>, but is it really necessary to micro optimize exercise to this extent? I don't think there needs to be some sort of mathematical proof or nobel prize winning

>, but is it really necessary to micro optimize exercise to this extent? I don't think there needs to be some sort of mathematical proof or nobel prize winning study to tell you to exercise [...] Don't pre-emptively optimize all your workouts based on some cutting edge science before even brute forcing it, I know you're trying to help HN readers but your comments I extracted above give the wrong impression of the article's actual text. He's not micro-optimizing and he didn't pre-emptively optimize. Summary bullet points: - He wrote that he was already doing high-intensity bike riding in the mountains for the past 12 years. - Each of the previous seasons, he noticed he always lost the weight he gained during the winter. This was his baseline. - But COVID disrupted his normal bike training and when he restarted the high-intensity exercise, he noticed he wasn't losing the weight like before. To fix this, he made sure he got his max heart rate back up to 180. This seems to match some of the recent research out there. The above timeline over a decade is the opposite of premature optimization. It's taking 12 years of baseline data and noticing something about his body changed in the 13th year and then taking steps to isolate and fix it. Unfortunately, his wall of text about his personal anecdote makes it hard for readers to skim for his main ideas: (1) many science articles say exercise doesn't help you lose weight but his personal experience contradicts this. He believes the explanation is low-intensity exercise vs high-intensity. (2) even high-intensity exercise will not stop weight gain unless you actually hit max heart rate. Almost reaching max heart rate (e.g. 172 bpm) was not enough; he has to reach 180 bpm.