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If you eat less (below maintenance) and move more, you'll lose weight. That's just biological reality. I did that and have lost 15lbs in the past two months. An

• zrail 13y ago
  This is a hard problem, as the article states. One of the biggest problems is that the "maintenance" level is a) extremely difficult to pin down on a good day, b) is different for everyone, and c) it moves every day. Let alone people who have other confounding medical issues like hypo- or hyper-thyroidism, diabetes, etc. Throw all that in and yes, the biological fact of "eat less move more" is true, it's also almost completely worthless for a very large percentage of the population.
  • schtev 13y ago
    What I did was stop eating until I'm full, and start eating just enough to feel not hungry. Found it to be a pretty good rough guideline. Never bothered counting calories or anything like that. Nice thing about this method (I figure) is that it solves the problem of not knowing quantitatively where that maintenance level lies on any given day.
  • 300bps 13y ago
    I am 41 years old. I have been thin my entire life. I don't try to "pin down" my "maintenance level" and frankly don't even know what would be involved in that. When I am doing more physical work, I make sure I eat a bit more. When I am doing less physical work, I make sure I eat a bit less. It's not easy but it's really not as difficult as you are trying to make it seem. Further, I don't believe that people with legitimately diagnosed medical conditions make up a significant portion of the overweight population.
    • zrail 13y ago
      > I have been thin my entire life I'm happy for you. People have different metabolisms, and there wouldn't be an entire multi billion dollar industry and worldwide government initiatives to help people if there wasn't a legitimate problem. Your beliefs don't enter into the equation. At all.
      • 300bps 13y ago
        People have different metabolisms That's your belief. there wouldn't be an entire multi billion dollar industry and worldwide government initiatives to help people if there wasn't a legitimate problem That's your belief. Your beliefs don't enter into the equation. At all. Allow me to turn this one right back around to you. You have a series of old wives tales that you believe and then tell people that their beliefs don't matter. I'm frankly surprised you didn't yank out the "I'm big boned" defense which has been as disproven as a person's intrinsically "faster metabolism". The funny thing is that I'm usually lectured about how to be thin by people that have struggled with their weight their entire life. These people have had years and years of being overweight, have no idea how to truly eat and their weight has see-sawed their entire life. All the while, I have maintained the same thin weight. For 41 years. But they insist on how wrong I am and how right they are.
        • Karunamon 13y ago
          >That's your belief. Really? Resorting to "Well that's just your opinion, man" on HN? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/08/25/5-metabolism-myths-debunked.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/08/25/5-metabolis...
          • 300bps 13y ago
            Really? Responding to a thread that you apparently didn't read. It was the person I was responding to that started the "your beliefs don't mean anything" point. And I demonstrated how silly it was to him which led you to accuse me of doing it. Oh and your link even agreed with me so you're apparently batting a thousand here.
    • nitrogen 13y ago
      Lucky you. Lucky me, too, since I'm basically the same way. But we're just lucky; there are millions of other people out there who aren't like us, whose metabolism, instincts, and upbringing betray them. There's no reason to believe that willpower, hunger, appetite, or satiety feel even remotely the same across the population. See this whole thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5300587 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5300587
    • maxerickson 13y ago
      The AMA recently recognized obesity as a disease. Of course, that does not end the argument about whether it is a legitimate medical condition. And plenty of the 35% of adults that are obese have problems like insulin resistance and high blood pressure (both of which are certainly medical problems). They are also generally at higher risk for cardiovascular problems. There are probably many people who are told they have metabolic syndrome but fail to understand that this may be (at least partially) a result of their weight problems, not simply a cause of it.
  • dbrunsek 13y ago
    Sorry but your perception of laws of thermodynamics is wrong. No one needs to eat the same amount of calories every day - your metabolism does not simply reset at midnight. It's a difference in energy consumption vs. expenditure that builds in a longer period of time that affects energy balance (positive or negative) and finally your weight change. Eating less doesn't interfere with having diabetes or hypothyroidism. And 90% of people don't have these conditions.
    • zrail 13y ago
      joe_the_user above states it much better than I can. The body is not a static science experiment in a lab. For people who's bodies don't naturally regulate themselves properly, the body is an active agent that is fighting tooth and nail against what the person knows to be best. For someone who's body is physiologically normal I'm sure it's really difficult to conceive this situation
• 300bps 13y ago
  On the one hand, you have people who are not trying to sell you anything telling you the simple (but difficult) truth: Eat less and burn more calories, you'll lose weight. On the other hand you have people who are trying to sell you something tell you all manner of complicated ways of losing weight that basically amount to being what overweight people want to hear. In this case, you have a company called Fitocracy telling you: Willpower will not bring you success. It's a great statement that absolves overweight people of much of their responsibility for keeping themselves healthy. Fitocracy should sell well with this technique.
  • rdouble 13y ago
    The article is not the obesity apologetic you'd expect from the title. He's arguing that creating a positive feedback loop is a more powerful motivational tool than willpower. It doesn't seem like you read the article.
  • bchjam 13y ago
    If it said 'willpower alone ...' I might have disagreed with you, there was definitely a bit of a tone of selling something in the midst of condemning Biggest Loser. In spite of that, it's true that willpower is a limited resource and if you push too hard you'll burn out (just like with programming but exercise gives you more immediate physical pain and high risk of injury from overuse)
  • 6d0debc071 13y ago
    Article is more like: Willpower is a finite resource and you need some sort of motivation to keep going in a fitness regime.
  • jc4p 13y ago
    I promised myself I wouldn't read the hacker news comments on this because HN comments are always a cesspool of people trying to prove they're smarter than the author of the post, but I just have to respond to this one. It's very clear that you didn't read the article. Dick, the author, is my best friend and comparing him to a fat apologist is the funniest thing I've ever heard in my life. He's a fat-kid-turned-competitive-bodybuilder and has helped a very large amount of people lose a lot of weight by cutting out the crap diets and mentality that try to confuse people into eating less than their TDEE every week. Dick's simplified diets for me and explained to me that fucking up every once in a while is ok, and I went from failing Atkins 2 times to losing 65lb in 8 months, and as I'm writing this I'm currently eating ice cream and waffles. I understand that the fitness industry has a lot of negative stereotypes around it, for good reason, but please dear god read the article before you try to convince yourself that this person is just like the rest.
• bchjam 13y ago
  the article seems a bit muddled in what it's complaining about but I think the main point is that taking it easy and setting small, realistic goals works better in the long term than trying to make yourself bleed in every workout because it's more sustainable. 15 pounds in 2 months is within healthy limits but this seems more directed at people who try to go from the couch to full bore exercise & diet maniacs overnight, or people who make money from sensationalizing that kind of behavior.
  • schtev 13y ago
    Yeah, that sort of mentality is awful. Extreme exercise just isn't sustainable. People who are really overweight need to accept that it may take a few years to reach their goals.
• norswap 13y ago
  Yes, but what the article really criticizes is you'll do that by willpower only (I was also very confused by the title and introduction of the article). I have myself lost 10kg in the last year, albeit that was not especially my prime objective. I can clearly see that if it was all pain and no fun, I wouldn't have done it - I wasn't even overweight, but clearly a bit out of shape. Mostly exercising made me feel really good about myself. As did eating less, especially when you start not to get hungry as much anymore. I still love to eat, but I try to be more mindful of my eating.
• joe_the_user 13y ago
  If you eat less (below maintenance) and move more, you'll lose weight. That's just biological reality. I did that and have lost 15lbs in the past two months. Any psychological factors don't alter this basic fact. Since when is psychology not part of biology? Certainly, if you eat enough less and move enough more, you'll lose weight. I'm pretty sure there's a minimum threshold to this. The problem with this is "eat less and move more" is just physics and not really a complete picture of your physiology. That is - you can be impelled somehow to eat less and move and if you go over threshold, you will lose weight. The problem is you may not reach a state which your body's internal calibration systems consider normal and thus you will wind-up gaining the weight back when the forces impelling you to eat less and move more go away. There's more to a craving for food than "psychology". This is where the difficult biology of weight stands, as I understand it. And personally, I'm always underweight no matter my food consumption so it's not hard to imagine other in the opposite situation. Each person's physiological system is different so a thousand antidotes don't prove a generality although they can certainly show the exceptions to the supposed "rule".
  • dicktalens 13y ago
    This is the absolute exact response that I would have given. I think I'm in love with you, joe_the_user. ;)
• itsybitsycoder 13y ago
  I've lost 30lb in four months without eating less or moving more. The biological reality is a lot more complicated than the "calories in/calories out" people insist it is. How accurately are you really measuring your calories out, and how your diet and exercise impacts that? Or how the composition and combination and timing of the foods you eat impacts your digestion (calories in)? If calorie restriction works for you, that's great. The times I've tried it, I was constantly tired, hungry, and cranky, and the results were really mediocre, no matter if I cut a little or a lot, or exercised a little or a lot alongside the diet. Plus, if you actually care about whether people are healthy or not, the psychological factors are hugely relevant. All the "calories in/calories out" mantra seems to do is give people a soapbox to talk about how they're just intrinsically superior to fat people.
  • dbrunsek 13y ago
    "I've lost 30lb in four months without eating less or moving more." - That's not impossible. However you've probably used drugs affecting your metabolism to increase your expenditure. "How accurately are you really measuring your calories out, and how your diet and exercise impacts that?" - Why would measuring anything affect how physiology and physics work? (And yes, energy expenditure and consumption can be measured extremely precisely in labs.) "Or how the composition and combination and timing of the foods you eat impacts your digestion (calories in)?" - In healthy people it doesn't. I'm sorry to tell you but you were eating less than you we're burning. I know it hurts.
    • itsybitsycoder 13y ago
      No drugs. I just stopped eating certain types of foods, and started eating more of other types of foods. For a couple weeks I added up my calories consumed for kicks, and I'm eating just as much, calorie-wise, as when I was gaining weight, and some days more. Haven't changed my exercise. No real health problems either, so unless you want to make a circular argument, where you claim I'm unhealthy because the composition of my diet affects my metabolism, you are just wrong.
      • 13y ago
• bzudo 13y ago
  I've noticed a lot of people disagree with this idea. I lost about 25 pounds over one and a half years counting my calories. I used an app called Lose It! and set it up so I would lose half a pound a week. During that time I worked out on an elliptical machine three times a week for 30 mins. Later on I lifted weights every other day for 30 mins. I was probably in the best shape of my life after I lost the weight. It wasn't easy counting calories, it takes time to do it, and it can be frustrating, especially when you're hungry. I found it was also hard, at first, to turn down food. About a six months into the program though, I started to realize just how many calories were in certain foods. I would think to myself, are those calories really worth the taste? Most of the time, the answer was no. Although, with beer, it was usually yes. Perhaps it doesn't work for everyone, but has it ever caused someone to gain more weight? Not just a few pounds, but tens of pounds? I get the sense that the people who don't like the idea of "move more/eat less" don't want to deal with the hassle of counting calories and working out.