it a habit to try out a new dining place for lunch at least 3x a week, and since I'm more than familiar with all the places in my immediate vicinity, that often means a 15min walk to some place I found on Google Maps. The 30mins round trip are not about the exercise. All that's on my mind on my way to the place are the great tacos or banh mi or whatever I saw or heard about and that I'm about to try. I just happen to also get 2km of walking exercise out of it.

xaitv 5y ago

I'd say it's mostly personal. For me it was much easier to switch to one meal a day but not pay TOO much attention to what I eat than it was to keep eating multiple times per day but healthy all the time. The hardest part was only drinking water, but that's more a case of just not buying other drinks.

user_named 5y ago
Tea should work too
ckastner 5y ago
I never saw the goal as eating healthy all the time. Just more of it can already improve things dramatically. For example, I absolutely love good pizza (with the emphasis on good), and just get it whenever I crave it because I know that overall, I'm doing more than fine. I only ranted about Big Macs earlier because that particular product is crap; some restaurants here produce just absolutely fantastic cheese burgers and I enjoy them every now and then. But I also enjoy a good Pho, which is basically just hot water with some rice noodles, and an immense amount of flavor. I think the trick is just finding the balance of these things, not some form of overall abstinence.
- smugma 5y ago
  A friend’s mom makes us pho about once a year. Definitely not just hot water. It takes hours of prep to make the broth. Easy for a restaurant to make in a bat, and relatively low calorie and fat, but it’s denigrating to call it hot water (Annie Chun makes instant pho, which is basically hot water and some spices)
  - hurflmurfl 5y ago
    I believe the poster didn't mean this as "denigrating", and were rather referring to the caloric contents, where "hot water" implies minimal amount of calories. Of course, making a proper broth takes time and does put some nutritional value into said "hot water" (as do onions fried on oil/butter, sauces you add and potentially sugar), but that doesn't really change the fact that the will be minimal amount of calories in that.

signal11 5y ago

The key to losing weight is to maintain a caloric deficit. You can do this and have the occasional celebratory meal. You don’t have to eat like a monk. Some people use strategies like IF (intermittent fasting), but just being sensible and accessing good nutritional advice is helpful. Eating more fresh fruit and vegetables, and drinking enough water, has been shown to be very helpful. Your point about cooking is also true. The science on caloric deficit seems pretty solid (unless you have other health complications eg thyroid issues). These days eg the UK’s National Health Service has a therapy[1] which is being rolled out to more and more people (morbidly obese people initially to control numbers) which puts them on an extremely restrictive diet to get them to lose weight. And asking people, especially people who “feel” heavy and inactive, to exercise is a hard problem. Again, you’re not wrong, but ensuring that an inactive person watches TV on a treadmill is … challenging. Exercise is helpful, but it really increases quality of life, and in reality most obese people won’t do the exercise needed to make a significant dent in their calorie budget. For most people (especially with 25..30 BMI — ie not quite at the extreme end of the spectrum), losing weight is mostly a psychological or motivational problem. This is the problem, because our ability to provide psychological or motivational therapy is limited. [1] https://www.england.nhs.uk/2022/01/nhs-soups-and-shakes-diet-helps-thousands-shed-the-pounds/ https://www.england.nhs.uk/2022/01/nhs-soups-and-shakes-diet...

magicalhippo 5y ago
> The key to losing weight is to maintain a caloric deficit. You can do this and have the occasional celebratory meal. How to maintain a caloric deficit is highly personal. I made my own strategy after thinking carefully about what would work and what would not work. I aimed for a fairly controlled daily calorie intake with a 500 kcal daily deficiency, and then thought hard about how to achieve that within my limits. Once I had a clear strategy and some meal plans, I put it into practice. For me personally that meant two meals per day, early lunch and dinner, as it was easier for me to avoid excessive calories with just two meals compared to three. I also never like to eat right after I've woken up, so win win. In order to not feel hungry eating just two meals per day, I focused on high protein, high fiber meals. Things like 95+% whole grain bread for lunch and replacing potatoes with vegetables for dinner. For salads I'd use romaine lettuce rather than more common iceberg lettuce due to its higher fiber content. Every bit helped. For me it was essential to not stress too much though. The way I thought about it was that if I messed up today, then the finishing line just moved another day or two further ahead. This lead to my personal mantra "it's not what you did today, but what you do each day that matters", which I stuck to.

brailsafe 5y ago

Even better, find something you enjoy doing that doesn't require you to binge media while doing it, and is just intrinsically motivating. If you can make enough of a lifestyle change to consistently show up at a gym, you're already past the difficult part of lifestyle changes in general, might as well find something that you want to spend your time on for the sake of it.

arvinsim 5y ago
Avoid consuming media while eating?

hunterb123 5y ago

> You're suggesting a diet that requires a discipline that, empirically, is obviously beyond the reach of most people. Personally, it's easier to eat less than to eat better. It's boils down to having a calorie deficit. It doesn't matter how you get there, malnutrition is a separate issue, you don't have to tackle both at once. You need to adjust your diet to calorie neutral once you lose your weight anyway. MAX the DEFICIT FIRST. Bottom line, don't eat so many meals. Eat less and less each day, your stomach will shrink, you'll get full faster. Snack for breakfast, snack for lunch. Enjoy whatever for dinner. If you want to eat pizza, fast food, or any other "bad" thing go right ahead, just do it once per day. High protein food like cheese and jerky is great. A bit of carbs like crackers or something to keep sugars level and make the protein last. When you're first reducing your calorie intake you will get hungry and you will get hunger pangs. Drink some water and eat a couple pieces of jerky / cheese, a couple crackers, or drink some chicken broth / V8 to fill your stomach up just enough to stop the pangs. DO NOT DRINK YOUR CALORIES (unless it's minimal & provides protein).

bin_bash 5y ago

You’re suggesting a strategy that, empirically, is obviously beyond the reach for most people. That’s the mainstream method of losing weight. Every single person that’s wanted to lose weight has tried it, likely many times. I’m not saying IF is the solution, but it’s insulting to say it’s as simple as “diet and exercise”. If it was, 80% of Americans wouldn’t be overweight.

ckastner 5y ago
Fair enough. Although my intention wasn't to imply that it was easy in general, just easier than the suggestion I was replying to. In any case, the first step in losing weight is actually wanting to do something about it, as the submitter of this story does. You mentioned Americans in particular, but I think that the problem with obesity in the U.S. is a kind of its own. When even the bread is sugared, I think a significant part of the 80% problem is systemic.
- KyeRussell 5y ago
  I have spent a week in the US. The hotel buffet breakfast on its surface looked like any other. The typically ‘staple’ foods like bread was laden with sugar to the point where I couldn’t stand to eat them, and the typically “healthy” buffet breakfast options like fruit were remarkably low quality. I thought I had just picked a crappy hotel (though you wouldn’t know it for the price) but others have corroborated my experience. Losing weight in the US seems like pushing a rock uphill.
  - bin_bash 5y ago
    American breakfast is an abomination. Even the eggs and bacon taste worse than in Europe. In our family we only have it about once a month as a special treat. (My toddler gets it every day but it's not a typical breakfast) My British wife can't stand the bread in the US. She says it tastes like cake (and her UK friends agree). The funny thing is British bread doesn't taste any less sweet to my American palate.
  - tinco 5y ago

nkozyra 5y ago

> I enjoy lifting weights but you don't lose weight with that, you do it with endurance sport Weight lifting w/ hypertrophy is one of the most effective forms of exercise for weight (fat) loss. In addition to causing a longer rise in post exercise caloric burn, it also changes body composition such that your calorie requirements/quota increases over time. Cardio is not a particularly great option for fat losses for a number of reasons. Spend an hour on the treadmill and look at the caloric burn estimates for a glaring reason why. The best exercise for weight loss though is the one you enjoy and will do. Nothing burns fat for me better than full court basketball a few times a week. https://steelfitusa.com/blogs/exercise-and-training/why-cardio-is-not-the-answer-for-weight-loss https://steelfitusa.com/blogs/exercise-and-training/why-card... https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/well/move/weight-training-fat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/well/move/weight-training...

edanm 5y ago
I used to think the same as you. I'm no longer convinced. The "afterburn" effect is, as far as I can tell, fairly minimal, on the order of 10s of calories per day only. As for body composition, while it's true that your "calories out" increases if you add muscle, the increase is, again, negligible. Just plug in higher bodyweight numbers into TDEE calculators and see how little difference it makes. (Though they undershoot it a bit, IMO, because they don't assume that all the weight gained was muscle... it's still fairly small). The only way to lose weight is to make sure you eat less than you burn. For most people, that means eating less, and possibly adding in a bit of exercise.
- nkozyra 5y ago
  I don't think we're saying different things, you're just pointing out that exercise's contribution pales in comparison to diet.

dageshi 5y ago

That works for you because you enjoy cooking. If you hate cooking then one meal per day is much better because you only have to do the thing you don't like doing once per day instead of 3+.