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Ask HN: Any weird tips for weight loss?
332 points by fatmoron on March 10, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 1025 comments
I am overweight and just curious. My theory, though untested, is that getting an oxygen tank might speed up passive weight loss substantially. 84% of all weight that is lost is in the form of carbon dioxide, and I wonder if upping the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled would lead to more weight loss. Oxygen only makes up 21% of our air. I am making the assumption that the lungs can handle being 100% saturated.



This is a weird tip I think I could only share with the hacker news crowd. Once I learned about gut bacteria I started thinking of my cravings as something external to me. Like instead of saying "I'm hungry and I'm in the mood for something sweet" I would realize "the hormone ghrelin is sending hunger signals to my brain and the gut bacteria in my body is asking for something that's not actually in my best interest." Being able to emotionally distance myself from my feelings let me make decisions that I knew were better for me.

Just remember that it gets easier, I think a lot of people struggling with addiction to unhealthy food try to resist temptation for a day and go through hell. They think "I can't live the rest of my life like this," but the thing they never make it far enough to learn is that it doesn't feel this hard all the time. Every night I go to bed resisting a sugar loaded soft drink I wake up stronger, and the sabotaging gut bacteria is one battle weaker than the healthy gut bacteria.


Yes!

I've lately been doing the form of intermittent fasting known as early time-restricted feeding. Basically, I start eating at breakfast and stop eating after lunch. I worked up to it over a few months, starting out just tracking when I already didn't eat and then slowly expanding the window.

A big surprise for me was that both my feelings of hunger and my relationship to those feelings changed. As that process happened, I used my "reverse engineering" brain to think about why hunger exists and what mechanisms genes would build to maximize success of nomadic omnivores for whom food is erratically but non-randomly available.

It's all just unverified hypothesizing, of course. But it was really helpful to me to think, "Ah, this feeling isn't really hunger in the sense of 'body needs food now', but more 'genes asking if food happens to be available to stock up'." After all, it's bad body design to have it wander around at all hours looking for food when it isn't available.

Having that mental distance from the sensations made it much easier to just ignore them for a while to see if they subside. And they have! To my surprise I experience less discomfort from hunger when eating 6 hours a day than I did eating whenever.


This is a great point. I think my gut bacteria was something I really under estimated.

For a couple months between Nov-Jan I would constantly have cravings for ice cream and other sweets. Being in NYC I can easily order snacks now and they will be delivered within 15 mins. I just hit a point where I ate a whole box of mini cones and just thought about it and didn't really know why I was eating them. So I just started to think about it before I would eat and try to stay present at night because the cravings happen and its just paying attention to them and not acting.

I started on a meal plan and this really helped keep me focused on my diet. Since I've been doing that my cravings for sweets and ice cream are almost gone. Its takes a lot of time, and real work, but by staying present it has helped me think, is this good for me and do I really need to eat this?

Also for a weird weight loss, look up: Spirulina and Chorella algae supplements. Algae has so many nutrients and health benefits


Yes, great points. I'm the same way with sweets. The more often I have it, the more often I want it. A few mechanisms for that have occurred to me. But one of them is gut bacteria that live off sugars and have some way to make me feel bad when I'm not feeding them enough.

For others trying to break the habit, one really simple rule that has worked well for me is "no two days in a row". I do this with a lot of things that are addictive for me, like caffeine. It's simple enough that I don't need to track anything. "I can have it tomorrow if I still want it" is a great way for me to say no to a craving. And in practice, it seems to keep me from forming habits; "no two days in a row" turns out to be "weekly or less" in practice.


I take it even further. Emotionally distance yourself from your cravings, sure, but also your entire body. I now think of my body as separate from 'me,' my soul. But I do need my body to express my soul. So I take care of it, I give it what it needs, I exercise it. Counterintuitively, this practice makes me love and respect my body more than I ever did when I equated body and self.


I like this mindset, thanks for sharing.


Yes absolutely. I've found it's vital and helpful in many areas to understand that perception is not reality, and that it can be changed. This is a fact of human psychology: your brain creates sensations, and your "reptile brain" controls all the important decisions -- e.g. what you want to eat, what kind of information you seek out on the Internet, how you feel towards others, etc.

To be concrete ... in my early 20's, I drink multiple cokes every day. I was addicted to it. Now if I start drinking a can, I can't even finish it. It tastes too sweet.

So what changed? The only thing is perception; the coke is exactly the same. So I've kept 15 pounds off for 5+ years by "retraining" my taste buds. I think that this is the only sustainable way to lose weight. I don't feel hungry or deprived at all. So basically you can train bad food to taste bad, which it should.

I did that mainly by filling the gap with naturally cooked foods that I liked even more than a coke, and then expanding from there into a big world of pleasure. Michael Pollan's advice is good: you can eat whatever you want, as long as you cook it yourself. There are a lot of veggies I liked but didn't eat because they weren't ready available and it was "too much work". (I'd reframe that as undervaluing your health)

It could be partly the gut bacteria thing, but I think of it as just a decoupling of perception and reality. You shouldn't think of your perceptions as fixed. And yes it is an interesting philosophical angle to think of them as NOT "your" perceptions!

-----

Another way to explain it is via smoking. To some people a cigarette tastes amazing (when they're addicted), but to most people it tastes bad and smells bad. The cigarette is the same; the only thing different is the perception.

~20 years ago I was against the smoking bans because I was in favor of more freedom, and I thought "What next? Are they going to ban fast food?" Now I kinda think they should also ban fast food (not literally, but discourage it). It's addictive, and changes your perception of REAL food in a way that empirically is very difficult to get out of ... to the point that many people die of diabetes first. It's also so cheap that it warps the selection in the supermarket and at restaurants.

edit: I also agree with the sibling comment. I used to eat and snack 5-6x a day. Now I eat 2 meals a day, zero snacking, and don't feel hunger. It's purely an issue of perception. Surprisingly, after 20-30 years of those habits, my body changed its perceptions!


I've been thinking about writing a kids book with Red and Green armies waging a battle in their tummy and feeding green things helps the good guys win. Too many red (fats, sugars, simple carbs) arm the baddies. Maybe a child psychiatrist would tell me this is a horrible idea, so I haven't asked any. :)


Parents really don't like war-type stuff these days, especially for young kids. Cops & robbers or playing war or anything like that—IDK about anyone else, but, like, the main activities of my childhood ages ~4-10, rivaled only by crashing toy cars and building LEGO stuff (often for war or car-crashing purposes)—is now gauche. Play like that happening at school can get kids in serious trouble, now, too.

Consider theming it to some fantasy thing about fairies or something.

[EDIT] Oh, but I do think it's a good idea, though.


Good point, thank you. I grew up playing with army men and cap guns, and don't think I would encourage my kids to do the same.


Wow. I think this applies to a lot in life. I’m struggling a hell of a lot with a bad breakup and this has helped me view things through the same perspective. Thank you.


I just started listening to a great podcast about this:

https://hubermanlab.com/how-to-enhance-your-gut-microbiome-f...

I have no connection at all, just thought it might be useful for folks that like to listen and learn.


+1 this works! I’ve seen it called “urge surfing.”


Hah love it. I’ve always called it my “monkey brain”


I'm shocked to see how many people are saying that exercise is the way to lose weight. Exercise is a great way to strengthen your lungs, heart, and other muscles, but it's not going to be the way you lose fat. Diet is the answer. I know this because I've seen it time and time again, and because of recent research showing that a tribe who moves far more than we do burn about the same amount of calories as those who are sedentary. The calories just go to other things.

A very simple solution that definitely works is Clean Simple Eats. They give you a weekly shopping list and the recipes you need to eat every day. I said simple, not easy. It takes will power to stop eating everything in sight. It takes will power to spend so much time in the kitchen.

You don't need a weird tip. You need to do what is time-tested and true. Diet, sleep, and exercise. That's how you'll gain health and a better body composition.

80% diet, 20% exercise


Exactly this. I'm 30yo, have been overweight most of my life and I've finally learned this. Since last May I've lost 65lbs by simply putting my height, weight, activity level, and age in an online calorie calculator and have weighed myself every day and kept my calories at or under this target. I just started feeling energetic enough to start weight lifting as of one month ago and my weight hasn't changed (started eating +450 more calories a day), but I'm already starting to physically change (slightly more defined arms and chest for instance).

You don't need a fancy diet. Just count calories every single day long enough and you will lose weight.

An added benefit of counting for so long is that I can now roughly estimate the number of calories in food when I'm out with friends. I just factor in those slight cheat outings into the beginning of my day or next day.


That's great! Like you said, the scale can lie. You could be losing fat and gaining muscle mass. In that case, I'd say your next step is to make sure you're eating enough protein in addition to the right amount of calories so as to provide your body what it needs to build that muscle. I use MyFitnessPal to track my macros.

Fun ways to track your progress other than the scale include body measurements (with a measuring tape) and pictures! Or DEXA.


Totally agree but exercise benefits go far beyond calorie burning. More muscle === higher resting metabolic rate. It also helps to put you in a more healthy mindset, in my experience. If both diet and exercise are hard, then focus on diet. But I always drop weight when I’m regularly moving my body.


Yeah, this!

I was doing 13,000km by bike every year for years and kept gaining weight until I hit 122.5kg. I was able to go on a 40km hike, cycle for 200km and bench press my body weight easily, but kept getting heavier. I stopped all excercise except for walking and moderate cycling (I have a habit of watching coding tutorials while on a starionary bike), and started alternate day fasting. I lost 18kgs in 3 months while eating anything I want on the feasting days. Never felt better.


The amount of muscle mass you obtained, I’m sure, help you loose weight. You essentially did a “cut”.


That's insightful and inspiring. What did/do you eat on the fasting days? And on the regular days?


On fasting days, just walking and low intensity cardio. Working as usual. No food, just water.

On feasting days, anything I wanted. Incl. Pizza for breakfast :-)


Because a body that exercises is better able to manage their diet, not just on the calorie level but on the stress and craving abatement aspects. It helps with adherence to diet.


Couldn’t agree more. When you realise to lose 0.25kg a week you have eat at a deficit of 250 kcal per day, that’s already a lot. One snack and you’ve compensated already. Oxygen tricks won’t change that reality.

To add to Clean Simple Eats; get a book like Greg Doucette’s cookbook. His youtube channel is a bit cringe but his food is the real deal. Eating high fiber, high protein and calorie sparse (as opposed to dense) is a huge help to stay full but not eat too much.


exercise is one way to lose weight. Those tribes might move more than most of us, but that does not mean they burn a lot of calories.

I you have a few hours and do an efficient excercise like cycling or rowing, you can burn about 700 kCal once you get in shape. If you can do that 5 times a week you will loose weight (assuming that you have body fat to loose).


You cannot entirely ignore diet and still lose weight, even with hours of exercise. Two American donuts are 700kCal.


An hour exercising is an hour you can't eat in addition to likely sleeping better and longer. You can see this people who hike the Appalachian Trail as well as athletes who train at least 4 hours a day.

I have been experimenting with walking 10+ miles a day (at least 3 hours) and seem to lose weight no matter how hungry I get.


Sleeping can assist with general decision making, and yes removing yourself from food options will obviously help you with a calorie deficit.

However neither of these show the GPs point of "exercise is one way to lose weight".


> You cannot entirely ignore diet and still lose weight, even with hours of exercise. Two American donuts are 700kCal.

100% correct, the only time I've out exercised a bad diet was when I was I was bicycle touring and doing 6+ hour rides each day.


I got one. I ended up accidentally losing 25lbs when I did this, but ymmv.

Basically, about 6 years ago, I got into freediving while on vacation. Once I got back to the real world, I got obsessed with training to hold my breath for longer. So I started doing breathing exercises just after I woke up and just before I went to bed. Each session took 15-25 min and was done lying down to minimize the danger from passing out. I used an iOS app called Apnea Trainer (no affiliation besides satisfied user), but there should be a ton of apps available on both app stores if you search ‘apnea’. You can also read a ton of information (including safety tips) by googling ‘CO2 tables’ and/or ‘O2 tables’.

After dropping the 25lbs in my first month of training, I started looking into why that might be and, from what I’ve found, training your body for longer breath holds can increase resting metabolic rate.


You should have a look at the Buteyko method. The basic premise is most of us suffer from chronic hyperventilation, which comes with a lot of issues including obesity, and the method aims at training us to better tolerate higher CO2 levels.

Training for max breath holds would also help you tolerate higher CO2 levels and breath less.


Having less oxygen would help reduce oxidation, I would think

However, there are cognitive effects from having too much CO2.


Were you also freediving? Because extended periods in water consumes many calories.


Not after I got back from vacation, no. There’s not much opportunity where I am and I didn’t have training partners, so I the only thing I could do safely was dry training.


Since you specifically asked for weird tips (not necessarily smart or healthy): consider smoking cigarettes. They do a pretty remarkable job at both suppressing hunger and substituting for a snack. You don't need to chain-smoke, something like 5 per day might be enough.

I'll take more shit for saying this, but I think the negative health effects of smoking are quite minimal, for most people, for the first 20 years or so, and are probably less than the health effects of obesity. But you still need to recognize that you can't do this for life, and quitting, whenever the time is right, will be very difficult. You also need to recognize the social externalities, like smelling bad, people not wanting to associate with you, and places you can't go or live.

(Just reiterating that this is unlikely to be a smart strategy -- but you requested "weird", not smart)


Probably goes without saying but vaping the nicotine would be the 80/20 approach here (or perhaps just 100/20), and I'll second that oral administration is also good. Lozenges in particular seem to have no downsides as long as you can find a flavor you like. (gum is great but stains your teeth) (EDIT: the gum probably does not stain your teeth, or at least I can't dig up anyone claiming it does)


> gum is great but stains your teeth

I thought gum was supposed to clean your teeth and remove leftover food particles, is nicotine gum somehow different?


Nicotine gum surely does have the same teeth-cleaning function as regular gum. And, now that I look it up, it seems there's basically nothing online that claims nicotine gum itself causes staining (results are mostly just a study or two that establish that nicotine gum helps remove staining from prior smoking, which yeah that's probably true). I, or someone else talking to me, might've gotten confused about a claim originally made about smokeless tobacco products and thought it applied to gum too.


Nicotine gum isn’t “chewed” like regular gum (unless you have a huge tolerance for nicotine or want a tummy ache) —- usually you just chew it intermittently to release more nicotine and then keep it in your mouth. So while it won’t cause damage to the mouth, I can’t imagine it will have the same effect as chewing Orbitz


It’s not just the nicotine that acts as a appetite suppressant; it’s mostly the menthol. You can get the same effect just consuming cough drops. They’re cheaper and won’t cause cancer.


Aren't cough drops mostly sugar? Seems that would be a hindrance. As far as cigarettes, I understand there is a small amount of menthol in non-menthol cigarettes but is that enough to have an effect? Finally, I think part of the suppressant part is the length of time needed to smoke, it gets your mind off the immediate desire to eat -- versus a cough drop which typically lasts 15-30 seconds.


It's not just the oral fixation and act of smoking. Cigarettes genuinely suppress appetite. As an added bonus, after you smoke for a while (not that long), your taste buds don't work very well and eating becomes less pleasurable.


Can you elaborate? I dont think there is any meaningful relationship between menthol and weight or menthol and smokes.


You can ditch a lot of the bad health effects by just eating nicotine gum.


Chewing, not eating. The gum isn't really designed to be edible, just a medium to deliver nicotine.


Well corrected :-)


> and are probably less than the health effects of obesity.

This is somewhat true, from what I can see, but not enough of a difference where replacing obesity with a smoking addiction is worth it.


Might be true.

My father tried to quit smoking multiple times and sad he always gained weight, so he started again.


Or really, any stimulants.


I've lost 15Kg in around 3 months. All I needed to do was stop eating all the time and stop eating a lot. I also stopped eating anything with very high caloric content.

I had been going to the gym for 2 years before that and no signs of losing weight... once I reduced the amount of food and calories I was ingesting, surprise: quick weight loss.

Your weight is a function of your diet and the amount of physical activity you perform. The problem is that when you increase the amount of physical activity you do, you unconsciously also increase calories intake.... very hard to not do that. It's a psychological problem: just accept that being hungry is fine sometimes. You don't need to have your belly full all the time. Go to bed hungry! With time, you learn that you won't even feel hungry anymore and consequently you lose weight... up to the point where your weight reflect your new calories intake again... I stopped at 75Kg exactly, and it just goes a few 100's grams up/down but I am happy with that (started off at nearly 90Kg).


Sadly true we need very little food to live, which in the wild or if you are broke, is very good news, I know this for a fact, it is mainly about eating less, and I am still overweight .. When I was a kid I smoked more than I eat, but I never starved. One of my own kids lived a lot of his young life on chicken nuggets and crisps, he still grew taller than me.


Congrats on the loss! Just wondering did you notice a decrease in your energy levels, either during gym workouts or just more generally through the day?


Intermittent fasting and writing down what you eat religiously worked for me. Use an app to keep track on your phone: Fastic, Noom, LoseIt, etc. Some people go with other diets like ketogenic diets, those work too.

Another option is to ask your doctor about semaglutide (e.g., Wegovy). Here is a study: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2032183 (Health insurance usually covers it. They have a coupon to bring down the copay to $25.)

The key is consistency and recognizing that you may be eating for reasons other than hunger.


Wegovy is a miracle drug IMO.

Sadly, I changed my employer and insurance no longer covers it... so its 1650/month and doesn't count toward my deductible

Working with a company called "Calibrate" who guarantees that they can get you the meds through their relationships... we will see. But the effect of Wegovy (for me) was very meaningful and I am/was seriously considering just paying out of pocket to continue it.


Semaglutide is available as other, cheaper brand names. For example, Ozempic has similar dosages (I think 1.5mg and 3.0mg), and compounding pharmacies might be able to make you semaglutide doses that get even closer to Wegovy's. There's also Rybelsus, the oral semaglutide pill. (I'm not a doctor or in the medical/pharmaceutical industry, so please consult your doctor and pharmacist, they often know crafty ways to get insurance to cover things. Also, don't be afraid to work with your employer's HR, they can often administratively include things as an exception.)


> The key is consistency and recognizing that you may be eating for reasons other than hunger.

This is the most important part of the above comment; the rest can be completely ignored until this is addressed. How much and how often do you eat now, and what does it add up to calorie-wise. Figure that out first, that Insight might already help you towards making adjustments in your lifestyle.

Don't try and change everything all at once, people are resistant to change. Change one thing, stick to it for six weeks, then observe and change something else.


I just started on wegovy last week and it is amazing: hunger no longer rules me. TLDR on the study: average weight loss of ~15% compared to a control group. I had to fight through some insurance prior authorization issues but now I get it for free as a preventative medicine.


1. Intermittent fasting - I eat breakfast at 10am and last meal at 6pm. Its healthier and gives you 16 hours a day that you don't eat. Much easier to stay on budget.

2. 2 vegetable smoothies + Huel Black powder a day - I have a 400 calorie Black Huel powder smoothie at 10am and another at 1pm. This smoothie has > 40 grams of protein and I also blend it with frozen spinach (other vegetables as well on occasion) and the spinach tastes surprisingly good frozen. I also add a few bits of frozen fruit for taste. My wife does the same but adds pb2 peanut butter power for taste as well.

Benefits:

a. Protein makes you feel really full

b. Fiber from vegetables is almost zero calorie and makes you feel really full. It also has ummm.. other reliable benefits

c. Every day you are reliably at 800 calories going into dinner so you only have one meal to count calories for. If you want to lose weight, go low carb or keep dinner 600 calories or under.

d. This is essentially the same system as Jenny Craig, except the huel powder costs about $2 a meal. Its cheaper than Jenny Craigs/similar $10-$20 a meal and therefore sustainable

e. Vegetables are really healthy and you will feel better from the antioxidants

f. (Expert level) - I regularly add a fish oil capsule, and sometimes ginger or turmeric for added health benefits.

I started doing this in an effort to make a sustainable version of Tom Brady's diet as I started exercising again in my late 30's and kept getting injured. The increased vegetables actually fixed the issue and now I find I can adjust my weight with the diet at will. Interested in other opinions on it :)

At any rate, good luck! I hope you find something that works for you.

1) https://huel.com/products/huel-black-edition


This is my current approach as well. Took me a good 3 weeks for my digestion to adjust though to liquid meals 2x a day so be prepared for that. I've managed to lose around 5lbs the last month so seems to be working. I tried fasting but it was too hard to stick with, so the huel shakes for breakfast/lunch seem like a much more sustainable approach. And you still get a nice meal every day. Only drawback I find is with being in the office again - I am sorely tempted to get a hot meal with coworkers.


I like everything you posted except the Black Huel part.

I checked out the link but began to think: come on, isn't there something "natural" instead of adding some commercial powder to a meal/smoothie?

My instinct is, substitute a raw egg for Black Huel but I am probably missing something since I am just dipping my toe into this whole thing.

(Great topic, BTW, I was just getting concerned about my weight last week, trying to decide how to proceed.)


It's a fair point and the powder is indeed a compromise, its reliable, stores well, I don't have to cook it and is fast. Raw egg would be great, except you would have to separate the egg whites as 2-4 yolks a smoothie every day could be problematic due to all things in the yolk.

I started with Soylent and that product really is a chemical mess. If I could just buy the brown rice/pea protein and flaxseed without all the vitamin additives it would be ideal and I do look for better powders every six months. To your point however, it can absolutely be improved and I am always looking for better ideas.


In Australia you can buy pasteurised egg whites in the refrigerated section at the supermarket, could possibly be useful as an alternative :-)

(Not sure if it would be available where you are or not)


I don't know if these are weird or not, I managed to lose ~25% of my weight (still lots to go) by -

1. Eliminating liquid calories and substitute sweeteners. Once I figured out that substitute sweeteners made me crave genuine sugars I got rid of them which made it easier to get rid of all liquid calories. Other than one or two servings of alcohol a month in social settings and an espresso in the morning I've had nothing but water to drink for a couple of years. It's made a huge difference in the way I feel.

2. I got rid of "direct" sugars. No ice cream, desserts, other sweets. I don't worry about carbs (bread, pasta, etc) being converted to sugar.

3. As a general rule I'm not hungry until noonish. If I forced myself to eat breakfast it triggered something and I ended up being hungry all day no matter how much I ate. I've decided the 3 square meals a day thing doesn't work for me. I switched to eating on an unstructured schedule, mostly salty snacks (chips, jerky, cheese, etc) during the day with a protein heavy meal at the end of the day.

About a month after I had ^^^ figured out I started feeling much more energized which meant I was able to do a lot more walking. I live in a city, 90% of everywhere I need to be on a regular basis is within a dozen blocks. Where a couple of years ago I might have driven 4 blocks now I walk everywhere.


The liquid calories thing is a big one. Not weird though, and probably recommended by every single dietary guideline ever.

I am one of those people that ended up losing weight by just eating well. I stopped drinking calories and eating processed caloried-dense food. I lost 10kg (down to a BMI of 21.7).


When I found out that a pint of beer has about 200 - 250 calories, it was quite eye opening. When I was younger I could've sometimes ended up having 7 or 8 of them in one evening, so that's almost your daily allowance, just in beer.


I've been exploring "weird" approaches to health improvement (including weight loss) for years.

In response to your post: it's not necessarily the case that more oxygen will lead to positive outcomes. Respiratory illnesses like asthma and sleep apnea can be caused by overbreathing/hyperventilation. The lungs need to maintain a certain level of CO2 in order for oxygen to be properly absorbed into the blood, and where this hyperventilation happens, the CO2 drops too low, blood oxygen drops, and the impulse to overbreathe is further exacerbated.

If you're looking at oxygen/CO2 levels as a potential means of improved weight loss, look into the Buteyko Breathing Method, which teaches you to breathe so that your oxygen and CO2 stays in optimal balance.

Another big thing to look at is metal toxicity; mercury, lead, aluminium, cadmium, as well as bio-unavailable forms of iron and copper are the most common.

It's worth investigating if these are present, and look at natural ways of removing them. I'd avoid chemical chelation, but moderate use of saunas, and natural detoxifiers like cilantro are worth considering - though seek professional advice before undertaking any such approach.

Other than that, I've lost about 5-6 kg in the past few months, just by ensuring I walk plenty each day (7000 steps works for me), and keeping my sugars/carbs down so that I'm just in very-mild ketosis in the morning and the evening. There's nothing extreme about it; I'm not avoiding anything altogether and not feeling at all deprived, just ensuring I'm burning off more than I'm storing each day. (Regular barbell/dumbbell sets through out the day can help with this too, especially if you're not able to walk that much.)


Any suggestion on how to obtain cilantro that’s trustworthy to be low in metals like lead? I’ve read recently a few blips about finding lead in herbs and greens.

(OT wouldn’t it be nice if this were easier? Just this morning I’m realizing some foods I’ve been eating are a little higher in iron than I’d like.)


I just don't know I'm sorry. I've also heard it's an issue, but I don't know how to go about finding produce that's particularly good or bad in that regard.

I'd guess a concentrated product that's developed specifically for detoxification, such as those linked below, may be free from toxicity. But this is a suggestion, not advice; I always recommend seeing a professional before taking these kinds of supplements.

https://iherb.com/pr/bioray-ndf-plus-gentle-heavy-metal-deto...

https://iherb.com/pr/planetary-herbals-cilantro-heavy-metal-...


avoid cilantro if you have mercury; it is a powerful chelator, but the half life is unknown so it will continue to move mercury around your body and you will feel the ill effects of redistribution. if you're interested in safe chelation, study the andy cutler method.


> Regular barbell/dumbbell sets through out the day can help with this too, especially if you're not able to walk that much.

Man, how have I never thought about this. Been working from home so long I could easily crank up a set every hour


I'm never going to say exercise is a bad thing, but a set of curls doesn't honestly burn that many calories. Running a mile is ~100 Calories, so moving a 20 pound weight up and down a few times is not a magic bullet.


> a set of curls doesn't honestly burn that many calories

No, I didn't say it did. But multiple sets of curls/presses at regular intervals throughout the day, along with limiting sugar/carb intake, is certainly beneficial.

Indeed, studies going back years have found resistance training to be effective at managing/preventing Type 2 diabetes:

https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/29/8/1933/28728/Re...


I read that lifting weights for only 3 seconds a day has a positive effect. So it's not all about energy expended..


aluminium is not a heavy metal


Sure, but it's talked about in the same context. I removed a word for correctness.


I am not very disciplined but I recently started trying intermittent fasting, the 16/8 kind (fast 16 hours, eat 8 hours). I stop eating at 20:00 and resume at 12:00 on the next day. Main outcomes

  - Lost 6 kg since January 10 (that’s 2 months), possibly because I am not allowed to snack in the evenings and I also have to skip breakfast
  - I sleep better, because I don’t eat very close to sleep time
  - I go to bed earlier so I’m less tempted 
  - I feel more energized in the morning, possibly because I didn’t spend all night professing food
I was very hungry just before breaking fast on the first week, but tried to “enjoy” the feeling of connecting with a long forgotten sensation in my body. Now I do get peckish some days, but it’s not very problematic. I’m on track to achieve my ideal weight in the next 3-4 months, in the past having such a long term goal didn’t work for me, seeing results from week 2 definitely helped me keep motivated. I recently did a general health check and my doctor supported me this initiative. She said that reducing belly fat is connected with a decreased risk of diabetes (which runs in the family) and cardiovascular issues down the line.

I don’t use any app, I think that they’re just not needed, you just need to keep track of the last time you ate. I also don’t always stick to 20:00 because social life etc. and I can adjust the time I break the fast on the next day. I don’t fast week-ends because I don’t want to miss out on meeting with friends and drinking or eating together.


Have some diluted vinegar after meals. It's the world's original "miracle tonic", with anecdotes dating back to antiquity, and mostly acts to facilitate digestion, which can smooth out indignities within your actual diet and therefore leave you feeling better rested and fed with lower intake. You don't need to take vinegar at full strength to see benefit, so I often have it with bubbly water.

(If you actually search around the web for the topic of vinegar you will discover the apple cider vinegar cult. This is a thing that got started in the 50s from a book author who spun his marketing as old-timey folklore. ACV is not significantly different from other vinegars, though some may prefer the taste.)


I don't drink alcoholic drinks but I really adored the ritual of mixing. Lately I've been finding that making vinegar shrubs is a lot of fun. I recommend it if you haven't tried it. Basically the same benefits, but a little bit of the mixing fun too.


Vinegar might increase the risk of stomach cancer. There is a strong association between pickled foods and stomach cancer.


Most vinegar is filtered and pasteurized.

In the context of the relation with gastric cancer, pickling is about fermentation, not acidity. The studies suggesting a relationship are all epidemiological and suggest a weak link at best [1].

The stomach is already very acidic; much more acidic than vinegar, which makes both gastric cancer and any potential benefits unlikely.

[1] https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2017/oct/05/ask-the-doctor...


Nice weird tip, bravo for answering the question!


Eating less is key, but there a few items that important to keep in mind:

1. You have to replace your food with healthy variants, fruits, vegetables, proteins, etc. Otherwise your body will not be satisfied and ironically eating healthy food with the right portion will fill you up just fine.

2. Drink water during the day, this reduces craving, keeps you hydrated and is refreshing!

3. Get your sleep under control. In my experience, if you lack sleep, your body will signal the need for more calories

4. KEEP TRACK. This is very important, every morning, before your routine, go on a scale and get your weight. You can get one of those fancy scales that automatically stores data; this is important because weight loss is not visible initially and you will be discouraged.

5. This is a lifestyle change, so be kind and patient with yourself, even if you slightly gain some back, it's ok because if your _mindset_ is of a healthy life, then you can always get back on track quickly.

Last point: Junk food really is poison for your body. Your body has been gifted to you through millions of years of evolution and it doesn't do it justice to fill it with disgusting sugary foods!

Best of luck to you.


You don't need to eat less: you need to spend more calories than you consume. So, there are different ways to arrive there :

- eat food with less calories, such as veggies, soup, shrimp, mushrooms - exercise more, but this is hard, as it's often said "you can't outrun a bad diet" - eat the same type of food but less of it, ie eat less/be hungry

I've done 1 with success, then gained some weight during the first pandemic year and then tried 3, with intermittent fasting. Both worked, but I wouldn't recommend fasting or being hungry as a 1sr option to anyone, as it can reenforce the idea that "you need to starve to be healthy", which is quite wrong.


I lost a lot of weight pretty quickly a few years ago. I gained some back, so I can't say my tip is "sustainable", but it worked very well at the time.

Most people agree that cutting calories is the key, and exercise helps. No magic. But one major fact that is too often overlooked is the mental aspect and how to persist with your diet until you have lost the weight you want.

My trick was to target a very specific date. Let's say 3 months from now, at 10:00 AM. I wrote down that date, say "June 10 at 10:00 am".

Then I swore to myself that, until that very specific date, I would not cheat. Not once. Ever. I would not eat any meal that is not specifically designed to cut calories. I would not eat any snacks other than those I had already selected as allowed.

Then I started the diet with that date in mind.

Having that immutable target date constantly in my mind helped me a lot in resisting temptations to eat more during the diet. As soon as a thought like "Yum, that would be so good!" popped into my brain, it was immediately stopped and rejected as unacceptable.

Good luck!


I don't like this kind of advice, only because it sets people up to fail. If your definition of "success" is not cheating, not once, ever, for 90 days, 99% of people will fail that. Half within the first couple weeks. And if you've failed your goal such that it's 100% unattainable now, what's the point of continuing at all? What's the point of setting another 90-day goal you'll also fail at?

This might help for people with a very small, specific goal in mind - lose n pounds or y% body fat by a certain event - and who are already pretty strong and consistent mentally. But if you are trying to lose weight to look better or not have a heart attack at 40, it's not a sustainable way to approach things. It's much more sustainable, and healthier, to focus on small habits you can add over time.

If you eat fast food four times a week and have five regular cokes a day, you're much better cutting that to three sodas a day and stopping there than you are eating kale salads and protein shakes for a couple weeks before going right back to where you were. And cutting a couple sodas a day is much easier to boot.


Well, it did work for me. I just wanted to share.


It's not sustainable. This is basically standard "diet" advice. Dieting is part of a fat lifestyle. You spend a few weeks or months being unhappy, waiting for some arbitrary time when you'll start eating and therefore being happy again.

To remain thin you need to adopt a thin lifestyle. There are no dates and no targets. You just find a lifestyle that works for you and live it.


Remember that calorie counts on nutrition labels are often inaccurate (by as much as 20-30%). In particular, they are systematically biased against unprocessed food, meaning that highly processed foods look better by comparison.

Some sources for this:

- https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20160201-why-the-calorie-...

- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/science-reveals-w...

- https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/01/06/...

- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/140307-ca...

- https://www.businessinsider.com/calorie-counts-arent-accurat...

- https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/stop-counting...


If you avoid saturated fats, the remaining unprocessed foods tend to have significantly less calories - making this something of a non-issue for most people seeking to lose weight.


Please be careful with oxygen, you cannot handle breathing 100% oxygen for long, it starts to cause all kinds of acute health issues all throughout your body.

The biggest hacks are all mental though, and to know what you're actually up against. As hyped up as the fitness industry makes it all seem, there's nothing particularly special about fitness, you just gotta do it.

The majority of weight loss is dietary, but without exercise you can't really enable that diet process properly. So make sure you love what you're doing for exercise and that gives you all the necessary context for the diet.

Just dieting because you kindof should is a losing strategy. Dieting because you want to get faster on the bike, or because you want to be a beast at rock climbing, or because you want to look good doing laps, are all really great motivators. Also, to be frank, if all you want out of it is to have better sex, that's hardwired into our brains to motivate us to do crazy stuff, no harm in wielding that power.

Trying to convince yourself to diet when your only goal is to look good while sitting at the computer is a losing strat.


Yes, specifically, highly concentrated oxygen can burn out the lungs and the retinas.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity


does this apply to hyperbaric chamber therapy?


No, it can happen with high concentration at normal pressure.

"Pulmonary and ocular toxicity result from longer exposure to increased oxygen levels at normal pressure."


It does affect them, during a treatment they will take "air breaks" where they return to normal oxygen levels so they don't get oxygen poisoning.

On the other side Astronauts run pure oxygen at low pressure (8psi) in their EVA suits, it can be tolerated indefinitely.


Oxygen exposure is best seen in terms of absolute molecules for oxygen poisoning. If you are 90m water depth, 2.1% oxygen is the same as 21% at the surface. At ~0.2 atmospheric pressure, 100% oxygen would be about the same as at surface.

8 psi is 0.54 atmospheric pressure, so breathing in 100% oxygen under that pressure would be similar to a 54% nitrox mix at surface. Not as bad as 100% at surface, but might still be something that a doctor would monitor for potential signs. It is important to remember that people tolerance for oxygen can vary between people, and that Astronauts is a heavily selected group in term of fitness and health.


Agreed. If one wants to read about it: https://www.sciencefocus.com/the-human-body/why-does-breathi...


Thanks for addressing motivation. That's what I struggle with, and this comment definitely resonated with me. It's still something I need to find.


Weird tips like that? No, no definitely not.

Just eat less man. It's pretty straight forward. Just eat one meal a day (lunch) and you'll see the weight fly off. It's what I did for a bit and lost the weight quickly. You'll lose 5lbs/month easily even for people who have a relatively lean body mass already. (Easier to lose a lot of weight when you're heavier because your BMR is high to begin with) I've done it as someone who is 5'10" and 150lb to get down to 140 or 130lb. (Basically cutting fat - yes, I have significant fat even at 150lb and 5'10") I've done it a few times. I would recommend it. Changing your diet permanently is a much more permanent solution but also requires a lifestyle/mental change. I've had too many other lifestyle changes going on that made it hard for me to commit to such a thing.

Nice part about it is that it really frees up a lot of your day too. You don't have to worry about eating another meal or two. You just have the one per day and it's a done deal. Kinda freeing in that sense. Just make sure your meal isn't 2000+ calories - otherwise, it'll defeat some of the point. Which I know for some people can be easy to push down because their stomach has grown in size and is able to hold that much weight. It'll take willpower at first but then once your stomach starts to decrease in size - you'll automatically be limited on your caloric intake from that one meal.


> 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.


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.


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.


Have you ever tried fasting? I.e., are you speaking from experience, or just from your preconceptions?

In my experience, fasting is far easier than losing weight by a traditional diet. Consider that your body is finely tuned to make sure that you eat very close to as many calories as you burn. If you consistently eat 400 calories less than it thinks it needs, it will ratchet up the pressure on you. It takes continual self control to eat almost as much as your body wants but not quite.

Fasting is actually a lot easier. Your body is designed to fast, just as it's designed to run. As with running, once you exercise those chemical pathways, the actual fasting part isn't that bad -- it's much less unpleasant than being slightly low-calorie all the time. And it's a lot easier from a willpower perspective to eat nothing at all, and then eat as much as you feel like, than to continually eat a little less than you feel like.

I feel like a lot of people are afraid of fasting because they think that hunger will be linear -- after 8 hours without eating they feel twice as hungry as after 4, so after 16 hours they'll feel twice as hungry again, and after 24 hours they'll be writhing in agony. It's not like that at all.

Basically, if you can summon up the discipline to run 2 miles regularly, you can summon the discipline to do a 16/8 IF fasting cycle; if you have the discipline to run 5 miles, you have the discipline to do a 36 hour fast (basically skipping one full day a week); and if you have the discipline that you can train your body to run 10 miles, you have enough discipline to train it to fast for a week. (The last one you'd obviously only do once in a while.)


I’ve tried IF many times, sometimes for a month at a time and I find it dramatically, incredibly harder than just cutting calories down.

For me there are 2 main issues. 1) I’ve never found the point in IF when I stop being hungry. I start getting hungry typically after 5 hours of being awake and I stay that way until I eat. Whether that’s 2 minutes or 24 hours, I’ve never reached that mythic place where it’s not that bad. 2) it’s incompatible with my lifestyle. I work out in the morning which jacks up my hunger so skipping breakfast is miserable. I have a family and dinner is when we have time with each other. Having to not eat with them is awkward, unsatisfying and a burden.

Meanwhile switching each of my meals to be 20% smaller, a higher protein ratio and to be mostly vegetables doesn’t have any of these problems. It’s downright easy on a day to day basis.

Of course for me the real trick is to stop drinking alcohol. The caloric density and it’s propensity to make you stop keeping track of how many you’ve had means a few drinks can blow a weeks worth of eating well.


> I’ve never found the point in IF when I stop being hungry. I start getting hungry typically after 5 hours of being awake and I stay that way until I eat. Whether that’s 2 minutes or 24 hours, I’ve never reached that mythic place where it’s not that bad.

This applies to me as well.

In addition to that, I don't want to fast. As I mentioned earlier, I enjoy food greatly. Good cooking is an art form to me. I don't want less of it, and by being somewhat more picky when choosing it and also getting some of exercise, I can have more of it.


You cook artistically 3 times a day? One of the advantages of fasting to me is that you can eat really tasty food regularly without having to obsess over how many calories are in the food.

Personally the 16/8 never worked for me for losing weight; and I also fast partially for religious purposes. So I typically fast Mondays (i.e., eat dinner Sunday evening, then breakfast Tuesday morning).


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.


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.


I recently spend 3 months in the US with my partner, we didn't stay in a hotel. It took some exploring but we eventually found all we needed to eat well. For some reason most supermarkets don't stock fresh bread. I think most Americans either don't eat bread, or eat toast so all bread is optimized for toasting. American bread toasts much better than European bread (because of the sugar content I guess).

We tried about 6 different supermarket chains in the Irvine area, and the only one that reliably stored affordable good bread was Whole Foods. Weirdly all Americans told us Whole Foods was an expensive supermarket, but it was less expensive for our diet than the other supermarkets. Of course Irvine is an expensive area, so it could just be all supermarkets were relatively expensive.

I wouldn't judge a culture by their hotel breakfasts though. I don't think they match typical breakfasts basically anywhere. I don't think many hotels would serve you a breakfast burrito, but as far as I can tell that's basically a staple for many working Americans and it looks like it is actually quite healthy.

edit: to be clear, supermarkets in western europe have always stocked fresh bread for as long as I can remember, but in the past 10-15 years have also started stocking "artisanal" fresh bread. So they sell your pick of sourdough rye/wheat/spelt breads that have all been baked that morning.


Each time I gain weight, it's indeed a LOT easier for me to skip some meals and get back to where I want to be, rather than eating less or better.

Just 1 data point confirming the parent post.


Why is it insulting? It's the truth. Unless you have some metabolic disease, eating less (or better) is the way to lose weight, along with a little exercise. There is no shortcut available.


> 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-card...

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/well/move/weight-training...


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.


I don't think we're saying different things, you're just pointing out that exercise's contribution pales in comparison to diet.


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.


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.


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)


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.


> 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.

Yes, this is what I meant.


Tea should work too


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...


> 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.


I agree, it’s very personal, and that’s key to keeping one’s mind happy and motivated, otherwise one would be wolfing down ice cream before long.

I enjoyed reading your strategy. The thoughtfulness that it came out of is clearly important. Mine differed from yours (I have a substantial breakfast and very little dinner), but there are some common themes — eg vegetables for dinner and choosing more fibre.


> 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).


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.


Avoid consuming media while eating?


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+.


> do some exercise

Don't underestimate walking! And stairs!


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.


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.


I've done this before switching from bulking season, to leaning season. I found the hardest part being stomach growling. I'd be talking to people and my stomach would start complaining to everyone. I've been told to drink a glass of water when the happens but I didn't find it helped a bunch.

I usually went for a light plain peanut butter sandwich once a day at very "tactical" times to cut the growling. Yes peanut butter is calorie heavy but just keep it light. The fat/protein/carbs in peanut butter is pretty hard to beat, in moderation it's really good for you.

This does go away after a while, but this was an issue for the first while.


I've found that laying off carbs (Atkins, keto, etc.) gets rid of the growling and hunger pains entirely. On a carb-restricted diet you eat because you want to, not because your stomach is craving for food.


yeah, carb-restricting is what did it for me, when i managed to shed significant weight. But I couldn't sustain it for more than a couple of years.

Also, protein-based diets are heavy on one's liver.


If you’re doing a low carb diet, you probably want high fat and moderate protein.


Soups have worked better for me than water. The right soups can be very low calorie for volume and filling.


Fiber and roughage can help that. The peak of my own weighloss happened when I regularly ate the most basic oat porridge for breakfast. Oats so big my body barely had a chance to get all the nutrients out.


The real takeaway about mass loss via carbon dioxide is that you're changing how the engine works, and you're unlikely to notice it.

Get a digital scale, weigh every morning after toilet. I find there is a very quick and variable response to the previous days food, which can be quite motivating. Seeing it up or down half a kilo each day is very noticeable, and informative about what works and what doesn't.

Eat less dense calories, try to move around a little bit, all there is to it. My general rule is: -2 small meals = weight loss -1 regular/big + 1 small = maintain -2 big = weight gain

Once you stop trying to bloat yourself all the time, it starts to feel nuts how frequently you did


I've had the exact opposite experience. Days I felt like I did well on and had, if counted, a lot less calories were upticks, and days where I indulged were downticks. Sometimes very large ones too. Particularly very fatty meals would see me drop weight.

Ultimately the treatment for what probably got me to gain so much weight helped me twice over: ADHD medication. Not only does not lessen your constant need for dopamine (and lots of bad foods are good dopamine bumps), but it also supresses your appetite. I of course wouldn't recommend it if you do not have ADHD, but the additional side effect is appreciated none the less.


I had some of that too though, that's kinda the idea. I found carby foods were most consistently weight adding, while meaty and fatty not so much.

I recall all you can eat bbqs actually resulting in weight loss the following day. But if I had a bowl of rice with them, I'd have the weight gain I feared. Moderate portions of Indian takeaway curries with Naan could keep my weight up for a few days.

That's not something I'd expect from pure calorie counting, nor do I understand what's actually going on or if it's good or bad etc. But it seemed useful to be aware of


On a day-to-day basis, weight measurement changes are dominated by changes in retained water. This will certainly correlate with daily food choices, but does not really reflect meaningful changes in body composition. Average your measurements over something like a week in order to gauge actual progress.


Carbs increase insulin more than fat or protein. Insulin is a fat storage hormone, so having carbs with your meals means you’re likely going to store more of the calories you consumed as fat.


Weighing daily and seeing the trend was what worked for me, and encouraged me to stick to my fairly brutal diet. Went from 250 to 180lbs over five months or so - and that was 15 years ago, and have maintained myself at ~180lbs, as seeing the hard evidence that “don’t stick it in your gob, you don’t need it” works has allowed me to continue on that principle.

Before the scale, I’d always bemoan that it was impossible for me to lose weight, that it was genetic, that it wasn’t under my control. More than anything, it made me realise that it was entirely in my control, and that my excuses were bullshit borne of not being able to perceive the outcomes of my previous, short-lived efforts.


> Just eat less man. It's pretty straight forward

...

> You don't have to worry about eating another meal or two.

You do realize for many overweight people eating isn't something to worry about but to look forward to? It's not that we don't understand thermodynamics. It's just a big part of enjoying being alive.


And? If a big part of enjoying being alive is eating freely without worry then do that and be happy with whatever body shape you end up with. That doesn't seem where OP is coming from though.


It takes a shift of mindset.

In my experiment with alternating day fasting, I was surprised how quickly I was able to look forward to a meal that was 18 hours away.

Was I interested in eating sooner? Yes. But you learn quickly the difference between hunger as desire and hunger as need. 99% of what we feel in our lives wrt food is hunger as desire.

Caloric restriction is a requirement of sustainable weight loss, there are no weird hacks around it.


You can just average your calories over the day and have three smaller meals.


You''ll be more hungry eating 3 small meals than eating one bigger meal.


Quite possibly.

The fundamental thing is calories in/calories out. Then you just need to find a strategy that helps you implement that that you can adhere to - keto, intermittent fasting, low fat, whatever. Track your calories under a few regimes and see which is easiest to stick to. People might argue one is better than the other, and that could well be true, but I think only at the individual level. What works for me might not work for you.

What worked for me (losing 14kg in 6 months) was only having two meals a day (lunch and dinner, breakfast was a coffee), and having the same (low calorie) meal for lunch every day.

Eating the same thing every day is not a bad idea: https://www.artofmanliness.com/health-fitness/health/the-gro...


This. I lost 12 kg in a few months when I was 20 by basically just stopping to drink sweet stuff and only eating one meal a day. I simply was too lazy as a student to buy and carry soda bottles and cook more than once a day. I have kept that weight for over a decade now by strictly adhering to the one meal per day rule, and only drinking tap water and coffee. Exercise was never for me (again, too lazy).


IF works really well for me. I've struggled for years with losing weight. I'm an extremely very picky eater with a sugar addiction and doesn't like to cook. I've had weeks where I would almost entirely survive on sweets: several king size candy bars, ice cream, soda. Hardly much else.

I run a lot, even ran a marathon. No amount of exercise did anything. Dieting is impossible for me. I'd rather run an ultra.

IF changes my eating habits. I don't know why or how but when I only have a short eating period I only want to eat mostly healthy foods. I'm inclined to drink water instead of soda which never, ever happens if I'm not doing IF.

If it's 8pm and I think I want ice cream I say "it's too late, but you can have it during your eating period tomorrow." And I mean that, I allow myself to eat whatever I want during my eating period. I just don't want to eat junk food somehow so as a result—I just don't have ice cream anymore and it's not a big deal.

That said, OMAD (for me it was 22:2) backfired a couple of times for me. It was too strict and I ended up giving up on fasting after trying it for just a day or two.


IF = intermittent fasting <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fasting>


Works for some, but body will try to go back to it's habits, can be very hard to change food habits.

Easy hack that gives more energy & has health benefits is: Strength training for muscle growth. Muscles burn tons of energy, having more muscle mass will boost your daily resting kcal.

When starting out it's easy to gain quite a bit of muscle first months.

Ofc cut out the shit, mainly sweets & fried stuff.


> I've done it as someone who is 5'10" and 150lb to get down to 140 or 130lb.

I agree with you but wait what, that'd be 178 cm / 58 kilos? That's bordering on underweight: it doesn't feel right (or I'm converting it wrong?)

My first advice to people would be this: check your BMI first, and if you're perfectly in the middle then certainly do not get close to underweight.

Besides that: I don't drink much alcohol and do intermittent fasting (skipping meals like you do) and I've never been neither overweight nor underweight. To me it's all about discipline.


As a single additional anecdotal data point, my body is the same way. With similar height, if I am at 150lb (around 68kg) then I have visible fat. 140 is much better.


Agreed. I’ve actually found one meal a day means I eat less over 24 hr. You can only eat so much in one sitting, and for whatever reason a big heavy meal usually turns me off food for 12 hrs or more.


If people struggle with this, then eat the same amount of meals, but make them smaller. After that add basic exercise, walk a few steps and do a few pushups.


Four main angles of attack:

- eat less

- change what you eat

- work out more

- change your workout

Numbers 2 and 4 are by far the easiest.


any unhealthy side effects of only eating one meal a day? what if that meal is 1800+ calories?


Apart from taking forever for your body to get used to it.. Not really. Also once you're an appropriate weight and decide to start changing your diet back to "normal".. You're very likely to fuck it up and end up fat again.

To be honest dieting is only good if you're trying to get to a "goal weight" and you're capable of maintaining a weight. If you're not and that's what got you fat to begin with.. You need a holistic lifestyle change.


Yes this. It's cliche and corny to say "it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle change", but it's the truth. Dieting fails because diet typically implies a goal. Meaning an end.

Said another way, you should adjust intake until weight starts coming off slowly. You'll reach a point where you either lost too much, or stopped losing, and adjust slightly accordingly. Then stay at that intake forever(assuming it's healthy).


Intermitted fasting works on the principle that if you eat 1800kcal in one sitting you are going to puke. I can easily eat even 3000-4000kcal in 1 day, but in one meal going over 1500kcal is very hard.

Edit: Yes I'm wrong I should have said "if you eat 1800kcal of clean food", I forgot the existence of fast food because it is not something common in my country


Basically every fast food combo is over 1500k.

Meaning it’s very easy to eat that depending on what it consists of.


I kind of forgot that, it is a decade that I don't enter a McDonalds, this could be one of the hacks: don't go to any fast food place


Yeah I suspect much of HN is the same. Kind of crazy how dense those meals are.

Ice cream too is crazy - one Ben & Jerry’s is like 1600k


> Intermitted fasting works on the principle that if you eat 1800kcal in one sitting you are going to puke.

Fasting (intermittent and otherwise) causes several physiological responses that have a wide range of health benefits, including reducing risks for cancer and heart disease, and even completely reversing diabetic symptoms for some people. It is absolutely NOT some cheesy self-help way of tricking yourself into eating less because you "just can't fit any more in there" -- you completely made this up.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=fasting


A personal anecdote but I eat ~1600-1700 kcal each meal. I've been eating one meal a day for years. This is simply because I don't get hungry until around dinner time.


I believe your whole premise is wrong. I only ever eat "clean food" (haven't really tried fast food for 10-15 years) and can easily go over 4 kkcal in one sitting. Feel just fine afterwards, the stomach can stretch very far if you work at it hard enough.

Nuts, cheese, and vegetable oils are really energy dense.

I also don't consider myself to be a glutton a have a BMI of 21.


A McDonalds Deluxe Cheeseburger, Large Coke and Fries is 1400Kcal - switch to a milkshake or add a McFlurry and your meal is approaching 2000.

https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/about-our-food/nutrition-...


What country is that? I've never been anywhere that doesn't have junk food available.


It is available, it is just not common, I'm from Sardinia, in my province ( Oristano: an area of 3000 square km) there's only 1 McDonald's, and only teens go there. If you don't live in the main city, a trip to McDonald's can take easily 1 hour or more.

We dove a lot of pizza places, but it is Italian pizza and it is not as caloric as the American version, ours is made with 200grams of dough and has less stuffing as possible, one pizza should be around 800kcal and majority of people I know usually eats 3/4 of it and leaves the remaining 1/4 for the day after


Anecdotally, I've been doing it for years (10 IIRC) without any noticeable side-effects. Lost about 30 kg. I feel fine.


Eating only once a day is very bad advice.

If you make a regular meal, one meal a day nets a negative of 1300/1500 calories per day, which will cause considerable muscle tissue loss (note how the parent writes "losing weight", not "losing fat", but also "yes, I have significant fat even at 150lb and 5'10"), besides having no energy.

If you make instead a massive mels, you're going to give a massive glucose shot to your body. I haven't gone to such extreme, but the times when I happened to do something similar (one huge meal, even with an overall negative daily intake), I ended up accumulating fat rather than losing it. I suppose that in a calorie deficit context (=dieting), the body takes advantage of a huge meal to build some deposits up (and unfortunately, deposits are everything except muscles...).

Dieting's hard, there are no cheap tricks, unfortunately.


I don't think this is accurate, or at least not universally so. The pandemic has given me the opportunity to experiment a bit with losing weight. These days I mostly do eat one meal a day (sometime between noon and 6pm). I'll occasionally have a light snack aside from that one meal. I lost a good 15 lbs in just a few months this way. It was mostly fat. I kept up a running regimen (8-12 mi per week). I felt amazing. Much more energy, flatter stomach, better-defined chest, arms, thighs, and calves.

Unfortunately I've gone back to some of my old ways over the past 9 months or so with restaurants and bars reopening, and I've gained back some of the weight. This tells me that it's not really how many meals I have, but what's in them, and how many calories. So I'd probably be fine with two or three meals a day, just healthier choices and fewer overall calories. But I don't believe one meal a day is a problem; just it isn't necessary, and you can still lose weight with a more normal meal pattern.


> Eating only once a day is very bad advice.

This meta-review seems to conclude fasting + resistance training might not only be harmless but actually beneficial https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7468742/


Correct. I would be doing some form of weight training or resistance type training as well to make sure my muscles don't evaporate. I'd also eat a high protein meal for my one meal to make sure my body had enough protein to repair/keep muscle on.

I think for most people who are looking for weight loss - this is not as much of a concern and going to the gym would likely be an extra hurdle for them that would make it too hard. So, 1 meal a day is relatively straight forward.


Anyone who has actually fasted knows this is all nonsense. Sure, you can lose muscle mass — that's always true of going into a caloric deficit, which is the only way to lose weight.


Nonsense? I take you've never actually measured body fat percentage during diet periods.

It is true that caloric deficit always causes muscle; the issue is how much one loses.


I don't see anyone here questioning that you lose muscle, but questioning the idea that confining your eating to a narrow window (or a single meal) is bad.

I'm not aware of any evidence to support that. Fasting patterns have been studied, and I'm not aware that any studies on fasting have shown the effect you describe, but I've not followed the research for some years.

In terms of anecdotal evidence, I have regularly measured body fat percentage during diet periods, and I do see steep drops in body fat percentage when I've done intermittent fasting with the vast bulk of my intake coming in a single meal (2k calories plus during one period). As mentioned elsewhere I now prefer 4-5 days of drastic cuts and eating normally a few days a weak, and without confining it to a narrow period, but I also did IF for many months while at my peak of lifting both in a deficit and not, after having previously done slight deficit dieting in the past, and could compare the difference, and I didn't see the slightest hint of the effect you're claiming.


The middle east has significantly lower rates of cancer attributed partially to fasting in Ramadan and throughout the year.


Eating once a day is a type of intermittent fasting, which has been well studied and shown to have some of the health benefits of fasting.


Unless you're a competitive weightlifter or similar, you're unlikely to see significant enough muscle loss with very significant calorie restriction over the kind of time frames people would stick to very strict diets like that for it to matter much.

I wouldn't do it every day, but mostly because I find it too hard, but I do currently aim for ~600 kcal 4-5 days a week to drop down. I do it in multiple small meals, but I've also done intermittent fasting with narrow feeding windows. On the remaining days, I eat normally - I don't binge.

It'd likely have more of a negative effect on my muscle mass if I did it every day, but if I did, I'd also reach my target weight far faster, so even if I'd had to spend time bulking up again later I'd have done that if I was able to stick to it, but I know from experience I'm not.

I also power lift (not competitively), and I've had steady progress while doing that, with the caveat I'm not at my peak - I wouldn't expect to progress with this diet if I was. But most people are so far off hitting limitations caused by food intake in their exercise it matters for quite few people.

People should keep up resistance exercise while on diets to reduce muscle loss.

It's not sustainable over long periods of time in that sooner or later you get to an inflection point where it impedes your progress, but it works when your body fat percentage is high, and for most people looking to lose weight it's simply not what they should be worrying much about.

That you accumulated fat with what you think was a net daily deficit sounds to me like it wasn't a net daily deficit. Intermittent fasting works, and limiting yourself to a single daily meal is not nearly long enough fasting periods to mess much with body composition. But it may have messed with your activity levels. It takes little change in e.g. dozing off on the couch rather than walking around to have an effect.

People are mostly more sedentary than they think and burn fewer calories than they think. When I was at my peak, exercising every day and lifting heavily 3 times a week, to maintain my weight I needed to keep my intake around 1800kcal because my life outside of that was not very active. I'm 185cm, and at the time I was about 93kg, with body fat around 15%.

Someone with a more active life outside of the gym might burn more. Many burn less. Kcal guidelines for adults have remained static for way too long with declining levels of physical activity, and people really should count calories for a few weeks and adjust their intake and figure out how little they actually burn...


> Unless you're a competitive weightlifter or similar, you're unlikely to see significant enough muscle loss with very significant calorie restriction over the kind of time frames people would stick to very strict diets like that for it to matter much.

I've always done weightlifting, although not competitively, as general support of the fitness regime (which may include other sports or not).

What I've observed is that when a dieting cycle goes bad, a short time after the end of it (to allow glycogen and water levels to come back to normal), I end it with approximately the same weight before the start. If/when I observe an increase in measured fat (which happens most of the times, on bad diet cycles), then muscle mass went down.


If a diet ends up with little enough weight loss that you'll just bounce back to the same weight, the changes are small enough that I really doubt you can reliably say much about change in muscle mass. For me the bounce back at the end of a diet is pretty much always ~2kg, so a "loss" below 2kg is really not an actual loss, but easily accounted for by less fluid retention and less food in my system. Yes, you're likely to lose some, but again I'l stress: not much for it to matter much for most people. Especially when the point of comparison is not doing nothing but just dieting slower. You'll lose muscle mass while dieting slower too. I've seen little to indicate there's a particularly meaningful difference in proportion other than for pretty advanced lifters for whom a "meaningful" difference in loss is much smaller than for most people.

When I was pushing my body to the max every week, then the difference mattered to me too. But most people are not there, or anywhere near those kinds of limits.


Tell that to the 1.8 billion muslims that don't eat for a month out of the year.


Err, that don't eat between dawn and sunset for a month out of the year...


Anecdotal, but just make sure you don't lose weight TOO fast. This is one of the ways in which gallstones are formed.


It's called OMAD (one meal a day), you can google it. In my experience, it's something you quickly get used to and has no negative effects (for me). You adjust and don't get hungry until the time comes (e.g. dinner). It's a form of intermittent fasting.


I've done periods of time on OMAD throughout my life and one thing that would always get me is sleep. I'd wake up (not necessarily hungry) much too early, regardless of the time of my one meal. One trick that helped me was to break OMAD, and have a little bit of a slow releasing protein in the evenings before bed. My go to was low fat cottage cheese. Once I added that I was able to sleep through the night again.


This has been my experience as well. The first time I tried it I thought I was going to be miserable all day and have no energy. It ended being totally fine. I have this dull emptiness in my stomach but nothing that affects me in any way. And you are right, as soon as dinner rolls around my hunger increases dramatically.


For me, loss of productivity and concentration. Also, hard to make that one meal make contain everything you need.


Instead of reducing the number of meals, you can just cut your portions in half.


> Weird tips like that? No, no definitely not.

Yep. The best “weird tip” is to avoid weird tips. I'm sure they've all worked for someone, though I suspect in many cases by some variant of a placebo effect or an indirect effect, and some work for a noticeable subset of people, but very few work generally and trying all the tricks and having them not work is a recipe for “I'm just not destined to manage this” style demotivation.

Always start with the practically undeniable basics: eat less if you can, try eat better whether you are eating less or not, do more physical activity where you can, try not to undo the effect of the activity by using it as an excuse to eat significantly more, monitor what effect your changes have, and try not to have too high expectations or push too fast (weight lost slowly is more likely to stay off, because you fall into better habits/routine over the longer period and are less likely to flip straight back into all your old habits once you get close to your goal).

Once you have those habits down, then maybe think about tweaks & tricks to optimise the process. Getting yourself into the habits might require some self-management tricks, but don't think of them as weight-loss or getting-into-shape tricks as they are really general self-management behaviours.

One note on monitoring: be careful not to obsess over single readings. The human body can be more random than you expect and your daily/weekly life is not as predictable as you think. I stand on my scales almost daily, but don't care about individual readings: things could be high because I've been at parties recently, low because I've had two long-ish runs this weekend, weight can vary a fair amount either way just be hydration levels. I tend to watch a fortnightly average: two weeks of my normal routine seems to be enough to aggregate out most of the blips most of the time.

On being more active: the challenge there is to find something that is either easy to fit into your routine, or that you enjoy enough to want to make the effort, or both. I accidentally discovered I enjoy running, though I've since gone off pounding the streets for speed and now take more steady paces, often but not always for longer distances, through countryside trails. Some prefer cycling. Martial arts are good too (wrestling can be a great full-body workout, and if you actually enjoy it you don't realise how much work you are actually doing). Just walking more can make a noticeable difference, and is usually easy to fit into daily/weekly life.

[for reference: about six years ago I dropped from ~110KG to <64KG over the course of about two years (most of this in the middle year of that period), mostly through diet but partly through activity, <64 I feel is too little for me though over the last couple of years I've put on more than I want to (hit ~75 at one point in 2021) and not in useful mass (its around the gut, I can feel it jiggle when I run!) and I'm slowly (more slowly than I'd like, but at least steadily) getting back down to hovering around the 68KG point which seems to feel optimal]


I lost 45kg over 2 years(100 lb), here is how you can do it without being overly disciplined.

1. Don't overdo it, if you cant imagine living forever with a change in diet then it wont work. Your perspective on that change will maybe change later on, take it easy.

2. Nutrition > Exercise, but exercising (or movement in general) made me crave healthier food.

3. First step - stop drinking anything but water, plain tea and black coffee. Becoming a tea or coffee snob helps as you still have something with flavour (even better than before to be honest). This alone accounted for 15kg loss.

4. Reduce candy and sweets, potentially cutting them out completely. Do this only after you don't crave soda and other sweet drinks or it wont stick. Another 10kg.

5. Move, more than before. No specific goal. Walking is better than nothing. Ideally you start with strength exercises. I started with 2 water bottles that i would lift. Muscles burn calories.

6. Protein > Fat > Carbs really helped me. Mileage may vary, but after you get used to it you get hungry less frequently. BE CAREFUL WITH BIG DIETARY CHANGES. Best is to do it incrementally.

7. Better to lose continously and slowly than to force big weight losses in a short amount of time. Flabby skin etc.

8. Skipping breakfast / intermittend fasting helped me to reduce calories without having to count etc. Just a natural limit. Also my lunch is quite small now, but i eat a lot for dinner - not the healthiest but it works for me.


I think your theory is flawed because of the Bohr effect. CO2 in your blood increases the affinity of oxygen for hemoglobin. Higher oxygen and less CO2 means that most oxygen can't combine with hemoglobin and just ends up oxidizing somewhere which is definitely not ideal. You can easily test this by hyperventilating, which despite taking in much more oxygen and breathing out much more CO2 will cause less oxygen to reach your brain until you pass out.

The only way to breathe out more CO2 and lose weight would be to make more CO2 by increasing your metabolism, for example by taking thyroid hormone. This brings us full circle to your theory as it shows that increased CO2 breathing isn't the cause of weight loss, but a consequence of a faster metabolism which will in turn burn more calories and create weight loss.


The Ramequin trick. The one thing that worked best for me: only eat out of a small container. A small ramequin bowl works best. That alone will make you eat less, and you won't really notice it. In fact, you'll feel like you ate more. Eating exactly the same food, but in a small container. Went from 90kg to 75 in less than a year. Now I'm back on regular plates, but I make sure I pour the amount that fits in that ramequin. Good luck!


This is a good idea. Similarly, we use dinner plates that are more like appetizer plates: 50% the size of a "regular" dinner plate.


I do something similar. One fist sized portion of food is a meal, and I am full after a wait. I rarely have desert, even at special occasions, luckily, its not really a weakness for me anyway.


I tried that with ice cream. I gained 10 kilos. I guess it might have been 11 without all the exercise...


EAT MORE. Just make sure what you eat has fewer calories. Veggies and meat/fish, less bread/carbs. Don't drink your calories, stick with water black coffee or tea.

Another weird tip, be slightly cold. Your body will burn more calories to warm itself.[1]

I got downvoted, so here's a reference: [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/02/how-being...


Here is a short list of little things to adjust:

- Take just a little less calories in than you use (you don't want jojo effect).

- Waive soft drinks (even sugar free).

- Drink a lot of water.

- Start flexing your muscles from time to time (build tension in your body).

- Stand up.

- Do Push ups.

- Increase the steps walked per day.

- Take stairs not the elevator.

- Eat low carbs in the evening.

- Eat enough proteins (at least your bodyweight in grams).

- Read rails source code (it will cause your brain to go 100% cpu which consumes a lot of energy)


Take an app like Habinator https://habinator.com and set goals/habits that suit for you.

Health is not just about weight loss.


An alternative for those who don't want to have to set up an account or prefer privacy and libre variants, the Loop Habit Tracker[0] works just as well.

[0]: https://loophabits.org/


Doing a few push ups while compiling or CI is running is a great hack - aside from the fitness my back, shoulder and neck issues went away.


Fasting (or IF) + keto.

It’s mostly mental, but you adapt quickly, and there are tons of health benefits beyond weight control.

To a lesser degree: eggs. They are a miracle food imho. Amazing fat/protein/vitamin combo. And anyone talking about cholesterol content hasn’t read any good science on serum cholesterol drivers in the last two decades (you can eat a dozen eggs a day and be fine).


Yeah Im surprised at how far down this is, I thought keto was super popular.

Im currently doing keto after putting on a bit of weight over a covid lockdown. 5 weeks, 7kg down (83kg -> 76kg). I didnt even start all that heavy, I imagine if someone was really overweight they would lose it even faster. Its pretty easy, you dont even need to eat less, you just dont eat anything that turns into glucose. I guess theres not much difference counting calories vs counting carbs, but it really isnt a big deal to me.


Isn't keto associated with higher mortality? I do a review of studies once in a while for private enjoyment, and most studies seem to report a higher mortality for low-carb diets.

When they don't the studies are usually epidemiological with lots of confounding factors, like the recent PURE-study I saw linked to the other day in thread about keto.


I know the study which you're referring to, and unfortunately dietary and nutrition science is one of the worst disciplines.

You can find evidence pointing both ways. For instance, it's well studied that in animal models (which can be far better controlled than human populations) high fat diets lead to increased lifespans. The rub here is whether murine models translate to humans, which is not a given.

Keto often has issues because obese people find it as an excuse to continue eating caloric surpluses. It's not magic, and it may not work for everyone. Speaking for myself, doing keto OMAD (one-meal-a-day) is an unbelievable life hack. And my bloodwork backs this up (including a drop in serum LDL after increasing my egg intake dramatically).


I am not referring to one specific study. I have been googling /Google scholaring "diet mortality", "keto mortality", and "low carb mortality" every once in a while and eyed through any new studies.

Now I am not a nutritionist, but I like looking at studies and seeing what kind of things can be confounding. Or try to spot methodoligal errors.


How is this so far down here? Keto is the answer, just do Keto. Oxygen tank lol, honestly common.


This. Keto makes fasting shockingly easy.


Keto makes eating less super easy. Insulin is such an evil hormone.


Insulin isn't evil, it's a fantastic hormone which allows us to rapidly lower excess blood glucose and store excess carbs efficiently. It allows us to recover rapidly from exercise and make use of excess food in times of plenty.


You're right. Insulin insensitivity is evil.


When my mom lived with us, I intentionally invited her on a morning walk about 6 days a week.

Fresh air, bird song, chatting, river view, 10k steps, and she lost a pound a week for 50 weeks with no diet change (large sugar-based diet).

She eventually injured her foot, stopped walking and gained all the weight back in 2 months.

I think every individual body has some equilibrium activity level it anticipates for a given weight. If you are sitting most of the day, maybe start with a goal of standing most of the day and you will discover your standing weight. Then introduce walking, and so on.

Think of it as a years long process though, be patient.


Lift weights two or three times per week, and walk just barely enough to avoid being completely sedentary. Nothing crazy, I'm talking about using the weight machines at a gym, and walking just ~8k steps per day with a pedometer watch to gamify it.

I'm a naturally obese person, and I've read a thousand of these threads over the years. Nearly every comment is either:

* Telling you to "hack your body", with keto or whatever the latest low-carb fad is called. They are so adverse to exercise, that suggesting exercise seems offensive to them. They emphasize that it's entirely about diet.

or

* Telling you to "just eat well and exercise". Which is about as useful as telling drug addicts to "just stop using drugs", and is usually more about the speaker smugly moralizing to feel superior.

There are two things that ARE really useful for obese people to hear, and that hardly anyone says:

1. Exercise helps you eat well. When I was 100% sedentary, I had constant cravings for all kinds of junk. And the portions that I ate at mealtime were double those of a normal person. When I'm lifting weights (has to be lifting weights, I don't see this benefit from cardio alone)... the cravings magically disappear and I have a normal appetite at mealtime.

2. It... takes... so... LITTLE! You don't have to go full ham, with extreme workout advice that you find in bodybuilding magazines and forums. A 30 minute workout, two or three times a week is sufficient (i.e. hit 6 or 7 machines, for 3 sets each). If you're just trying to keep your hormones and appetite on a healthy track, then you don't have to go "to failure" either. Just enough to feel like a mild challenge.


> 2. It... takes... so... LITTLE!

Even just not using your car to do journeys of less than a couple of miles.

I don't exercise at all, really. I just walk everywhere, to do my shopping, and for fun. I don't run or jog or lift weights. I cook food from fresh as much as I can, avoid too much meat, and I don't have a car. I have a healthy weight and a small (usually) waistline.

Like a lot of us I do occasionally still have back problems from too much sitting (as I enter middle age) but literally just a couple of weekends of daily, hilly walks will put things back in order for some time.

It's also an effective mild antidepressant and sleep regulator.

If you want a life choice that will help you lose weight: move somewhere you can function as much as possible without a car.

Most people don't have the freedom to make this choice, but the fact that the people who do genuinely have the freedom and who can see their whole family is overweight never even consider it, often surprises me.

(We should be developing societies that can function this way at a larger scale, not just developing on-demand delivery services.)


I unintentionally moved to a place where I only have to use my car on very rare occasions, and I also cannot recommend it highly enough. I’ve never had weight problems, but I’ve noticed a massive positive change in my overall mood and energy levels, and in feelings of connection to my community. :D


I presume you're American because my society already works like this. The only people I know who use their car on a daily basis live or work very isolated and far from civilization.


No -- I'm not. I'm British.

Britain (England in particular) is half and half, really. Lots of people live in towns and can walk to everything.

But a very large number of people make the choice to live in the kind of "out of town" developments that would be familiar to Americans: a car-journey from everything and served by large supermarkets to which you can't so easily walk, rather than in the kind of smaller more traditional communities that are a walk from everything. And nowhere is cycle-friendly yet, really.

Covid will exacerbate this -- people looking to live in houses with gardens will choose to live further away from towns.

I have lived mostly in towns and I prefer that, but where I am living at the moment, the corner shop is not a corner shop, it's a small supermarket, and it is a hilly half mile away. This is right on the cusp of impracticality for a lot of people who don't have the freedom to work from home during the day and who are shopping for more than just themselves.

I live by myself and I don't have a car, but I work from home, so I choose to do that journey on foot, rather than get deliveries, but I am unusual in this; most people get deliveries or will take the car (and then go to the bigger supermarket further away).


This. When I lived in London I never got in my car except to make journeys out of London. Now that I live in a village (and not a particularly remote one; London is less than an hour away by train) I need my car to do anything.


As an addendum to what I wrote, I think a lot of societies (especially the few healthier western countries) who count themselves lucky to have avoided the cultural underpinnings that led to American-style obesity have not yet begun to comprehend what widespread on-demand food delivery will do to their national health.


Maybe but I will counter with the cost of on-demand food is not as financially accessible as you would think. As one data point our family has pretty much stopped using the services because of how much of a mark-up you pay.


As a Western European who has lived in the US for a short while around 2000, I feel the battle is already lost.

Rising obesity in kids is observed but no link is made.

All the while I have seen my country 'Americanizing' in the last 20 years : more McDs etc, now the food delivery guys and McDs now delivers to your home too ( unfanthomable! )

It is not the US style what sells it : it is convenience. Convenience sells.


On-demand food delivery is for people with lots of disposable income. It's really expensive. You get pick-up otherwise.

At least in the US. Maybe it's different in Europe.

$4+ per diner delivery markup (increased base food price, delivery fee, tip) will keep it from being a widespread problem. This is like worrying that meal ingredient delivery services will make lots of people more sedentary because they won't walk to the grocery store—no, it won't, because not many people can afford those services.


Might those same cultural underpinnings impact their adoption and usage of on-demand delivery?


I don't know; I wonder if anyone knows.

After all, the USA was once a country of broad, healthy outdoorsy types, and that health pattern carried on well into metropolitan living, well into the late seventies.

And then the "TV dinner" approach was all dinners, and along came higher and higher calorie snacks. Americans became substantially less healthy in less than two decades. Through convenience shopping.

The same thing happened to the British at only a slightly smaller scale, and slightly later.


Here in America people make cars a part of their identity and one of the questions you’ll often hear (maybe after a few conversations) is “Do you drive?”.


I’ve never heard the question “do you drive,” only “what do you drive?” The assumption that every individual owns and drives a car is pretty omnipresent.


Maybe it's a local thing? New York, perhaps? It's definitely not widespread. It'd be a really weird question in most of the country (of course you drive)


There are about 3-5 metro areas in the US where a substantial portion of the population doesn't drive day-to-day by choice (NYC, Chicago, Philadelphia, maybe DC and Boston). I have heard "Do you drive?" asked in those places. Everywhere else, it's "what do you drive?" and "what kind of car are you thinking about paying a bank to buy for you?".


As an American in my 30s I have literally never been asked nor heard anyone else asked “Do you drive?”


That is something you will hear towny people in the UK ask now. Especially when asking young people who are absolutely putting off learning to drive a thing they will not remotely be able to afford to run.


Where I am, at least, the more frequent question is "What do you drive?". Some people are truly baffled when the answer is "I don't, really".


Same, where I live the moment I tell people I haven't owned a car in 2+ years they are baffled as to how I even survive.


> Like a lot of us I do occasionally still have back problems from too much sitting

Like you I had back problems at regular intervals. Then I read about building muscle using moderate weight exercises and have been free from back pain ever since. Whenever I stop doing my exercises for 1-2 weeks because of holidays or whatever, I feel the oh so familiar back pain creeping in again...


> walking just ~8k steps per day

You kind of gloss over this, but 8k steps is around 3 miles of walking for the average person. You might be able to get that "naturally" if you live in an urban area and go out on foot every day to get coffee, groceries, etc., but if you're a typical WFH software engineer living in the suburbs, you're probably going to have to spend 45 min to an hour every day walking for exercise to achieve that number. I'm certainly not claiming that this is excessive or impossible or anything, but spending more than an hour a day (when combined with the weight lifting) on exercise and fitness is a MAJOR lifestyle change for most people. I think it's extremely important to be honest about the effort and commitment required. Getting healthy and staying healthy is _hard_, especially if you're starting out seriously overweight or obese.


And by the same logic, staying healthy “naturally” is quite easy when you live in an urban area and go out on foot for [everything].

I gave up automobiles about twenty years ago, and attribute my health and slenderness (relative to the rest of my family) mostly due to walking-lifestyle. I spent last month visiting family, and definitely put on weight from thirty days of being sedentary in the suburbs. Awful way to live.


When I took a full remote position late last year, I also invested in a cheap treadmill for my home office, plus a laptop attachment. I get on it first thing every day, and do my normal inbox processing, generally at a pretty slow pace. Responding to slacks, emails, PRs is easy in this mode, no different than sitting at a desk. Lately I've added a 30-minute end of day shutdown walk on top of it. Review my todo list, check tomorrow's calendar, etc. Altogether, I average 2-3 miles per day.

I haven't been able to consistently operate on it for deeper work/code or meetings, but I don't know if I really need to.


> if you're a typical WFH software engineer living in the suburbs, you're probably going to have to spend 45 min to an hour every day walking for exercise to achieve that number

Now, obviously this isn't for everyone, but my partner and I adopted a dog and she needs to be walked once or twice a day for about 45 minutes. It's been a great way to get us out of the house every day.


And for those who dont want a dog, listening to audiobooks while walking for fitness is a great way not to lose the time.


Walking is the best way to begin that lifestyle change. Walking is easy, it's pretty relaxing, and it helps establish that there's a period of time in a person's day dedicated to getting them healthy. Plus, that 45 minutes of walking can be split up over the day. And with some commitment, most people can become pretty fast walkers.

You are absolutely right that adding an hour a day of exercise is a major lifestyle change, but so are a lot of things in life.


The lifestyle change is also the point isn't it. Anything else is either "product" research or selfdeception.

I mean if youre willing to walk around with an oxygen mask allday and aren't bothered about possible health consequences, there is also plastic surgery.


It’s 6pm. I’m WFH. I’m seeing 7451 steps on my iPhone. I wouldn’t say I’ve walked anywhere today, but I water my horses a few times a day (at bottom of garden).


Counter point, I’m work from home and actually spend up to an hour a day doing HIIT and am lucky to break 4k steps. If you’re fidgety or pace you may get there but even with being intentionally active and burning around 850 calories in exercise a day, I’m about half the 8k steps.


No doubt it can vary wildly depending on your life circumstances. Personally most of my hobbies are sedentary (reading, gaming, plastic models) and I don't have kids or pets that require me to be active in some way. A normal day for me if I don't go anywhere and make no effort to exercise is usually less than 2500 steps.


To hit that number I enrolled in a small coworking space that is 20 minutes away from my house... It's 2500 steps from home... So just going and getting back from the office gives me 5,000 steps...


> They are so adverse to exercise, that suggesting exercise seems offensive to them. They emphasize that it's entirely about diet.

Disagree completely. Exercise does not lose weight. The amount of exercise one needs to lose the calorie gained from a burger is not possible to achieve on daily basis. Weight does not just come from air. It's all about what you eat. That's the science.

Exercise helps to build muscle and good health, not reduce body fat. Period. So eat less calorie and not junk/packaged/sugary food. So yeah "just eat well and exercise".

I exercise daily and it has only increased my appetite, I eat more than when I did not move much. The desire to eat is related to habit too. When I eat more it increase the craving and when I stay away from junk food for a long time, the cravings goes away.


No, no, no.

The correct exercise is critical for many people to lose weight. Why?

Weight lifting and some HIIT exercises help you build lean body mass, which will raise your metabolic rate. Many people have "poor metabolisms" because they have less lean body mass than expected. Weight lifting in particular will also help you protect your muscle mass as you lose weight.

If you do not lift weights when you lose weight, you will lose a lot of muscle, which will tank your metabolic rate. When people talk about losing weight, they really mean losing fat. If your goal is to lose fat, you need to weight lift.

Beyond that, exercise can help with leptin. Many overweight people have leptin issues, which causes them to overeat, which makes them even heavier, which makes their leptin ever worse. It could either be too little leptin or a lack of sensitivity to leptin. Regardless, leptin is the hormone that signals satiety, and if this hormone is out of whack, you will overeat.

Either way, this is not a good situation.

Recent research says that exercising 300 minutes a week can help people reverse this leptin issue. I have been doing this myself, and it has been a key way that I have been able to get my hunger levels under control and help me lose more than 50 lbs.

Here is a write up about the study: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/09/well/move/to-lose-weight-...

You should not exercise with the mindset of burning calories. You should exercise with the mindset of building lean tissue, with increasing your cardiovascular fitness, with increasing your mobility, and with helping to get your hormones into a good place.

But please exercise. If you do the right exercises with the right mindset, it can help you lose weight and keep it off.

Yes, you can't outrun a bad diet. But you also will struggle to beat poor leptin levels too.


Five hours a week is no small investment. Focusing on calories/kJ in < out is much easier as it can be done incrementally, such as by not eating past a certain time of day, leaving out especially high sugar snacks, etc. There is no getting around obesity being a dietary issue.

That said, it's definitely not an either/or situation.


GPs point is that exercise can help with those things: if you feel less hungry (because of leptin), you fill eat less calories or fewer snacks (or healthier ones).


I really wondered why this was the top comment on HN. Its just wrong. (And you are right - "Exercise does not lose weigh"). In fact, the body adapts to your lifestyle. And while running can burn alot of calories at the beginning it gets less once the body adapted.

Its simple to lose weight. Eat less. Lots of "people" advertise their programs but at the end its simple as that. Eat. less.


See my other comment, but exercise can be a critical way that people both lose weight and maintain weight loss. Losing weight is relatively easy, but maintaining it is hard, and exercise can be critical to the latter.

You need to stop thinking about exercise as burning calories. Exercise can be critical in getting hormones, particularly leptin, back to a normal function. Exercise, particularly weightlifting, can help build muscle and prevent muscle loss from losing weight.

Eating less is not the secret. That's to reductionist.

The secret is altering your energy balance.

You can alter your energy balance from a combination of diet and exercise, and the way you handle both will further impact your energy balance. Your hormones will also play a critical role in your ability to maintain this as well.

Getting good sleep will also be critical for altering this energy balance and setting yourself up for weight loss. People who don't get 7-9 hours of sleep a night aren't going to be producing enough human growth hormone at night, and they won't be able to recover from exercise or build lean tissue.

I would never, ever recommend someone try to lose any significant amount of weight without weightlifting. It's a fool's errand.

Yes, you'll lose the weight by eating less, and in the process you may end up having half of that weight loss be muscle mass. Now your metabolic rate is in the gutter, and you have set yourself up perfectly for a rebound in weight.

If you want longterm weight loss, exercise and eat well. Try to get at least 10,000 steps a day and then aim for 4-6 days a week of strenuous exercise.


How long have you been exercising and how many people have you trained?

I’m always wary of essays like this one. People figure out how to manage their own bodies and somehow extrapolate their lessons to all humans.


The only people I've met who have lost weight and kept it off effectively cut crappy carbs a lot, and included an exercise regimen. The actual dietary and exercise specifics varied a lot per person, as did the ordering (I know someone who lost 70 pounds via keto, and only on hitting his goal weight did he add exercise in, as well as loosen his diet and macros), but those were the consistent attributes to anyone who took weight off and kept it off for > a year.

I've also met plenty of people who yo-yoed just by "eating less", which is what the grandparent comment was claiming. No change of -what- they ate, no inclusion of exercise, just tried to calorie restrict. They'd lose weight, possibly a lot (depends on the person)...and invariably plateau, get frustrated, and put it back on.

Obviously this is not a random sampling, but there's definitely a pattern that emerges if you look at how people who have lost weight took it off and kept it off. And there's also definitely a pattern if you look at the people who have lost weight and regained it. "Eat less" is not helpful advice (which is what the parent post was responding to). It's not entirely wrong (exercising, as per the parent, helped them eat less at meal time. Restricting carbs also helps people eat fewer overall calories too), but it's not particular actionable as formulated, and it reduces weight loss to a "willpower" problem, which study after study has shown is doomed to fail, and also leads to all sorts of negative feelings along the way.


Eating less as a dieting strategy in general doesn't work long term because it relies on willpower, a limited resource.

Any dieting strategy which doesn't involve eliminating sugar in liquid or edible form and replacing it satiating foods isn't going to work long term.


I tried to lose some weight with strict calorie counting once. ~1400/day.

No loss in about 60 days, with zero cheating. I also started doing a lot of cardio at the same time (bike riding, running). No help there, either.

Gained a ton of fat fast when I stopped and went back to eating normally (for me).

Yeah, I'll stick to weight lifting. Dieting (past a certain point, anyway) fucks up my metabolism.


These kind of comments without more context really serve to confuse the situation. If you only ate 1400 calories a day (a brutal challenge for lots of people) and you didn't lose weight it's because your BMR is 1400.

So.. are you 5'2" female or a 6'3" male? 1400 is (potentially) appropriate for one and brutally low for another. Gained fat FAST after eating more? Well sure if you went from 1400 to 2800 and your BMR is 1400 that's gonna make anyone gain weight. Faster than your normally would because your metabolism changed based on your previous input? That doesn't track with conventional knowledge.


I was holding steady with probably a 3k/day diet before that. Abs visible, full-on six-pack if I had a really active week (went swimming a lot in a Summer week, stuff like that). Down from ~4k/day of pure junk food in high school (trim figure and maintained that just fine at that rate, TYVM—I do not know what teenagers do with all those extra calories, it's like magic). Not an athlete, so no Michael Phelps routine doing anything, just young-person metabolism and a lot of weight lifting.

I did the diet to try to make the ol' abs pop even more, the idea was that I'd get down to where I wanted to be fast then ease up a little and hold there (diet's the main thing that matters, everyone says, after all). It backfired badly. Two months of constantly feeling hungry, to no benefit. I'm sure my metabolism was on the way down anyway (early 20s at the time), but that diet killed it dead in just a couple months.

Weight lifting continues to be more effective for me than it "should" be according to common wisdom, even if I'm not doing enough to pack on more muscle. Whatevs.

[EDIT] Incidentally, I wish dieting worked as well for me as all those online calculators say, because I find it a lot easier than working out. Takes negative time, for one thing, and costs negative money. It's great.


Was it weight training or cardio? I suspect they are not equal when it comes to weight loss. I do a lot of cardio and while it makes me feel good, it doesn't trigger much weight loss. Weight training in my experience does help.


My anecdotal experience as an obese 40 year old who recently started strength training - my appetite has somewhat increased, but I still end up eating less than when I was sedentary.


The three main factors are:

* Eat * Lift * Sleep

The combination of LIFT-WEIGHT with RUN-CALORIE-DEFICIT it how you lose weight whilst gaining muscle. It's extremely effective and you feel awesome from it. Sleep is absolutely vital - without having enough sleep you can't recover and it gets very hard to keep the calorie intake limited.

At some point - once you get to about 18-20% body fat it will start to stall - then you need to start adding some cardio to the mix.

Covid + having three kids - the youngest was 6 months old at the start of the pandemic - have absolutely ruined my fitness. I really want to get back in to shape but having proper sleep (and not having any time!) is killing my chances. After the summer he should be old enough to make it possible again though..


Exercise is great, but I found it was not enough. I looked for low-hanging fruit in my diet (example: soft drinks) and cut those (lost 10 pounds just losing the lunchtime soft drinks).

Even with the exercise (have "closed all three rings" since COVID) I hit a wall below which I am not losing weight. From experience though I know I need to cut the portion size of my meals.

Years ago when I was preparing to undergo surgery, I would look at the meal I was about to eat and lay out what I thought was a "reasonable" portion. I would eat that and no more. Habitually, I would have gone for "seconds" in the past, but with surgery looming I restrained myself.

I was surprised to find that I was not hungry even though I ate perhaps 2/3? my usual food intake. Tough though to pass on seconds when the meal is a tasty one.

In the end lost another 20+ pounds and was at my lowest weight since I had been recording it.

I'm afraid I celebrated the success of the surgery though by returning to my eating habits and returned to my previous weight.


> Exercise is great, but I found it was not enough.

I just want to reach through the screen and shake you while screaming. This is what I'm talking about, with every mention of exercise being dismissively pivoted back to diet hacks!

Exercise is not a substitute for eating better, it is a tool for helping you eat better. Of course you should cut out sugary soft drinks and eat smaller portions! It's just that a minimum amount of exercise helps that happen naturally, rather than requiring herculean amounts of focus and discipline and constantly feeling miserable while trying.


That simply hasn't been my experience. When I'm getting exercise regularly I get hungrier for worse types of food. Lifting makes me want fried chicken, fatty brisket, and chocolate. When something theows menoff my lifting habit, job change, kid etc. I continue to gain for a bit then I start eating much less and at least a little better. When I find time for lifting again, its almost subconsciously that I find myself stuffing my face with blocks of hard cheese and think "when did I come into the kitchen? How did I get here?" Despite my cravings being mostly for fat, I think under regulated blood sugar plays a part but no tests have shown that.


I've had the same experience. When I start a weight-lifting regimen, my appetite grows like crazy, and I start bulking up immediately (good and bad weight).


Exercise is not a substitute for the health aspects of eating (e.g. cholesterol, heart health, "feeling" good, etc.), absolutely. But losing weight is 100% calories in/calories out, and you can "outrun a bad diet" as they say provided you're physically able to exercise for long enough or at a high enough intensity. It's certainly much easier if you put the garbage food in the trash and eat reasonably, but it's not a prerequisite. A big caveat though is that if you're already 350 pounds, you almost certainly don't have the cardiovascular stamina to lift heavy weights in the morning and do a high intensity workout in the evening.

In my 20's I was completely sedentary, weighed nearly 200 pounds / 91kg at 5'9" / 175cm, and had basically no muscle mass. I could barely press an empty 45#/20kg barbell overhead. 8-9 months of high intensity workouts, without any dietary changes, and I was down 50# with a lot of strength gains. I absolutely could have lost the weight faster, and gotten stronger faster, if I stopped eating fast food multiple times a week, but at the end of the day if you're physically able to do the work it's not a necessity.


You are talking completely past him and ignore his points. At no point he said that "outrun a bad diet". You are arguing against strawman.


Thanks for the downvote, but that's not what a strawman is and not what I'm doing. I largely agree with them, and "outrun a bad diet" is an extremely common expression. You'll even see I said "as they say" - because it's not the person I'm replying to who I'm quoting.


I do understand what "outrun a bad diet" means and that it is common expression. What makes you think I dont?


I'm, sorry I came across as dismissive of exercise, I did not intend to be. Like you, I think both are important — exercise and diet.

Your comment seemed (to me) to be too dismissive of diet.

The benefits of exercise for me were better, more restful sleep, more energy, improved emotional well-being, time afforded for setting my priorities for the day, etc. But weight loss was not one of the benefits, nor did I see a significant change in my dietary habits.


"You can't out-run a bad diet"

It's much easier to eat better than it is to try to burn those cookies off through exercise.


They aren't saying you can out run a bad diet- parent post I thought made themselves exceedingly clear that they suggest exercise as a way to help someone eat healthier because of its effects on cravings/etc. The two things can work together.

I say this as someone that knows how much easier it is to cut calories than to burn them- but I know if I was a bit more active, it would be easier to cut the calories

I don't understand how most replies to multiple of parent's posts keep completely missing their point. It's like the replies didn't even read the post they're replying to


A lot of people either read or listen just long enough to catch a general point, and then immediately switch over to thinking of a response. Whether or not they've caught the actual gist of the other person's point or not. Kind of the "responding to the headline, without reading the article" phenomenon.

Other people are just the "ACTUALLLLLLY..." types, who have to be contrarian for the sake of being contrarian no matter what.

Either way, I knew with 100% certainty when posting the original comment that I would see a handful of "can't outrun a bad diet!" replies, from people who completely missed the point.


I also prefer 2-3 lifts per week for health, but it amplifies my already prodigious appetite to rediculous levels. I can and have eaten 6000kcal in a sitting. I usually end up gaining fat when I start lifting and haven't ever managed a cut. I always lose weight by not lifting and restricting calories. Right now the intermittent fasting is working well for me. I'm curious how that will work when I start lifting again.


As someone who can easily eat 4000 calories of real food in a single meal before feeling satiated, I have found that the fix for me is psychological and behavioral. I have an internalized belief that unless I carry on eating until I feel satisfied, then I will feel hungry and uncomfortable after the meal. However, this is not actually true - if I instead eat a reasonable sized portion for my height and activity level, then wait an hour, I do feel satisfied and comfortable. So the trick for me has just been mentally challenging that internalized belief that I need to eat until I feel full. If I just eat, stop, and wait, I feel great.


"who can easily eat 4000 calories of real food in a single meal"

"4000 calories" ? With "real food" ? In one meal -- how ? I eat 3 full meals and a weight gain smoothie and barely pass 2700 calories for the day. Is there something you would recommend adding to my diet so I can increase my calories a bit as I would like to gain some weight. But seriously unless your meal is 100% deep fried, I can't even picture a 4000 calorie meal.


>I can't even picture a 4000 calorie meal

There isn't one particular ingredient, it's just large amounts of high-fat meat with large amounts of high-fat, high-carb side dishes. Say, skin-on chicken thighs with mashed potato that't full of butter and caramelized onion that's full of oil. It might be hard to "picture" because you're trying to picture a plate of food, but in the volumes I used to eat, the amount of food wouldn't fit on a single plate, even piled high on a large one.

I wouldn't recommend anyone eat this way.


I once ate a deep dish meatlovers pizza that was 6000. I wasn't even full later. Fat is the missing ingredient. The GOMAD diet will put on pounds unless you are lactose intolerant or allergic to milk protein. Eat exactly what you would otherwise, but also drink a gallon of whole milk over the course of the day. If that seems extreme, double or triple the olive oil on your salad. Drench your pasta in ghee or coconut oil. If your smoothie doesn't have some sort of fat or oil it isn't a weight gain smoothie.


There is an Okinawan principle to eating that says to eat until 80% full. There is a lag between actually being full and your brain realizing you're full. I can't find actual papers about it but if you look up Hara Hachi Bu you can find a ton of pulpy news articles about it.

Edit: I have the same problem. I ate a whole frozen pizza a few days ago and felt like crap for a day afterward. Not just a little personal one either. A full Screamin' Sicilian pepperoni...


Not to such a drastic extent, but I’ve also found that lifting makes me insanely hungry. The workouts that reduce my appetite are cardio. (But I’m a woman, so the rules are likely different than for most in this thread)


Ya the key to not eating thousands of calories in a single sitting is to just stop after a single serving


Preload your stomach with 1 litre of water.


That works, but its pretty horrible for digestion, you need the acid to break stuff down.


Not true according to medical experts. https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-h...


Thank you! I've been avoiding it and I prefer not to.

Its the other side of "someone on the internet is wrong!". Now I know better and am happier for it.


Eating 2-3 days worth of food in a single sitting is not normal, and well beyond the realm of "prodigious appetite." You need to see a doctor if that's true.


That was an exceptionally large meal. But I never got a full feeling until food was pressing on my esophagus. Even if waited 20min between helpings. The intermittent fasting has shrunky stomach somewhat and being pleasantly full was a novel feeling. It also ended my carb cravings. I don't do keto or anything, but I also don't bake and eat whole loaves of bread at once anymore.


To add to that, if going out to the gym is by itself challenging, I'd consider getting just the basic hardware that you need to lift at home. I've been doing that for over 10 years, and while I recognize that being around other people has an added in terms of motivations, the accessibility of having all I need at home is one of the things that I think enabled me to persist.

I would not recommend anyone to follow this advice for some exercises without practicing a good form to avoid injuries.

In terms of hardware, what I have is really basic:

* 2x Dumbbell bars

* 1x Barbell bar

* 1x Easy (W) barbell bar (I don't often use it anymore)

* Plates in total weight of 130 KG (286 pounds). I'd start with only as many plate as needed to accommodate for your 1-rep max of either squat or dead-lift (you don't really need to have as much weight as you'll need for your 1RM but it provides a good buffer so that you don't need to acquire extra plates every week for quite some time)

* 2x home made makeshifts stands for squat (this part can be risky and I'd not advise it whoeheartedly. It is also why I avoid anything more than 250 lbs squats and opt for 8-10 reps instead of 4-6)

* CCF pad + foam roller (I use the roller instead of a bench-press bench)

If you have the budget and mostly the room for that, I'd get a real bench and a squat rack/cage, but the reason I made those choices is mostly to save on space. All of the above can easily be deployed and removed from sight.


As I posted in the intermittent fasting thread (which has never worked for me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30627290), fitbit was for me the game changer.

I've always lifted weights + cardio for exercise. Fitbit allows me to see that cardio >> weight lifting for calorie burn. Even the idea that "muscle burns more calories that fat" is a red herring because muscle burns about 4 calories per day per pound than fat. How much muscle fiber can someone build in a year? The most Arnold Schwarzenegger ever built was 25 pounds. That's full time professional with all the additives. Most 25 year old men can build maybe 8-10 pounds. Congratulations, you're burning half an Oreo cookie more per day.

Another thing that surprised me is how much more effective low-to-medium intensity exercise is that high intensity- for burning calories. Yes, even including the "afterburn." Now to be clear, the per minute burn of high intensity is more while doing it, but you can't maintain it (by definition of "high intensity"). So if you can do some light aerobics for 40 minutes you will burn more calories than a 20 minute High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workout. At least according to fitbit.

Also, at nearly 60 years old, by basal metabolic burn rate (according to online calculators, so YMMV) is only about 225 calories per day. At my weight that is like a 30-40 walk. That result surprised the crap out of me.

So: You make your most percentage gains simply by getting off the couch and walking. For me I go from about 1.25 kCal/min to 5 kCal/minute. Add some light intensity you can add 40% or more (calculated from the new burn rate; for me, 7 kCal/min). Increase the intensity and I can get to something approaching double that (12-13 kCal/min for me). The HIIT workout averages lower for me because I usually do 30 sec on and 30 sec off, and my recovery is decent.


I can't edit, so I'll add this reply. I see that I really mis-typed above.

Also, at nearly 60 years old, by basal metabolic burn rate (according to online calculators, so YMMV) is only about 225 calories per day. At my weight that is like a 30-40 walk.

That should read,

Also, at nearly 60 years old, my basal metabolic burn rate (according to online calculators, so YMMV) is only about 225 calories lower __than my basal metabolic rate of 25-year-old-me (that is, at my current weight)__ per day. At my weight that is like a 30-40 walk. That result surprised the crap out of me.


^^ 30-40 minute walk. Sheeesh. I need to go back to writing comments in a text editor first.


> hack your body

This seems a bit of a straw-man.

Almost nobody who's telling you to be more healthy will tell you to eat better without also telling you to exercise more.

Also, it's not "hack your body" it's actually "hack your brain" or, more specifically, hack hunger. That's also why there's so many different diets - everyone's different, and what works for one person won't work for another person. But there are some principles that seems to work for large subgroups of the population, e.g. intermittent fasting / skipping breakfast, eating low-carb, eating more protein, etc.


Exercise is important, but the befits taper off rapidly. A little exercise goes a long way, but more isn't incrementally better.

People need to stop referring to such a goal as weight loss, as what they are really talking about is fat loss.

Pro tip; if you want to lose weight most rapidly then don't eat! That works for 100% of people, as we are highly adapted to survive short periods of famine. What we are not adapted for is to have a limitless supply of calorie rich food which requires no effort to obtain; hence the obesity crisis!


Yeah, but then you lose muscle mass and reduce your MBR, so when you start eating again, you'll put it all back on. Losing fat takes a long time and is a result of changing one's eating habits day after day after day.


Nearly everyone always says to also combine a diet with exercise, but there's been a shift recently toward noticing that exercise energy budgets largely come out of the rest of your day for people who aren't primarily athletes[0]. Additionally, for many people, doing a little exercise on top of the normal day makes one ravenous, although I get that some people report a decrease in appetite as you did.

Google[1] finds a link that says that it takes 80 minutes to walk 8K steps at an average pace. Overweight people probably walk slower as a rule, but let's assume it takes an hour of just walking a day, if we take away whatever walking people are doing from the bedroom to the office to the kitchen to the couch. Even leaving aside the gym trip (and who among us doesn't have multiple uncancellable gym memberships? Oh, just me? :/ ), that's quite a time investment.

[0] https://www.science.org/content/article/scientist-busts-myth... [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=how+long+does+it+take+to+wal...


This is a super important point, but someone touched on it above. A major part of fitness is the lifestyle aspect, whether it's finding activities that combine social activity and fitness (sports!) or taking things you do already (like commuting) and making those physical (living where you can walk to commute instead of driving). None of this is easy, and yes, this lifestyle means you have to want to make the change. But for me I'm not trying to stay fit to look fancy or buy new clothes. I'm trying to stay fit and build patterns at 30 so that I'm still able to learn new tech and play with my great grand kids at 90. I look at this as investing in my future and my investment in fitness now is going to pay more mental health dividends than any amount of money. Speaking of course from a position where I have the privilege to make these choices.


I typically need 40 minutes of "intentional" walking per day (i.e. two laps around my subdivision) to supplement my "incidental" walking (i.e. going from the bedroom to kitchen to bathroom). I'm highly skeptical that anyone needs a trip to the gym to walk. It's walking!


Spoken like a person whose never experienced -20f weather. I’m teasing not looking for a “weather off”.


Depending on how much space you have a you can find treadmills cheap on Craigslist. People practically have to give them away just to get rid of them. I use a treadmill in the winter and go outside during the summer. There are also walking only treadmills that are pretty affordable ($300) that fit under a desk and you can walk during meetings etc. I generally agree going to a gym just to walk seems like a waste.


I was leaving aside the gym trip:

> A 30 minute workout, two or three times a week is sufficient (i.e. hit 6 or 7 machines, for 3 sets each)

...which was separate from the hour+ walk every day.


Investing time your health is a very worthwhile investment.


Oddly enough, I've found that weightlifting is completely contrary to my weight loss goals. Lifting makes me ravenous, often in unpredictable ways, which makes it much easier to overeat.

I'm trying to lose a little weight, so after ten years as a huge gym rat, Im currently going once a week just to keep my body functional. It now feels almost trivially easy to eat few, healthy, small meals. Combined with fasting every few days, the lbs are just melting away.


> I've read a thousand of these threads over the years. Nearly every comment is either:

I've read them too, I've not experienced the two categories you describe. The keto comments almost always suggest some form of exercise too, and there are "eat well" comments that often go into detail. Are you sure you aren't just recalling the most frustrating comments?


> has to be lifting weights, I don't see this benefit from cardio alone)

I have that effect from running and cardio - it makes me not want to eat. After HIIT cardio, I do get hungry, but a little protein usually do the trick. The strength training makes me much more hungry then normally.


You're so right.

> * Telling you to "just eat well and exercise". Which is about as useful as telling drug addicts to "just stop using drugs",

I like to liken it to telling poor people that overcoming debt and becoming wealthy is a matter of spending less money than you earn. True and useless!

> 1. Exercise helps you eat well

I've noticed this as well.

Also: I'd like to be proven wrong on this, but I believe the point of exercise that builds muscle is that it increases your energy costs at rest. Muscles are expensive, or we wouldn't lose them. They're pretty useful otherwise! I can't see this fact anywhere though. Is that stupid? So obvious to everyone that nobody even mentions it?

So yeah, do you even lift?


> I'd like to be proven wrong on this, but I believe the point of exercise that builds muscle is that it increases your energy costs at rest ... I can't see this fact anywhere though. Is that stupid? So obvious to everyone that nobody even mentions it?

What kind of sources are you looking for? It's pretty common bro science, and often repeated on HN and reddit.


It's not "bro science", unless you count nearly every government health agency as part of "bro science". More lean muscle mass => higher basal metabolic rate. The bro science part is usually overstating the effectiveness of this, but it's a real effect.


Well, as long as the only source I can give are r/fitness and HN threads I can only show bro science level evidence.


Exactly. How come it's not given more importance? Is the effect not big enough? Seems to me it's the one that would dominate everything else. You're not-exercising during a bigger part of the day than exercising, after all.


Exercise also changes a person's mindset with food. This is what a lot of the "just eat less" people don't get.

Exercise, particularly when you adapt a training mindset, shifts your relationship with food to one when you eat to fuel and recover from your training.

Powerlifting, strenuous cycling, etc. all require one to eat purposely to really seen gains.

Getting overweight people to start viewing their relationship with food as one to fuel their life's activities is a power mindset shift that can help lead to lasting weight loss.

Don't think of exercise as a way to burn calories. Think of food as a way to power your exercise.

Now get out there every day and get after it.


Lifting has proven advantages. However, I am not sure how efficient it will be without a good diet. An anecdote from my life: I used to lift heavy heavy mass a couple of years back and it led to an improvement in my strength. However, it also made me hungry and I ended up eating more calories than required. No wonder, the training had no impact on the fat percentage. For the past few months, I am tracking calories and it clearly has an impact on weight. As for exercise I mostly walk and go for a long run (5-10 km) at least once a week.


1. Exercise helps you eat well.

This is so goddamn true, there is a magical threshold of enough exercise where you suddenly just start craving healthier food and lose interest in junk.

I have been across this threshold multiple times in my adult life and it’s always really fascinating.


I think this threshold is as much to do with mood as it is body requirements.

Regular exercise is a mild antidepressant, and many people who do not realise they are a bit depressed and comfort-eating may no longer find the need.


This feels eminently plausible. There's a lot of subtly connected systems at play here.


>Nothing crazy, I'm talking about using the weight machines at a gym, and walking just ~8k steps per day with a pedometer watch to gamify it.

This is a little crazy if you work in an office though.

It's like over 1 hour of walking per day. Where do people find the time?


Park your car 30mn from your work, then listen a cool podcast walking there. That's it.


If only 30+30mn were available in the day...


If you cannot find an hour in the day you don't want to find an hour in the day.


Work less


Thanks geniuses.


After dinner when the weather is better. Spring-fall I try to get out for a walk like that everyday if not a run.

Or cumulatively. When the officemates take a smoke break, I take a 15 minute walk (when the weather is better).


For me: get a dog. Find a two mile loop. Take the dog for a walk.


Your #2 struck me and I completely agree; just some basic stuff can make tremendous improvements.


I wish I could do this. :( I have a bum knee that kills most possible exercises.


I don't know your particular situation, so no judgement from me... but I've been out-lifted by a one handed guy and seen a one legged man run a half-marathon. Personally, I would have done more running if I was one-handed, and more lifting if I was one-legged, but different strokes...


Brilliant comment, completely agree, would upvote more if possible.


> You don't have to go full ham also a good advice


Weird tips:

- Eat potatoes and gourds. Here in holland we have 30% reduced calorie potatoes, an (uncooked) kilo of food can be less than 600 kcal

- Learn to steam vegetables. Buy an electric steamer if need be. If you properly steam vegetables, you will grow to crave them. Just a little salt and pepper on some perfectly steamed broccoli can be surprisingly mouth watering.

- Consider a carnivore diet (often includes fruits as well). It might be the most satiating diet and easiest to stick to. Regardless of it's long term health benefits or detriments, if you can stick to the diet and lose a bunch of weight it's likely a net positive.

Less weird:

- Eat a very high protein diet. I'm assuming if you're overweight you're not terribly active - you probably don't need a whole lot of carbs. Proteins are the hardest macronutrient for your body to store as fat. You don't need 0 carb but consider 2+ grams of protein per kg of bodyweight

- If you have the money, splurge on good quality fruits. I have had better mangos than I have cakes, better chocolate dipped strawberries than chocolate chip cookies, better grapes than potato chips.


For what it's worth, I mixed up my units :) I meant to say consider 2+ grams of protein per pound of bodyweight. This is definitely the upper threshold of protein I'd recommend people consider but you asked for weird tips!

(2g per kg is roughly the minimum protein you should be consuming)


My weird tip is kind of obvious but I think that many of us tend to miss it.

Food addiction is like any other addiction, triggered by unhappiness.

Any diet will work if you have the discipline, that is if you have the mental strength to control your impulses, you can’t do that when miserable.

But you can try to induce a positively reinforcing loop with a good diet tailored to your character and habits, seeing progress can feel good enough to maintain mental strength.

Or you can wait to be in a very good place emotionally and use it to improve your body and habits.

The most difficult part is not regaining later, as your body will fight during a few months, again the trick is discipline.


A really simple tip that has worked wonders for me:

Don't eat until you're full, eat until you're no longer hungry.

I've lost 25 pounds so far with this in mind. It requires reflecting while you're eating and realizing that while you may want to eat more, you may not actually be hungry anymore. While I may want to stuff myself and eat 4 slices of pizza, I'm generally no longer hungry after a single slice. In the morning, half an egg and a couple of sausage links is enough, or a few bites of oatmeal.

That's all well and good, but then you might be hungry in an hour. This actually hasn't been a huge issue for me, but if I am hungry, I'll generally eat a handful of nuts or a spoonful of peanut butter.

I'll typically eat a bigger dinner, and let myself cut loose a bit on the weekend when we order delivery.


If you're also not happy with your teeth then you could get invisalign, which are clear aligners (retainers) that slide over your teeth and that you have to remove in order to eat or drink anything other than water. You have to wear the aligners for 22 hours each day so you can't snack throughout the day as many people do. I lost 25 pounds in my first three months on invisalign. It's possible to gain the weight back as you learn to adapt :) but it's a useful lesson in how to eat less.


I love food. I never want to sit down to eat and have to worry, restrict, or wonder about what I am eating. I am also not exactly great at staying disciplined in the face of a complex plan. I'd much rather a strategy that is easy to understand and remember, and has a clear path to achieving my goal.

I ended up using the clock to manage my intake. I started by having a hard stop at 7pm. I could eat whatever I wanted until then, but then it had to stop. A side effect of this has been an incredible improvement in my sleep. Having slept well often means I am able to manage my cravings better, it seems.

I then started reducing the hours in the morning when I could eat. First I just eliminated breakfast, then I also eliminated the mid morning snack. This took some discipline at first but I did get it.

I eat an early (11:30 usually) and massive lunch. That gives me time to do some digesting and have a productive afternoon. A big lunch also means I don't really crave sugary or other indulgent stuff mid afternoon. Dinner, I eat whatever I want. ANYTHING. I just try to make sure I drink a lot of water.

Pick your vector of optimization. For me it was time. So easy and you can't argue with or wonder about the clock. It's right there in front of you. I lost 25lbs without thinking about it. I could lose more if I wasn't a bit of a pig at lunch and dinner :)


I know this is hard to hear, but stop with the "tricks" thing. If you want to lose weight, eat less, eat healthier, and get more exercise. I know, I know, it's not just a simple "calories in minus calories out"; there's more to it, but this is where you need to start.

You need to eat fewer calories. As lame as it may sound, install an app like MyFitnessPal and count calories for a while. You don't have to do it forever, just until you start developing an intuition as to how much things "cost" calorie-wise. The most important thing is that, when modifying your diet, you do it in a sustainable way, something that you will stick to. If you hit your target weight and then go back to your old eating habits, you will gain that weight back in no time.

You're also gonna have to exercise (in addition to the diet changes; exercise alone probably won't help that much). This doesn't have to mean going to the gym for two hours every day. A half hour walk once a day, or a half hour run three times a week is fine. There are many other aerobic options if walking or running isn't your thing. If you aren't feeling fit enough for something, start slow and work your way up to it. You can also do some light resistance exercises like push ups, tricep dips, squats, lunges, planks, etc. to build some muscle (running will build muscle, just it's mostly only in your legs). These exercises will burn calories in their own right, but adding muscle will increase the amount of calories you burn even while you're sitting around doing nothing.

I'm not saying this is easy. It's fairly simple. But it's not easy. Don't go for silly "tricks". They won't work, and you'll be trading one unhealthy situation for another. Change your diet and exercise more. That's it. Find something you can stick with and... stick with it. Simple. But not easy.

Edit: the only real "tricks" I can think of are mental. Throw out all your snacks at home and don't buy any to replace them. Only keep food that you'll eat as part of your regular meals. Avoid restaurants if you can; if you can't, only eat 2/3 of what you're given, as portion sizes and calorie counts are high. Keep a water bottle with you at all times, and if you're tempted to eat when you aren't supposed to, drink a bunch of water until you start to feel a bit more full. Oh, speaking of that: don't drink anything but water.


Honestly the #1 thing that worked for me was not trying to do blind weight loss

You need logging to be able to "debug" the weight loss

If you don't have logging you won't have a good idea of why it didn't work if you fail

Logging meaning tracking calories

There are a lot of heuristics like avoiding food X, or intermittent fasting but these are all just proxies for eating less calories


This. Keep track of all calories and keep to a target. Managed to lose a good chunk of weight in six months like that without exercising like crazy, or doing any weird diets.

I used MyFitnessPal to track my calories. A nice feature in that particular app was that it has various integrations to other fitness apps, so if you move a lot during the day, it'll bump up your calorie target for the day.

Another advantage of tracking calories religiously is that you'll start to understand which foods have crazy amount of calories. Like, burn-your-entire-intake-for-the-day amount of calories.


This. it will help with alot more than you think. unironically started losing weight after bumping up my calories since I was going WAY too low thinking 1200 was fine. I was losing just as much and with no plateau with 2000(I'm very tall) until I lost more weight to justify fewer calories.


The single most important thing I had to realize was that sugar sucks. In consequence:

- ban sugary drinks. It's ok to slip, but just don't buy multiple at once. I sometimes go to the bakery to buy a sandwich and they have a formula with a free sugary drink: I don't even take it.

- avoid sugary breakfasts. Breakfast is an unnecessary meal. The later you break your fast, the later the first insulin spike, the less you'll store fat. I don't eat anything before noon. I just have black coffee or a tea, because they don't really break the fast.

- don't eat all day long. Especially not anything sugary. Stick to well defined meals.

- understand the role of sugar, insulin spikes, and fat storage.

- understand calories. Count them for a while to get an understanding of what you're eating. When I say "count", I mean "count", not "count and stop". It's important to get the feeling for calories and then stop counting as soon as possible.

- learn to read labels. You don't have to not buy anything with a bad label, but it's important to know what you eat. It helps you make informed choices.

- know the basics: you should not have more than 25g of sugar per day. That's 5 teaspons. One teaspoon is 5g. Fill a teaspoon and see what 5g of sugar is like.

- and look at the arguments of "trendy" things such as keto or intermittent fasting, you don't necessarily need to do them perfectly (unless that helps you), but you should take inspiration.

Nothing is absolute. You can slip. Just do your best and try to improve.


If you confirm that no conditions make it risky, a strict keto diet on very lean protein sources makes weight loss easy for those with normal metabolism.

Of course you need to ensure vitamin and mineral supply; proper supplements can take care of that. The hard part is just finding an affordable source of protein that isn't tainted with sugar. Stay under a daily intake of 50g carbs. Aim for 10g, with no more than 15g per meal in any case.

The protein intake serves to keep your body from thinking of your muscles as food. You will want to have some physical activity, but regular walks suffice.

This requires drinking enough, or you can seriously hurt your kidneys. Your cardio capacity will be impacted, because your muscles switch to running on fat, which needs far more oxygen than sugar (iirc around double).

If needed, you can use Isomaltulose (an enzymatic rearrangement of Sucrose (table sugar)) to supplement carbs for physical activity without hurting the keto-state. Slightly under-dose based on the expected energy burn from the activity. It just fixes the insulin spike issue of carb consumption, not the blood glucose oversupply you have to counter to prevent acute Hyperglycemia. This is just a slower-uptake version of normal sugar, also just half as sweet (needs double the concentration in dilute sugar water for the same taste).

This while approach is basically "starving without losing muscle mass", and only marginally more healthy. It's effective, though, and allows for high caloric deficits (you can lose weight about half as fast as if you didn't eat anything at all). Your cognitive abilities are also barely affected, after the initial 48h of "keto flu".


Don't overcomplicate it. If your calorific intake is less than your calorific expenditure, you will tend to lose weight. If it's more, you will tend to gain weight. That's it. Here are some steps to get there.

1. Figure out your relationship with food. This is the most important thing. People eat for a variety of reasons. You could be bored or anxious or treat food like a reward or simply a sense of comfort. Whatever it is you need to adjust your thinking to view food as nothing more than fuel. Whatever you do, you are doomed to failure if you don't figure out your own motivations for eating;

2. A lot of people (myself included) find a lot of value in intermittent fasting. There are many forms of this. I started just eating lunch and dinner. Now it's just dinner. You realize how much of eating is just habit not need. You certainly don't need to be eating 3+ times a day. This will actually save you both time and money too;

3. Get sufficient nutrition. The main thing here is actually protein. Protein shakes are convenient as a supplement to your main meal(s). Other than that, don't worry about it too much. You can theoretically lose weight just eating cupcakes if they're under your calories;

4. Exercise has little to no impact on weight loss. You see this once you start looking at the calorific value of foods and the calorific expenditure of certain activities. Compare a Big Mac to how long you need to run for and you realize very quickly not eating the Big Mac is WAY easier. Exercise is for your health and wellbeing only. Walk half an hour every day;

5. Particular diets don't matter. Assuming sufficient nutrtion, the only thing that matters is managing appetite;

6. If this is a factor for you make it require effort to eat. This means where possible don't have junk food or snack food in easy reach. The effort required to leave your house and get chips and salsa (for example) vs just getting it from your kitchen makes a difference; and

7. Don't view the weight loss as a goal. That's a daunting long-term goal. View this as a permanent lifestyle and attitude change.

Good luck.


The good thing about exercise is that

* you don't eat while exercising * it will motivate you to eat less junk * running half an hour will still burn about 400 calories (depends on some factors)


Having good insulin sensitivity and becoming fat adapted is essential if you want to avoid holding excess weight.

There is no secret hack for losing weight. The best thing you can do is limit food intake to 1 meal a day and cut your carb & sugar intake as much as possible. Basically you'll want to avoid things like sugary drinks, bread, rice, pasta, etc while eating more vegetables and meat. Doing this will lower your calorie intake while improving your insulin sensitivity significantly. Personally I also do a day without food once every couple of weeks, then once every few months I'll do a 5 day extended fast. You don't need to go this far, but there's plenty of evidence to suggest fasting is great for general health and insulin sensitivity so it's worth doing if you can. I can almost guarantee even if you don't get much exercise so long as you stick to a diet like this you'll drop to a healthy weight fairly quickly.

It's fine to have a cheat day (or two) every now and then because you need the diet to be sustainable. I find I have the will power to be very strict about what I consume from Mon-Fri then I'll allow myself to have a few treats on the weekend.

Also something you'll find when you become fat adapted is that you're way less hungry and much more mentally stable. When you're body wants a constant source of carbs you can only go so long before you're feeling hungry. These days I enjoy food, but I can easily skip a couple of days and feel fine. I've come to believe that what we think of hunger in developed countries probably isn't hunger, but just our bodies craving a hit of carbs. What I'm saying is that you'll probably find a low-carb diet very difficult for the first couple of months, but with time you'll find it gets much easier.


How do you determine insulin sensitivity?


Increase your lean body mass (muscles).

This may appear counterintuitive to somebody, but your basal metabolic rate increases with your lean body mass. In turn a higher metabolic rate will support your weight loss during the recovery days. Which is to say that exercising is of essence – As well as creating a caloric deficit, while insuring a sufficient protein intake.

Be sure to define a personal plan with your nutritionist.


I tried this years back, but found that the metabolic rate increase alone won't do the trick. The difference in calories burned is so small that it can be offset by eating a few bites more. And one will be more hungry.

The most effective way to lose weight is to reduce caloric intake. You don't need to burn calories that you don't consume. It is really easy to reduce daily caloric intake by, say, 500 kcal. But it is much harder to burn 500kcal extra each day.


Making CO2 is an expensive process and our body does it on an at-need basis. Flooding the air with oxygen will do nothing.

My suggestion is something that helped personally, and is something like a psychological trick so your mileage may vary. I don't mention my weight loss/exercise routine/diet to anyone. The effect I think this has is that I don't prematurely rob myself of the dopamine hit for working out by simply talking about it. Anyway I can draw a line in my fitness history where I started doing this and I've been much more successful since.


It's not that weird, but I stopped eating meat during lent a few years ago. I'm not religious, but here in Austria, many non-religious people abstain from something during lent (sweets, alcohol, cigarettes...), so I tried it for myself.

I actually didn't expect much to happen, but it completely changed my diet. It was the first time I actually had to think about what to eat, and it turned out, that I ate a ton of meat, and not a lot of vegetables.

For the first few weeks it was pretty hard to find something to eat, but it got easier. Over time I discovered more vegetarian recipes I actually enjoy.

I'm not a vegetarian, but nowadays I hardly eat any meat, and still do the meatless lent every year. I lost about 15kg in the year after the first lent, and held this weight every since.


A colleague of mine decided to do an orthodox fast like his Romanian mother. In whatever how many weeks it was, he ended up losing 6kg and dropping his total cholesterol by something like 100 points.

He now eats mostly pescetarian.


Reminds me of Loma Linda in California. The healthiest community in the country is made up of highly religious Christian, vegetarian teetotalers.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/25/health/longevity-blue-zone-we...


the blue zone diets are all really interesting because it really makes the point that, while what you eat is important, there are huge variances. Like that Japanese blue zone that eats spam


Disclaimer : just posting this for the sake of discussion, not recommending the use, especially not in your condition.

There's actually a lot of stuff that's known to work for weight loss but it's illegal and dangerous.

There's the stimulants route which suppresses hunger and raises your metabolic rate. They used to put this shit in supplements and it worked but some people have died from this and long term health side effects are probably not good.

There's stuff like DNP which screws up your body's ability to convert food into energy and turns it in to heat - you feel like shit and you can die from cooking yourself - it's probably the most effective thing and doesn't even require restricting calories. This is the only thing that would be what some people hope for as the magic bullet transformation (maybe outside of surgical/lypo) - but the chances of you dying are high and you're completely useless while on it.

There's the steroids route - the immediate side effects aren't life threatening but there are a lot of complications (hair loss, gyno, acne) and potential long term health damage (cardiovascular, can permanently screw up your endocrine system and force you on lifelong TRT). With steroids you can lose fat while gaining muscle, depending on the compound/dosage even when eating a surplus, they rewire your metabolism. There was a study where giving 500mg test a week for 3 months to a control group that did no exercise outperformed the muscle development of a group of untrained men who followed a weightlifting program for 3 months (and untrained people have the strongest response to training). Steroids take a long time and give you medium effects (nothing like DNP for example), eg. the progress you would make with steroids and training in 3 months would be like the progress you made in 6 months if you were just training. But if you're older TRT is definitely worth looking into.


Walk. Not even run. Just walk for hours. It is easy to pickup and reduces anxiety. With time your body will ask you to eat healthier after exercise.


Water is 27x more thermally conductive than air, so standing in water burns 27x more calories than air of the same temperature. So, go cold water swimming!

(Plenty of normal healthy ways to lose weight but that's the weirdest hack I can think of)


Yeah, I remember reading something about measuring Michael Phelps' energy input/output and he would have been in a massive surplus, except for the fact he was in cold water so much - and the energy required to keep himself warm made up the balance.


Drinking more of the stuff is generally good advice too.


Diet change is probably the most important for weight loss. But for getting into a routine of exercising my weird tip would be: Get yourself an Meta Quest 2 and install Thrill of the Fight, Pistol Whip, probably Beat Saber. If you're like me and you dislike the monotony of "normal" cardio exercise, this will make it easy to get your daily dose. Somehow the immersion and gamification allow me to push myself harder than I could ever do just by force of will.


The first time i saw Beat Saber i was pretty convinced this would be the ultimate weight loss game for me. Unfortunately a VR device it's way too expensive for me at the moment.


Yeah they're pretty expensive. But I guess gym memberships can be too. Of course there are great free ways to exercise at home. This machine is just a massive boost to my motivation to actually do it.


Seems like an interesting project would be to hack in an audio sensor to a Beats style game so that you can whack targets with a large cardboard tube and have those register as hits.


Everyone is different. Here is what worked (and continues to work for me personaly):

1. Realize that losing weight is not about biology, it is psychology. So...

2. Log everything you eat. Accountability is important.

3. Step on the scale once a week, so you can spot trends.

4. Do a little exercise every day, because it sets the right mood.

5. Eat only when you are actually hungry, then eat only enough so you are not hungry. Learn to recognize the difference between an empty stomach and actual hunger.

6. Plan for failure, and how you will cope. Because you will.

7. Be careful taking other people's advice ;-). Since this is a psychological game, the strategy will need to be tailored to you.

8. Don't do anything you can't do every day, forever. Don't lose weight with a goal, or a target date, or anything like that. You don't gain weight at 100 pounds a year, don't try to lose it that fast. 100 calories a day adds up fast.


- Don't avoid fat, avoid sugar

- go for an at least 30 min walk, every day

- hit the gym, increase your muscle mass

- try intermittent fasting

- if you're healthy, try to fast for a couple of days. Use that as start to improve your diet. For me, it really changed my perception of "being hungry"

- avoid highly processed foods

- get a CGM, see what spikes your blood sugar, avoid that


Right? There is hungry, and there is hungry. I forgot the difference since I was a growing kid. I wouldn't be surprised if true hunger is an important part of metabolic regulation. A baseline, perhaps.


Get ADHD meds. Appetite suppression is an effect. :P

Joking aside, the path to losing weight is not dieting, but changing what and how you eat permanently. Weight is an equilibrium, and to reach a new equilibrium, you need to change something about your habits permanently or you'll just bounce back once you stop "dieting". For me personally, reducing sugars and filler carbohydrates was the most effective change to make.

On top of changing how you eat, exercise and strength training can help by making you generally healthier or by making you look slimmer when your muscles strengthen, and of course muscles require more energy to maintain so muscle mass will affect things as well.


I've never lost weight faster than when I was on ADHD medication. It makes you stop realizing you're hungry, and you can easily go an entire day without eating anything at all. You'll feel tired, but not instinctively realize why.

It was really unhealthy, too. I felt like my heart was racing throughout the day, and I couldn't stand it.

Ultimately, ADHD is a unique kind of superpower when applied correctly. It gives you a certain kind of hyperfocus and flow, and the medication wiped that out completely.

I haven't been on meds since.


The problem with the hyperfocus is that it's kind of hard to control when it hits. My medication helps me focus on things I actually need to do instead of just bouncing between distractions and not making progress at anything.

I deal with the appetite suppression pretty well since I'm used to fasting anyway, and while it does raise my tension slightly, I've noticed that as long as I don't drink too much caffeine while on meds, it's fine.


I don't know if this trick will work for you or not, but I've been able to control my hyperfocus by leaning into "side projects" and interests. These are actually just the things I want to do with my life anyway. I can maintain fervency even during the "mundane parts" when it's in support of what I love.

It's worked really well for me and I'm incredibly, incredibly productive.


It's not bad advice. Or, rather, get an ADHD diagnosis if you need one, and then get treatment.

People with ADHD has a harder time sticking to a diet, often resort to overeating as a form of self-medication, and are more likely to become obese.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3859965/

https://www.additudemag.com/slideshows/adhd-obesity-link/


> Get ADHD meds. Appetite suppression is an effect. :P

This is a dangerous joke, since people will tend to take it seriously. Some of the other comments here did. ADHD meds will not solve the problem underlying weight gain. In fact, someone I know gained tons of weight since he is on ADHD medication.


Heck, if you have ADHD, in my experience you don't even need the meds to just forget to eat.


Eating plain boiled potatoes for a week straight to get rid of your sugar addiction and normalizing your appetite. Relearning the difference between unable to eat more, full and no longer hungry. Add some pepper and salt and some plain veggies if you must. No sugar, no oil, no sauces no nothing. You wont be hungry, it will just be rather plain. If you have problems doing this, then congratulations, you just realized you are an addict. Which is why you do a withdrawal. Cheer up, there are a lot worse things to go on withdrawal from.

Other then that, nothing weird, its all very very simple and complicating it just makes errors more likely. You arent a perpetual motion machine. You need to eat your sustaining calorie level every day. If you dont, you loose weight till you starve.

At the end of every day you have either a red or green number for your kcal. So all you do is figure out how much you eat in a normal given week and see if that leads to an increase or decrease.

Next step is finding your daily sustaining calories level and getting some plan ability into your eating habits. The number at which you neither loose nor gain weight. After that you just reduce in which ever tempo you like. Figure out what the big ticket items are (looking at you cream) and figure something out which with you arent hungry. Dont aim too high too early there is really no need to torture yourself.

Its also important to not just diet but change your eating habits. Otherwise you just jojo back and will sooner or later reduce your sustaining calorie level this way. Which might make a reverse diet necessary.

Good luck and relax. This wont be any harder then you make it

edit: I didnt take my own advice of taking it slow and went from 115 to 75kg in about half a year (after my doctor suggested some "weight normalization"). That was very unhealthy so dont. But i am confident in it working. Its how you deal with any addiction. If you cant just quit, you get some structure and then reduce. And do it smart. There is zero reason to torture yourself, this does not have to be hard.

Also, thanks to my bodybuilding friend who explained the mechanism to me plain and simply.


I’ve found a fairly simple method works well for me:

* Cook your own meals. Focus on good oils (butter, coconut oil, olive oil) and high satiety ingredients. My go to is rice, steamed vegetables, and meat

* Lift some weights. I do a HIIT type workout each morning. Pushups, chinups, dips, squats. Just with some basic home equipment, most of it bodyweight. 3x a week barbells is also a good alternative

* Walk a lot. I walk about 10,000 steps a day, and jog up a hill on my run at some point

* Prioritize sleep. This both improves health and also gives you the mental relaxation to take good choices

None of that is exciting but as a package it should work for most people


Only drink water. I know it might sound weird for some, but the amount of calories that people get into them by drinking all kind of juices, alcohol and all kind of drinks is insane. You if want to spice it up, just drink coffee (high quality, "hipster" brewing methods - you will never feel the need of sugar or milk to make it drinkable) and tea. This includes orange juice or any other kind of fresh juices. Just eat the fruits, but when drinking, stick to water. This might not be a silver bullet, but it will be an important step in weight loss.


Swapping fizzy drinks and juices with water can easily save 500 kcal a day, which can tip the balance from net caloric surplus to net caloric deficit, that is, from weight gain to weight loss. 10/10 can recommend.


Don't get an oxygen tank. One you've got a fire danger it's a very very good oxidizer so things are likely to set on fire if you have all that oxygen sitting around. Two you don't want to get used to it cuz then you'll be gasping for breath in our normal atmosphere. Three too much oxygen can alter your mental state you get weird dizziness and lightheadedness and other symptoms. Four all that oxygen will increase the free radicals in your bloodstream which will lead to cellular and DNA damage may increase the risk of cancer.


To lose weight, we need to eat less. Eating too much is an emotional coping mechanism. We eat to escape difficult feelings we have, either related to specific events or "hanging in the background". Why not everyone is overweight? Everyone has emotional issues, but different people cope differently. Some smoke, some drink, etc you get the idea. So to really free this coping mechanism we have two options: 1. Replace it with another coping mechanism - could also be a healthy coping mechanism like talking to close friends when I'm feeling down, or writing in my journal. 2. Deal with my emotional issues by going to therapy, a support group etc. This would have to deal with what troubles me in life, my fears.

After I've gotten better control over my emotional situation, then comes the HOW of eating less. My answer, which got me to lose 24 pounds in 6 months and keep my weight for years later is -- eat only when hungry. stop eating immediately if you're no longer hungry. At first this seems trivial, but it's not. You will need to notice your feelings of hunger and become more sensitive to when you are hungry, when you are full. And to only eat when hungry. This method is super effective, you need nothing more. You can eat any food you want as long as you do so only when feeling hungry.


Metformin is known to work (a little) and seems to have a longevity effect that no-one understands.

Orlistat works, as long as you can live your life near a toilet.

Semaglutide - looks very promising.

Gastric sleeving and other surgical intervensions are also known to work.

----

Changes to oxygen levels due to altitude are still being researched. Higher altitudes in the USA and Europe correlate with lower levels of obesity at statistically significant levels; higher altitudes in Australia correlate with higher levels of obesity. No-one knows why.

----

Most of the other advice in this thread has a very low probability of succeeding. There will be a lot of selection bias in this thread because the only people responding are the ones for whom it succeeded.

Most of the time for most people, interventions that focus on diet fail.

Interventions that focus on exercise average around 1-2 kg of weight loss in the general population. That said, if you aren't doing any exercise at the moment, then you can reduce your all-cause mortality pretty rapidly with a small amount of exercise (that would definitely fit into your lifestyle). Even if exercise doesn't help you lose weight, it improves your overall cardiac fitness, and that is probably the most important thing to work on.

You asked for weird tips... it seems that if you have the genetic factors that give you a higher predisposition towards obesity, then exercise will work better for you than average.


Some of the advice here is bordering on dangerous.

From intermittent fasting to only eating one meal a day. These are dangerous things to jump into and recommend without some fact finding first. Although I appreciate people are speaking from their own experience.

I don't know your particular circumstances so I'm not going to recommend specific advice.

I need to know some things about you such as:

How overweight are you? What weight are you? How many calories do you consume each day? Are you allergic to anything? Do you do much physical activity? Do you have injuries? Do you have any medical issues? What have you tried before?

and so on and so on.

The best advice I can give you is to seek out more knowledge on the topic and invest in your health education. Checkout exaimine.com against any of the claims made here. Buy books or even hire a personal trainer or dietician. You can also email me and I'll will happily help you out as best as I can but be warned. I will probably just do more fact finding than recommend what you could do.

Also, books such as Atomic Habits can help you slowly adapt your behaviour to be healthier.

Weight loss is not complicated. At the end of the day, it's energy balance.

That does not mean it's simple either. There is a combination of environment, psychological factors, culture and so much more that can affect your own relationship with health and fitness.

Best of luck of OP.


I don’t think one meal a day is dangerous advice at all. It’s not possible to permanently harm yourself doing it.

There are risks in all endeavors. And intermittent casting’s risk is something like failing and gaining weight.

But anyone should be able to try it for a week and see how it works without serious risk. It’s not a dangerous chemical or medication.

Of course, fact finding is good before all things and I kind of assume that HN readers are naturally curious so are but into fact finding before, during, and after new things.


Not really weird tips, but these two "meta" dieting tips worked for me.

(1) fast. Doesn't have to be harsh (I do the 500 calories method) or often. However, I found that it helps reset my gut. If I'm in a phase where my stomachs churns, farts and I'm constantly trying to calm it with food (especially carbs), a short fast resets me somewhat. It also breaks up habits.

The side effect of fasting has been better body understanding and food related psyche. I can tell the difference between actual hunger and belly messages. I instinctively know that certain hunger feelings will pass in an hour or too. That I don't actually have to eat every few hours.

(2) is basic calorie, glycemic and macro awareness. Counting is (imo) too much and unsustainable. But, some counting sometimes helps you pick up an intuitive understanding of your diet and hunger. Where are you getting your calories. Why are you hungry? Did you eat a 250 calorie, carb based lunch?

For example, I've seen a lot of weight conscious friends plate <200 calorie meals. It's true that these are healthy, but unless your on a pretty strict short term diet... your going to make those calories up elsewhere. People unknowingly fall into patterns where most of their calories come from snacks, because meals are calorie poor.


Weird tips, ey ...

- Breathe quicker, meaning more often per minute. Your body will adjust to the change in O2/CO2 balance after a short amount of time and the benefit is an increased metabolism, burning fat faster.

- Visit a prostitute once a week, better twice, for exhaustive full service.

- Eat and drink lots of cacao, mixed with poppy seeds. Better to inform yourself about how it works (and please know if you're allergic!), but this too speeds up your metabolism.

- Use Poppers. Well known in the gay community, it's known to increase heart rate significantly within seconds. Lasts only shortly and probably is a really bad idea to do it all day, every day, but you wanted weird tips and didn't mention they should be safe as well.

- Poke a bee's nest, once a day. Instant motivator for running. Once that's boring, poke a nest of wasps, then level up to hornets!

- Get sun. A lot. Go sunbathing every day. It'll help with melting your fat.

- Kind of weird: prefer sugar over any sort of artificial sweetener, but significantly prefer honey over sugar.

- Make twenty headstands lasting at least three minutes, over the course of the day. Unless you fear your blood vessels might pop. Then please don't.

- Spend a significant amount of time actively thinking about things. That burns lots of energy.

There. You didn't mention how effective the tip should be. All of these should provide benefits to some degree, even better if you combine them.

Weird enough?


You'll only exhale the CO2 you actually produce, if you increase your oxygen intake you won't actually increase CO2 production, you only do that with increased activity (that's why you need to breathe more). You can also try to hyperventilate, but it won't work for the same reason.

90% of weight loss is cutting down on intake, there are plenty of effective techniques that might work for you, but in the end the only way to lose weight is to eat less.


It's probably not "weird" anymore but "time restricted eating" works. Only consume calories in a defined window of time each day. Make sure that window is at most 8 hours. When outside the window do not consume any calories; no sugar or honey in your tea; no cream in your coffee. It does take some getting use to. Maybe start with 12 hour window, then 10 then 8 then even smaller if you like. Try it you'll be surprised.


haha, this post was like 2 posts down from this one... ... A beginner's guide to intermittent fasting (2012) (jamesclear.com) ...


If you're into data and metrics and what not, I can't recommend "Burn the fat, feed the muscle" enough:

https://www.amazon.com/Burn-Fat-Feed-Muscle-Turbo-Charged/dp...

Basically this:

0.) Weight loss isn't binary. Doing something good is always better than doing nothing. Little things add up.

1.) You can't lose weight by netting fewer calories than you use; you can't gain muscle by using more calories than you net

2.) A good macrobiotic (carbs|protein|fat) calorie ratio to go by is 50%|30%|20%. (if you're calculating percentages by grams instead of calories its 56%|33%|10%)

3.) It takes more energy to eat some foods than others (thermic effect of food). You see this in TV shows like "ALONE" where the contestants starve despite a surplus of lean protein since protein is hard to digest. Ditto salads.

4.) Do cardio

5.) Do resistance training

6.) Bonus: So your body doesn't adapt, go 3 days of lower calories, 1 day of higher calories

7.) Bonus: To lose weight faster, go 3 days of lower carbs, 1 day of higher carbs

8.) Bonus: Eat smaller meals as the day goes on

The first 5 are critical; the last 3 are if you want to dork out over it.


InCalories < OutCalories = Weight--

Weight management and fitness is not a difficult problem, but that doesn't mean it's easy. When we think of people who are fit, the stereotypical person we picture isn't usually a math genius. If it were HARD to figure these things out, we wouldn't have that stereotype.

IMHO, the order of effectiveness is: Sleep > Hydration > Diet > Workouts > ... many other things ... > Oxygen Tank

1. Spend an hour or two today learning about how to calculate macros and figure out your TDEE (google it.) 2. Spend an hour or two each week learning how to cook something new. 3. And spend a couple hours each week being active (just walking is enough to start.)

None of this is "exciting" or an "adventure" but it works. The "hard part" is mental. It's about continuing when it's no longer fun or interesting any more. Or making it fun by doing things you love. Look at surfers for example.

One way people get through that step is external motivation. Asking HN is a great first step. Join a team. Hire a coach. Sign up for a competition. Others will welcome you because many of them have been where you are now.


^This

That is the formula. Step one count what you are doing. Step two dump out pretty much all refined sugars. Watch out for 'fruit drinks', which are usually just soda without the fizz. Step three move around more. Also that formula is not static. You will find it moves around a bit and you have to revisit it. If you are deducting at 1100 calories and 20g carbs. You may suddenly find that you have stopped. That number may now be 1000/15g.

Also you are going to have to break habits. Old habits. That takes time. You will need to find something else to put in its place usually. Start with no sugar it is one that is 'easy' to watch for, unfortunately it is in many processed easy to get foods.

Find a set of recipes that are low carb and that you like. Do not use the 'i lost 20 pounds in x weeks' garbage out there. I have seen a few that were 'start with 2 cups of fruit'. That is sugar. Not as bad but still not what you are looking for at the start. Usually some sort of green veggie dish with a meat, no pasta/rice. There are a lot of pasta and rice dishes that pass themselves off as diet. They are pretty much your entire carb quota in one day many times.

My wife joined a club that helps her do it. Stay away from the ones where they do not use a nutritionist. Just watch out as many will try to sell you their plan stuff. The plan is what you want, not their overpriced diet food. If they say you can get there with fruit and nuts. Find a different one. Not saying you can not eat that. But it can not be a major portion. She may have like 1-2 servings of it a week. Even then she moderates how much.


What worked for me was a LOT of tiny things. There was a post on HN where someone kept a journal of what they ate, how they slept and their weight. Turns out sleep was the most important factor in weight loss by far. This seems to be the case for me too. So, the most important things in my experience, not in order of importance because theyre all necessary:

* enough sleep, if you don't sleep enough you get extreme hunger pangs and all the other tricks will be useless.

* strength training every other day. it reduces your hunger by a lot and doesn't have to take long or very be intense at all, 2-3 sets of 5 pullups is enough for me and can be done in 10m or less.

* skip breakfast. this doesnt work for some people, so if it doesn't, just go to 4.

* eat small meals, you can feel satiated from 250-300kcal so have that every time you eat, max 550 kcal for dinner.

* count calories and make sure you eat around 500 kcal under your TDEE, calculate yours at tdeecalculator.net

* your weight fluctuates 2 kg in either direction constantly, only when it moves beyond that there's been a significant gain or loss.

* eat more protein, you feel full quicker

* drink as much of your 0 kcal soft drink as you want, it's 0 kcal and can get you through tough moments.

* have one or two cheat days every week and just eat whatever you want, i did this and kept losing weight throughout.

* have go-to instant or low effort meals with the right amount of kcal and preferably high protein ready at all times, you want to conserve as much will power as possible.

* be kind to yourself.

that is all.


Cold thermogenesis is about as close to an actual weight loss trick you can get because it requires no exercise whatsoever.

Put simply, it's when you're exposed to the cold and your body ramps up its metabolism to produce more heat to maintain your core temperature. This effect is pretty substantial, and it can even compete with moderate exercise even though it requires no exercise at all.

You can prove this by getting into a bath of cold water, taking the temperature of the water before and after your bath, and doing some basic math.

Remember that a calorie (kCal) is the amount of energy it takes to heat 1 Liter of water 1 degree Celsius. So if you've got a bath tub filled with 130 Liters and your body heated it up 2 degrees, then you've transferred 260 calories to the water.

2 x 130 = 260 kCal

Indeed, this is a direct measurement of calories burned because ultimately all energy eventually becomes heat. Although it's an imperfect measurement (it can be somewhat corrected), anyone can do it to demonstrate that there is something about the cold that burns a significant amount of calories. If you were to repeat the experiment with water that is exactly at human body temperature, the result would be very different, much closer to zero.

I actually built a calculator for this purpose because I got obsessed with the effect of cold thermogenesis and have done experiments around it:

https://bathtubcalorimeter.com

^^ Yeah, it's an ugly site, but I mostly made it for myself and I like minimalism. (and dang it, apparently I messed up some of the styling on Safari)

I do believe it's possible to lose a significant amount of weight by combining cold thermogenesis with a proper diet, but I think it's more practical as an adjunct to weight loss. Sitting in cold water isn't exactly fun or comfortable to a lot of people, but you do gain a tolerance to it. Usually I'll plunge into some 15.5C (60F) water and watch some YouTube or whatever. :D

The beauty of it too is that if you manage to shiver after you are done with the bath then that means you are still burning even more calories, and shivering alone helps increase the amount of brown fat on your body, which is capable of burning even more calories.


There are no real "hacks" for weight loss; there is no easy answer, or any 'lazy' trick like a magic pill, an app, or getting an oxygen tank.

Eat different, move more; if those don't work, get your thyroid checked out. Don't go in for fad diets like intermittent fasting, focus on eating "normally" first; three meals a day, breakfast lunch and dinner, between 2000 and 2500 kcal total - or a bit more depending on how overweight we're talking or how active you are. Stick to that for a year. It won't be miraculous, but do you want a miracle or just improve your lifestyle?

A lot of the weight loss culture is about clever hacks, fads of the year, etc, but for anyone that follows these, when is the last time you had a normal meal? So many people go from one fad to the other, one form of self-punishment and guilt to the other ("I should feel bad for eating carbs", "I should feel bad for drinking", "I should feel bad for eating red meat"), but they've never been able to maintain a stable weight or, indeed, a stable diet / eating habits.


Weight loss follows the 80/20 rule, so 80% diet, 20% exercise.

Unfortunately, humans are terrible at eating less, since you've been well trained by both evolution and society to eat as much as possible. So then there are things like, eat mostly fruits and vegetables, which aren't very efficient at giving you calories (since you're not a cow, that can extract the full set of calories from vegetables using its 4x stomach). Or become a vegetarian or choose a no-carb diet, maybe that makes it easier by just deciding ahead of time you won't eat anything calorie-efficient. Or exercising and living a more healthy lifestyle, can also help you not feel as hungry as often. Or keep a food diary. Or count calories. Or track your weight. Or train your self-control. But ultimately all just psychological tricks to just eat less calories, and which one works is different for everyone, since everyone's mental makeup is different.

If you can't make it happen psychologically, then you can also make it happen physically, by getting a gastric band or gastric bypass surgery.


I think this is relatively weird: Eating only once a day, known as "One Meal a Day" (OMAD).

It's a form of extreme intermittent fasting, but it works quickly and I'd argue it is not painful.

The first 2 weeks are going to be hell coming from a 3 meal lifestyle, especially towards the evening, but your body will adapt and after these 2 weeks, from my experience, I felt completely okay.

The big advantage is that you can eat whatever tasty, unhealthy food you want, but only during a meal and, hopefully, you will still lose a lot weight just because you eat less overall. You still need to be careful about sweets I'd say, if you want to have quicker results. I pretty much also removed sweets from my diet when I started the OMAD "diet", leaving only the occasional exceptions like eating cake at a birthday party.

Another advantage is that you save money!

This might not work for everyone and it most probably isn't (very) healthy, but it's relatively weird and it managed to help me lose weight. I lost about 30 kgs in 8 months with little effort imo.


Regarding messing with your gas exchange: The body is well adapted to 21% O₂. If you flush the CO₂ of of your lungs (which you can do without the tank, just hyperventilate) you'll actually bugger up your blood's pH (CO₂ in water is carbonic acid), and you'll get pins and needles and nasty cramps in your hands.

So probably avoid that.

As far as weight loss goes, the only method that works is to modify your diet and decrease your dietary intake. Doing this is, often, hard. Food has many functions in our body, we don't often eat out of genuine hunger. A psychologist can be very helpful.

There seems to be reasonably good evidence that once BMI exceeds some number between 35 and 40 it's almost impossible to reverse that by willpower alone. In those cases the combination of willpower and bariatric surgery (but not surgery alone) can be effective.

Source: I'm a doctor in Australia. I lost 50kg through bariatric surgery, with ongoing psychology to support the behaviors required to maintain a healthy weight.


I've tried eating less for weight loss, but when I do I sometimes (multiple times a week) feel really low on blood sugar (break out in a huge sweat and feeling the shakes) and the only thing that helps is eating.

(I've tested for diabetes and it's not that...)

So on these threads that say "just eat less", is there a way of eating less while preventing that crappy, hypoglycemic feeling?

(I exercise a lot, so I've got that covered... I just have a constant need to eat, although I eat healthy these days and have mostly stopped snacking).


Have you tried a ketogenic diet?


Yes, that was when I was mostly fasting at the same time. I couldn't last that long, especially when all I could think about all day was food.

... weird when you start having vivid dreams about eating food.


The reason I suggest keto is due to the energy being less spiky and available over longer periods of time. I eat twice per day, a bowl of skyr (a cheese, yogurt consistency) with pecans, walnuts and a little vanilla along with a healthy helping of lactose-free heavy cream for lunch and feel absolutely full till dinner. For dinner I eat a meal where I cook from raw ingredients using lots of cream, butter, fat meats or fish. I don't especially measure the evening meal but I try to keep myself under 2500 kcal total for the day. I'm only hungry a little bit in the morning. I tackle that with drinking lots of water as soon as I'm at the office.

Not saying that's going to work for everyone. Works for me.


Thanks for that. Ok, you've given me the inspiration to try this again.

> I tackle that with drinking lots of water

hmm... maybe that's my problem. I tend to drink lots of coffee and tea, and not water by itself. I think this will have to change too.

Thanks again!


Good luck!


There's alway's John Walker's approach, the founder of Autocad

The Hacker's diet archived at fourmilab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hacker%27s_Diet

https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

Under your theory, more respirations would work "in theory." I forget what they say about theory and practice ... Don't get an oxygen tank, "You'll burn your lungs out kid!"

Uncoupling mitochondrial metabolism can actually work with the risk that you will cook yourself to death from the inside out. i.e. 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP) Look up the history and stories on this one! New mitochondrial uncouplers are out there now that modern pharma companies have caught on.

Squats and appetite suppression is the lazy person's way. I'd also look into the Country Club Wives' Club secrets. Nature or nurture?


The Hacker's Diet worked for me. Lost 20 lbs in 2014 and kept it off since.

It's nothing weird or special, just an approach that resonates.


I see a lot of people pushing back against the "just eat less" approach, and I have no clue why. They argue that it takes too much discipline. It doesn't take much. You eat a banana or something that size in the morning with your coffee. You have a pbj for lunch. You make a portion sized like you would find at a restaurant. You stop snacking. You drink water instead of sugary drinks. It would be tough to even reach 2000 calories a day eating like that. Throw in increased physical activity and you will shed BMI like a winter coat.

OTOH what actually takes some discipline is the "traditional" dieting approach, of counting calories, finding recipes, buying different food, being choosy about what restaurants you now allow of yourself, and otherwise overturning your entire life surrounding food. That sounds like setting up for failure to me. Just go ahead and eat that big mac if that's your big meal of the day and you've eaten like a bird otherwise.


If I ate as you described Id be very unhappy, often hungry and have very little energy to continue the diet. The difficulty comes from the combined influence of types of food, how they influence metabolism/blood sugar, your mental state and stressors. A holistic approach is typically better than a simplistic or dismissive one, though "keeping it simple" is best. E.g. finding time in daily routine for food prep (buying coffee, bananas and bread to unpleasantly spike your blood sugar in your case), identifying and restricting binge foods, identifying ideal portion sizes, making reasonable comprimises with family/house mates, replacing comfort eating etc. You cant white-knuckle a diet and expect it to work till you die, for many it will (and should!) be a lifelong process.


Eat less. But here's the thing that people somehow seem to miss: that means it's a battle with your appetite. So focus on things that reduce your appetite, or don't increase it.

Bad carbs, that turn into sugar in your body, will stimulate appetite. When farmers want to fatten up pigs, they give them carbs. Avoid sugar, white bread, etc. Go for low glycemic breads.

Exercise has a lot of benefits and you should definitely exercise. It burns calories, but also stimulates appetite, so for weight loss, it's a wash. Sadly, exercise won't help you lose weight. But you should still do it for other reasons.

Fatty foods will actually make you feel full, so can be good. Snack on nuts. Eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, if you get jelly without added sugar and use it sparingly, on low glycemic bread.

In the end, you also need to up your mental tolerance for feeling hungry. Try to train your brain to be ok with feeling a little hungry, not eating at the first sign of hunger.


A few years ago I finally managed to lose (and keep off) about 70 lbs after years of trying and failing. I think understanding nutrition is the biggest tool you can give yourself, which echos what most of the others here have said.

Track your calories for a few days. For me what was really helpful was trying to do the whole if it gets you the macros "diet". You should avoid thinking about it as a diet though. Diets are things people do briefly to lose one or two pounds and tend to be things like Atkins, etc. You're looking for a lifestyle change.

Understanding what you currently eat is hugely helpful in this. I went through a phase where I weighed everything I ate with a food scale and entered it in to MyFitnessPal, aiming for 50% carbs, 20% protein, 30% fat and a loss of ~1 lb a week. Pretty quickly I started to find myself surprised at things that in hindsight seem very obvious: fibrous veggies have very little calories, and especially if you steam them or prepare them in a reasonably healthy way, they can make you feel full without going over your daily calories, oils are incredibly calorie dense, 93% lean ground beef is much higher in fat than you think it is, etc.

Paying attention and tracking your calories for a few weeks is a great tool at understanding your current habits and how you can make an avalanche of small changes. Cutting out one can of soda every day is the difference between losing .5 lb a week and maintaining your weight.

You don't have to do the calorie tracking forever - within a few weeks I'd started to make small modifications to a lot of recipes that I cook or things that I eat out to make them much healthier.

Also, get a good scale that does BMI and measure your weight every morning after you go to the bathroom but before you eat anything. Ignore small daily changes, you're looking for the trend over a week or so. Seeing your progress in real numbers helps immensely at keeping you on track.


Stop eating carbs and sugar. Its almost impossible, so you will fail but the effort alone will work wonders

Ensure your body fasts for as long as possible. This means, always have a protein and fat based breakfast, consistently as soon as you get up, but try and make the last time you eat in a day as early as possible

Ensure you are properly hydrated throughout the day. You shouldnt be drinking less than half a litre of water every day, and preferably more.

Ensure to accompany your meal routine ending sooner, that you get as much sleep as possible. This is made easier by waking at exactly the same time every day, bedtimes can be less consistent as life demands it sometimes, but you no longer sleep in.

Daily exercise, no matter how small. Start with a daily walk around the block. This is absolutely essential. The consistency is more important than the amount. If you feel you can comfortably improve the amount without making it suck, this will massively help.


Best advice I’ve seen.

Some weird tips that helped me lose 50lbs, but are related to the above:

- chewing gum

- replace soda with seltzer

- Long bike rides with consistent cadence. Can be on a machine too.

- drink lots of water, it’ll help with the hunger

- replace full meals with veggies, no dressing


There are no gimmicks. "Going on a diet" might help you lose weight for a while, but you'll gain it back after you get off the "diet". What you need to do is to change your diet, and generally to change your lifestyle.

For most people, the real challenge is motivation - why do you want to lose weight? Is it a means to an end, or is it an end in itself? For instance, if you want to lose weight so you can go backpacking (less body weight to move around means less energy spent means can go longer distances; also means joints like knees don't wear out as quickly) you can focus your goal on that, rather than saying "I'd like to lose 10 pounds." Or if you're less outdoorsy and more inclined to competitive motor sports, you can think of each pound you lose as a fraction of a second off your lap time (or quarter mile, depending on your preference).


- No more soda. Cutting out soda and other sugary drinks reduced my calorie intake by almost 25%, which is honestly kind of crazy. For reference, a 12oz can of Coke is 140 calories. That adds up fast. There are even more calories in beer, but if you lead with "Stop drinking," people tune out real fast.

I was able to ween myself off of soda by buying the tiny 8oz cans for a while. It helped to reduce the amount I was drinking without disrupting my daily patterns, which was super important. I was honestly surprised at how effective this was. After a while, even 12oz started to feel like way too much.

- Prevent yourself from buying calorie-dense food. It's a lot easier to resist snacks in the grocery store (assuming you're not hungry lol) than it is to resist them in your home. Even if you find yourself eating out a lot, this is still a relatively easy step in the right direction.


Soda is huge! I quit it back in December and have lost 15 pounds since. It's not just the calories in soda, but it's also how it screws up your sense of thirst and hunger. Water doesn't taste good when you're addicted to soda, so you crave more soda when thirsty. And I was way more ravenous when drinking soda. I'm sure some people are able to lose weight while still drinking soda, but my experience has been that it's way more difficult (bordering on impossible).

The way I quit soda was by divorcing caffeine from sugar. I switched to coffee or caffeinated tea for caffeine, and to oranges for my sugar fix. So. Many. Oranges. Once my body got used to those substitutes, I weaned myself off caffeine entirely (using wean caffeine -- caffeine pills that decrease in dose every few days). And then I started swapping some oranges out for other, less-sugary fruits.

And now, 3-4 months out, my cravings for soda are nearly entirely gone. I still get occasional cravings in certain situations (especially road trips), but I can normally have a glass of water or a piece of fruit, and I feel satiated.


Need to be careful, here.

Many “quick” weight-loss tips are not-so-healthy, if done for an extended period of time.

Also, the human body is an amazing machine. It adapts quickly to stressors. Since most “quick” weight-loss techniques are actually stressors, their effectiveness can decline, as soon as your body adapts.

As I’ve gotten older, losing weight (actually, not gaining weight) has become more difficult, but also, a lot of foods that I used to eat with impunity, now make me ill. I haven’t had ice cream in a couple of years, which is sad. I've also almost eliminated between-meal snacking.

I've always been a fan of moderate, consistent, exercise, and a moderate, varied, healthy diet, with small portions, eaten slowly (note the use of the word "moderate," there).

But I’ve heard that deliberately infecting oneself with a tapeworm works. It’s probably not as crazy as some of the stuff I've read about.


An answer that fits the request for "weird":

- Get addicted to video games and caffeine pills. If you get really into it, you can forget about food for hours. Your life will suck but perhaps it's worth it in the short term. Must not keep snacks in your gaming room, but you can keep your pills and your water bottles


I would be careful with the oxygen thing. Not sure if it would work either, since if oxygen were the limiting factor you'd probably feel it.

Number one tip is this. Spend money on a real life internet personal trainer. I have one, I think of him when I'm about to eat something I shouldn't. Weird how a stranger can provide accountability.

Two, buy a Bluetooth scale with two decimal places of precision. Super easy to weigh and record each day. You can literally see the weight loss during sleep, it's a good few hundred grams a night. You can also weigh your toilet visits, haha.

Three, and this is from my coach. Eat enough. Don't try to have a mega deficit, that can only work temporarily. Have a moderate deficit and hit your macro ingredients count, a third of your calories each.


Eat the same food every single day. Same amount, Same everything. Basically you prepared a meal list that is your calories budget of your target weight. Say 1800 calories. You prep a meal that you actually like to eat, and are willing to eat it every single day. By not having the option to choose something else. You keep it simple, the same calories. If you dont mind eating steak every day, or burger every day. Then Burger it is. Avoid Deep fried food though, but if you do your calculation you will soon realise 1800 calories per day doesn't actually give you much option.

Walking at least 35 min per day. No need to do running. Just walk. Go out, walks some places, window shopping, walk you dog. Whatever, walk. 35 min minimum.

You get result within 30 days.


That seems really dangerous because you are dramatically increasing your risk of malnutrition. If there is a nutrient that happens to be somewhat lacking in that one meal, there is nothing to make up for it.


Perfect receipt for annemia.


This is "weird" in the sense that nobody else I know wants to do it, but they'll gladly sign for all sorts of fad diet programs, blogs, etc and become demotivated when they're still not losing weight.

It's dead simple: calculate your BMR (https://www.calculator.net/bmr-calculator.html) and restrict your calories to about 150-200 calories more than your BMR. That's literally all you need for weight loss. It can be in the form of beer, chips, candy, whatever or you can do it all healthy with fruits and veggies; that's up to you, but you will still lose weight regardless.


Yes, advice for weight loss THAT ACTUALLY WORKS is always boring, simple, and hard to do.

Calorie counting helps a lot with this. There's easily accessible databases that have detailed data (https://www.nutritionix.com/, https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/). It's funny sometimes how the calories you think you're eating don't match up with reality. My biggest blind-spot was pasta and bread, both of which had A LOT more calories than I had thought. Peanut butter is another one-- you can put a ridiculous amount of calories on one spoon of peanut butter.

Many folks can lose weight "simply" by sticking to whatever one's BMR + activity level suggests. A sustainable and easy to maintain rate of loss for most folks is between 1 and 2 lbs/week.


No screens while eating. You’ll actually avoid eating until you’re really hungry because you’re more addicted to your phone.

Plus focusing on the food will let you realize when you’ve had enough and you’ll feel like you are more because you remember the experience better.

You wanted weird tips…


Convince yourself that you really, really want it.

Every day/night, spend 30 minutes sitting alone in a quiet space, emotionally involved in how much you want to lose weight.

Then during the day -- and this is important -- don't fight the urge to eat. At all. Just live your life.

Once your daily meditation/prayer/yearning starts to take hold, you will automatically start making better choices.

This advice goes for anything you want to change about yourself. You have convince the part of your brain that runs your life moment-to-moment that you want to behave differently. And the only way to do it is by getting that part of your brain to understand how much you want it. You have to prove it by going emotionally deep over and over and over.


Hack your lizard brain. The easier it is for you to sneak a snack in the easier it will be for your rotten monkey brain to grab for it.

Pro-tip: Don't put a box of milanos on your kitchen tabletop. Put it on the tallest shelf behind all the god damn condiment bottles.


Or don't buy it in the first place. If you do, throw it away when you get home. Hopefully you'll quickly get disgusted by this waste and stop buying it.


Absolutely! I would not purchase outright. But I have a wife and children, it makes it hard to not buy these things.


I failed to keep it up but it worked for a few months. A simple food portion control measure: identify a geniunely small bowl, the calorie dense portion of all main meals must not exceed it's volume. For snacks come up with a similar shorthand, a tablespoon portion, or a small handful. If you eat mostly complex carbs, fats and protein while following rules around portion sizes you should get a good calorie deficit while mostly avoiding excessive hungriness, and saving effort you might spend weighing and journaling foods which you need to resist over eating and redirecting attention. Its almost "just eat less" but with a bit more how-to.


A cheat meal has to do with a hormone that is produced when you're body is starving ( i thought it was Leptine ). Eat more than what you need ( not much) every 4 days.

Muscle grows 0,03% / training. Daily muscle training will accumulate over time.

Protein diet destroys your metabolism, you can't just hop on and off. It will make things worse. People that have success with protein diets AFTER the protein diet have a "migration path" for getting off of it.

The goal is to improve your metabolism. Not to lose weight, losing weight is a side effect.

Note: lost 25 kg ( 1/4th) thanks to the book of Tom Venuto - Burn the fat, feed the muscle. It gives a lot of knowledge of why, instead of only how.


You just need to learn about and do keto. Look on Reddit. It's not a hack, lifestyle, other marketing bullshit. It's literally eat about or under 20-30 grams of carbs a day. Everything else should be proteins and fats. Further research than what I'm saying here will tell you what wide range of stuff is good to eat and what's not.

Oxygen has fuck all to do with weight loss. You wearing an o2 tank is literally going to do nothing.

Read up on keto. Again, it's not a fad. There is a ton of both evidential biological studies and personal anecdotes from people that done it to much success. Check /r/keto and look at the documentation in the sidebar.


Having lost ~75 pounds and having (mostly) kept it off, the "trick" is to stop eating certain foods, sleeping well and exercising.

Start by avoiding any sugars whatsoever (exception: fresh fruit), bread, fried food. This will be difficult for a few days to a week, but afterwards it gets easier and easier. You will end up consuming less food. Do this diligently, as even one chocolate might set you back by increasing desire for sugar.

Exercise by first walking and the running, depending on your level of fitness. Lifting weights also helps because it increases metabolism. After running, you may crave apples or bananas, both of which are very good.

Sleep well, it helps the body recover.


What's your go-to replacement for bread? I'm a bit fan of bread (brown / whole meal bread), it's a filling, slow release and (not unimportant!) cheap source of carbs, which you need for regular functioning. Going "no carb" is extremist and can be dangerous long term. Balance out the macronutrients first, then start adjusting a little in favor of protein.


A lot of people eat a ton of bread, which ends up being a ton of calories. Then they miss a lot of nutrients, so they will have weird cravings for other things. It's not necessarily that bread is bad, it's just that excluding it means you start thinking about "ok, so what do I eat". For some people this is useful.


While losing weight, I would not replace it, but simply remove it altogether. Bread is not an essential nutrient (although obviously French baguettes are great tasting). You can get plenty of carbs from other food (e.g., fresh fruit).


Stop. Consuming. Sugar.

Get a scale which logs your weight automatically.

Remember that whole grain bread, whole grain cereals without sugar, are all replacements for sugar (carbs). They store it in a different format, which your body knows what to do with.

Learn about the relationship between sugar and fat, how your body can and when it will transform between the two and under which conditions.

Sugar is highly addictive, so quitting it is the first best step you can do, without harming yourself in the sense that you're nor depriving your body of energy. Your body knows how to extract the energy from real food.

Alcohol is the same as sugar but in a different, just as harmful sort.


I will say what worked for me ( lost 30 Kgs ( 66 Lbs ) in ~6 months ) sorted by what I think it is easier and more effective:

1. Eat slowly, as slowly as you can, the feeling of being full takes a while to reach your brain ( I know this is not the scientific correct definition but gives the idea ), the slower you eat the less you eat.

2. Drink a lot, something I noticed is that sometimes I want to eat something but the reality is that I want to drink and I'm just eating to get the liquids out of the food, when you want to eat first drink a glass of water and wait 1 minute to see if you still want to eat.

3. Brush your teeth 5 minutes after you eat anything, I myself find washing my teeth a chore and I want to do as less as possible, brushing my teeth after lunch stops me from eating snacks after lunch because I don't want to dirty my teeth and wash them again.

4. Have a food journal, use an app to log everything you eat, before you eat it. It is important that is before because in this way you know how many calories you are going to eat, and sometimes that number is higher than what you expected, at least on me this usually has the effect that I choose to eat less of what I was going to eat or I will eat something else entirely.

5. Eat breakfast as late as you can, and dinner as early as you can. This is called intermittent fasting and works, but it requires quite a willpower.

6. This one is the one I find the hardest but also the most effective: Limit the amount of sweets you eat, I know it is hard as hell and when you see a sweet you already start salivating ( or at least I do ), but say to yourself: "today I will eat maximum 250kcal of sweets ( that is usually 1 croissant max )" or if you are more advanced you can swap today for "this week"

7. This one doesn't really apply to me because in my country we have the culture of cooking, but from what I heard around it helps in countries where cooking at home is uncommon: Cook your food from scratch, don't buy a ready meal, cook it yourself, in this way you have full control of what goes in that meal and you know what goes in it, it will save you from eating unnecessary sugars and conservants.

edit: formatting


There is only one trick I am aware of, eat less while doing more stuff.

The oxygen idea is pretty bad. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity

The oxygen thing works the other way around hypoxic environments increase metabolic rate for a small number of days. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4091035/


I, for one, am intrigued by the idea of a set point diet. The basic idea is that your body maintains homeostasis, and wants to maintain a certain weight. This is why, for example, if you lose the pounds, they come back. The idea is further that there is something in our environment -- in the food, or the air, or the water, perhaps -- that has ratcheted up the set point for many people (presumably depending on which genes they've expressed).

I know there's a book on the topic, and info on the internet. I don't know whether it works.


Since you are looking for different tips other than the usual "eat less" and "lift weights", both of which are important but the former far more than the latter, let me submit using the pen instead of the sword. Try this: Before you put anything in your mouth, write exactly what you are going to eat, including the portion (get a cheap scale), down in a food log. Then go ahead and eat it. Do this for a couple weeks without trying to make any changes and then take an afternoon and review your data. You'll see some patterns emerge and then the next week, don't make radical changes, but continue to capture your data and try to change one thing. For example, if you drink things with sugar in them, like Sodas, substitute flavored water. It takes a long time to change habits and also lots of people suffer from eating "mindlessly", e.g., opening up that bag of chips and then nomming the whole thing without thinking about it until they look down and the whole bag is empty. Build a foundation of awareness and then continue to make tweaks week after week until you find an equilibrium and then start moving in the right direction. Be patient, don't rush things. It takes a long time to gain a bunch of weight and also a long time to lose it if you want to lose it in a way that you also develop the awareness and habits to keep it off. Good luck! You can do it!


Eat more fat. Skip carbs almost entirely. Ketogenic diets avoiding insulin inducing foods hack your metabolism to burn only fat. I practice intermittent fasting as well (having an eating window of less than 6 hours per day). Both are good tools, one to hack the metabolism to reduce excess body fat, the other to limit food intake. To convince your body that you are not starving, eat a carb loaded meal once a week.

This has to be a life-long commitment. If you drop these, you will gain back the weight, sometimes even increase in weight.


For a weird tip, just eat more fiber. The average American gets less than 50% of the recommended amount of fiber through their normal diet.

There was a study done a few years ago, and they put one group of people on a traditional diet, and told the other group of people to do nothing different except take some fiber supplements. The group eating fiber supplements lost almost as much weight as the group on the diet. [1]

> After 12 months, researchers found many of the adult participants in the high-fiber group lost around 4.5 pounds. Meanwhile, participants in the AHA diet group lost nearly 6 pounds. The researchers concluded that while the "more complex" AHA diet resulted in more weight loss, they determined "emphasizing only increased fiber intake may be a reasonable alternative for persons with difficulty adhering to more complicated diet regimens."

The idea is that fiber both keeps things moving through your gut instead of staying put until every last calorie is absorbed by your body, and the bulk of it also keeps you feeling more full for longer so you eat less overall.

You do have to ease into it though over the course of a few weeks, because it can be rough of the digestive tract at first if you're not used to it.

[1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M14-0611?articleid=2...


The biggest thing that helped me lose weight was subscribing to a meal delivery service and sticking to it (drink water if you need to feel more full and avoid the desire to eat more). Outsourcing my food choices to someone else made it substantially easier to avoid consuming more and unhealthier calories because of the enjoyment of putting things in my mouth or the challenge of controlling portion sizes. I grew up in a home where we had to finish all the food on our plate, and that combined with the the absurdly large portion sizes that you get at almost all restaurants in the United States presents a significant obstacle to weight control.

That's the hack that worked best for me, but I wouldn't say its a "weird tip". It really boils down to the following three factors which really all need to be present.

1. Exercise - You have to demand things of your body so it will send energy to rebuilding rather than conservation.

2. Calorie intake - You have to consume fewer calories than your body is demanding.

3. Food quality - Eat mostly whole foods and low glycemic index carbs that are less calorie dense.

Many people tend to focus on just one of those three things, and while that can work, doing all of them is far more effective. I tend to think that the "weird trick" mentality is a significant obstacle to success (in this as well as many other areas of life). The one weird trick is that hard work is the path to accomplishing things.


IMO if any of these weight loss hacks actually worked, we'd know it. Eat less and moderate exercise is still the best way to go.

Some ideas (pick any or all):

  Buy fruit or veggies when you have cravings.

  Don't buy much junk food. If you do buy junk food, don't buy your favorite stuff. For example, if you like chocolate, buy the "ok" chocolate, not the "damn this is great!" chocolate. Same with chips. For the double hack, just buy the "what's on sale," in this category.

  Don't buy food you don't have to "fix," particularly junk food.

  Exercise every day. It can be as simple as walk for 5-10 minutes or do body weight squats or jumping jacks. If you can only do 5 minutes, that's better than nothing. Committing to 5 minutes is easier than committing to 30. Once you start the 5 minutes, chances are you'll do more. For example, I commit to walking to the closest park. It's probably 7 minutes there and back. If I really don't feel like doing more, I don't. Most of the times I end up doing a couple miles. It's a leisurely walk.

  Keep at it, that's the important part. Make the starting changes so easy it's manageable. Once you adapt to your minor change, add another change. When you feel weak willed due to a stressful event, go back a step rather than removing all steps.


I was coached by Ray Cronise, the same guy who helped magician Penn Jillette lose 100lbs and keep it off. I too have successfully lost weight and kept it off for six years so far.

A tip he gave me was that humans were built to survive the winter on a calorie-restricted diet. Which means that your brain and body will tolerate you dieting for about 12 weeks max. After that, it will start screaming at you to eat more food, and you'll almost certainly give in, no matter how much willpower you think you have.

So the smart way to diet is to do it for 10 - 12 weeks and then quit, even if you haven't reached your goal weight. After stopping, your new goal should be to maintain your current (lower) weight but not to lose any more. After a few seasons, you can go back into "metabolic winter" again and resume the diet. You'll probably know when you're ready to do it again.

This was a huge eye-opener for me, and it explained why I'd failed at dieting so many times in the past. I'd tried to push past 12 weeks, failed, and then decided "dieting doesn't work."

Even if you can't manage 12 weeks, whenever you feel like your willpower is flagging, stop dieting (by which I mean stop running at a calorie deficit) but don't throw up your hands and start eating huge bowls of ice cream. Instead, switch from dieting to maintenance until you're ready to diet again.


Unless you have any underlying medical condition that prohibits you from fasting, just time restricting eating to 8 hr (or less) window helped me cut down a lot of weight. Nothing fancy, just remove sugar and flour from diet or at least keep it minimal and get good sleep. I occasionally go for a walk, no gym. thats it.

OTOH, I have friends who can afford to eat whatever the hell they want, but they work out like crazy in the gym to remain athletic. Everything has a price, you need to decide how you want to pay for it.


I started not eating after 18h and already lost a kilo this month. Calorie counting also worked for me in the past, lost 10kg that way, but it's a bit demanding.


From somebody who got down from approx. 15% body fat to about 6% body fat just to get the shredded male model look: there is only one tip that actually works for nutrition (because it's all about nutrition): experiment and journal.

We are extremely different and what works for me might be a disaster for you. Just some examples:

- friend of mine is almost a complete carnivore and it works great for him. When I tried going in that direction I was always bloated and my poop was so hard it tear up my intestines and had quite a bit of blood in my stools.

- I tried low carb diets which again, work great for some: zero energy, zero libido, bad mental states.

- my family has a thing with high triglycerides and cholesterol levels. We where always advised to limit fat intake. Well, it turned out that for me a high fat diet (about 50% of calories) gave me the first normal blood tests and it happened at 40 years old. I felt best too on this diet. Will it work for you? Probably not.

- there are foods out there that will make you feel great but you just can't eat long term. I could not touch chicken breast at all for about 4 years after eating lots of it. It made me gag just thinking about it. So what good does a food do you if you just can't eat it?

I could go on and on, but you get the point. Stop looking for shortcuts, stop copying what other people do (you can't even copy what you did last year, might not work anymore).


There’s no magic. I tried “better habits” including using a bike for literally all transit, no candy, gym three times a week, etc. with zero effect on my weight. Then I just started counting calories using an app and hitting a calorie target. Bam, 15 kg off.

The challenge is “will power” at the start, but you adapt. Part of adaptation is getting accustomed to new feelings and part of it is learning how different foods effect your sense of satiation.

When I would be too hungry, I would go ahead and eat, but still count everything and then the next day I would experiment with different foods.

Through part of it I remember hitting a very low carb target (under ten percent) and this working for me.

I used an app, Fat Secret, which has a good product database for Poland, and I would actually just not eat things if they’re hard to count. So my diet would need to be more “legible” and so, ironically, I could eat McDonald’s but not other places because its food was better documented.

Once I hit my target I changed my diet to bulk deliberately (I am weight training) but I still count everything. It’s just different targets. (Learning to use free weights and lift is it’s own adventure. I recommend.)

I have to say a positive and surprising part of the experience is women blowing smoke up my ass about it. My pet theory is that basically everyone now lives like a 90s “nerd”, binge watching Star Trek with a six pack of beer, so if you put literally any effort into your body and clothing, you’re ahead of everyone.


Drop alcohol consumption. Less sugar. Less of everything.

Start moving more. Throw in some simple body weight exercises (push ups, sit ups burpees). Most people can drop 1kg a week by being mindful.


Check out some before and after pictures of drinkers who've quit.

I've never had an issue with weight, but alcohol clearly a major factor with many other people's. Stopping drinking was the one change that worked for me in most parts of my life.


This, I think a few beers are equivalent to a meal.


The problem is that alcohol is easily absorbed in the gut and ready to use by the body, a bit like sugar.

I saw a good Giles Yeo talk on it[1].

He explained why food processing is bad for us.

If you eat 400g of raw sweetcorn you’ll see a load of it again undigested next time you go to the loo.

If you grind it up first and make something like cornbread out of it your body will absorb much more of that 400g.

Both will have the same calories listed on the packet but one form is clearly going to make you fatter.

Any liquid calories will be easily absorbed like that.

1. This is just what I half remember I’d suggest having a look on YouTube for some of Giles Yeo’s Royal Institute lectures.


I've been told things like "eat less" and "exercise", and indeed have told those myself too. But its really hard to scrape the motivation to do either. Like you have a plate of "stuff" and you would choose to throw half of it away?

What worked for me really well was fasting. It's a radical thing for sure and not to be taken lightly, but is much easier for me to maintain. If I just don't eat anything, its a lot easier on the brain than "I'll eat here a bit, but will abstain from eating more".

Started with "no breakfast" and now I'm in the "no lunch and breakfast" camp. Takes about 2-3 weeks to get used to each, and wouldn't recommend jumping cold turkey on just doing dinner, but it has made it way easier to accomplish.

And an added (and very significant) benefit to this is the whole longevity science thing which is pretty much in agreement that eating just dinner should give you a significant lifespan boost, as well as reduce various other illnesses throughout one's life.

I love to eat, and would usually treat myself to bigger than normal portions, and got teased about it by friends quite a lot. But now since I'm eating only dinner, I can devour comical amounts of food and still be getting less or about as much calories as are required, even if you count desert!


When you eat a plate of food. Always leave one spoonful uneaten.

Not only will you drop a few percent off your daily calories, but we are conditioned as children that we cannot leave the table until we eat everything on the plate, which apparently damages our ability to recognise being full. Leaving a little bit each time does seem to help break down that conditioning over time. You don't need to finish it all.

Other tips to feel full sooner, take longer to eat something and precede meals with a glass of water.


People get mad when they hear this, but:

A) Obesity is HIGHLY heritable. Tons of twin and adoption studies prove this. The correlation between the adult BMIs of adopted (non-related) siblings raised in the same household is virtually zero. This means that parenting practices have no long-term impact on body fatness. The correlation between the adult BMIs of biological siblings raised in different households is strong, though.*

B) Virtually all attempts to lose weight eventually fail. "Eat less and exercise more" essentially doesn't work as a long-term weight loss intervention, because very few people are able to comply with it over the long term. The one exception is gastric bypass surgery, which does reliably produce long-term weight loss. There are some new medications that show promise, but it's too soon to tell if they'll work permanently.

*People will inevitably say "how can obesity be heritable when it's increased so much over time? Americans used to be much thinner!" But the same is true of other highly heritable traits, like height. In some Asian countries, people are six inches taller than they were 100 years ago. Nevertheless, height is heritable. Heritability exists within a specific environmental context, and our environment is much more conducive to obesity than it was in the past.


> our environment is much more conducive to obesity than it was in the past.

What specific aspects of our environment are you considering? To some extent one can change one's environment.


Here is a very interesting preprint article on the topic: https://web.archive.org/web/20210725033512/https://osf.io/x4...

and the HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27936016


It's not clear, although it seems reasonable to assume that the availability of cheap processed food is a major factor.

If changing one's environment were a straightforward thing, like changing what foods one keeps in one's cabinets, then the data on the effectiveness of weight loss interventions would not be so dismal. An effective change of environment is probably more like "moving from Alabama to Japan".


My recommendation is to simply find something active that you enjoy doing, and that's physically demanding, preferably where people you might like to meet hang out for 3 or more hours a week. That's pretty much it, because if you think about it, it probably would help resolve a lot of the things that encourage most people to eat excessively, like depression, boredom, hopelessness, and it also helps you get in shape ideally and away from the fucking screen. Doesn't have to be a gym; gym people like gyms. You might be a gym person, but you have to try things out for a few months before you know. It's ok to move on, people have different preferences. I've never been overweight, but I have been lonely and lazy enough to get there. If you have intense social anxiety, either build up to whatever it is you choose to do, or find a more solitary physical activity. Running is fine, but tbh you're either a running person or it takes way more effort than something else might, and exercise isn't as productive for weight loss as just not eating anyway.

Most people who don't workout have this binary idea of what that means. You either go to the gym or do nothing. But the gym sucks for ppl who don't like it, and there are so many other activities out there.


The one thing that actually causes weight loss is: caloric intake < caloric expended

So you need to either intake fewer calories or increase expenditure of calories. For the best outcome do both.

One easy way to increase caloric use is to dirnk ice water. Your body has to heat it up to body temperature which takes a not insignificant amount of energy.

As mentioned in other posts, walking is a low impact activity that is an easy way to expend more calories.

Be careful experimenting with oxygen ratios, you can die in a pure oxygen environment.


I'm not sure what you mean by "weird". A diet is weird, and I'm very much older than most of you and have been successful with hi-protein diets. Atkins was the first of these, I'm guessing. 20 years later it was "Protein Power". Most similar to Keto of current fads.

Eat lean protein (fish, chicken, beef - canned or fresh; even sardines). The original diets ignored fat, but I don't think it's to your benefit to do so. For greens, stick to cabbage, kale, chard etc, mostly raw.

After two or three days of this, you sense a very particular change in your body, and you detect notes of ketone in your breath and a bad taste in your mouth. You continue, and drink lots of water. You feel the change in your muscles and fat, too. Avoid artificial sweeteners, unless you're so hooked on sweet that you can't cope.

You can add dairy, but dairy is higher carbo and higher fat. 0% cottage cheese, farmers cheese work well; milk, yogurt, etc. should be avoided.

You will cheat, but get back on the horse and continue.

If you need "crunch", the most dogmatic protein diets tell you to get a bag of deep fried pork rinds. It works, but you have to like them.

You can add seeds and nuts to the diet; you can have as many bell peppers as you wish; onions, too. Protein stirfrys. Avoid grains and root veggies.

After a short while, your brain will change. You'll likely crave French fries less, and you never should have been drinking sweetened sodas and fruit shakes in the first place. The loss can last a long time.


I have no weird tips to lose weight. But I have been dealing with overweight myself and I'll share what seems to work for me.

1) First eat three times a day. Why? Food is our fuel we need it to have energy. By spreading out the intake you will be less inclined to snack. 2) except that you are beautiful the way you are and don't compare yourself to anyone else. 3) Stop drinking sugar. Just drink water instead. When I stopped drinking cola I started to lose weight instantly. 4) don't eat potato ships. 5) when starting out to lose weight. Focus on your meals. Diversify your evening meals. Eat fruit in the morning. Drink tea instead of milk. Do not go training right away. This will just make you hungry and result in eating snacks. After a month of getting used to your diet start slowly incoperating training like running. 6) make sure to feel relaxed. Make sure to go to sleep on the right times. Don't focus too much on your body. Enjoy life get a fun hobby. 7) don't drink alcohol 8) listen to music and let your body follow the beat. Don't see it like training see it enjoying yourself having fun.

Honestly good luck to you and anyone else who is trying to lose weight. There are so many ways to lose weight but it's really important to change ones lifestyle first.


Although not weird, my tip is to eat better and exercise more, and yes, I know that it's easier said than done.

The first thing is that if possible you should try both: eating better makes it easier to exercise and exercising makes you eat less. In my case at least, I eat more when I am nervous or depressed, and regular exercise keeps my hormones in check, reducing the cravings.

Another important thing is to find what works for you and, more importantly what you are both willing and able to stick to long-term. Eating better and doing exercise means not doing any more some of the stuff that you like, either because you don't have time anymore, or because it's not healthy: are you willing to do it for the next 50 years ?

For example it took me years to find the right dietary regimen; I finally found that for me intermittent fasting is the best solutions since I find it is easier to avoid eating most of the day than being much more careful about what and how much I eat.

Similarly for physical activity: try many alternatives until you find the one that you enjoy and keep doing for long time. You may realize that you like something unexpected (for me it was going to gym; I always considered it a stupid activity, but once I tried I realized it was perfect for me and I have being doing it for more than ten years).


Here's how I lost weight:

1) Download the Lose It app

2) Buy an apple watch (or whatever matches with your phone)

3) Connect the watch up to the app

4) Fiddle about with the settings

5) Stay below the line

Excercise is optional. I did this for my dad and he can barely move, and he lost like 12kg.

The only reason ANYONE ever loses weight is because they consume less energy than they burn, there is no other way for energy you consume to leave your system:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuIlsN32WaE


Skip breakfast. Don’t eat until noon. Then eat dinner at 5:30 and be done for the day. When you do eat, opt for plants - they’ll fill you up faster with lower calorie density.


Try keto or lazy keto if you haven't. But avoid most of the keto websites when it comes to advice, because some of them are weird. No, you don't need to stuff your self with bacon and drink coffee with butter to be keto. Just cut down on almost all carbs. Don't bother with quest bars or any other cheat meals, you will just harm your diet. Stick to foods like meat, broccoli, cauliflower, beans for a week and see how you feel and move from there.


This will likely be buried in all the answers, but I'll try anyway.

I've recently read this here: https://slimemoldtimemold.com/2021/07/07/a-chemical-hunger-p...

It's a long article series, but IMHO very worth it.

In it, the authors posit that the body has a "lipostat", like a thermostat, but for regulating body fat and weight.

If you are breathing pure oxygen and burning more calories, you'll just feel hungrier and eat more to compensate; if you don't, you'll feel sluggish and tired.

The authors also claim that the most likely cause for the obesity crisis is that some environmental contaminant causes the lipostat to be mis-adjusted.

That makes it pretty hard to deal with obesity, so the author's advise is:

* move to a high altitude, since contamination follows watershed

* avoid jobs that correlate with high obesity rates

* avoid highly processed food, since each processing step has the option to add contamination

I am not sure if all of this is real or some of it is bunk, but I found some of the arguments quite convincing, so I'd encourage you to read it and form your own opinion. (Do NOT just rely on my summary, it doesn't do the article series justice).


count your calories.

don't even try to restrict them (at first). just count them. get an app/spreadsheet. get a scale. and record the calories of everything and anything before you eat it. post it up on a whiteboard or sheet of paper every day.

you can keep eating whatever you want and as much as you want (at first). but you have to count _everything_.

every diet out there is going to try to restrict your calories in one way (e.g. eating more protein and less carbs "should" make you feel fuller sooner, leading to fewer calories). Every exercise program is going to try to increase the number of calories you burn (which is a lot harder to measure accurately than how many calories you eat). Either option is folly if you aren't recording your baseline. Your body is very good at convincing you to eat a bit more.

Counting your calories will tell you the actual value of the most important variable in weight loss. And what you measure you tend to improve; counting your calories alone will lead to new habits and eating less even without you trying to restrict it.

p.s. weight lifting or strength training is good advice generally. but I've been a competitive powerlifter and weightlifter for >10 years. lifting makes me hungry and makes me eat more. YMMV.


This.

It's calories in, calories out. But there are easier and harder ways to lower in and increase out.

Counting will probably lower intake by itself, because you get more conscious about it.


A quote from a Slate Star Codex[1] post that I love:

"If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell’s equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell’s equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against…thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation."

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/01/12/the-physics-diet/


I've tried several things, this is what finally worked:

[0] Make it a one year goal.

[1] Track your calories.

[2] Do some exercise.

[3] Weight yourself every Sunday morning.

[4] No other rules. No restriction on quantity or timing or type of food.

1 is important, because you actually know what's going in. There's a ton of useful apps, and there's no need to be extra rigorous, just be consistent in how you estimate. Notice there is no limit, no restriction - eat whatever quantity you want, of whatever you want. Just log it. This is going to be shocking. It will also become automatic, a mindless habit, no effort required.

2 is important because it diminishes cravings. (And it is healthy at any weight). Even just walking 30 minutes every day is enough (a bit more is better though).

3 is for crossing with the calories tracking. After some weeks/months you can tell what your baseline consumption is, whether you lost, gained or maintained weight (specially if you track your exercise, as well, in case it varies.)

Here's the magic:

After some weeks, you will MAGICALLY START CONTROLLING yourself to not go over some values of total calories that puts you at a daily caloric deficit. Then you will WANT to implement all the other tactics (drinking water, not consuming liquid calories (soda), you will exercise more, you might try some sort of fasting, control your macros (calories, carbs, fat, protein), etc). The key is that you can now measure whatever you try, you have a budget, a long enough time frame and you are accountable.


I'm far from being an expert, but the CO2 is just a byproduct of your body's metabolism. And although oxygen only makes up 21% of the air, your lungs don't extract 100% of it and even if it did, it wouldn't get used, or you would pass out. Or even worse, you would get used to having 100% oxygen delivered to your lungs, your red blood cell count would drop and then you would pass out as soon as you stopped using the O2 tank.

I've read a comment about gut bacteria, and I've also read a study about it and I was able to lose weight. If you think about types of gut bacteria that are helping you digest your food like little populations, you need to stop eating bad food like pizza, fast food, etc so that you can starve the population that's constantly secreting hormones that make you hungry for that kind of food. Then the craving goes away.

Declare war on those bacteria. No, it's no easy, it's pain and suffering. The first two weeks are hell. Then it gets easier and easier.

What I did was: - Sunday I cook meals for the week, two small portions every day. - Two options of tasty but healthy food. - Like mashed potatoes and grind meat or chicken and rice. - One small cake that should last the entire week as an emergency craving snack. - A ton of fruits. - A cheat meal on Saturday.

Do your best to stick to it, if you feel hungry you can try to eat one more portion, or fruits and in the worst case, a piece of cake.

The cake should also be very 'fit' like carrot cake with no fillings or frostings.

I have no weird tips or hacks, I've tried and fooled myself too many times.

There are no cheats, there are no tricks.


I think you're correct on the oxygen. If the atmosphere is richer in it you will just breathe shower or shallower. If you try breathing to fast for your body needs you might faint. I think it's called hyperventilation and it's not pleasant.


Write down everything you’re going to eat for the day in the morning.

I’ve used logging to great effect for weight loss, but I found it cumbersome to open my phone and log the calories every time I ate. Eventually I started logging my meals before I ate them just to get it out of the way. This led me to pre-logging the whole day. That made it much easier to time my meals and snacks so I wouldn’t get hungry and could stay under my calorie goal


I have been able to control my weight as I want. I generally don't do much of the diet planning of the things, but I have a fixed routine and fixed diet. for example, In the morning I take a cup of a tea with snacks, for lunch I take two flat-bread, indian sabji/vegetables, and curry with rice, For dinner I have a lentil curry with two-flat breads and fried rice. I have a fixed routine time for these meals except for sunday. Usually, I don't eat fast food, my whole diet is consist of milk and vegeterian food only.(you may check for Jain diet, but I do eat onion,potatoes and garlics)

When I feel like I am getting some extra weight and want to loose some, I will cut my carbs by cutting the portion of the food by 10-15% without affecting my energy level, it takes two-three days to adjust the feeling of hunger and then it is normal. The result mostly starts to be noticeable in 4 weeks.

When I feel like I got too skinny, I just increase my eating portion to adjust the weight in a month. I have successfully changed my weight from 65Kg to 75Kg and vice-a-versa multiple times. My height is around 178cms, currently weight is 63Kg and feeling to increase the diet ;)


Try intermittent fasting, or just simply skip breakfast and eat within a 10am-6pm window, leaving the rest of the time for fasting

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=%09Intermittent+fasting

Opposite problem, trying to gain weight

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30627406


Eat less food!

Forget exercise for now.

  -Buy a scale and count calories scrupulously.
  -Stay under 1800 calories/day while you're trying to lose weight. Every calorie counts. Count them all.
  -once you reach your target weight, you can raise it up a bit (probably around ~2200/day if you're an average male)
  -make sure you measure and weigh everything you eat and DRINK
  -stop drinking alcohol (too easy to add unaccounted calories)
  -stop eating out
  -stop associating with overweight or obese people
  -never do a "cheat day". Every calorie counts
  -drink water and black coffee if you need caffeine. (Some of those starbucks drinks have 600 calories in them. Don't do it!)
You'll quickly learn to put together a menu that satisfies you at this calorie level. Example menu:

   - breakfast: two large eggs prepared in 1/2 pat of butter (210 calories) and one slice of toast (100 calories) = 310 total
   - lunch: chicken breast and a vegetable (330 calories)
   - afternoon snack: apple or banana (120 calories)
   - dinner: grilled fish or chicken and beans (400 calories)


Sugar: the bitter truth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

When this first came out well over a decade ago, I completely changed my diet and lost 45 lbs. Since then I have kept it off, strictly through diet.

My only exercise is walking, and I am not at all consistent about it. I am living proof that a correct zero-sugar diet alone works.


IMO healty food and reduced calories is all you need to worry about. Does it matter if you are getting a calorie from fat, sugar, protein, alcohol, etc?


Watch the video, especially the part covering the biochemistry. Fructose interferes with satiety signaling (leptin, ghrelin), which forces eating beyond caloric needs.

An unprocessed strawberry is healthy because the fiber limits the rate at which fructose leaks out of the chunks in your gut. Blend or freeze that same strawberry and it becomes junk candy.


Not sure how weird it is, but a lot of people tend to let their job keep their butt in a chair for too long. I suggest going into your company's calendaring system (Google or MSFT or whatever) and carving out 30,45, or even 60 minutes. If you're on Google Calendar, call it 'busy' so anyone nosy enough to look at it will think you're meeting with some high-brass and they don't have permission to see details. As far as what to do with the time, doesn't matter as long as your posterior gets out of the chair. Walk, hug your family, or just enjoy the sounds of the outdoors and get sun on your face. I like to do something to get my heart goin for all that time, but frankly there's no need to be fancy. Your idea about oxygen concentration is worth a shot, remember that recirculated indoor air generally has enough CO2 to impact cerebral performance negatively, so going outside will definitely get you some free O2 in addition to making you a lil bit smarter.

And for the love of Elvis, don't feel guilty or think of it as time theft. This is your health we're talkin about.


Most of these comments can not be considered "weird" in the slightest! Read and answer the question people!!

Here's a weird tip. Find a mountain and have a picnic on the top of it for your meals. It's ok to drive there. If there are no mountains, find a cave or hole in the ground and use that instead. Don't use artificial heating or light sources in this location

Will it work for you? You can only be the judge of that.


I just bought an Apple Watch, and over the last few weeks I have started to work out a lot more, that's probably because the watch keeps reminding me to close my move & exercise rings lol

Also if Apple Fitness + [0] is available in your region, you should definitely check it out.

[0] https://www.apple.com/apple-fitness-plus/


Weird: alter your gut microbiome.

I don't know how you could do this yet safely or effectively, but studies increasingly show that from birth onwards, the gut microbiome affects numerous health aspects significantly, including obesity.

Example: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7333005/


Not weird but I can share what has worked for me so far.

I'm pretty skinny but like to eat junk food and candy. My target weight is 80-82 kg. When I hit 90 kg I don't feel good about myself. Pants too tight etc.

First time I hit 90 kg was 2013. I tried intermittent fasting 8/16. This worked really well for me at that time. I lost weight really quickly. I could even continue my bad eating habits within the 8 hour window where eating is allowed and still loose weight.

I've stuck with a 8/16 diet with cheating up till now. Beginning of this year I hit 90 kg again. My old intermittent fasting diet did not seem to have the same effect any more (granted I cheated quite a bit at the end). I tried mixing it with Keto, counting every kcal, grams of carbs and fat in a log book. In one month I lost 8 kg so I think it was successful. I'm off Keto for now but I may be a trick you want to try. My main takeaways from Keto is that it really does take away your cravings. I could also do longer periods of fasting (did 36 hours two times) which I think would have been very hard for me when on a carb rich diet.


Meta-commentary:

Most comments here are "It's so easy! Just do <thing that worked for the commenter>. It takes so LITTLE!"

If we know anything about dieting, it's that "what works" is vastly different for different people. I'm not talking about thermodynamics, but psychology. For someone, eating once a day is easier than lifting weights, for someone else it's completely different.

Different people are different.


You're correct in that carbon dioxide exhaled is a key factor and it's because it's the by-product of burning energy and rebuilding the body (mostly at night so get good sleep too!) What this means though is there's no easy way, you either need to build a faster metabolism or exercise more.

Of course, eating less helps too as you're not storing more energy than you need. It's a balance. As pointed out in other responses, eat less carbs/sugar (no soda or bottled juices!), eat only good fats (non manufactured) and don't eat anything in a packet/can that has numbers in the ingredients. Frozen or canned vegetables are ok if they're 'plain' without sauces etc. Basically, eat real food.

Buy smaller plates. My partner has a uncanny ability to fill up a dinner plate no matter how big so I ask her to give me the smallest dinner plates we have and don't mound them too high :) If I'm still hungry I've found just a regular hand full of peanuts takes away the hunger pangs. This helps between meals too, plenty of water also helps.


I’m pretty sure that people who are super thin and fit don’t have any one weird trick, they just have been constantly exercising and counting calories and monitoring their weight for years or decades. There’s a fine line between being a health nut and having an eating disorder, especially in an environment where you are constantly surrounded by dirt cheap junk food. I mean I’m always, always dieting and running just to stay the same weight. It’s a red queen’s race. It's not all or nothing though- put in a moderate effort and you'll be rewarded by being moderately fit. And that's worth doing, for sure. You do feel a lot better when you’re thin and healthy. But there's no magic bullet. Don't beat yourself up for not looking like a movie star- those people spend an inordinate amount of time and effort being good looking, because that's their job. Also don't imagine it's easy. But it's definitely worth doing anyway, even just a little. You get moderate results for moderate effort, and that's ok.


I am 184 cm (~6') and 62-64 kg (137-141 lbs), have kept this weight range for the last ~15 years. Maybe sharing my diet/sport schedule could help ppl..? I drink mostly water and coffee (rarely but sometimes redbull, beer maybe 1L per week). I skip breakfast most days, eating a small portion of leftovers from the night before and some fruit (apple + orange or whatever is in season) for lunch. Usually I have a after work snack (bowl of corn flakes with a bit of sugar). Dinner is usually around 20:00 and we eat whatever...meat, veggies, carbs, whatever is available that week. For sports I am on the bike for maybe 50-100 km per week depending on how lazy I feel that week. I go climbing (bouldering) 2x per week (usually riding my bike there - makes a 2-3 hour boulder session with 1hr of bike on top). Not sure if the sport would make a big difference one way or the other (if it was there or not), I think eating the right amount makes the biggest difference. However without sport my brain feels like shit so I tend to keep doing it.


Things that are easier if you live alone:

Just don't buy rich foods over which you have no willpower.

Don't go down those aisles in the supermarket. Don't keep biscuits (by which I mean cookies) and snacks in the house at all.

Don't buy "meal deal" lunches that give you a discounted fizzy drink and snack.

It's all very well people telling others that they need to develop willpower over knowing when they've had enough, etc., and I admire people who can do that. But it's just a lot easier to exercise that control at the point of purchase.

And never, EVER go food shopping while hungry, for more than just lunch. Try to buy/order your lunches before you get hungry.


> Just don't buy rich foods over which you have no willpower.

I started working with a dietician recently (which has benefits, but is not at all necessary) and they phrased is as, "its easier to practice willpower for 30 minutes once a week at the grocery store than every hour of the day the food is in the house."


It's really reassuring to hear that, because in my mind I always think my strategy is still inferior to those people who can ration out their own snacks.


Absolutely! Another couple of grocery shopping tips (from Michael Pollan):

- The Grandmother (or Great-Grandmother) test: don't buy food unless your Great-Grandmother would recognize it. I expand this to a generic hypothetical ancestor from anywhere in the world, as my Great Grandma wouldn't recognize, say, Gochujang sauce, but the idea is simple -- stick to food that has been around for a while.

- Stick to the outside "perimeter" of a grocery store for the most part. This is not a hard and fast rule, but generally the fresh and whole food will be on the walls around the grocery section, with more processed foods in the aisles.


I find it useful to think of those as just different kinds of people.

In high school, a friend of mine had an exchange student. My friend's family were all naturally thin. They were truly surprised that once a package of something sweet was open, the exchange student would return at regular intervals to have some until it was all gone. They weren't being tough or anything; they just didn't experience the cravings.

I am like the exchange student. So as much as possible, I just don't keep that stuff around.


When I was at my fittest and healthiest as an adult (at my lowest weight as an adult I was neither fit nor healthy, it was a result of being in poverty and wondering how to both pay rent and buy food), I would only walk the perimeter of my grocery store. Produce, butcher, dairy, and deli, that was pretty much it. I'd step into aisles to pick up rice, cooking oils, maybe flour (I enjoy baking, I take those things to the office though), and spices. It was remarkably effective for keeping the weight off because I, too, have no willpower. If a thing I want to eat is in the house, it gets eaten. Maybe not right away, sometimes I forget about it (like the Thin Mints I bought from a friend's daughter recently), but once I start, I don't stop until I've eaten too much.


I found this really helpful to change the way I look at willpower.

https://psyche.co/ideas/the-best-way-to-exercise-self-contro...


Wow, this really is fascinating!

Thanks so much.


OMG: When my wife started buying snacks for our kids it was game over for me.


I agree with this. Don't buy ready-to-eat food at all. All food should be prepared for a specific meal. No snacking at all.


Get your bloodwork done, see if there aren't any obvious deficiencies. One very notable would be iron deficiency which is quite common. Low iron leads to low hemoglobin, which leads to you being tired, low energy, so it's harder to lose weight but also less obviously low iron does a number on thyroid hormones which in turn can also lead to slowing metabolism and weight gain.


If you're into data and metrics and what not, I can't recommend "Burn the fat, feed the muscle" enough:

https://www.amazon.com/Burn-Fat-Feed-Muscle-Turbo-Charged/dp...

Basically this:

1.) You can't lose weight by netting fewer calories than you use; you can't gain muscle by using more calories than you net

2.) A good macrobiotic (carbs|protein|fat) calorie ratio to go by is 50%|30%|20%. (if you're calculating percentages by grams instead of calories its 56%|33%|10%)

3.) It takes more energy to eat some foods than others (thermic effect of food). You see this in TV shows like "ALONE" where the contestants starve despite a surplus of lean protein since protein is hard to digest. Ditto salads.

4.) Do cardio

5.) Do resistance training

6.) Bonus: So your body doesn't adapt, go 3 days of lower calories, 1 day of higher calories

7.) Bonus: To lose weight faster, go 3 days of lower carbs, 1 day of higher carbs

8.) Bonus: Eat smaller meals as the day goes on

The first 5 are critical; the last 3 are if you want to dork out over it.


The obvious answer is "eat less". If you can do that, great! Most people have trouble.

The thing is, we evolved to have homeostatic regulation of our food-seeking behaviors. That means we have a set of unconscious impulses that guide most of our decisions for when and how much to eat. We didn't evolve to use executive function, and only executive function, to decide how much to eat. And if we fight those impulses, we're fighting ourselves.

Obviously, the problem isn't simple. Otherwise, everyone would be at their ideal weight! So what can we do?

Instead of fighting against your instincts, manipulate them. Why do we get those impulses to eat too much? In a modern environment, we have easy access to hyperpalatable food – in other words, junk food. It's highly rewarding for very little effort, so your brain not only tells you to eat more of it at once, it also tells you to seek it out more often.

But how do we manipulate our food-seeking impulses? By changing your food environment. Don't surround yourself with junk food. Choose to surround yourself with healthier foods, and choose to eat foods that require some effort to obtain or prepare. If you don't have time to cook, make time. You'll feel full after fewer calories, and your food seeking behaviors will naturally change. Don't do anything crazy, just eat healthy foods in sensible combinations.

Now, you can certainly throw some self-control into the equation. And if you can't fully control your food environment, you'll have to. But if you keep your self in the same food environment that got you fat and try to lose weight entirely through self-control, statistically your odds of success are quite low.

This is my answer. Your answer may be different, but this is what worked for me.


One problem with that don't surround yourself with junk food idea, is now living in a city means junk food is never more than a few minutes delivery away.

The amount of times I've looked at all my healthy food in the fridge and decided instead to order from burger king...

I don't have any answers. I've used cocaine, and I swear that the right combination of fat, salt and sugar is far more addictive than coke ever was.

The UK has just authorised liraglutide for weight loss and I'm going to give that a go.


I've tried a handful of fad diets, and nothing stuck until I learned of and developed some habits around calorie deficits.

Use a BMI calculator to figure out where you're currently at and where you might want to be. A good one will tell you your maintenance calories and the calories you should target to lose weight.

Invest in a good kitchen scale and make it your best friend.

Use an A5 notepad and rubber-tipped pencil to count calories daily. Food, drinks and all. No more than one sheet per day is a constraint that works for me. Use a highlighter to reflect and identify your mistakes at the end of the day.

Be militant about portion control. Use the advice written on boxes for cereal and the like. Measure your milk portions with cereal and any hot drinks too.

Another tip is to replace treats with low calorie alternatives. Hartley's sugar-free jelly is magic!

In the UK, folks typically weigh themselves in stones (st). I prefer weighing myself in pounds (lbs). When looking at the scale every other morning, it takes weeks for 21.00st to become 20.00st. Weighing yourself in pounds seems more satisfying. May be the same for kilogrammes to lbs too.

I use a few spreadsheets. I took the numbers from the BMI calculator and created a spreadsheet with three columns showing how much I would weigh at particular dates in the year if I maintained -1lb a week, -1.5lb a week and -2lbs a week. It shows that I could reach my goal by next year - and that's incredibly motivating. Weekly weigh-ins going into a line graph with a trendline helps too.

The trick is that I don't feel like I'm on a diet. The food hasn't actually changed all that much. It's just that I'm now mindful of the portion sizes and learning to say no so that I hit my daily targets.


I failed to lose weight for years via "eat less".

Eventually, I tried a diet from CSIRO which set minimum quantities of certain foods; 2.5 cups cooked green vegetables and 150g lean high-protein food (chicken, eggs, kangaroo, tofu).

It was genuinely difficult to force myself to consume those quantities every day, but I found it easier to follow "you must" than "you must not".


Stop Drinking Calories. No alcohol, no soda, no fruit juice. This is by far the easiest way to lose weight.

Bonus: You don't need to eat what's in front of you. My family looks weirdly at me because I remove half the bread from a sandwich where the bread is too large. You don't have eat anything, you don't have to waste your caloric budget on "bad carbs".


Change your diet, but only make changes that you can see yourself following for the next 10 years. The main exception is verified health concerns (ex: Control your blood sugar if the doctor has told you too).

What this really means in practice: You won't be able to cut all sweets and treats, but surely you can commit to having them less often. You can eat less meat and more vegetables. Eat more legumes and more whole grains when you can stomach them. These changes eventually become normal, and really there is no failing. At the end of the week, if you are able to do this 4-5 days, you are better off than if you didn't. Always focus on a better overall diet. And in general, doing this means fewer calories consumed. Reasoning for this: If you eat more vegetables (for example), those vegetables generally replaces higher calorie foods. Since nothing is realistically off limits, the times when you really miss having (favorite food) are minimized.

You'll also probably want to eat less. For me, this means eating more at a time of day when I'm the most hungry: Evenings. I eat little during the day, and more at my evening meal. As a bonus, I feel completely satisfied (full!) after my evening meal, and that is a wonderful feeling.

If you can, work in more accidental activity. Walk to the store if one is close enough, for example. Walk the dog more, play with children in active ways, and so on. These don't seem like exercise, per se. Of course, if you like an exercise or activity, by all means, do that more.

Edit: I almost forgot to add to get rid of sugary drinks in general. This includes diet drinks - the taste sugary, and this is what you should get away from. I personally tend to drink only water or black coffee on a normal day. When I drink soda and other things, I tend to drink the fully sugared one. Also, if you drink alcohol, you probably have calories there.


I lost around 10 kg in a few month by radically changing my food and sports habits.

- At breakfast I ate a fruit, some cereals and yogurts or milk.

- at lunch, eat a 1000gr plate of wholemeal pasta (I'm Italian) with whatever you want, expecially vegetables: i do pasta with sauce, with broccoli, with asparagus, with zucchini...

- at dinner, i divide my plate in three parts. First part is proteins and it can be a 100-120gr of chicken / salmon / tuna / cheese / eggs. Second part is 50gr of carboidrates and can be whole grain bread / pearl / barley / rice / cuscus. Third part is vegetables: no restrictions here: salad, tomatoes, zucchini, broccoli, spinach... whatever you can find.

- And now there's the sports part. I exercise almost every day (nowadays every 3 days I do a day of stop). Usually I do 30 mins of high cardio exercises. But I also practice tennis at an amateur level, even though I partecipate to local tournaments. So when I have tennis training or tennis match I do not do other sports that day.

Other things that really helped in getting motivated and on track:

- I use an italian app for fitness called FixFit. I am happy to say that their yearly subscription was a good deal. The diet explanation was in the app. They propose a track of exercises to you. Try as many fitness apps you can and choose the one you find more appropriate.

- I've got a friend that trains everyday. He plays football, but when he doesn't play, he does cardio exercises at home. We started during covid by whatsapp calling each other and doing exercises together. Whatsapp call on mobile and training video on chromecast. This is a huge motivation even for the days you can't find any will!

After a year of this crazy workout and diet regime, I can finally see my abs.


> at lunch, eat a 1000gr plate of wholemeal pasta

gr = gram?

1kg of pasta? Or do you mean 100g?


100 gr. Sorry for the exceding zero!


This was funny though. Italian eating 1kg pasta/day to lose weight :)


After years of experimentation, here is the list of things that I do and I think might help others:

(from easier to harder)

1 - Reduce the amount of food you consume on every meal. A trick I use is to drink plain sparkling water while eating. It’s a healthy drink and helps you to feel full.

2 - DO NOT eat between meals. Only allow yourself to have water, tea or coffee (these last two only if you have them without any sugar nor cream)

3 - Avoid sugar as possible. Do not add sugar to something unless it’s strictly necessary.

4 - Consider doing intermittent fasting. I personally do 16 - 24 hours fasting one or two times per week. Every three months I also do a 72 hours one. Be careful and read about the topic because depending on your metabolism you might need a different program.

5 - Do cardio regularly. You don’t need to go outside for running. In my case, I have a stationary bike I bought on Amazon and use it for 30-45 minutes three days a week while watching some stuff in YouTube.

6 - Do muscular training. It doesn’t need to be on a gym lifting weights. Me personally do climbing and callisthenics.

Hope it helps.


I gain and lose weight all the time. Both are straightforward: eat at a caloric surplus or deficit. Your approach is an attempt to increase your basal metabolic rate which is probably not as helpful as you think. You probably wouldn’t be able to increase it by much more than very light exercise. Our bodies aren’t fires.

What helps the most to lose weight:

Eat lots of foods high in fiber. This is the biggest hack and very few people talk about it - the fiber greatly increases your feeling of satiety. Fiber has a lot of good effects too on your cardiovascular system and (obviously) digestive system, so you should be getting a lot of it all the time. But to lose weight swap things with higher fiber versions. For breakfast have some oatmeal, for dinner have some beans and broccoli with whatever else, swap white bread with whole grain, etc

Protein also increases satiety to a lesser extent. Lean proteins are your friend. Chicken breast is really good but it has no flavor so don’t be afraid to add some sauce to it (within reason). Stay away from fatty meats.

Ideally you should count calories, but for most people they probably won’t. It’s not that hard once you build the habit. You are just adding vectors.

For exercise, you can start lifting and doing heavy cardio if you want. It will help if you stick with it. But something not a lot of people realize is that just walking can burn a lot of calories. It doesn’t need to be strenuous. So going on a 1-2 hour walk, or walking to work or on errands if you’re able to do so, can add a few extra hundred calories burned per day. And really you only need to burn an extra 500 calories per day to lose 1lb/week, so walking can make a big difference.

My weirder tips: nicotine and stimulants help but might be more destructive long term. You can get ephedrine supplements still if you know where to look but use at your own risk.


Time Restricted Eating is your answer.

1) https://www.foundmyfitness.com/topics/time-restricted-eating

2) https://www.nature.com/articles/s41387-021-00149-0

3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7262456/

4) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S155041311...

5) Also see the book The Circadian Code by Dr. Satchin Panda. TEDx talk : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erBJuxVR7IE


It's not "weird" but weight is lost in the kitchen, NOT the gym. Adding more exercise will actually increase your hunger and likely cause you to overeat. You need to exercise to be healthy, but it's actually counter to immediate weight-loss. Exercise regularly, but don't overdo it and cause hunger cravings.

In the long term, however, more muscular bodies burn more calories at rest. But cut first, then bulk.

Greatly increase your intake of protein and veggies. 0.8 Grams of protein per your body weight in kgs. By cranking up your protein intake by a lot, you'll decrease how much you eat in "junk" Obviously you need veggies too, so make your plate mostly protein, a lot of veggies and you'll have very little room left for the rest. Tons of chicken and protein shakes (watch the sugar in them) are practically necessary.

Tons of water. No other liquids besides water (or black coffee or tea). Getting calories from liquids is useless. NO alcohol, sodas, or fancy coffee.


This will sound pretty lame, but it was the biggest help for me when I felt hunger during intermittent fasting: a big glass of water every time I get hungry outside the window of time I set aside for food.

I think there are other places on the internet that give the same advice, as sometimes our bodies don't make the distinction between being thirsty and being hungry.


One "weird" tip is to stop using heating and air conditioning. At hot or cold temperatures your body has to expend more energy on thermoregulation. Of course this may be uncomfortable.

Some people have reported good results with the Win Hof method for cold tolerance and weight loss. I don't think that it's ever been validated in a real randomized controlled trial, but there is at least a theoretical basis to believe that practitioners can learn to raise their metabolisms.

If you want to go the medical route, SGLT2 inhibitors have also shown good results and are well tolerated by most patients.

https://www.fda.gov/drugs/postmarket-drug-safety-information...

As others have commented, breathing pure oxygen is pointless for weight loss and will damage your lungs if you do it for too long.


1) Before eating a snack in the evening, ask yourself "Am I tired, thirsty or hungry?"

If you are tired, go to bed.

If you are thirsty, drink some water.

If you are hungry, eat a small amount (20g) of lean meat, cheese or nuts and leave the kitchen immediately.

2) Gradually cut all sweet food and drink from your diet. This will re-adjust your taste buds for a healthier diet, and you won't even notice.


Have you tried out all added sugar? If you're looking for some kind of trick I'd say that might qualify. Really the main thing is to eat well, exercise, and get adequate sleep, but everyone knows that. From what I understand, some people still don't realize how toxic sugar (specifically fructose) is.

So, my weird tip (not so weird) is to completely avoid added sugar. Start looking at labels. If sugar is an ingredient, do not consume. Simple as that. This implies that if there is no ingredient list (not packaged / processed food) then that item is acceptable. I'd further add that such an item is preferable.

Regarding your O2 hack, we don't use all of the oxygen we breathe in, we exhale a lot back into the atmosphere, so no, the lungs do not need to be saturated. But the hack here is to force the body to do work it doesn't really need to do for survival, that way it requires more O2. Exercise is the hack.


> My theory, though untested, is that getting an oxygen tank...

Very unlikely to do anything. If you can't get enough oxygen to your tissues, you'll already feel that (lactic acid buildup).

You're not likely to significantly increase your CO2 exhalation that way because you're not some simple "O2 in, CO2 out" machine. The air we exhale is still ~16% Oxygen.

Other than that, I've just started a 5:2 intermittent fasting program. It's not a full fast, two days a week I stick to sub-600 calories. The other days I have cut out or down on my snacking and try to eat 'better', but those two days I go hungry. After about 5 weeks of this, I appear to be adjusting quite well, the 'fast' days are much more bearable than they were at the start. I seem to be losing weight at a steady rate, about 0.8-1kg per week. It's not exactly a weird tip or a hack to ultra-fast weight loss, but it seems to work so far.


Calories in, calories out. Use an app like LoseIt or MyFitnessPal. Start by just logging, don't even change your diet at first, just log what you're doing accurately paying close attention to the actual portion sizes you're eating.

Especially if you mostly make your own food, buy a food scale and do as much measuring by weight as possible.

I think most people's diet quality is at least okay, but the portions and moderation is what gets you.

If this method makes you feel too hungry, increase your vegetable and fiber intake. Anything involving empty carbs and sugar is going to be the least efficient at making you feel full.

Cook with as many whole ingredients as possible. If it comes in a box or is packaged in some way, it's probably not as good. For example, eat fruit instead of having a packaged dessert.

Stay hydrated.

Try to maintain the joy of eating, or else you'll just hate your "diet" and quit. There are many delicious healthy recipes out there.


Healthy lifestyle you enjoy is the true path to sustainably healthy weight and it requires only 2 things: 1. Physical activities that are fun with people you enjoy being around. - There is at least 1 sport you enjoy (try racket sports or climbing if you don't like team sports) - Play with other people. You'll be pumped to see your friends and have fun, just like when you were a kid - 'No pain no gain' is BS unless your training to be an athlete.

2. Healthy diet you enjoy - Find about 6-8 healthy meals you enjoy eating regularly - Fad diets are mostly BS (same BS as 'no pain no gain') - Shouldn't feel like your dieting.

3. Emotional Issues are often the biggest blocker - Emotional struggles easily attach themselves to eating habits. - Unhelpful attitudes about yourself also keep people back from trying new activities. I.e. thinking people will judge you for trying a new sport/going to the gym.


Get your hormone levels tested by an endocrinologist. I interpreted weird, as "unusual". Most people will have hormone levels which are not contributing to weight issues they feel they have.

An underlying condition that affects, say testosterone, can result in much more limited impact from exercise. The situation is going to be very different for every individual. You may only need a very minimal boost to shed quite a lot of weight by getting closer to the middle of the normal range. Lifting weights or other exercise is often recommended as a booster for testosterone, but underlying conditions may be reducing the impact.

It is often unhelpful to search for information online, including Reddit on this topic, if you are not a skeptical type of person. There are people looking to sell all kinds of supplements, those that are abusing testosterone, people who feel like they need to be injecting versus using implants, etc.


Change your food lifestyle: Eat mostly unprocessed plant-based foods.

The book "Eat to Live" explains why plant-based foods are better for you and how much of the processed food in the modern lifestyle is not good for long-term health.

Diets are temporary and so are their results. Lifestyle changes require a bigger commitment, but they will change your life.


Ice baths. It revs up the metabolism. Worked for me.

This one is controversial but I see a lot in here about emotional eating, intermittent fasting, etc. I have Binge Eating Disorder, but only at night. There is one approved drug for BED...vyvanse. Do some googling. It works! But good luck finding a dr that will go that route.

Even if you don't have BED, do you have any symptoms that might be roughly equivalent to ADHD? If so, get diagnosed with ADHD and get a rx for Adderall. It's basically Vyvanse anyway. Just get yourself on a regimen where we do your intermittent fasting in conjunction with the adderal and then make sure you cycle off that on the weekends. Aderall is a wonder drug and I dunno why everyone is scared of it. I love it and have zero side effects. Be safe on it and you'll have no issues. I'm never hungry, lost 150 lbs on it, and feel wonderful.


What has worked for me:

1. Find out why you are overweight. For me it was comfort eating junk food and large meals.

2. Start working on what’s causing the first step. I very gradually changed my approach to eating, shifting from unhealthy foods to healthier ones. Now I have an pretty easy time to either not eat or just pick something healthy.

3. I cut out breakfast and just drink coffee or tea, then light lunch followed by healthy snacks and a large dinner. I use whatever amount of fat I need to cook dinner and make sure my food is tasty. I don’t avoid carbs.

4. It all mostly just boils down to cutting out sugary snacks, huge lunches, breakfast and eating “normal food”.

5. Oh, I also try to get 20 min of walking or cycling or something a day in. Then some push-ups , maybe a chin-up. Excercise is important but only like 20% of the whole thing.

What hasn’t worked for me:

Diets. Calorie counting, KETO, whatever. Weight always comes back after a while because it doesn’t address on why I eat.


Crazy ideas? Don’t eat and drink anything other than water for 48 hours. Not for the weight loss benefits, but for learning what actual hunger feels like. What you think is hunger is most likely just cravings.

Then work on your diet until you no longer get those cravings and can decide when and what to eat instead of being driven by impulse


Agree. After a while I love the mental clarity fasts give me. Like coffee but longer and without being jumpy


https://reddit.com/r/saturatedfat and https://twitter.com/fire_bottle have a "weird" weight loss strategy based on a high saturated fat diet (including and especially supplementing with raw stearic acid and/or high-stearic acid foods like cacao butter). The theory behind it echoes with the "french paradox" of maintaining ideal weight while consuming copious amounts of saturated fat.

I'm already high-fat keto and don't have weight to lose so I don't have personal experience with it, but I did purchase some of Brad's / fireinabottle's stearic acid and used it as an experiment, it does increase satiety and possibly ketosis to a degree.


I got a psychogenic fever and lost a few kg in a week that didn't come back

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27227051/

If you hit the right buttons in the sympathetic nervous system you activate a special population of fat cells that seems to thermalize fat without the fat cells fighting to get it back afterwards.

I don't think it's reproducible because the level of psychological stress required to make it happen is extreme so there would be ethical problems with any protocol to induce a psychogenic fever.

If I were you I'd consider going a week without eating anything. It is general advice to lift weights to put some muscle mass on to raise your metabolism. It's not fashionable to do cardio for weight loss today but if you can manage to do 2 hours a day for a while it will move the needle.


Many COVID-19 patients have experienced significant weight loss. Anecdotally that seems to be correlated with having a fever for several days. Patients aren't able to eat much, and seem to be burning a lot of calories just lying in bed.

https://www.clinicalnutritionjournal.com/article/S0261-5614(...

(I am not recommending catching COVID-19 as a way to lose weight.)


I lost 2kg when I got Omicron, I gained it back in the next month.

I had no fever though and I checked my temperature numerous times to be sure of it.


What an interesting anecdote. I wonder if mentally-induced fever that is _not_ associated with high stress levels could do something similar, or if a certain level of mental anguish is a prerequisite in addition to the fever itself.


See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tummo


That is really interesting, thanks for sharing. I was thinking of something a little less impressive:

As a child I got very sick at one point and had to be in the hospital. After being discharged, my mother had to keep monitoring my temperature. She would measure it two or three times a day for weeks, and I _always_ had a fever, leading her and the doctor to think I wasn't fully recovered yet. At one of my post-sickness checkups, the doctor suggested my mother stop measuring for a few days. She did, and the next time she measured after this period my temperature was back to normal. The doctor's suspicion, and eventual conclusion, was that my fever was mentally induced; he said I was so used to being sick and having my temp measured all the time, and constantly having a fever, that my body just reacted to the measurement by developing an actual low grade fever.

I noticed a similar effect when pretending to be sick to avoid school over the years. I'd feel totally fine, but "playing" sick resulted in actually getting a fever when my temperature was checked.

I wonder if that kind of accidental temperature elevation could also have metabolism and weight effects. And if it could be harnessed without legitimate debilitating stress or long periods of meditation, since it seems to be pretty simple to induce.

In the end I don't think there's any real trick to weight loss - it's all about calories, in my opinion. But how our mind can impact our physical state is always a fascinating topic to me regardless!


Intermittent fasting, for example not eating for 12 hours a day (say 7pm to 7am), has worked for me when I stuck to it.


You need a lifestyle change, also give a lot more priority to exercise (needs to come first than work, because it is a multiplier of it), and forget about your weight, if you double down on exercise everything else will fall into place, you need to have your own system! Whatever works for you! The key is consistency!!


Offer a friend (that will keep you honest) an amount of money that would be extremely painful to lose if you don't hit your target. This is how I quit smoking 10 year ago. It's also how I'm down 80 lbs in the last 12 months.

Very easy to stick to rules when there's an unreasonably large fine for breaking them.


I lost 60 pounds and of that 45 was only normal walks and diet - counting calories. The thing that helped me in the beginning was to think about calories equally, which they’re not, and think about spending them like coins. So I could spend them on a burger fries and a shake and then I was out of coins for the day or I could eat 600 baby carrots same thing. Later as you get skinnier that doesn’t work well but when you have a lot to lose it works great. I also set small goals realizing I haven’t weighed below 238 in 5 years and 230 in 7 years and so on so I would be able to be like well yeah I only lost 10 pounds but I’m the skinniest I’ve been in 5 years! That combination of tricks but listening to David goggins audiobook and signing up for a difficult fitness event to motivate me achieved the weight loss goal


Tons of comments already in the direction of 'eat less' and 'exercise more'. Of course. One thing I've found extremely helpful is to cook more! WFH is amazing for this. If you can find 15 minutes of meeting time throughout the day where you aren't an active speaker, you can chop vegetables or do dishes for lunch and dinner.

Back to the primary topic: cooking your own meals makes 'eating less' a matter of dialing in the portion sizes over time. I eat ~110g of pasta, or 0.8 cups of rice, or similar, and about 0.3-0.5 lb of protein, and about 1-1.5 vegetables per meal. Overall, I eat two meals like this, black coffee, a breakfast bar, and a snack, which puts me at 2000-2500 cal.

Now, on to a weird tip: meal planning! What a fun mix of intuition and ideas from operations research.


I hope you see my comment I am late to the game. Try my diet called the half and half. Make your plate of food and take a second plate and split everything exactly 50/50 on to the second plate. Now eat your first plate. Now you have to wait half and hour and if you are still hungry go back to the second plate. I promise you it will help you lose weight. No rules that say you can’t eat anything but by waiting half an hour you will find often you get busy or your stomach catches up and you don’t go back. Not long after your stomach will decrease in size and your meals will get smaller and smaller. I lost 50lbs with this diet. The only other rule is if you are feeling full stop eating don’t just say oh it’s only one more bit and eat it just toss it. Small bites add up so if full stop.


Smaller portions. Eat whatever you want, just eat less of it. One of the best ways to do this is to avoid restaurants, or at least set aside half of the portion as soon as possible and save it for later; restaurant portions are insane, even at "healthy" restaurants. Get used to feeling a little hungry in the hour or two leading up to your next meal, and after a little while your stomach will shrink and you won't want/be able to eat nearly as much as before. From then on it becomes pretty easy; just avoid having access to bottomless, passively-delicious food that overrides your actual hunger senses, and you otherwise won't have much trouble sticking to reasonable portions.

(Speaking from personal experience of losing several tens of pounds over covid, due mainly to not eating out)


A great way to do that is too use smaller plates. The mind is pretty easily tricked; a small plate overflowing may lead to feeling fuller than a large plate sparsely occupied.

Not as much of a weird truck, but I agree it's also great to avoid eating out if you can. I've developed a few meals that I can prepare very easily (sometimes within just a few minutes), are decently satiating, cheap, and not unhealthy. Luckily, I don't get bored with my food - I've literally spent a year eating the same breakfast every day - so the lack of variety with meal prepping doesn't bother me.


Yeah, good point about dishes. Weirdly it seems like even dish sizes for home use have been inflating over time

My go-to easy lunch meal is just some sliced cheese, some crackers, and a good-sized piece of fruit. The fruit fills my stomach, the cheese provides some protein and combines with the crackers to feel tasty and satisfying

I also want to emphasize the "eat whatever you want" aspect. It can be quickly demoralizing to try and give up all of your comfort foods; for me it was really helpful to be able to keep all those in my life and just get used to a new normal when it came to the amount


I've lost 30 lbs since October without significant effort or exercise.

I count all the calories I consume and keep my daily intake to 1400-1800, except for 1 day a week where I am allowed up to 3000 (but I haven't gone over 2500 yet). This yields a roughly 5000 calorie deficit per week which is good for 6lbs of consistent weight loss per month so far. I also don't eat anything after 7pm which automatically eradicates high calorie snacking opportunities for me. I have no emotional connection to food which may help - I am not bothered by going 6 hours without food in the evening. I used to just eat random crap for the taste/fun of it but I didn't really need to.

It's not really "weird" but doesn't seem commonly recommended by all the folks obsessed with diet and exercise.


Even at 1850 calories (a deficit which should result in about 1 pound loss a week for me), I find myself getting really hungry all the time. My body knows it's starving itself, and tells me to eat. This makes it hard to stick with calorie deficits over the long term. 1400 is extreme and would be pretty difficult for most people.


It does seem we all have very different physiologies when it comes to this stuff! I find aerobic exercise distressing, for example, but it makes a lot of people feel great. Meanwhile I could eat white rice three times a day for the next year and not be that bothered.

I guess this is why there are so many approaches to losing weight - one size does not fit all, although ultimately the calorie calculation comes into play from one direction or another.


If you think about it, you breathe in 21% oxygen and breathe out 5% CO2. If you switch to 100% oxygen, you still breathe out 5% CO2. This is because the carbonic acid is tightly regulated in the body at a level that is in equilibrium with 5% CO2. When we produce excess, through exercise, we ventilate more to maintain the balance. But the partial pressure of CO2 remains the same. There is some oxygen removed but only as much as the hemoglobin can carry.

Prolonged 100% oxygen has no effect on this and is also toxic over time. People on oxygen therapy are really breathing 40%, and 100% is only used for short stints during anesthetic procedures.

This video explains how weight loss occurs: https://youtu.be/vuIlsN32WaE


3 simple steps to lose weight:

1) Make yourself familiar with the energy contents of foods you usually eat.

2) Identify 500 kcal that you can cut out of your daily diet by eliminating the highest energy items or eating less of them.

3) Lose about 2 kg each month.

By reducing your caloric intake by 500kcal a day you save about 15,000 kcal a month. That is equivalent to 1.7 kg fat (assuming 9kcal per gram fat). Since there is also some energy lost in conversion of food to bodyfat the weight loss will be slightly higher than that.

500 kcal can often be saved by simple measures like swapping fizzy drinks with water. Another big saver is to not have second helpings (or renounce the third helping if you tend to have it).

Awareness of the caloric content of the foods you eat will enable you to control your intake much better. And reducing intake is the key to losing weight.


Get a Wahoo Kickr and only allow yourself to doom scroll while on the Kickr (roughly doing zone 2 - 120bpm heart rate - 45 mins 3-4x per week). You’ll soon lose weight. Also strength training, I recommend 5x5 strong lifts plus add in Lat pull down/banded pull ups and build up to pull ups. Push breakfast back by 1h per day by drinking coffee until you’re eating lunch at 2pm. If you’re addicted to sugar buy a load of fruit (not bananas, easy peelers and berries are best) eat them when you get cravings for the first month. Believe that change is possible, if you don’t believe none of this will work. Weigh yourself daily and religiously after peeing in the morning. When you fail and you will fail winning is about how quickly you can return to the plan.


This is close enough to how I went from 103kg to a very fit and strong 82kg before the pandemic. Unfortunately due to two minor injuries and the aforementioned pandemic and a change in job I’m now 110kg (excuses excuses) first and foremost however it’s a mindset thing.


Weights + Cardio in the morning before ANY food intake. Studies have shown "fasted" exercise gets rid of fat more efficiently than exercise after consuming food, even when the SAME calories were burned. I lost 40 lbs 3 years ago by exercising before work, not after work.


Lower the temperature of your room and your body will have to burn more calories to compensate. It's not really going to make a significant change to your weight though (and obviously don't be dumb and take this to an extreme and freeze yourself).

Increase your base metabolic rate (i.e. calories your body burns at rest) and you'll lose more weight without doing anything. Weight lifting is the most bang for buck way to significantly improve your metabolic rate without also eating back all the calories in the process (a problem with long aerobic exercise).

Look into a simple bodyweight exercise routine like DDP yoga and just start doing a little bit every day--even as little as 10 mins or so a day/an hour a week will bring significant benefits over a few months.


Willpower is a limited resource, environmental modifications and behaviourism are king here. Find ways that work for you to keep less food around. Count calories, and reinforce meeting your calorie goals each day. If that doesn't work, it doesn't mean you are weak or bad, you just haven't found something sufficiently reinforcing yet. You can experiment with reinforcement intervals. Don't be afraid to start off with over-the-top reinforcement, you can always fade it down the road. But there's no substitution for calories in/out, there's no way you can get around eating less food if you want to lose weight (unless you exercise a ton, but that's typically not sustainable for someone chronically overweight).


Please don’t try the oxygen tank idea. It’s counterintuitive but 100% O2 isn’t good for you (unless you need it to get enough saturation, and the alternative is hypoxemia).

You asked for weird tips, so here’s mine. Caffeine pills instead of coffee. Gives you more room for water which is good for you, good for weight loss, and fills you up a bit. Plus replaces coffee which typically includes sugar (or replaces energy drinks which can have way more sugar). Double plus, you’ll get more consistent doses of caffeine which is even an appetite suppressant. All that, and you’ll still have the energy for whatever workout you want to do. Just make sure you keep some calories in and lots of water. And be careful, start slow like 100-200mg unless you know what you’re doing.

Good luck!


I lost 15kg in 3 months by cutting down carbs and cutting down portion sizes by about 50%. Essentially cut out rice, pasta, bread and swapped with wraps (low carb) or zucchini noodles. Also used low carb wraps as a pizza base. I opted for high protein instead. I felt super hungry when I cut down portion sizes but as my stomach shank to a normal size, I started to eat less and felt full when I was supposed to. I also felt sick if I would then overeat. This is the hard part for most people. They believe they need to eat something when they get hungry when they don't. Your stretch receptors in your stomach need to recalibrate. I also went to the gym and did 30 min of cardio and 20 minutes of strength training 3-4 times per week.


Eat less. No breakfast, eggs and something else small for lunch, normal meal for dinner.

No seconds, no desert. Alcohol and calories you can drink are probably the easiest way to gain weight.

People say exercise but it’s mostly diet. I worked out for years and was strong but never lost much fat until dieting.


Can recommend these 21 super weird secret "tweaks" from some shaman healer dude that my girlfriends stepdads mother's uncle met at a silent meditation retreat in the Astral mountains.

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/trailer-for-how-not-to-diet...

https://nutritionfacts.org/video/flashback-friday-dr-gregers...

Edit: Joking aside, the weight loss tweaks can also be found in the free "Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen" iPhone or Android app.


Amphetamines and home cooking / simple calories in calories out.

Amphetamine recommendation will probably get some hate, but it’s genuinely prescribed for people having issues with obesity. They also make life much nicer within moderation.

Oh yeah… absolutely NO soda with high fructose corn syrup. Seriously. Diet Dr. Pepper & Mtn Dew Spark Zero are great if you need the soda drink feel.

A single 16oz bottle of most soda’s are 110% the daily sugars portion, & HFCS is essentially the worst of all sugars for your health.

Stove cooked popcorn is great if you are the type to need to continuously snack, use coconut oil & buy Flavacol (popcorn salt) & it tastes amazing, ultra low calorie, & very filling.

(Note: this comment not brought to you by amphetamines, though it may seem :P )


DO NOT OVERUSE AN OXYGEN TANK. This will give you oxygen poisoning.

There are no weird tricks for weight loss. My best advice is to commit fully and indefinitely. Kill the illusion of yourself living your current life as-is but with a thinner body. you must grow / adjust / embrace permanent lifestyle changes and then you will eventually find yourself having the body that reflects those changes.

The most efficient method is to raise your base metabolic rate while maintaining an appropriate caloric deficit. Be sensitive to the difference between hunger and starvation. Get comfortable feeling hungry, but dont let yourself starve

the only tricks or tips that might help with this are personal experiences on your end. Finding activities, routines, communities, support systems, etc that make it less of a chore to stick to a lifestyle fitting to the body you want

HIIT training is a good way to quickly increase your resting metabolic rate for a short period of time (like a day) - do it responsibly though ofc.

The thing is, if you use weight loss tricks (like HIIT) and dont intend to continue them after youve hit your goal weight - your base metabolic rate will drop, and you will start rapidly gaining weight if you dont adjust your diet to match (which is much easier said than done, and hard to even notice it is happening tbh)

So no matter what you do, by the end of it you need to be living an appropriate life for the body you want if you intend to keep it. Might as well work towards building that lifestyle from the beginning


Weight loss is a very personal thing, to fix your weight you need to correct where you are not doing so well.

I don't eat that much but am super sedentary, so for me increasing exercise does more than eating less.

If you need to eat less keto style diets are good for brain hacking yourself in to being less hungry. I am not suggesting going full keto just reduce refined sugar, whole fruit is still cool.

If you need to exercise more, start slow. Pick a routine (I like reddit's r/bodyweightfitness recommended routine). Just do the warm up for a week, then add the rest. Start the routine on a weekend when you have more time to do it slowly and figure things out. Then work it in to your daily routine, until it is just something you do like brushing your teeth.


I don't know if what 16 year old me did will help you, but I solved my overweight with bulimia - forcefully throwing up after eating a chunk of food. I figured that I didn't care if my stomach was filled or not, I just wanted to eat. Once I ate, it didn't matter if my stomach was empty. If it was empty, I could just drink water and be fine for another couple of hours. So I would throw up all the food I ate on purpose, then drink water. Repeat this for 3 times a day, and you're going to sleep with only water.

The upside, I lost weight very, very quickly. The downside, I'm 21 years old, skinny, but still do it. It's like an unhealthy addiction, and it's a disorder that I don't know how to get rid of.


There is no magic: your body needs to burn more than what you eat. I think those advices are fairly "easy" to implement:

- eat less - intermittent fasting is easy: just skip 1 meal, everyday, make sure to have 16hours fast. For me 1 skip breakfast.

- drink water, coffee, tea when you want to eat during the fasting time , or want to snack. If you really need to snack, eat nuts.

- stop any soda and fruit juice - they have so much calorie and sugar into it... drink water, tea or coffee instead.

- workout / do any sport, at least 3 times a week, at least 1 hour session each.

- you gym needs to be at 5 minutes reach so you can't make any excuses.

- gym can be boring, try a new sport you can stick with. I usually do volleyball and go to gym, but willing to go to hikes or bouldering with friends from time to time.


I don't think it would work. I'm sure it will not increase the oxygen in the blood too much. Usually, the blood is transporting more than 95% of the maximal capacity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_saturation_(medicine)

Also, breathing pure oxygen for too much time without medical supervision is dangerous https://www.webmd.com/balance/features/rise-of-oxygen-bars (The effect is somewhat similar to put your face in a jar with diluted bleach.)


I struggled with weight for decades but this last year I've lost 60+ pounds, and I will lose more. All the weird tips in the world won't help IMO. I used an app that worked for me finally. It worked because I was able to get the education, and mindset / motivation I needed. Little tips and tricks won't work, you need a comprehensive solution that works for you. I'm not shilling for some company, this was the only thing that has worked consistently for me after decades of trying. Anyway, at the risk of sounding like an advert which this is not, it was noom. It takes a lot of work and persistence but having the reasons and knowledge to make it all come together and be consistent is what is key.


I agree with the other advice given. Eat less sugar, eat less in general, do more exercise. Perhaps you can go to work by ebike? Anyway, to add to the discussion, perhaps the satiety index will help you:

http://www.ernaehrungsdenkwerkstatt.de/fileadmin/user_upload...

It's a list of food items rated by calories and the time they will make you feel satiated. Potatoes are the best, especially if you cook them and allow them to cool down again, your body will take a long time to break down the carbs.


Reading the oxygen theory, there is several points which to explain why A) it won't work, B) it is dangerous, C) oxygen is still great when used for other situations.

When you switch air to 100% oxygen, the primary effect is that the gas you breathe in do not have any of the non-oxygen gases. For carbon dioxide, this is about 0.04%, which your lung increase during exhale to 4-5%. The gain thus is those 0.04%, which isn't significant enough to do anything.

When we breathe in a gas the exhale matches rather closely what we breathed in. If it is air, the exhale will be 78% nitrogen which matches the 78% nitrogen that went in. Out of the 21% oxygen, about 17% will go out, together with those 4% carbon dioxide. the remaining 1% will be mostly argon, neon, and other stuff.

If we take in 100% oxygen, 4% will be metabolized into carbon dioxide and ~96% oxygen will go out during exhale. There will likely also be a small portion of nitrogen, but I don't recall how much if a person is fully decompressed to begin with (ie no diving, no climbing, no air travel, no change in elevation). Metabolizeing of oxygen generally do not increase in any significant amount with increased pressure.

But not only won't it benefit weight loss, pure oxygen is dangerous. The more oxygen is circulating in the blood, the more it will react and creating oxygen radicals. Too much and some very nasty effects occurs to the central nervous system, lungs, and/or eyes. People trained to deal with elevated oxygen exposure need to closely monitor the pressure and the exposure time (hours, total for a day, total for a full week).

Oxygen is however a great tool for other uses. One can use it to decrease nitrogen uptake when people are under increased pressure, and also help decompression of inert gases. During disease and injuries, the increase oxygen in the blood increases the odds that the cells can still take in oxygen, reducing cell death and improving outcomes. Oxygen is also used by the immune system, through there is a lot of unknowns there when it comes to over 21% in 1 ATA. Great stuff during specific circumstances under the right management.


My weight fluctuates a lot ( especially if I find myself consuming more alcohol) but I have a system that’s always worked for me when I want to drop weight 1. Only black coffee for breakfast. Maybe a banana or granola bar if you really need it but try to avoid any calories before noon 2. Light lunch (~400cal). Think something like peanut butter and jelly or a soylent. 3. Pretty much whatever you want for dinner. 4. Avoid any calories after 8pm.

Counting calories helps a lot at first just to get an understanding of how much you can eat each day. Myfitnesspal works well.

Limiting calorie consumption to an 8 hr window made a huge difference for me. If you get hungry outside that window try decaf coffee, tea, water, or anything else with no calories.


1. Sugar is a poison. This is overly-simplistic and reductionist, but it's not entirely untrue. Get rid of sugars, refined and otherwise. From diabetes to Alzheimer's, its negative effects cannot be overstated.

2. CICO is important, but those who say it's the only thing are simply wrong. If you replace the calories you get from sugars with the same amount of calories from fat/protein, you will lose weight.

3. Intermittent fasting is hard at first, but you can do it, and it works. It's much easier once you no longer have sugar withdrawals, so if you do try intermittent fasting then make sure you take a few days beforehand to let the moodiness/jitteryness/etc. pass. Sugar is a drug. It takes time to detox.


If you are mathematically inclined like a lot of people in HN, the best way might be getting an app like MyFitnessPal to figure out the maximum amount of calories you need to each every day to lose X kg in Y days, and commit to logging every single food you eat.

This helps really well for having an intuition in how many calories something has (a chicken sandwhich with mayo might have more calories in the mayo than in the rest of the sandwhich), and for stopping cravings (if I eat this cupcake now I'll have 200 fewer calories for dinner and I cannot afford it).

This is stressful, difficult, and kinda ridiculous, but for me it's the only diet that actually works. It helps if you cook at home and can choose ingredients easily.


I can't stop laughing. I was going to open the comment section and say there are no tricks, you just need to decrease your caloric intake and increase your caloric expenditure. But this comment thread is so full of tricks it's hysterical. Thanks guys!


People spend too much time looking for shortcuts, paying for weight loss apps, fancy fitness trackers/watches, nutritionists, &c.

The truth is that unless you have a medical condition it's 80% about food intake (and 20% about exercising if you want to build some muscles)

To eat less calories you have two options:

- eat a shitty western diet, which means you'll have kids sized meals and feel hungry 24/7

- eat mostly veggies/meat/simple carbs (skip anything you couldn't theoretically grow/make yourself, the most processed thing you should eat are things like pasta)

Consider food as fuel, you don't top up your car three times a day with rocket fuel (sugar), especially if it's not getting out of your garage, same goes for your body.


I have a lot of tips, probably share some similarities with other people here:

1. Drink a lot of water. Like, a lot. I aim for 1 gallon of water per day.

2. Don't drink calories. Water and La Croix are your friends

3. Intermittent fast. I don't eat from 8pm to noon the next day. It's easier than it sounds. After a week or two, your body will get used to it.

4. Your first meal after breaking your fast should be very filling but low calorie. I eat 3 eggs, 2 veggies (typically tomato + jalapeno/bell pepper), 1 avocado, a 100-calorie yogurt, and a protein shake. This will fill you up and its only around 500-600 calories.

5. On that note, focus on high-protein meals. These fill you up quickly and you stay full for longer.

6. Hot sauce is the secret. Hot sauce is low calorie (generally 0) and varies flavor substantially. Your budget for new hot sauces should be unlimited.

7. Limit eating out as much as possible. Not because you can't eat healthy while eating out, but you're introducing more room for error. Plus, restaurants vastly underestimate the amount of calories in their food.

8. Go for an afternoon walk. It's good for you mentally and physically.

9. Exercise is great for a lot of reasons. Of course it makes you feel great, but it also motivates you to eat healthy because you won't want to "waste" the hour you spent at the gym by eating unhealthy. It will not directly lead to weight loss, but burning 500 calories per day in a work out sure makes it easier.

10. Weight yourself every week. If you aren't making progress, diet harder. Weight loss is not a secret. You can be methodical about it.

11. If you need to snack throughout the day (which is normal), try to eat relatively healthy items. Beef jerky, protein bars, etc. Also, rice cakes. These fill you up but aren't high calorie. I like the Quaker cheddar ones.

12. Perhaps most importantly, try to stay busy throughout the day. When I'm not working or doing something is when I eat the most.


I never tried this, but I've read multiple times (can't remember where) to use chopsticks for ALL your meals. This will generally increase how long it takes you to consume (i.e. more time for the "I'm full message to get to you brain").


This podcast explains that fat loss involves two processes: mobilisation (getting fat out of fat cells) and oxidation (burning it off by using its energy). Most exercising and other techniques for fat loss don't adequately focus on mobilisation first, which means you lose very little fat even with lots of exercise. But you can 'fool' your body into accelerating the mobilisation phase in several ways. Anyway, this podcast explains really clearly how you can do it. Give it a try! https://hubermanlab.com/how-to-lose-fat-with-science-based-t...


Increasing the amount of oxygen in the air isn't going to magically increase the amount of oxygen your body uses, nor the amount of CO2 you produce. Humans evolved to live in an environment where the air is 21% O2. At that percentage, the typical blood oxygen saturation levels already sit between 95% and 100% for a healthy adult. The body cannot go above 100% O2 saturation. So even though the air is 21% O2 (or less, depending on altitude), your body is pretty much fully saturated with all the oxygen it can get from normal air.

If you actually want to lose weight, you need to make small, compounding changes. Weight loss is as marathon, not a sprint. Any type of crash diet or lifestyle that lets you lose weight rapidly is not sustainable for the vast majority of people.

Start with something easy, like drinking water instead of soda. Start working in a 30+ minute walk a few days a week. Strictly limit (or cut out entirely) alcohol. Choose black coffee over lattes or blended drinks. Avoid the chip and cookie isle in the grocery store. Buy bread from a local sourdough bakery instead of the processed stuff at the grocery store. Gradually increase the amount you exercise. Vary the type so it doesn't get boring. Join a local gym/rec center and play pickleball or racquetball. Take a weekend hiking trip, realize you love spending time in nature and that simply walking around looking at beautiful things is insanely good for you. Just once or twice a week, choose a salad instead of a sandwich. Choose the small portion size. Wait a bit, and see if you're actually still hungry after you eat it. If you are, go ahead and eat more, but listen to your body instead of assuming you need the large. Don't buy stretch clothing - traditional non-stretch fabric will give you instant feedback if you are gaining weight. Spend time with healthy and fit people. It's much easier to make good choices if those around you are making the same choices.

Make just one of these changes per week. After a few months, you'll have completely changed your lifestyle. It creates a positive feedback loop. Living a healthy lifestyle makes you happier. Being happier makes you want to make healthy choices.


The other thing aside from my other comments is that I think the first problem is considering weight loss to be a "remedial" step always.

If your weight loss is remedial -- you have serious back or circulation problems, you need to lose weight for surgery, etc. -- then you have to follow the remedial steps you are given.

But apart from that, people always say "the problem is I lose weight and then when the diet stops it goes back on".

So skip the weight loss step entirely. Focus your attentions on not putting it back on, and you will lose weight over time even without doing more exercise.

This means focussing on your mood, your general habits, ways to avoid being thwarted by issues with lack of willpower.

I've said elsewhere -- avoid shopping for food when you're hungry; it's much easier to make good decisions and plan meals when you're not hungry. But also: cook for yourself as much as you can, eat less meat and more vegetables.

I am at a healthy weight (have been over the long term) and part of that is that I used to be underweight due to ARFID. Part of it also is not having a car; I walk everywhere.

But I do gain weight and have done at bad times. I have terrible willpower and an enormous capacity to eat sweet things. My main strategy to avoid putting on weight is to never buy more biscuits (cookies) or chocolate than I will eat in a single sitting. Never store it in the cupboards. Never stock up on stuff like that -- stock up on vegetables and fruit and try to consume them instead.

And just don't go down those aisles in the supermarket. Especially when hungry.

But I have also stopped buying loaves of sliced bread and started buying bread I have to part-cook myself. And I avoid ready meals of all kinds, if I can, apart from soups.

Unless you're seriously overweight and it has direct short term health implications, I think it's better to stop trying to solve weight loss for the short term, and instead aim to solve weight gain for the long term. And try to like yourself while you do it.


Never had a sweet tooth to start with but I replace all sugar with monk fruit and erythritol blends like Lakanto (taste same as table sugar unlike Stevia).

Made a big difference already. Then I’ve cut all simple carbohydrates or non-soluble fiber and unlike the low carb craze, increased my high soluble fiber intake from low GI whole grains like steel cut oat. Keeps me full for a while, low calorie, and I don’t feel sluggish.

I don’t eat anything above 50 on the GI scale. Once a week I might have pasta.

No fruits because of fructose but lots of vegetables.

No drinks containing sugar like sweetened Almond drink but I keep the milk because the fat and the protein helps feeling satiated.

Basically I lost about 20 pounds over 3 months and I’ve maintained the loss for 2 years now.


Don't do something too drastic, don't try to hack your body, it usually ends in yo-yo and frustration.

I've always been overweight and I lost 20kg over a year by eating less carbs (and not less fat) and move more.

Practically it's "simple":

- drink water before every meal

- don't drink anything with sugar/alcohol in it, there are plenty of drink with no sugar in them

- for diet, take smaller servings overall, take more meat/fish... and less rice/pasta/bread/potato, you don't need to do anything crazy

- eat often small things, do not go without eating for the whole day to eat 3 pizza in the evening

- avoid processed food, like morning cereals (kellogs...)

- do not eat at night

- take the stairs, walk in circle when you have to wait (like at a bus stop)

- feel good about yourself

- most importantly, diminish stress


Nothing weird, just no snacking and avoid sugar.

I retired a year ago and decided to try and get into shape. And I wanted it to be a permanent life style change that I hopefully can stick to for a decade or two and also it shouldn't feel like I am depriving myself anything:

- Run for 30 minutes every second day.

- Eat fruit for breakfast. A banana and some berries.

- Lunch and dinner what ever I want. I often eat white bread, pasta, meat or fastfood. Just be mindful of portion sizes and if fastfood, skip any fries and icecream.

- No snacks in the evening. This was probably where I used to get most excess calories.

One year in I have lost 20kg and I am pretty much in the shape I was when I was a teenager. I can definitely keep this going, I don't really think about it anymore.


Get a $300 Oculus Quest 2 and buy Thrill of the Fight for $10. It’s the most intense short HIIT workout I’ve experienced. It’ll blow your mind.

Also get a pressure cooker and use it to make seasoned unsalted black beans at the start of every week. Use them to substitute all your white carbs. You can read Gary Taubes book Why We Get Fat to understand this mechanism and how low GI helps.

My goto for the past years is 30 mins of yoga every day but that unfortunately requires consistency and is a time commitment. If you want to go this route, don’t bother with classes. Just get the Beachbody app and do the 3 Week Yoga Retreat which will teach you everything you need to get started and give you a solid foundation.


Breathing more / denser oxygen is very bad for you (breathing at all is bad for you). Furthermore, badly treated asthma (i.e. you cannot breathe well) will lead to very fast weight loss.

This should inform you of one thing: anaerobic respiration is inefficient and therefore great for burning more calories. An easy way to achieve such respiration is running or cycling (which I think is better on your knees) so fast that you start panting. Keep doing that for an hour and do it every other day.

This advice is IMO better than "eat less", because changing your dietary habits is very very hard. Moving more is much easier by comparison, though sadly it still won't be fun for you in the beginning.


Patients with severe respiratory difficulties lose weight because of the added effort. They spend more energy trying to breathe, or more precisely "waste"

It has nothing to do with anaerobic respiration.


> It has nothing to do with anaerobic respiration.

Seeing as I've had a university biology professor tell me the exact opposite, I'm going to have to politely take your statement with a grain of salt.


Do not breathe pure oxygen unless it's administered by a medical professional for legitimate reasons: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity

There's a story that's relevant to this thread, and I wish I could remember the original author. It goes something like this: It's easy to dismiss naive writing when it's on a subject you understand. But when reading subjects outside your expertise, that naivety is difficult to detect, so much more seems plausible.

HN often seems extremely naive regarding pop-science topics like nutrition, weight loss, and exercise.


I was a fat kid. I suspect what changed was I started, consciously, pursuing things that I was afraid. I had a stutter, so simply forcing myself into public speaking situations terrified me. Once I managed to get my stutter better handled, I found I was losing a lot of weight from a stressful appetite loss. Wanted to lose more weight, I pursued more things that frightened me, and again I experienced stressed appetite loss, and weight loss.

Today, decades later, I still pursue things that trigger stressful appetite loss, but that has become the opposite issue. I'm thin, but addicted to pursuing intellectual goals that are frighteningly difficult. I often have to force myself to eat.


Track you calories and start small in terms of exercise.

Eating, drinking: track everything. In my experience it does the trick on its own. What you're aiming for is caloric deficit, so don't overcomplicate it. If there's a diet that works for you, great. If not, just analyze your intake from time to time and you will come up with your own diet automatically.

Exercise: depending on your current level of fitness, I'd strongly suggest taking small steps. Changing your diet while getting started with running and 1-hour workouts three times a week sets you up for failure. If you haven't been active before, aim for N steps of walking a day. That's it.

Be patient, the first results will show in 2-4 weeks.

Good luck!


I went from a pandemic high of 87kg to 75kg and now a steady 77kg with the app Noom. Was very sceptical but just followed it blindly for three months. It’s very simple, runs you at a calorie deficit by tracking food intake and calories burnt through exercise. Crucially though it combines that with a carefully measured daily CBT style course around eating, to help lock in new habits.

It was a definitely aimed more at women than men and was a bit USA centric but I let that wash over and got very decent results.

I felt it was a bit expensive and by their own admission it doesn’t cope well as an app when you reach your target. I’m unsubbed now but have a new base level weight I’m much happier with.


Carbon dioxide is a by product of metabolism and creation of energy. When you eat less, your body turns fat to energy and releases CO2, that where this is from. When you exercise your body needs more oxygen to get more energy and release more CO2.

Some tips/hacks to eat less: coffee is an appetite suppressant, so is nicotine, weed is the opposite. Some foods keep you fuller for longer like meat and fibrous veg or brocolli. Its easier (and more time efficient) to avoid eating the calories than exercising the same number off, a piece of cake 500cal is something like an hour or more jogging. Get busy and sleep earlier/longer, less time to think of food or snack.


Exercise is the most effective for me. Find a running coach in your area (look for run clubs that have all levels) and usually they are led by a capable coach… especially if they’re an established club.

It can start really small… maybe having a goal for a 5k would help give you a goal…

I don’t know about a runners high, but pushing myself and getting better… setting and beating goals (failing along the way of course). That’s the addictive part.

In no time at all you’ll be able to cover 5+ miles maybe 4-5 days a week. There is literally no wrong way to do it. Walk/run, run too fast, run easy all the time…

it’s empowering to be able to walk out the door, pick a distance, and do it while everyone else is asleep.


You get gas exchange imbalance in your blood if you only breathe pure oxygen, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity


I have stopped eating sugar at New Years and so far it is working out well.

I am not overweight and rub every day but still my body composition is not ideal. I am not willing to count calories and my needs vary wildly with running volume. By cutting out the most abused ingredient I get rid of a ton of unhealthy choices as sugar is in all of them. Subsequently I need to eat healthier. No downsides so far. Weight loss is slow but without consciously cutting calories I was expecting that. I am down 1kg and if I can lose a total of 3-4 I am already happy. My wife once lost 12kg with just that one change so it is not limited to the small weight loss I experienced.


♔ Play chess ♔

https://premierchess.com/uncategorized/how-chess-players-can...


Given that you explicitly ask for a weird tip: stop eating normal food, instead eat/drink Plenny Shakes from Jimmy joy, or something similar. It does not have to be for every meal, just be sure to do it consistently.

To share a bit of my personal experience: I was not especially fat but with a BMI "overweight". But since last year I started eating/drinking Plenny Shakes as my morning meal every day (for other health reasons than losing weight). Without changing anything else to my lifestyle I lost something like 6kg in ~8 months. And I actually enjoy drinking their shakes so it doesn't even feel like a task.

All the best in reaching your goals!


That's an interesting and scary theory. Don't try that shit at home ahaha.

But to be honest I'm doing intermittent fasting for 4-5 years now. I don't count hours I don't follow up what I eat. I just exercise couple of times per week. Maybe 2-4, and start eating at 1pm, and stop eating at 7-8pm.

But that's most of the days. Sometimes I go out, drink couple of boozes with my friends, etc.

I tried to keep it simple. And here's the catch, I was overweight back then. I did workout a lot, do all the diets. Keto, Paleo etc. They're just hard to keep up with. It's hard to stay in those lifestyles.

So this simple routine makes things easier and simple for me tbh.


1. Insulin is real. Calories in / calories out people - 'eat less, move more' - grasp onto one truth but don't take insulin into account. 500 calories of sour cola bottles isn't the same as 500 calories of meat in that the sour cola bottles will spike your insulin.

2. If you have 10-15 percent body fat (which is lean) you still have 5000 calories of food on your body ready to eat for a couple of days.

Look at Dr Sten Ekberg, or any oncologist for information about longer term fasting and insulin.

Anecdata you can ignore: for me, a 48h fast drops about 1% of my body fat, originally there's a 2% drop but it'll come back up to -1% after a few days.


I’ve been down that path when I lost 25kgs in a span of 4,5 months, weight that I gained when I quit smoking and everything tasted so much different.

The weirdest part is that I liked hunger. It made me feel alert. My body felt better, my mind was clearer, I needed less sleep. The less I ate the more energy I had. I ended up eating one good meal at lunch time and little or nothing for dinner. Combined with long walks the weight kept dropping steadily and quickly. And it’s not like I suffered. Hunger comes and goes in cravings that last less than half an hour two or three times per day. It’s quite easy to ignore them.


The weight change = calories in - calories out theory assumes that calories out is some easy to deduce number.

Calorie expenditure can't be determined by just plugging your height, weight, and activity level into an online calculator. The body is more complicated than a bucket with a fixed size hole in it and all you have to do is pour water in at a rate less than it drains out. The body produces hormones to signal to its systems whether to store food. Those hormones are determined by many factors including how much you eat but also what you eat, your genetics, your stress level, how much sleep you get, etc.


Yes identifying the exact “calories out” number would be a monumental task. That said, we have a very strong understanding of the ballpark amount of calories it takes to keep your body alive and working for a single day - it’s around 1800, give or take a few hundred calories depending on a few features that you mentioned. With this in mind, it is simple to run a calorie deficit, even if you don’t know exactly how much that number is.


There is no silver bullet. To lose weight, you only need to intake less energy than your body uses to function. When you have energy deficit, your body consumes energy stored in the batteries^Wfat. Thus, you lose weight. Exercising does not seriously increase the use of energy, so the biggest loss of weight comes from eating less. It is not too significant to follow the rules like 'no eating after 6', only the deficit matters.

Exercising helps because of you build muscle mass, you increase 'passive' energy consumption, because muscle tissue requires more energy than fat tissue.


I would say get checked by doctor/Endocrinologist and do the relevant bloodwork (Esp. Insulin levels, thyroid, etc). A family member is overweight and nothing changed even with diet changes and regular exercise. It took a long time to find out the root issues (especially Insulin resistance). Once we got the root cause, they put the member on Wegovy (weekly Injection) and started a low carb diet and exercise. It is amazing to see the effect Wegovy has taken with the member's weight loss. Couldn't recommend it enough now for people with genuine weight loss issues.


The main downside of Wegovy/semaglutide is that it is incredibly pricey ($800-$1100 USD per month), and most US health insurance providers will not cover it as a front line treatment, and many won't approve it as a second line treatment without a good deal of aggressive lobbying by the prescriber. More than one physician has told me that it's often easier to get bariatric surgery approved than it is to get Wegovy approved!

This insurance issue isn't particularly unique among weight loss treatments with solid evidence-based proof of efficacy - US insurers rarely cover other typical frontline obesity treatments like phentermine + metformin, or bupropion + low dose naltrexone. These latter options are available very inexpensively as generics; semaglutide is only available in pricey branded formulations.


Yes. You are absolutely right. My family member can afford to pay for it fortunately. It might not be in the budget for majority of people though unless you are desperate and nothing else seems to work. It literally doesn't make sense why insurers don't cover this treatment which might just save them a lot of money later on down if the affected person has host of other issues due to being overweight.


I’ve already commented about running but I would also recommend looking for a registered dietician. Some have a sports/performance focus but athletes are the most likely to seek them out… 99% will work with you if exercise is not a goal.

They will help you attain sustainable healthy weight loss. Most will actually ensure you are eating ALL of your meals + snacks in the proper portions (it’s not as restrictive as you think).

I would be extremely cautious of skipping any meals with regularity. You only make your body hold onto calories that way. A dietician can help you learn to give your body what it needs


Weight loss is simple math: calories_in - calories_out. It's usually much more efficient to reduce calories_in than to increase calories_out. I've lost 20kg in 5 months by:

1. Visiting a nutritionist. She helped me choose better foods and understand the process. The visit also validated that the process would have a high chance of succeeding (as opposed to praying that some weird trick on the internet works) and it won't have negative effects on my body.

2. No more oil fried food.

3. Significantly reduce sugar.

4. Eat only the calories I need. Snacks usually have the calories of a whole meal. Whenever you say no to a snack, the calories on the label are reduced from calories_in, giving you some dopamine.

5. Drink more water. The stomach gauges hunger by how large or small it is. By filling it with water, you reduce the sensation of hunger.

6. Some exercise (I managed 400 - 500 calories / day from small hikes). I could do hikes each day, because the view at the top of the hill is gorgeous, and it made the entire hike (which had some steep portions) bearable. But I started with an in-house stepper (5 minutes / day, then 8, then 15, then 20)

Consistency is key. If your basal metabolic rate is 1800 calories and you manage to have 1200 calories at the end of the day, that's 600 calories weight loss. A kilogram of weight is somewhere around 7500 calories. That means you'll lose 2kg / month. But if you skip 50% of days, you'll only lose 1kg / month. Also, consistency is key, because once you stop eating healthy, you'll gain the weight back.

Also, following hard diets can have many negative impacts:

1. You might only lose water

2. You might deprive your body of various nutrients, leading to health problems

3. When you stop, you gain all the weight back

I'd advise you find a method of counting your calories, and finding a solution of being below your BMR each day that works for you without feeling like a chore, that covers all macronutrients and that you can keep for as long as possible. Counting calories also gives you a measurable progress and a source of dopamine.


A lot of hay gets made about The Obesity Code wherein the author claims that "calories in calories out" doesn't work.

Obviously he's trying to sell books but the nugget of truth is that if you operate at a significant caloric deficit your body goes into "starvation mode" for lack of a better term.

The result is that eventually your base metabolic rate also decreases which means you need to cut calories even further.

For people who are significantly obese to begin with this can be unsustainable, and the author of The Obesity Code talks at length about how glucose levels respond to diet and eating patterns and play a significant role in fat metabolism.


I've edited my comment to reflect that the first step is visiting a nutritionist. I'm not an expert, and this worked for me under the supervision of a professional. I never starved myself, and I stopped at around 75Kg.


My weird tip would be don't follow weird tips from the internet.

Most fad diets are either unhealthy or counterproductive. Or both.

At the very least ask for some citations of studies about them so you know if they work or are total bullshit.


Join some kind of group, share your progress. Or share your intent/progress with your friends. That makes you feel more responsible and helps with motivation

Don't have snacks at home. Don't buy them at all.

Start home cooking if you are not doing already.

Track your progress, make a graph. It feels great to see that line going down. Track it even after you reach your goals so you don't bounce back.

Track what you eat, especially at the beginning. There are a lot of stuff that are very high in calories but people often have very little idea about them.

Exercise is a nice bonus but don't think you can out-exercise a bad diet.


DON’T DO IT. Breathing pure oxygen is toxic. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity


From a certain perspective, weight loss is very, very simple: burn more calories than you consume.

The tip: do whatever you can to feel good about yourself and take care of your mental health. That's the bottleneck. You're on HN, so you're good at figuring things out. If you're in a good enough place to think rationally, you'll pretty quickly figure out the ways that work for you to burn more calories than you consume, and more importantly, once you're done with that, to burn the same number of calories as you consume for the rest of your life.


It might not be weird, but I have to recommend Intermittent Fasting. I was able to drop ~20lbs in roughly 6 weeks and the only change I made was a 16:8 intermittent fasting schedule.

Depending on your relationship with food, it does have _some_ learning curve (learning to not eat most of the day), but it works like magic.

Once your used to your IF schedule, you’ll feel sharper (hungry brain is really powerful in my experience), your skin will be clearer, you’ll have more energy, and it’s a very realistic lifestyle change that in my experience is different than a traditional diet.

I’d highly recommend it.


I wouldn't actually recommend it, but One Meal a Day Diet(OMAD) actually made me lose weight. It required less discipline than other diets. You have 1 hour to eat you calories and nutrients. After that you don't eat. There's no question if a snack is allowed or not.

You have to pretty smart and make sure those calaries are high quality.

It caused me issues in that its completely changed my appetite. And now that I've reached my target weight, I'm having a hard time keeping weight on even not doing OMAD. It was like hitting the reset button on my desire for food.


I have a food obsession and the only things I've found to cope is just being hungry. I try and drink coffee, I think hot drinks help. I don't eat breakfast and just remind myself that the hunger I have is nothing -- it's a result of boredom and sedentary. I have enough nutrients in my diet that even one of my meals for a day would sustain me. It's not pretty, but that's the actual thing I do. What's that method called? Passive suffering? Reality check?

Also, if it costs money and is unhealthy, cut it. That's the number one priority.


Water fasting is by far the best, our body is naturally adapted to it. This "hacking" with oxygen tanks will just ruin your body. Read "The 4-Hour Body" if you want something that works.


I love eating and I eat a lot. I try to control eating candies, but I still eat too many of them.

Still, my weight does not increase, because I drink only water and sometimes no-calories sodas. There really should be more awareness on how many calories sweetened beverages have - way too many.

I lost weight very quickly when I heavily limited the amount of food I ate, on top of not drinking or eating anything sweet.

When it comes to exercise, I'm only really doing one thing: 2 hours of walking with my dog every day. I imagine if you have no exercise at all, my tips will not work that effectively.


Just make it easier to eat less and exercise more. Make sure you have healthy food around so you choose it rather than the unhealthy choices, drink plenty of water (particularly when you feel a little hungry). An activity monitor/watch can help you understand how many calories you're using as you go about your day and how many if you walk or exercise a bit. Try doing exercise before a meal, start with any amount - using something like Strava/Runkeeper to track your progress (however slight) might help if your that kind of person.


Most of energy consumption is baseline metabolism, which is directly correlated with your muscle mass.

The fastest and healthiest way to get a better body (which is not loosing weight) it is to start lifting heavy things over and over again.

You can starve yourself and loose wait, also rather fast, but as soon as you go back to your standard eating, that weight will come back.

If you increase your muscle mass, you won't necessarily loose weight, fat will be replaced by muscle, but your appearance will be much better, you will be healthier and overall you will just feel better.

As always there are not shortcuts.


Weird tip, there is no shortcuts. Everything that is a shortcut will fail you after you have lost weight and you gain it back again.

Target weight management more than weight loss. I watch my weight every day now, and as soon as I feel heavier, and the scale confirms it, I know that my previous week or so is the culprit.

Therefore, if my actions caused my weight gain, they will fight against all shortcuts, and they will win.

Fight against your own bad habits, may sound weird to many people. (also, I lost all my weight doing intermittent fasting, which helps with many things not just weight loss)


I just posted this elsewhere — kcal[0] is a recipe/food manager with a specific focus on tracking macros. After figuring out the right numbers I used the app to set goals and track my intake. I lost about 40lbs over the course of three months going on and off calorie deficit cycles with it. And have been able to maintain easily since then. Understanding caloric needs and adjusting intake really is all there is to it.

[0] https://github.com/kcal-app/kcal


Pay for a personal trainer. Because you are paying them a non trivial amount of money, and they personally hold you accountable you are more likely to work out and take it seriously. And because getting winded doing simple exercise sucks, you will eat healthier and stick to your plan.

Losing weight is probably 85% about eating fewer calories. So eating less, making healthy choices for what you eat. Eat more vegetables, skip liquid calories is one way to address this without a big change. Also eating slower, drinking more water can help with eating less


Eating is going to be the key to losing weight. I lost over 40lbs the other year.

But that doesn't mean you have to suffer. There are great foods that are also healthy. Take it slow, one meal at a time and find something you like eating that's healthier. Over time you'll learn new healthier meals that will replace what you've been doing.

And then do the same thing to add movement into your routine. Maybe you like walking or virtual reality games that make you move. Just add bits of movement into your routine over time. You'll start liking them!


Consistency is the #1 part.

Do whatever it takes to turn any form of exercise into a game, challenge, or fun.

Going strict keto (<20g net carbs a day) was fun for me too and allowed me to have a single metric to focus on reducing.

I lost 40+ lbs over 2 years due to a combo of fun outdoor activities, changing things up when I got bored, and finding others who would always show up which guilted me into being consistent.

Intermittent fasting became easy and enjoyable and gave me the perfect excuse not to eat shitty airplane/airport food and as a reward, I'd get a nice dinner or meal instead.


Learn to love broccoli. Eat it raw as a snack instead of potato chips, perhaps with a small serving of some dip if you must. It's the best way to feel full without cheating your calorie budget.


- count calories (excel, numbers) - exercise (I use madbarz) - do not eat sugar or things that contains sugar (like drinks) - drink water, not sugar drinks like zero coke/juice/coffee/whatever with fake sugar or sort of - cook your own meals, and be gentle with olive oil and butter

I'm not fat but lost 3 kg in 2 month: Jan 2 I was 71kg, this morning I'm 67,9kg. I'm eating everyday around 1900calories, just a bit lower than what I need, and slowly losing weight. My goals is being fit, and 65kg by Jul/Aug.


Tip 0: Automatically track your weight every day.

Automatically (eg withings/fitbit scale) is important not to cheat yourself and track only good days. Every day is important because you can see the trend and not be fooled too much by daily fluctuations, but even more important because it will make you actively think about it every day.

Tip 1: Track what you eat.

This is much more work than the previous tip, and less weird. But basically logging what you eat in a notepad and even without counting calories will make you aware of what and how much eating is going on.


Consider switching to a whole foods, plant based diet.

In addition to being highly nutritious and satiety inducing (therefore leading to relatively low effort weight loss) there are immense health benefits (markedly reduced chance of cardiovascular disease and cancer), ethical benefits (you will reduce the demand for ethically bankrupt, cruel factory farming practices that permeate more than 90% of the food industry) and environmental benefits.

Suggested reading: - 'Whole' by T Colin Campbell. - 'Eating Animals' by Jonathan Foer


One thing that dawned on me recently was just getting more sleep (not saying up late) can help because you’re not eating if you’re not awake. Plus the bonus of getting a proper amount of sleep.


Anyone saying just eat less is full of shit. Sorry man. I went from 18st to 12st (and back up to 15st).

I found a few key things.

1. Decide you want to loose weight.

2. Up your plain flat water intake... Like a ton. Your body will get used to it after a day or two and you'll start feeling naturally thirsty. You notice all these skinny fit people are always drinking? That's plain water they are drinking. Seriously if your diet is crap at the moment if you start just drinking loads of water you will loose like half a stone cause you will stop retaining water. How to know how much to drink? I guess for the first 3 days go cold turkey on pop, coffee, literally any liquid other than plain water. If you keep a bottle with you all the time you will naturally just drink a ton.

You will piss like a racehorse of course but with good comes bad.

3. Get a food diary and write down everything that goes in your mouth. I tell you this alone will blow your mind and get you thinking a bit differently.

Try these to get you started.

Best of luck, fuck the begrudgers and let me know if this helps a bit and if you want more chats about it


As someone who lost 20kg in 5 months by eating less, I don't appreciate being called full of shit.

First, too much water can cause hyponatremia. Drinking 2 to 3 litters of water / day is fine, but reach 5L and it's getting dangerous. And one of the main advantages of drinking water is it keeps your stomach full, meaning you don't feel hunger, and thus eat less.

Second, what's the purpose of your 3rd point if not to reduce calorie intake?


> but reach 5L and it's getting dangerous

Maybe if you drink it all at once. 5L/day is perfectly fine for everyone in the world. If you’re drinking more than 2L/hour, that’s a problem. So space it out and drink a liter an hour or two and you’ll be fine. In the US, that’s two gallons and is a ton of water.

It’s pretty common to see friends carrying a gallon jug around to make sure they drink their gallon a day.


I imagine it'd be really difficult to reach dangerous levels if you're drinking to satisfy your thirst. The only way I can see someone drinking more than 2L/hour is if they're forcing themselves to do so.


This nurse here made a youtube video about it, quite good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUa_c7qEgw0


Are you qualified to make this statement (genuinely asking) ?

I tend to drink a lot and have read several times that drinking too much can be bad and change your electrolise balance or something like this.


Yes, I’m certainly qualified. My qualification is the critical thinking skills necessary to find and comprehend the medical guidance on this issue [0].

If you’re uncertain feel free to ask your healthcare provider.

[0] for example, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hyponatremia/...


I get the sense that some emphasis has been lost here.

I lost a load of weight and did it by 'eating less'.

What I was saying was anyone saying _just_ eat less, like it is some simple solution is full of shit.

I mean, if your overweight you have food control issues already like? It's not like you don't already know that eating more leads to more weight.

Op is talking about getting an oxygen tank ffs. You (the royal you) don't think they know that eating less will help them loose weight already?

What I think op is asking how do I loose weight. One could read that as, how do I eat less.

Imagine an alcoholic asked on this forum saying how do I stop been drunk all the time, can I huff some oxygen? And the top response was: just drink less.

I hope this is making sense here.

And to be clear I suggested they replace existing fluid intake with water not drink enough water to die.

Drinking a ton of water is what one might call hyperbole. I am not actually suggesting they consume a ton of water.

And regards to the weight loss it helps reduce water retention. It's not fat you will loose in three days but you will see it on the scales and you will feel better.


>Seriously if your diet is crap at the moment if you start just drinking loads of water you will loose like half a stone cause you will stop retaining water.

I doubt that causality. If you lose weight by drinking more water it's probably because you stop drinking sugary drinks.

I would be careful with drinking "loads" of anything. Depending on what "loads" really means, it can be very unhealthy (your kidneys have to process all that water) or even fatal in extreme cases.


I've changed my diet a good deal since buying a half gallon thermos and filling it up every morning, good thing is I don't have to remember to pour myself a glass, I always have water at hand. I think I eat less because when I'm dehydrated I'm in a bad mood, and when I'm in a bad mood I want to eat sugary and fatty things to feel better. For some reason my body never put together that I didn't need fat and sugar, I needed water. Go figure.


> Anyone saying just eat less is full of shit. Sorry man.

> Get a food diary and write down everything that goes in your mouth.

Typically the 'just eat less' advice is pretty much in line with your second statement there. As someone who lost ~150lbs, I will vouch for the effectiveness of calorie restriction. The hard part, of course, is actually doing it.


> Anyone saying just eat less is full of shit.

Exactly. A pattern that doesn't last will get you back into the previous state fast.

I'm not a doctor but all you need is some exercise. Then you only need to let go of 1 item from your daily meal and also remove much sugar from your drinking by going tea or water and most people should do fine.


I am a doctor, and while exercise is really good for you (and we should all do more!) it has effectively no bearing on weight in the general population (non-athletes).


I think you might mean bodyfat.

> it has effectively no bearing on weight in the general population (non-athletes).

Cmon man, strength / muscle building -absolutely- has an effect on "weight" and "bodyfat". Even when not at the athlete level. Muscle at rest burns more calories than fat at rest, and those burned calories gotta come from somewhere.


I have been into fitness and bodybuilding for 20 years, and I cannot emphasis how true this is. Also not all exercise is equal in that walking isn't a good example of exercise. Humans are extremely efficient at walking, so it is poor at raising your heart rate and doesn't provide any resistance.


Interesting, what do you mean by this? I would have expected that people who exercise more would have lower probability of being overweight?


> Interesting, what do you mean by this?

Purely mechanically, mild effort simply does not burn that many calories over baseline metabolism. To make a real dent you need extreme prolonged effort, or increased muscle mass (which increases base metabolism).

Caloric restriction is a much easier path to caloric deficit if the goal is weight loss.

Obviously if you resume caloric profit afterwards you’ll bounce back, but the same will happen if you din’t maintain your exercise-drive metabolism: the human body is quick to tear down deviations which are costly and not actively maintained.


> Purely mechanically, mild effort simply does not burn that many calories over baseline metabolism

I think that the point is not just "burning calories"; exercise has many effects on your body that go beyond just consuming energy. For example it affects the level of hormones, which in turn affects (among other things) your mood and stress level. I am one of those persons that end up eating just because I am nervous or depressed, and regular exercise makes me do that much less.


> I think that the point is not just "burning calories"

That's a weird take given entire thread is about weight loss, and the gp was specifically noting that exercise won’t help with that. thomasfedb’s statement is rather explicit on that subject.


Sorry, that phrase was meant to be "I think that the point of exercise is not just "burning calories"".

To lose weight you need (roughly speaking, I know it is not only about that) two things: reduce the amount of energy that you intake, and increase the amount of energy that you consume.

The traditional wisdom is you have to exercise because while doing that you consume more energy, but it is not only that. When you regularly exercise you also tend to eat less (- intake), process the food differently (- intake), speed up your metabolism out of the physical activity (+ consume)


Meta analyses of randomized controlled trials show diet and exercise both are related to weight loss but diet has a much bigger impact.

You have to take this with a grain of salt though. My experience clinically (working in obesity clinics) is some people need exercise much more than dietary changes at least at first. But the average person wanting to lose weight will see bigger gains from dietary changes.

The type of dietary change that works best seems to depend on the person.


Because once you exercise enough to lose weight he reclassifies you as an athlete


I was lucky enough to read this article and took a look at the underlying experiment. Human bodies are fascinatingly adaptable.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4437395


You can't outrun a fork.


Exercise just makes you more hungry and leads to eating more. It's blatantly obvious the solution is to eat less.


If you're dropping an item a meal and removing sugar from your diet, you're eating less.


I agree with drinking more water. I used to not do this because I thought it was just some urban myth and the science didn't really seem to back the need for 8 glasses.

But man does it help with weight loss and alertness throughout the day.

Agree with everything this person above said.


You will be spending so many calories just by getting up and going to the bathroom.


Water is technically negative calories. Your body has to heat it


That is an interesting note, but an effect is small: Heating 1 l of water by 20 degC requires 84 kJ, while suggested daily daily energy intake is ~8 MJ, so ~1 %.


Exactly, drinking water is so important. I really do not part with glass. In my city it is safe to drink tap water, and it tastes good. So it doesn't matter if I'm home or at the office, I just grab my glass and fill it with tap water and drink. This is very good start to loose weight


> Anyone saying just eat less is full of shit. Sorry man. I went from 18st to 12st (and back up to 15st).

How can you say others are full of shit when you yourself have returned to being overweight?


You're telling other people they are full of shit (not welcomed i might add) and you use a bizarre measurement unit "st". Coincidence?


Stone is not a bizarre measurement in England


st is very common in England to weigh people.


Methamphetamine is FDA-approved "as a short-term (i.e., a few weeks) adjunct in a regimen of weight reduction based on caloric restriction, for patients in whom obesity is refractory to alternative therapy, e.g., repeated diets, group programs, and other drugs."

Source: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2007/00...

(Sarcasm, obviously. Do not do this.)


https://www.rxlist.com/desoxyn-drug.htm#medguide

I thought you were joking but you're not. Prescription meth is an actual thing...for ADHD...for children. I'd fire my doctor on the spot if he recommended such a thing.


IANAD. I would point out the amount of CO2 that you breath out is far lower than any O2 concentration. Hence, O2 content in your exhale is not much affected. Being in a well ventilated space may have a larger effect. I know people (with ALS) that nevertheless liked the higher oxygen, might be personal. Or because you need to breath less, effectively reducing your passive energy need. Anyways, your body needs a reason to burn those extra calories. Better consult a doctor though, oxygen poisoning is real.


Re. your theory, there is the exact opposite theory that is doing the rounds.

Their key idea is that you _need_ some level of CO2 to keep the blood level acidic, otherwise even if there is plenty of O2 is available, it won't be absorbed into the blood stream. Hyperventilation, for example, results in respiratory alkalosis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4WU4ghe7BY

Perhaps someone knowledgeable can comment on whether this explanation makes sense.


Stay away from sugar and simple carbs as much as possible. They stimulate your appetite after your blood sugar level drops, causing you to eat more. Sugar is hidden in a lot of foods, so do the best you can. I stay away from processed foods and sauces as much as possible. Sometimes I stress eat, and for that I turn to popcorn made with an air popper (no toppings). White popcorn tastes best. Eating fruit, especially frozen blueberries, helped me break the sugar cravings. They subside after a few days.


Since the body adjusts quite a lot to all sorts of circumstances, kind of balancing out where your available energy goes, the prime and main method of adjusting body weight is always going to be through nutrition intake.

I personally would advice to stay away from wonder-diets, and all "quick-weight-loss" methods entirely. Rather aim for a permanent change in eating habits - something you can keep up indefinitely and that slowly helps you become more healthy (and maybe reduce weight in the process).

Trying to go the "quick and easy" way only sets you up for a relapse. Take it slow, and with baby steps.

For a first step, maybe don't even aim for weight loss at all - but try something like integrating more fiber into your meals. Like, add a salad, or some vegetables and completely replace white bread with whole-grain. Eating a salad as a starter, before your regular meal, can help to naturally reduce the portion size, without having to force yourself.

Take your time - it will take weeks for your gut bacteria to adopt to digesting more fiber (pro-biotics like yogurt, kimchi and sauerkraut can help with that), and it will probably take longer for you to get accustomed to it taste-wise. But I assure you, once you do get accustomed to it, a salad can become a tasty and enjoyable treat.

For further steps - slowly, one after the other - you can: Try to reduce intake of refined sugars. Get accustomed to drinking plain water. It may taste bland and boring at first - but it's the most refreshing drink you can have, once you got accustomed to it. Try to cut back on snacking between meals, and replace your snacks with nuts (neither roasted nor salted - just plain nuts) and stuff like oatmeal soaked in yogurt and fresh fruit like apples or berries. Try to stay away from processed foods - go for fresh produce instead. Maybe try to get into cooking - preparing your own meals can be easy and fun and gives you full control over the ingredients used. Try to eat more legumes (beans, lentils, etc.). Try to opt for preparation methods other than frying, whenever you can. Try to prefer fish and poultry over red meat. Try to reduce intake of animal fat: opt for olive oil over butter.

Don't feel guilty about occasionally splurging on some less than healthy food - just do so in moderation. Like once a week, or less.


There are a lot of "hacks" that might work or not with various good/bad side effects.

The general way is to maintain a caloric deficit while keeping your protein intake decent and lifting weights so that you don't lose lean muscle mass (and end up being skinny fat). There are some programs that are from a fitness trainer who's other programs which I've had success with that I can recommend. Let me know if you're interested.

Bottom line - no hacks. Just consistent effort over a period of time.


Soups.

Lightweight soups are great during a diet. If you feel too hungry and your planned meal doesn't seem to be working? Eat a little soup. It will calm you down without adding too many calories.


For passive weight loss you're going to have to relax some kind of effort that you are now making, and I don't think oxygen therapy would be something to add to your routine unless it is really recommended by your doctor.

A lot of the time one person's overweight is someone else's underweight

I don't think it matters much exactly where you are on that spectrum.

No matter who you are, regardless of wide differences in metabolism or tendency to resist change, for any one person it always takes more time & effort to keep your weight up than it does to let it slip.

It's very unlikely that someone else is making the exact same efforts to keep their weight where it is at the time anyway.

Only you can adjust the effort to keep your weight up or let it go down to be as close to where you want it.

If there is a challenging goal for change, it can be more worthwhile to very carefully focus on the few strongest efforts you in particular are making which allow you to keep your weight up to where it is.

If you want to gain in size then you're going to need to beef up your efforts in those areas most strongly if you're going to get the most visible results the soonest.

OTOH when you want to trim down, those same well-identified efforts can then be relaxed and nature will take its course.

Theoretically it's always less work to let your weight slip but it can take a while for this relaxation of effort to pay a dividend, if that's the direction you're moving toward.

Everyone needs to first overcome the resistance to change but this is a completely different kind of effort.

When challenges are big I think it really helps to highly categorize the efforts being made to keep your weight up, completely separately from the effort that might be needed to initiate momentum up or down to begin with.

It can really give you more bang for the buck if you can better balance these types of efforts for your own particular situation. And make adjustments over time in response to degree of progress under dynamic conditions.

Once momentum is underway, everyone benefits from the relaxation of effort that it can take to get moving in one direction or the other.


What really helped me: - getting a kitchen scale, weighting all the food and tracking it with Yazio (https://www.yazio.com/) - intermittent fasting - a healthy mixture of cardio / weightlifting - stopped eating bread everyday and replacing it with oats (+ seeds)

Nothing revolutionary, however tracking everything that I eat really makes a big difference because otherwise I tend to overeat as tend to be always hungry.


"Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT)" ... a new path to treat obesity

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC7693552/

- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC6683132/


Just count calories, I managed to lose 30kg just doing 2200 kcal per day.

You don't have to exercise, just consider this a progress bar for the day (I used calorie counting apps on iPhone or Apple Watch).

This is not medical advice, but you don't have to be a martyr while doing this - you can still eat 4x Big Mac, Salad (with light sauce) and Coke Zero per day and have 200 kcal of wiggle room for a Snickers.

You will lose weight, but this is not really good for blood pressure/cholesterol, but it works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Ah and you can consider saving calories like saving money.

You can take out a loan on a cheat day, but you have to pay it in the end by eating less for next days.


Actually yes, but consult with a physician before following this especially if you have blood pressure issues.

Salt intake is partially linked to hunger and satiety. Increasing salt (and potassium) intake while lowering total calories is a way to control hunger while dieting. Combine it with time restricted feeding (the whole skip breakfast deal) and you've got yourself an easy winning combo.

Going to the gym regularly helps as well, increased muscle protein synthesis leads to increased calorie expenditure


I am not an expert and don't have the motivation to lose weight. But I am weird so here it goes

Tire out your jaw. Chewing gum, those stupid jaw exercise rubbers will help. Chew something to make your jaw super fatigued and you will find yourself giving up half way through a meal.

Drinking a ton of luke warm water helps. You will end up having no room in your stomach.

Menthol chewing gum makes everything taste horrible.

If you don’t wash your dishes, you should. Easy way too address your action by resolving the consequences.

Use smaller utensils and dishware.


On chewing gum. Buy them in bulk. Sugarless obviously. Start with half mouthful of gums. Keep chewing. When the flavour runs out don’t spit out the gum add another one to freshen up the stack. Give your jaw a real workout.


Depends on you BMI.

If your BMI is high, then Keto + intermitten fasting + calorie deficit is your best bet (I use to be 300 pounds and lost 50 pounds in 3 months.)

If your BMI is low, then regular cardio (i.e. calorie deficit at the cost of increased hunger) is your best bet (how I got myself down to 200 pounds.)

If your lazy, then strength/weight training (i.e. increased muscle weight to replaced fat trading off with an increased metabolism) is your best bet (how I plan on getting to 150 pounds)


I treat myself during walks / exercise by only listening to new music (album releases / new music playlists) during them. It motivates me to get out and be more active.


Maybe bullshit theory: there have been studies where they make sheep deficient in b-vitamins and then let them out on pasture. The results of these studies (which I read about second hand and haven't looked at myself. Might be bullshit science) is that the deficient sheep looks for b-vitamin I och foods like alfaalfa to much greater extent than a non-deficient control group.

I stopped eating fortified foods, changed my diet a bit and started getting cravings for leaf parsley and lentils.


Track your weight every single day.

You wanted weird? Here’s weird. Just track your weight. That’s all I’m asking you to do. Every morning, just stand on the scale for 5 seconds, log your weight in an app or whatever, and go about your day. The hard part is not skipping days. Sometimes you won’t want to face the scale. You’ll make excuses. But whatever, it’s just standing on a scale and tracking the weight, that’s the whole thing, so how hard can it be? Track your weight every single day.


Weirdest tip of all: eat 2 TBS of a tasteless oil (e.g. avocado oil) every morning at 10am.

The theory is that obesity is cause by a misalignment between the body's sense of how much food it's eating (which it determines largely by smell and taste) and the actual number of calories consumed. High density, tasteless calories fool that system into thinking you're already full, so you won't want to eat more. Search for "Shangri La Diet" to learn more details.


Please talk to an RD and not rely on what's in here. The best thing is to make healthy changes and not trade one problem for another one like many of the suggestions here.


Check out this great podcast for some ideas https://youtu.be/GqPGXG5TlZw He's a Stanford Uni professor

And focus on reducing your calorie intake. See https://www.science.org/content/article/scientist-busts-myth...


Do a 24 hour fast (or longer if you can) to feel the sensation of hunger, and train yourself to understand that "it's okay to feel hungry" and that you don't need to always have your stomach filled with food.

I started losing weight when I counted calories and switched to an intermittent fasting window where I only eat between Noon and 5 PM. Yes, I feel hunger when I wake up but I'm "OK" with feeling that way until I allow myself to eat at noon.


(1) Eat only once per day and (2) weigh yourself every day.

Advantages: easy to incorporate within an ordinary lifestyle because you can join friends for dinner or get togethers without worrying about what will be served, your single meal can be satisfying, each day you can look forward to your single meal, no need to count calories as long as you eat a reasonable meal.

Weighing in once per day is motivating because reasonably rapid weight loss is possible.


When you're unable to "just eat less", it's important to figure out what to eat. One trick I've learned is to substitute all of your snacking with Lupin beans. Every time I get those stomach growls between meals, I just eat a handful of them. They're basically just fiber and protein.

They're also delicious. They're usually sold in a brine, which you'll want to switch out for fresh water at least once to lower the salt content.


If you have a habit of mindlessly browsing Youtube, subscribe to some cooking channels. That way if you end up mindlessly browsing Youtube you might end up learning techniques and meals that improve your cooking - which in turn will improve your diet, which will make you lose weight.

(I'm talking about healthy meals / nutrition-oriented channels. If you subscribe to generic cooking channels that include sugary desserts or cakes that will be counter productive!)


If you want to increase your passive fat consumption, one option is gaining some muscle.

Muscle tissue consumes glucose even at rest. When there's no sugar left, your body will start using reserves. (That's when you will have to be careful since you might have cravings, if you are used to eating too much - slow carbs like beans or oats can help with those).

The counter intuitive part is that bulking up usually means gaining some weight at the beginning. This happens because muscle tissue is denser than fat deposits. So when you start the scale will complain. Look at your trousers instead. If they feel a bit looser, you are on the right direction.

Finally, drastic changes to your body composition are usually a bad idea. What gets lost quickly gets gained back quickly too. Slow and steady is the name of the game. If you can find some physical activity that you enjoy doing, that's the best way to bulk up. Doing 30 minutes every day is better than doing 3.5 hours once per week in one go.

Exercise (for most people) is only a complement for most people in the western world; we just don't do enough of it to "cancel out" what we eat, the calories are so easily available. "You can't outrun the fork", as they say. Your main tool for loosing weight is still your diet.


My tips - * drink a lot of water before & after every meal * get your basics right -- cut out soda and juices, limit white sugar to once or twice a day if you really want it, reduce simple carbs, eat more veggies, etc - you can look this stuff up * skip the elevators & climb stairs * play a physical sport if possible * walk for 10-15min after every single meal * reduce meal portions but don't go too crazy and get hunger headaches


I would suggest coming up with a set plan for meals and eat the same thing every day for two out of three meals. For me, during the work week, I have a bowl of oatmeal (steel cut oats, nuts, and a banana) for breakfast, a salad with lots of veggies for lunch, and then dinner varies. Once you get this stable, you can try doing things like occasionally eating once a day (but eating a much larger, _healthy_ meal).

I would absolutely not use a tank of pure oxygen.


Highly recommend ChubbyEmu's opinion on this. Most unique perspective I've heard. https://youtu.be/iIgfnsTFm3M

Persoanlly, I've swung a quarter of my body mass in the past five years. It really came down to eating less, but it wasn't a healthy situation. The key is change behaviors that you don't need to actively think about. Just change habits.


My trick is to find athletic activities that are things I would do for entertainment even if they didn’t confer any training benefit. Soccer, tennis, ultimate, and climbing are my current go-tos. It’s really easy to do 7 workouts a week when it’s all stuff you want to do for fun. Like discipline is great and all, but leverage your reward mechanisms as much as you possibly can. Also, it comes with the added benefit of making more friends.


I don't know how weird it is, but one thing I do is to consume 5 mg of psyllium husk [0] (in powder form, consumed mixed with water) whenever I get a food craving outside of normal meal time. I find it helps tide me over until the next meal and helps cut down on cravings.

[0] https://examine.com/supplements/psyllium/


Get Invisalign. It’s dentist mandated intermittent fasting.


Self loathing.

You do not deserve to eat to excess. You deserve the discomfort of eternally unfulfilled hunger.

You deserve the pain of exercise, and the struggle of lifting weights, and the only thing you can look forward to, if you get comfortable with the current weight you're lifting, is adding more weight.

I can't recommend it though as the cons far outweigh the pros.

Lifting weights though, do it, but start slowly to develop technique without risking injury. Make a habit of it.


You do not deserve the shower, you must earn the shower.

Motivation taps discipline on the shower.


All weight loss methods are working through the decrease of caloric intake. Try multiple diets and see which one makes you eat less without too much struggle.


Stop eating potatoes, pasta, pizza and bread. Me and my wife did this and within a couple of months noticed we had just got way slimmer with no extra effort.


Lol, in the last few years I've gotten into homemade pasta, pizza and sourdough bread making. That's actually helped reduce my overall carb consumption, I think, because my standards have all gone up. We rarely order a greasy takeout pizza because we can make better pizza at home, and it takes some premeditation.


Eat more!

specifically, eat "zero calorie" veggies before meals. Like raw mushrooms or peppers, or steamed cauliflower and broccoli. (not roasted with oil, and no butter added).

Then continue eating as you normally would. Helps in 2 ways:

1. you're taking up space, so you won't be able to eat as much calorie filled food 2. you're more conscious about what you're eating, which makes you think more carefully about what you're eating


30 mins weights + 60 mins cardio 7 days a week, take walks after lunch. Eat until 90% full with enough time in-between. Don't cut carbs, favour protein and add fat to every meal. Get enough sleep to keep Cortisol and Ghrelin at bay. Drink water when you feel like it, don't follow any specific measure. Skip supplements other than Magnesium (Bisglycinate). Go crazy with junk food every other week.


How about walks before lunch? Are there not some residual effects?


Cooking my own food is the most effective hack I've used. Find salad recipes you like, add some grilled chicken breast, and that should be enough for a dinner.

I have found that a weight tracking app that connects to a digital scale gives you a very accurate picture of your weight. When I was really trying to lose weight, I would weigh myself multiple times a day, and the app would be able to show trends in the data.


I looked into your O2 theory recently but under the idea of " Is more oxygen better". From what I learned, your blood is 99% saturated at 21% oxygen; so, I don't think that would work. Maybe just try breathing more? Expel twice as much Co2 as you usually do.

But my tips, drink more water, eat less and move more. If you do a combination of these things relative to where you are now, you will lose weight.


Don't ask HN for weight loss tips. A lot of programmers are overweight but also very arrogant, which leads to them thinking they can take the lazy route of doing some hack such as drinking some weight loss shake or doing keto, and goodness gracious, no exercise! I'm going to say the thing that pisses them off the most, cook your own food mostly from scratch, eat less sugar, and EXERCISE.


To lose weight, you just need to finish the day in a calorie deficit. Thats it. 3 simple starting actions;

- Cut back on soda/sugary drinks

- 10 minutes of exercise a day, even if just walking

- Get into a good sleep routine

Once you're at the weight you're happy with you'll need to keep it off. This is when you really need to think about your lifestyle choices. Ideally you'll stick with the above 3 tips even after you hit your target weight.


Take up cooking your own food from scratch as a hobby.

Instead of worrying about how much you eat, worry about what you eat.

Stop drinking sweetened drinks. Stop eating refined carbs.


A few years back I lost 15kg, mostly driven by a few lifestyle changes:

- consistent meal times. Previously my meal window would be 2-3 hours wide, leading to increased amounts of hunger.

- less stress. Apparently this is different depending on the person, but stress can increase weight (I’m sure there are a ton of other health issues it causes too).

- avoid snacking too much. No hard and fast rule, just remind yourself you have a meal coming up.


Get on stimulants ;) – this was initially meant ironically, but going on lisdexamfetamine for binge-eating disorder is what fixed my weight issue.


Nicotine also works well as an appetite suppressant.


IMHO nicotine is the most efficient weight loss aid beside meth and it also dampens productivity decrease which is possible to experience if you don't eat enough. But there obviously are downsides.


There's a cabbage soup that's called the "weight loss soup" or something like that. It's pretty good and if you eat it for a week you can lose 5kg or so. It works because it takes more energy to digest the fibers than the amount of energy it contains. There's more ingredients than cabbage - there's a bunch of YouTube videos on it that you can check out.


It's surprisingly cheap to build yourself a gym in a spare room buying some second hand weights and stuff. The good thing is that a trip to your gym takes you 20 seconds. If you put up an old laptop, you can watch netflix or listen to podcasts/audio books. Try to get hooked to a multi season series that you can only watch on your own because your partner doesn't like it.


One major thing for me was just sticking to three --appropriately sized-- meals a day (and perhaps a snack later in the night). Doesn't really matter what the meals are. Grazing is a substantial reason why I gained a fair amount of weight.

That and switching from sugar in my teas and coffees, and getting diet when I occasionally drink pop.

I'm lucky enough that my walk commute to work is enough exercise for me.


I don't know how "weird" these tips are.

Cut out calorie dense foods. Oil, fat, etc. A pound of spinach has as many calories as a tablespoon of oil.

Stop using ingredients which add calories but don't add to the meal. For example, when cooking don't use cooking spray. Rely on the non-stick coating. If its an older pan, half second spray of cooking oil is enough to keep food from sticking.


1. Cut all liquid calories (juices, smoothies, et al even if they are home-made). This includes alcohol.

2. Join a good + intense Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) gym.


I did 72hr fasts and averaged about a pound lost per day at the fastest (i mostly ate eggs and cream cheese when i did eat anything). I exercised pretty heavily too but entirely cardio (physically weaker obviously so don’t want to fail lifts). I went from 255lbs to 200lbs over the course of two months (currently sitting at 180 but that’s because I’ve released it quite a bit)


Have a purpose for losing weight. One that you can keep in mind all the time. Even if it's not the most noble one, like sleeping with a girl you dream about.

Also, don't eat pizza, burgers, beer, soda, bread, rice, pasta, sugar or any desserts. Stick to grilled meat, eggs, bacon, chicken, fish, milk, cheese, yogurt and lots of greens.

Keep your mind occupied and don't forget you reason for doing it.


I recommend Allen Carr's Easy Way to Quit Emotional Eating. After I read it, I stopped craving unhealthy food. Same guy who wrote The Easy Way to Stop Smoking.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/48664748-allen-carr-s-ea...


If you're overweight and unable to lose anything try bariatric surgery. Our food culture is not built to allow overweight people to survive and at this point the ONLY way to do it without massive willpower and endless failure is a surgical solution. Saying "Eat less" isn't an answer any more effective than telling an alcoholic to "Drink less."


I am balancing my weight with training but, also it will help you try intermitted fasting, from Monday to Friday I only eat from 12:00 to 17:00, and that's it. In first it will be difficult, but then you adjust.

It's simple mathematics, figure it out how much do you need calories per day, then drop the intake of that amount of calories, and body will get the rest from your fat.


Substitute things. I love food. But I try to replace things, especially sugar related.

For example. I love McDonald’s. But I don’t drink the coke. I have water instead. If I buy a coke while at 711, I get the smallest can.

I lost 20kg over 2 years just by cutting down on sugar or replacing some items so I could continue to eat what I love.

COVID has messed me up tho, since I no longer walk to work or go out as often :(


Yes yes diet and exercise as everyone is saying… BUT…

Cortisol can play a big role here as does metabolism. Are you chronically stressed out? What about your metabolic reactions to different foods?

Get some hormone tests done for the cortisol.

Pick up a CGM (from levelshealth ideally) and keep an eye on your glucose reactions to different foods.

Also, educate yourself about the insulin / glucagon cycle, likely change when you eat


Try to find a time in your daily routine to take a walk. I used to take a 20 minute walk at lunchtime, but then that morphed into walking my daughter to the playground after dinner.

Now that I have three kids, it's a lot harder. I try to walk the younger kids to daycare when the weather and schedule permit it; otherwise, I take a walk after the bus picks up my older daughter.


I'm not a doctor, but breathing pure oxygen for extended periods of time probably isn't going to help you lose weight, and seems like something that could harm you.

Eliminate all sugars and most carbs from your diet, and lift weights. Pay attention to how you feel, and learn to differentiate between cravings and real hunger. Ignore cravings and eat when you're hungry. If you can't easily control the composition of your diet, then calorie count. That 3rd slice of bread loses its appeal once you realize it will blow up your daily budget before 3pm. Don't "reward" yourself with cheat days to look forward to, but rather schedule in days with a bigger budget, or give yourself a weekly use-it-or-lose-it bonus budget to eat into. If you're doing the calorie counting, then be diligent about it. If you do it every meal it becomes effortless, but if you allow yourself to skip it for one reason or another, it won't become a habit.

You're going to have to get used to some amount of discomfort to lose weight, whether it's physical or mental. The sugar cravings subside after a week or so, but you have to cut it out like it's poison. Sore muscles from lifting hurts, but it's a mark of accomplishment. If you use food as a comfort, you're going to need to rewire your brain to not do that anymore.

The low carb diet or calorie counting literally causes you to lose weight, but it's a means rather than an end and it takes discipline to sustain long enough to get meaningful results. If you stop and fall into old habits, you'll just gain the weight back. The purpose of the weight lifting is to build up muscle so that your metabolism changes. You may end up the same weight as when you started a year later, but you'll carry the weight differently. The exercise also releases some pleasant hormones that make you feel good, and helps you get in touch with real visceral hunger. A sugar craving is mindless and hollow, "oh let's just open up this cabinet and grab an Oreo. One won't hurt even though it's bad for me. What, the bag is empty?! Now I'm sad," while exercise hunger has some primal depth to it, "I don't care this can of tuna is expired, it's the most delicious thing in the world right now, and eating it will make me stronger than I've ever been. I'm glad I live in a society, because otherwise I'd be in a river trying to punch a salmon unconscious right now. Who am I kidding, that would be awesome."


Find a way to get semaglutide.

It will have some effect by itself, and it will make all the rest of the good advice in this thread much easier - eating less, eating one time a day, eating better (less carbs, esp simple carbs), walking a lot, strength training.

I've been on it for a few months and it's been absolutely miraculous. Ask me again in 10 years what the long-term effect is.


The old saying about you lose weight in the kitchen not the gym is absolutely true for me.

If I exercise I feel great but the more I do the more I eat, because it makes me hungry and I justify eating more because I'm working out.

In the first month of our first lockdown I lost 15lb with virtually no exercise, just cutting out the snacks/beer/sugar and measuring my portions.


For me, I weigh myself every morning and have that go to an app. I use an Apple Watch and close my rings every day. Some days I get the exercise ring through a long walk, sometimes more aggressive exercises. And when I was really trying to lose weight I used the Lose It app to log food (and learn about what I eat). The combination worked for me.


Eat frozen sour dough bread. Every morning you have to cut the slices which is good exercise if you are not fit at all. High calorie bread toppins with fat taste bad on it. You are encouraged to slowly chew the bread until it tastes sweet. Body heat goes into warming the food in your mouth (also drink cold water). You eat less bread in the morning.


Want a weird advice?

Go to the nutritionist. I've been there, got myself the eating plan tailored for me (my preferences, I don't have things I don't like in this plan), I've lost 14 kilograms by simply following it. I didn't even excersise much.

Don't listen to 95% of the comments from here. People often don't know what they're writing about.


I will try to explain my system.

Doing exercise, even just walking or (slow) cycling will itself not burn that much calories, breathing will only be twice as fast, so not much energy is being burned. What it does do is turn on the burning of fat, very slowly. During exercise I do eat to keep my glucose blood level up. The burning of fat goes very slowly, what came on in years time will not burn in half an hour. It can last a few days, at least, if I make sure to not have a high glucose blood level. So after exercise I prefer to eat a bit of fatty foods (salmon, peanuts) and proteines (cooked eggs) and fiber. Not too much, just a bit, and I feel my body doesn't ask for more food. If I do cause a glucose high, my body will stop burning fat and ask for more fast energy by feeling hungry again.

I do understand not every body works the same, but this works for me in dropping weight. Doing exercise and not eating much for a few days. I am sure exercise has other benefits that are more indirect and less visible, but since the aim is losing weight, this is my direct way of dealing with it.

Professional athletes do this the other way around. They don't want burning of fat, they are sharp as a knife already. So after sports, they eat a huge bowl of pasta, or something similar, to stop that burning of fat immediately.


Try and read Allen Carr's book on losing weight. The trick that worked for me was reading it without judging and just accepting whatever it said. It kind of brainwashed me and I lost about 12kg in one year without much mental effort. The dietary advises he gives make sense anyway, i.e. about 70% of what you eat should be fruit and veggies.


I lost 30kg in the past and the only thing that worked was lots and lots of exercise. The Internet meme is that exercise is useless for weight loss and you should diet: well, I like food, and exercise allows me a more free diet. This is my experience to counter the inevitable: "It's 99% diet, don"t bother woth exercise".


# of comments here tells you there is no ONE rule you can follow to lose weight. you have to try to study how your body reacts to food and that takes some time to do. At minimum, to lose weight, all else being equal, no healthissues, you have to watch what you eat i.e reduce the amount you eat. To gain strength, you have to lift weight.


* Don't have high fat/sugar snacks in the house - but do have an alternative you'll eat * Move - low intensity exercise uses your body's stored energy (i.e fat) rather than using carbs * Find other people to help get you through the tough patches - for me, making a commitment to someone else makes me more motivated.


Stop eating carbohydrates for 60 days. You're body will very likely hate you for it for a week or two so you got to get past that (you're basically breaking an addiction and suffering a withdrawal). Then the weight will magically melt off. After 60 days, don't start with the carbs again. I'm at 10 years now.


More than 500mBar of oxygen are toxic. So at sea level, you can't go over 50% oxygen.

This toxicity affects things like your retina, btw.


These should be used in moderation with doctors supervision, but alpha-yohimbine (rauwolscine), l-carnitine (high oral dose, or inject-able dose, GLP-1 agonists, fiber, fasting mimicking diets, and intermittent fasting. I would start by reading the circadian code however. Getting your sleep on track is the first step to weight loss.


One spring I experimented on myself, with very good results. I resolved that I would eat only food with less than 1 calorie per gram. This meant mostly pickles, sauerkraut, veggies. Lemon water in the mornings. I combined this with walking, as many as 10 km a day. In just two weeks of this I dropped several pounds and it stayed off.


If you're looking for something to drink nearly 0 calories try lemon water. Just buy a bunch of lemons, and cut and squeeze them into some cool water when you want a drink. Simple, cheap and refreshing. I drink gallons of the stuff. It helped me to cut down my soda consumption and it's way better for quenching your thirst


My dentist told me to stop doing that, bad for teeth...


An interesting but plausible idea I saw once was simply weighing oneself daily, and letting your subconscious do the rest. I think the idea is to add a score, and hey looks like now this is a game, and I wanna move that score. But it removes the pressure of a specific mechanism, perhaps. Worked the the guy that posted it.


Get morning sunlight within 1 hr of sunrise. Direct - not through glasses/windows.

Early morning sunlight configures our endocrine system, which has a major impact on digestive processes, feelings of motivation, and basically every system in our body.

It’s a domino effect. Just one minute of sunlight is sufficient to kick off numerous positive dynamics.


Get a complete blood analysis in order to rule out conditions that might be getting in your way.

For example, hypothyroidism is a relatively common condition that will make you gain weight indirectly, by making you less active in general. A blood analysis can routinely identify it, and the treatment is simple - one small pill every morning.


"You can't outrun a bad diet" - this right here.

Yes, regular exercise is important (lifting + some light cardio like power walking); but the real battle is around your food intake. Find a way of eating that works for you. Many of us find low-carb or macro-focused ways of eating helpful, mostly because of what you AVOID.


Or my favorite phrasing of it "the only exercise for weight loss is fork putdowns."


Please don't mess around with treating yourself with high levels of oxygen without first consulting a medical professional. Humans aren't meant to have 100% oxygen in their lungs and even what might seem like short durations to you or me might at high levels could be dangerous to your health in other ways.


Have a tablespoon of olive oil first thing in the morning. Make sure you don't eat any other food or drink other than water within two hours of the oil (plus or minus).

It takes a little getting used to but it totally worked for me. A tablespoon of oil first thing in the morning and I wasn't hungry until the afternoon.


Briefly,

100% oxygen is probably unhealthy, and also a fire risk. Unless OP meant targeting 100% oxygen saturation? High inspired O2 fractions have been associated with worse outcomes in conditions like stroke and myocardial infarction, although this may be a specific sub case where hypoperfusion injury creates oxidative stress.


Here’s a weird one: gammaHydroxybutyric acid (GHB).

Five years ago, I was diagnosed with the sole medical condition for which GHB was approved for therapeutic use: narcolepsy. After other medications started to fail, my doctor prescribed Xywav, the commercial version of GHB. I’ve been using it as directed for about a year. And I’ve lost about 30 pounds. I’m probably at an even lower body fat percentage (the metric I care about, not bodyweight) than the weight loss reflects because I began lifting weights three times per week at around the same time.

A comprehensive scientific understanding of all of the ways how sleep, sleep disorders, and GHB all affect health still eludes us, but enough correlations have been established to allow us to hypothesize without being too far afield, i think:

Correlation 1: 80% or so of narcoleptics struggle with healthy weight control Correlation 2: 80-90% of narcoleptics have abnormally low levels of the neuropeptide orexin, which has been shown to control sleep, arousal, and appetite Correlation 3: One characteristic feature of narcolepsy is an abundance of REM stage sleep, with a deficit of so called slow-wave stage III sleep compared to baseline. Correlation 4: Stage III sleep is where a lot of beneficial physical restorative effects of sleep happen, like muscle repair. Correlation 5: The therapeutic dose of GHB sends a person straight to stage III sleep. For narcoleptics, this restores the stage III sleep that they are lacking.

Putting it all together: quality sleep is important for maintaining healthy weight and neurological/physiological aspects that tie in, like satiety, appetite control, muscle repair, metabolism, etc. The specific stage of sleep that appears to have the strongest correlation with same appears to be Stage III. GHB artificially prolongs the amount of time a person is in stage III sleep, thus fortifying weight management.

As an aside, GHB is also noted to stimulate the indigeonous production of Growth Hormone, and before GHB was regulated as a recreational drug, it was banned by athletic organizations as a doping agent.

In no way do I suggest that off-label or illegal use of GHB is a safe, or even effective method of weight-loss for people who don’t suffer from a hypersomnia disorder. However, now that your curiosity has been piqued by the “weird” tip, it suggests a much more mundane weight loss tip that is probably just as if not more effective for neurotypical people: start a sleep log, and focus on getting the highest possible quality sleep you can.


Cut out sugar or all carbs and go full keto, confine eating to 8hrs/day, bump activity level, sleep well (!! very important !!), track cals and/or carbs with LoseIt.

You have to be methodical and dedicated, and most of the problem is diet and sleep.

Or block ghrelin. The person who figures out the ghrelin blocker will make millions.


how about cutting out sweetened drinks?

i started drinking only water and tea which helped with my weight loss. before that i already was cutting out most carbs from my diet and felt stuck. for the longest time i did not believe that drinking soda that contains no sugar but art. sweetener could sway my weight in anyway, but now, without the sweet drinks, i dont feel the need to snack so much, so i eat less sweets and snacks across the day, so i lose weight.

look... its working for me, im not saying you should do this, or try to breathe 100% oxygen from a tank, talk to a doctor maybe... i think i heard of people who set themselfs ablaze because there was oil/grease on their skin when the oxygen hit... :shrug: maybe you could try running high up in the mountains until you are used to being deprived of oxygen a little so you get more down here? idk


I just typed this!

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30626791

Weird tip: stop eating at 15:00.

Not so weird: reduce your calorie intake. Don't go stupid, just a few 100 cal deficit will make you lose weight without feeling particularly hungry.


The only thing that works for me: Count calories, and do some physical exercise (doesn’t have to be a lot) to prevent your metabolic rate from going down with the caloric restrictipn (and for general health). With calorie counting, you can pace your weight loss to a level that works for you.


I’ve never struggled with weight but I’ve been able to eat cleaner by trying to change my relationship with food.

Instead of thinking about it as a pleasure, I thought about it as a way to satisfy an urge in much the same way we need to satisfy many other bodily functions.m

Over time, this made it way easier to eat rather bland food.


Since you asked weird tips, here are mine:

1. Video games are better than movies. When I played video games, I ate less snacks. Lately, I watch movies/shows with my SO, and end up gaining weight. But every once in a while I get a new game and every single time I end up losing weight until I beat that game.

2. Avoid unfit people. I have friends who worship food and alcohol, some of them are naturally skinny, so don't look unhealthy. But whenever I hangout with them for multiple days in a row, I end up gaining a few pounds.

3. And on other side of coin, seek environments with healthy people. When I was single, I spent a lot of time in gyms, coffee shops, chipotle, whole foods, etc mostly looking for a fit companion. As a video gamer, I never considered myself as a healthy person but slowly my identity changed and I became a healthy person.


As others said: eating less/different, moving more.

Now the question is: How would you reach that goal the best way? This depends very much on why you are eating like you are. What is it for you etc. My grandfather e.g. was a Nazi soldier on the eastern front when he was 16, where he nearly starved — which is why my brothers and me had to eat every last crumb of a plate over half a century later, because this got so hammered into my father, that he passed ot onto his kids. I managed to reflect on this and watch myself from the outside and sort of get rid of that habit. Your history and relationship with eating might be different, but you should also see it as an psychological issue, as much as an health issue — because usually it is.

One thing that you might try is instead of focusing too much on what you are eating, to focus more on what you are buying and when. So instead of going for groceries hungry and buying unhealthy trash and a lot of it, only go to the store when you ate, buy healthier stuff and exactly the amount your body needs. Then at home you have no choice but stick to the plan and make something good out of what you got.

I know, eating is enjoyable, but it can also be enjoyable if a meal doesn't leave you completely stuffed. In fact it might be more enjoyable if you are not.

Come up with a plan, stick with it, at least for a certain predefiend time (as an experiment), then if you feel better, decide how to go ahead


Caloric deficit.

Food scale. Weigh EVERYTHING you eat for a few weeks. Use an app like MyFitnessPal or something similar to gain and understanding of how many calories you're taking in. You'll be shocked at first

Then, make small adjustments until you get between 1600-2000 calories a day.

Add in walking 2-3 miles 2-3 days a week.


Monks are quite sedentary. They sit at one place and meditate… not a lot of exercise, but don’t gain weight.

They do all their eating in a 6 hour window (6am ~ 12 noon) And fast during the other 18 hours - only plain fluids such as water or plain tea.

Practically, you can try with do all your eating between 11am and 7pm


Pure oxygen will get you incredibly high and fuck with your body.

Drink cold water and try to keep your passive blood sugar low. If you eat something sweet drink a lot of water at the same time. Reduce the amount of oils that you consume. Fill up on vegetables.

Cardio exercise is a really effective way to exhale carbon.


I find picking one calorific food and cutting it out, but otherwise eating the same works really well. For example I used to have small bottle of orange juice with lunch, which I cut out and it put my weight on a downward path. It is easier than worrying about the whole of your diet.


An important piece for me is weighing myself regularly, usually daily, and sometimes tracking it in a spreadsheet.

I feel like the constant monitoring is important as a reminder to actually keep me on track, and to show me granular changes.

You have to be careful not to let daily fluctuations drive you crazy though.


Eat fewer calories. Exercise has been shown to be not the main factor in weight loss. But do exercise as well as it will give positive reinforcement, especially mentally.

There are probably so many more parameters, both important on an individual level and commonly, that we do not know about yet.


Here’s what’s worked for me - gradual change. I started IF on weekends by skipping breakfast. Then I moved to weekdays too. Now, after 6 months I’m One meal a day.

Same with exercise. Walk a certain amount on weekend days until it’s a habit. Then try weekdays too. Then increase the length.

tldr: play the long game


Any weird tips will only work temporarily. You'll rebound (which is a very bad shock to all systems including endocrine and will increase your cortisol levels) and might harm yourself in the process of doing so. Much better to walk 10k steps a day and eat in moderation.


Intermittant fasting works well; just be prepared for the stomach pangs for the first week or two when you're on a fasting day. Drink water to help alleviate the problem. Weight loss will be diminishing returns, so you'll lose more at the start. Best of luck, OP.


I lost about 30 pounds using Noom. I learned so many useful tips and tricks from that app and it really works without any gimmicks. You just learn a lot about which foods are filling but low calorie (yogurt, eggs) and which foods are toxic waste heaps (desserts, soda).


I've lost weight with Noom too. It has the usual things like tracking food you eat and weight but more importantly, it has a strong psychological component to address why you eat. It doesn't shame you into never eating pizza or chocolate, it reframes your relationship with food. I'm not sure if it is setting things up for long term success but it does work in the short term. It focuses a lot on foods that contain a high percentage of water which makes them less calorie dense.


I found a ton of long term success just by making good meal habits.

Typical day for me: yogurt breakfast about 100 calories, egg sandwich or low cal tortilla quesadilla lunch about 400 calories, going into dinner with 500 calories consumed means you can really eat a big dinner or have beer or whatever


Do more sports. Walking especially, if possible running. If knee issues then cycling and swimming. Eat regularly but make sure you eat a lot of vegetables and salad. Protein is also desireable, but eat less carbonhydrates (not too many noodles, whitebread, pizza etc.)

That's all.


I trained hard for a year and ran a marathon and didn't lose a pound even though my BMI was overweight. I love running, but it's no weight loss strategy.


Integrate physical action into your life. Walk more. Do calls while walking. Get a standing desk (or put some stuff on the table and your laptop).

Do cold showers and stay in cold. Eat less carbs and drink less alcohol and more water.

Skip breakfast. Or even lunch or dinner and have one meal a day.


Drink lots of black coffee. It helps quench the hunger pains, making it easier to go without any other calorie intake e.g. from morning to lunch.

I be recommend espresso or instant coffee for this though, as it tends to have less acids and is thus gentler on a fasting stomach.

This is what I do :)


Except that you’ll get an acidity problem.


Reduce sugar, alcohol. Eliminate between-meal snacking. Reduce portion sizes. Walk and bike more.


It's all about digestion:

1. Eat your dinner at-least 2 hours before you go to bed

2. Don't drink water for 2 hours after the meal. Let the food digest

3. Eat more of easy to digest foods - fruits and veggies

4. Try to have a gap of 14 hours between your night meal and morning/noon meal

5. Don't snack all the time, even on nuts


Eat clean (cut out sugars and starches), eat less, expend calories (through exercise). There are no shortcuts besides getting surgery. The more you embrace the pain of doing the above, the more successful you will become. That applies to all facets of life.


Keto + no dinner is extremely effective. Being in keto makes it easy to skip dinner because you never get very hungry. Skipping dinner makes it easier to be in keto because you don’t have to as strict about carbs during the rest of the day. Works like magic.


When you eat out (or even eat in), if you feel like you want dessert after you have a meal, tell yourself you can, but you have to wait 30 minutes first.

Chances are pretty good you actually aren’t hungry, and that after the wait, you’ll end up skipping the dessert after all.


3 meals a day. Nothing in between. Maybe an apple or banana. But ditch all fabricated food. No coca Cola's. Only water and carb mixes. Go start boxing and fitness. Try to exercise 6 times a week. After 6 to 12 months you will see a enormous change.


That’s a dumb way to get oxygen poisoning (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_toxicity).

Weird tricks for weight loss? Try Clenbuterol.

Otherwise eat less and move more.


Intermittent fasting. Basically I don't eat anything after 20:00 (8pm) and the next meal I eat is lunch around 11-12. Maybe a tea/coffee in the morning, nothing else.

The other trick is to eat as much as you did before, just substitute less calorie dense foods.


Do a lot of steps. It's crazy good, here is the science: https://www.strongerbyscience.com/research-spotlight-activit...


Do some exercise. But wat h out: a lot of exercises will increase your body mass because you will build muscle!

So, in other words: you may want to lose some fat but you may also want to con very some body mass from fat to muscle.

=> do not only rely only on the number on the balance.


I lost about 150lbs since my heaviest weight, which was about half. The pandemic has caused enough stress and lack of activity that I put a between 40 and 50 of that back on before I got control of it again and started working back toward a more ideal weight, and I'm currently about 20 away still. I say this for credibility of what I'm about to tell you, so that you'll understand this isn't coming from someone who had to lose 10 or 15lbs and did it by cutting out soda or something.

We want a trick because losing weight is hard. Our bodies fight us because they are stupid, and our society fights us because it encourages hedonism. But short of a few dangerous and largely illegal medications, there isn't any trick, you just have to embrace the suck.

You're right that most of the weight you lose leaves your body in the form of CO2, but the best way to exhale more CO2 is through aerobic exercise. I was at my lowest weight when I was running regularly, then I developed a knee issue that forced me to stop. Of course, if you don't control your caloric intake it's likely you'll just eat enough to replenish whatever you burned anyway. Our bodies are really stingy about calories and our brains are really good at rationalizing reasons to eat more when we're running a deficit.

Don't get me wrong, I would love if you could find some hack like you propose that would make this easier, but a decade of riding this rollercoaster leads me to believe you won't.

If you want to get serious about losing weight (and I'm not saying you have to!): start by calculating the sedentary BMR for your ideal weight, then institute a strict daily calorie restriction[0] regime where you never go above that number. Even if you do no exercise and sleep a lot you'll still eventually get there, but exercise will help in a few ways. For one, you might find a form of exercise that's actually fun and you'll want to improve at it, which will further motivate you to follow the calorie restriction, in general you'll have less time to sit staring at a screen getting bored and feeling the munchies, and obviously you'll burn extra calories.

[0] Seriously it doesn't even matter that much what you eat as long as you can hit the target number. A nutritionist did an experiment where he ate nothing but convenience store junk food and all his health metrics improved including losing (IIRC) 30lbs. That said, certain foods will make it much easier to avoid overeating than others. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out which ones.


Not so long ago we ran a large study to understand strategies for weight loss. Here the results. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30096203/


1. Get hungry between eating. Really hungry. 2. Eat 0.5 regular portions 3. Light exercise, just to build the body. But very mild, not some extreme stuff is needed. 4. Stop drinking sugars and limit alcohol severely.

Stay with it. 6 months in it will be a new you.


I'd say dancing 3 times a week for instance is a real guarantee to lose weight if you simply drink water at the dance locations for instance. Once I mostly quit dancing 2 years ago because of Covid-19 I gained more than 10kg weight :-/


One of the simplest hacks is to consume a small amount of grapefruit juice with any meal that contains carbs. The naringenin in grapefruit keeps your blood-sugar (and therefore insulin) levels low.

Do NOT do this if you are diabetic or on other meds like statins.


You already know what to do, eat less, exercise more, eat more healthy. Do the boring work.


hmm the hardest one is to reduce stress (which now when we have a disaster bingo is really hard to do) which will directly impact your weight, therapy also helped me.

a weird i have done is one is to make food just super inconvenient, and order groceries online only when my stomach is full, and buy lots things that are easy to eat raw, like cauliflower and carrots; you can even add pi-hole rules to block ordering groceries before lunch or before dinner when you are especially hungry.

i think its also important to drink just water, but each day try few drops of lemon or orange or something to change the taste if you are bored of it.

make sure your vit d is good as it will help with the stress as well


I struggle with eating healthy and with portion size. One thing that has helped me a lot is eating hot meals from a meal replacement company. Another thing that helped me a lot is actually rescuing a dog. I walk with him 2-3 hours a day.


Please go to a nutritionist. As someone who lost 40kgs by starving myself (and put them back on in 3 years), now I have high levels of uric acid and need to take pills all my life, otherwise I'll have (yet another) goute attack.


If there was a weight loss hack like that that worked I bet it'd be well known.

My weird tip? Flow state. Do something so compelling and interesting you forget to even care about eating. I've done it, but not consistently or for a long time.


Video games are where I forget to eat


Something really weird: Start wearing those t-shirts that don't fit you anymore and stick close to your body instead of bigger t-shirts. This will make you cognizant of the extra weight and help you eat healthier/workout.


> passive weight loss

I'm not suggesting this is good for you, because steroids have a ton of negatives, however steroids will increase lean mass and consequentely metabolic rate at rest, inducing weight loss even if you do not exercise.


If anything, oxygen deficiency is more likely to result in weight loss (at least, I tend to lose weight at altitude... but there are lots of confounding factors like amount of physical activity). But that has its own issues...


Drink copious amounts of yerba mate. Use three dinner spoons of mate per cup and prepare it in a aero-press. Drink two servings every night.

A high stress and dysfunctional workplace also was an effective way to loose weight for me personally.


The literally life changing book for me was “Why we eat so much”.

Don’t expect to have a lasting impact of your diet if you don’t understand how your body works with regards to food.

Truly recommend. Get the audiobook version and just listen an hour every day


Why We Eat (Too Much): The New Science of Appetite, by Andrew Jenkinson

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50031440-why-we-eat-too-...


My favorite thing is to combine IF with activity. As in, I will do fasted activity early in the day. What that means in reality is:

- skip breakfast

- go for a walk / run in the morning

This will mainly use your stored fat for energy and is 1 less meal you consume


Go live in Europe. Start with a 1-month exchange program in a French family (although I don’t think this is possible for adults). US foods are full of sugar: bread, prepared dishes, I bet even water has added sugar…


Be cold. Your body burns more calories to keep your temperature.

Note, this is different from freezing. If you’re too cold, you’ll run into different problems like getting slow, getting weak, not being able to sleep, or getting ill.


Your theory is quite illogical. Your premise is wrong - where did you get that estimate? -, but more importantly your fat cells aren't going to start dissolving if your blood has slightly higher oxygenation.


https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/health/lose-weight-where-does...

"You exhale the carbon dioxide and the water mixes into your circulation until it's lost as urine or sweat. If you lose 10 pounds of fat, precisely 8.4 pounds comes out through your lungs and the remaining 1.6 pounds turns into water. In other words, nearly all the weight we lose is exhaled."


Sorry I was harsh before, I would delete my last comment if I knew how.

I used to be fat too and the only thing that worked for me was calorie counting. I hope you find some way to achieve your goals one way or the other.


But you still need to burn the fat. You don't have a way around it.


If you read your own dubious source, you will see that your method has no way of working.


I've seen people have great success with 'The Mediterranean Diet'.

Personally, I've always found moderation and exercise worked for me. But the successes I've seen with this other diet are impressive.


My weird tip is change your habbits forever. Eat less, eat better, your new friends are your sportfriends, going out means no more bars but nature and biking, dont smoke and dont drink. That is the magic ...


Just eat at a deficit. Figure out your TDEE, count calories, and eat less than that. Easier to count calories if you eat less variety. Cut out sugar. People have excellent results with keto. Keep it simple.


Get a prescription for semaglutide. It's approved for weight loss in the US now, and trials show an ~15% reduction in body mass. It's not a stimulant and the side effect profile is pretty good.


Don't focus in training, focus on eating less.

Skip breakfeast, don't get a refill on your lunch plate. Realize 1 burger is enough, you don't need the fries.

Stop eating bread.

And if you are hardcore, skip pasta,rice,potatoes (Carbohydrates).

Easy weightloss


Drink a lot of water. Every time you feel hungry, drink a bottle of water.


DDPY also known as DDP Yoga.

That's a very good system to lose fat. It helped me more than daily runs. And I was already in decent shape so I imagine it will work better for you.

No impact, at home, and easy to follow instructions.


Well.. yeah, upping your CO2 is how you lose weight. Weight is lost through the lungs, so increase your metabolism, ideally through exercise.

Focus more on diet composition than quantity. Dietary fiber is your friend.


- Minimal sugar or sweet stuff. 5 grams sugar a day, max. - 250 grams to 350 grams of food per major meal. - Lots of water through the day - Small, healthy snacks of 50 to 100 grams, twice a day.


Sleep more, rest more, move more, hydrate more, eat less, choose nourishing foods.

Getting better sleep helps you not eat at night. Staying hydrated makes you rest better, and nourishing foods will help you move more.


Here is my trick, which is a way to balance your diet.

Each of your meals should contain 1/3 of cereals, 1/3 of proteins and 1/3 of vegetables.

Try to avoid sugar and red meat, and you'll lose weight without effort.


If you're looking for weird options it's because you're trying to avoid the hard work of actually changing your life. But there is no substitute for learning and practicing discipline.


Avoid things with added sugar/corn syrup/honey etc as much as possible, the amount of sugar they are stuffing into everything is insane, watch out for drinks especially and switch to diet.


You asked for weird so I’ll give you weird: when I fill my pantry and fridge from stuff from Trader Joe’s, I lose weight. I’m not sure why, and it’s hardly backed by science, but it’s true for me.


Really? Trader Joe's is primarily junk food masquerading as health food. I'm jealous!


Don't eat later in the day, after 8pm if you can, definitely skip after 9pm. The reason is that you won't be able to use the extra energy before sleeping. So it will be stored as fat.


Eat boring and plain meals. Tasty things usually increase the appetite.

Personally I've also found exercise to decrease appetite.

In the end it's about calories in vs calories out which can be dealt with in serveral ways.


I guess if we're going for "weird" tips: Only shop for groceries on a full stomach. I've found it helps me against being tempted to buy unhealthy things (sweets, snacks, soda)


Don't focus on how much you eat, just what you eat. Eliminate alcohol, sugar, fruit juices from your diet, without exceptions. Sleep well. Don't eat for pleasure, eat to not die


I think this is really bad advice. How much you eat is incredibly important to whether you lose weight or not. You can gain weight while eating only healthy food. You can also lose weight on a pretty bad diet. Portion sizes are a very important part of the equation.

This strategy also eliminates all joy from eating will cause "rebound," equates to "dieting" that isn't sustainable

Here's some better advice when it comes to actually losing weight (again, the stated goal is to lose weight, not to radically improve the diet):

- Use an app like MyFitnessPal or LoseIt and log all your food, including condiments. Focus on putting in the correct portion/serving/size/weight. Don't start trying to make any change, just log what you eat for a week or so and see how many calories that is adding up to right now.

- Get a food scale to aid the above. It's very easy to eat larger portions and servings without realizing it. When you make food, prefer weight measurements over volume, and then the calorie counts will be accurate.

- By focusing on calorie intake reduction, you will naturally figure out which foods are more filling while keeping you in your calorie range.

- Eat 3 deliberate meals per day, do not snack mindlessly

- Indulge mindfully, with the right portion size. Again, I don't think it's necessary to remove all joy from food, because psychologically that's a recipe for failure. In my experience, that leads to hating the whole situation and giving up.


My hack for OMAD IF: skip breakfast and workout at lunch. Exercise killed the feeling of being hungry and I could easily make it to dinner with just 1 small plain yogurt snack (50 cal) at lunch.


This one is currently considered "weird" but only for the past 30 years: Eat a lot of steak and other meat. For the 1MM or so years beforehand, it worked pretty well for our species.


Exercise every day even a little bit. When I’m nervous or can’t figure out what to do next I put in two minutes on the elliptical machine. It burns off nervous energy and sets a virtuous cycle.


Fasting.

You can train yourself to go from 8 hours (sleep) to 16 hours pretty easily.

Once you get to a point where you can one-meal-a-day comfortably, then extending this to a 48hr fast once a week becomes relatively easy too.


For behavioral changes keep in mind that establishing a new habit takes 20+ days.

Intermittent failure is fine - it’s better to go 20 days at 90% consistent than 7 days at 100% consistent. Persistence is key.


The amount of carbon dioxide you exhale coincides with the metabolic process in your body, not the amount of oxygen you inhale. Stop trying to 'hack' the metabolism, just eat less.


> Any weird tips for weight loss?

Get yourself a bicycle, take two weeks holiday and ride from A to B where A and B need to be >2000km apart. You can eat as much as you want and you will loose weight.


There is literally no working around to eating less for weight loss. Everything around weight loss like intermittent fasting, drinking coffee etc is to trick the brain to not feel hungry.


I started eating on 16/8 hour off/on cycles, eating from 10-11 am until dinner time. I don’t buy into the diet, but it certainly highlighted some unhealthy snacking behaviours.


Yoga works for me. I just need to show up and it combines strength training, aerobics plus body mindfulness.

Don’t let junk food come in the house. And that includes white bread.

Pickles are great snack food.

Maybe try wim hof, for breath?


I don’t eat on Saturdays. Friday night until Sunday morning is spent fasting, about 36h. It’s an exercise for body and mind, and there’s evidence of autophagy kicking in after 20 hours.


Okay, weird one as asked: Ingest 500ml of hydrogen dioxide before every meal or snack. That's it. Disclaimer: I have not tried or heard whether this actually is effective.


some very light intermittent fasting (nothing crazy- I'm talking 14 hours off 12 hours on) has helped me. try to eat a little later in the day and stop eating a little sooner.

also if you can get into walking, I've found that to be the easiest way to lose weight, and if you combine it with a friend or an audio book it can be really enjoyable.

calorie tracking has worked well for me too- the first 2 weeks you should just be getting a sense of how much you're consuming though, don't try to cut right away


Eat breakfast. Eat lunch. Then fast for 16 - 20 hours. Do this for the rest of your life.

The first few weeks will be tough. Then the cravings and hunger will go away. So will the excess weight.


The primary reason I like fasting and high intensity cardio exercise is because it makes food so much more delicious. Maybe you can flip it around like that in your head?


It’s true that the unpopular and weird opinion is to do an extremely lazy workout and barely walk a little bit each week and over time you will see a massive change. That’s it!


Just don’t eat processed food. I stopped eating any because of Covid (since I have time to actually cook) and instantly lost 10-20lbs over a span of a couple months. Try it out!


Not sure it's a weird tip but one important thing to note is that if you sleep poorly you're more likely to eat poorly. Get good sleep to resist the urges. Good luck!


I massively reduced my carb intake - essentially stopped eating any form of bread, potatoes, rice and noodles - and my weight dropped substantially. Lost 24lb in 5 months.


Apples(if you like them). If you are hungry, and an apple doesn't sounds good to eat, you are probably bored and not hungry. It helped me from eating snack foods.


Weigh all your food, count all your calories.

Religiously, at least for a few months. You'll develop an instinct for actually eating "intuitively". Re-calibrate as needed.


Soda stream, drink a lot of fuzzy water. Don't put sweetener in it and it'll help slow your appetite. Also try and stop drinking booze if you do.


OMAD: https://old.reddit.com/r/OmadDiet/


I don't know if any of these are "weird tips", but they are what has worked for me so far for weight loss, and more importantly weight loss maintenance.

1. Eat as much volume or more, but lower calorie density. Find the calorie dense items in your diet and be more controlled about these. (For me that meant cheese and cream, but for many people things like potato chips, cookies etc might be a larger culprit). I now use these minimally for flavour, rather than in large quantities.

2. Focus on getting more fibre and protein, both of which aid satiety. The first part means eating a lot more vegetables and beans than you might have before. I get at least 50g fibre most days. The average American gets about 15g.

3. Avoid ultra-processed food. For one thing, UPF is low in fibre and protein. Secondly, for reason which aren't yet clear, UPF encourages overeating even when matched for fibre and protein, as compared with whole foods. See this study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31105044/

4. Don't have problem foods in the house. If there are foods that you fail to resist binging on time and time again, get them out of the house, permanently. I mean it.

5. Have a plan for maintenance, to avoid regaining the weight. For me, that has basically been to keep on calorie counting as a permanent lifestyle. It ain't so bad once you get used to it. Your plan may be different. Mine has worked for me so far.

6. Get at least 7000 steps a day. Everyone agrees being sedentary is bad, and at least one study (https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/102/6/1332/4555181?log...) suggests that levels of sedentariness below ~7000 steps a day or equivalent may result in appetite dysregulation (i.e. you eat more).

7. Weigh yourself every day, and use a weight trend app like Libra. Keep doing this in maintenance.

8. Don't consume any sort of media when you eat. Just eat mindfully and enjoy it.

For me, low-carb vs low-fat hasn't made any difference as long as I'm controlling calories. I suspect the reason some people have dramatic success with one or the other is all to do with satiety, and that this varies a lot between people. That is, some people feel a lot more satisfied when they eat hardly any carbs, others feel a lot more satisfied when they don't eat much fat, and others don't see a difference.


Ever heard of metabolic alkalosis? Plus, you'll just get poisoned by oxygen. My weirdest tip is just get a fat surgery. Consult with your doctor


Weird tricks don't exist. If you want to change your health, that typically requires effort and a change in lifestyle.

For me, I found reading how other people made changes to their lifestyle to improve their health to be motivating. After seeing enough stories about that, eventually I started thinking, why not me? So here's my personal account, should you care.

Personally, once I switched from eating out/ordering DoorDash for my one big meal of the day to cooking all my meals, I began to eat far fewer calories. Turns out the average meal you make at home has fewer calories than a delicious al pastor super burrito or a dutch crunch sub.

I did Hello Fresh for a few weeks, and I appreciated the variety of meals but eventually canceled it because I want more flexibility/spontaneity in my cooking, which is something you lose when you subscribe to a meal plan. Many of the meals left me feeling like I did a damn good job, so I can see myself trying the service again in the future.

I found a very easy breakfast I can make in 15 minutes that I like. 2 slices toast with jam, 2 eggs in a tortilla with cheese and salsa, and 2 pieces of bacon. Before I had always skipped breakfast, leading me to that one big meal a day strategy, which always led to me overeating. My dog appreciates the now frequent bacon in her life (don't worry, she hardly gets any).

I found cooking to be much easier once I got an induction stovetop, because you can see the actual temperature you're cooking with. I always hated the guessing game of turning a gas stove knob, which prevented me from cooking regularly.

At the same time, I've started going to the gym every day, doing a simple linear progression PPL program. I also make a delicious shake every day, which I look forward to after every workout.

Over the last couple months I made these changes and they are now part of my daily routine.

Before, I couldn't really see myself randomly going to the gym or cooking at home. Now that's absolutely flipped- I can't really see myself not doing these things. It's early, but I feel I've done the work to change my habits for good.

And to bring it back to the topic at hand, with these weird tricks of changing my daily defaults my weight is trending down at a rate I'm happy with.

Oh, and I did count calories for like a month, but only to get a feel for how many calories are in the foods I tend to eat, and how my body weight fluctuates based on my intake. I don't any more, at least I don't write it down. It's all just sort of done on my head in a wishy washy way.


8 hour feeding window, with only water outside of that.

Drop all processed foods.

Cut out all carbs.

Pick one of these, use it until you plateau, then add another one until you're doing all 3.


There is a powdered food product called Keto Chow that you mix with heavy cream to scale up calories. Pretty easy to track calories with that.


Not sure if it’s weird but sleep is very important. If you don’t sleep well then you’ll have elevated cortisol levels leading you to overeat.


Reading this helped me a lot:

https://www.crockford.com/pwl.html


Drink 1-gallon of water a day, it's healthy & satiating

Get a kitchen-scale, it makes tracking serving sizes/portions 20x easier & accurate


Take up a physical VR game. I play population one. I've lost 2 stone in a year. I play everyday for at least an hour. Often 2 hours.


1. Take a couple weeks vacation doing something active all day like hiking, skiing, cycling.

2. Quit your desk job and do manual labor for a couple months.


Also, in my case: I was driven by self-hate to lose those 40 lbs. And now, I will never allow myself to get that big again. Never again.


I moved where I could ride my bike everywhere and stopped buying anything I could eat without cooking/prep. Lost 75 lb (about 35kg)


Put on dental braces. Eating will be such a hassle that you'll lose weight in no time. Two birds: beautiful teeth and weight loss.


Nothing weird but:

1. Hydrate a lot.

2. Keep only healthy/lower calorie foods in your home. The easiest way to not give in to temptation is just to remove the option.


Eat healthy food with high protein, keeps you full for longer time. Go for a walk couple times a week and/or do fitness regular.


David Sinclair's "Lifespan" Podcast changed my relation to food (although I can't vouch for scientific accuracy).


Alcohol has calories - inhaled cannabis does not.


Correct. Just make sure that you have locks on your kitchen cabinets, and that someone who isn’t high has the key…


I recommend eating healthier food and you’ll lose a lot weight, I don’t mean beyond meat burgers those are worse then McDonald’s.


Supplement fiber! It's very helpful for appetite regulation, avoiding bloating and constipation, and feeding the microbiome.


I've lost 20kg in 1 year and a half just by eating less and walking more.

When I was hungry I was taking an apple instead of eating biscuits.


If weight loss is your only concern, then a pot of black coffee and a pack of Marlboro Reds daily will do wonders, seriously.


Exercise extreme self-restraint at the supermarket and then take it easy at home. Related: Never go to the supermarket hungry.


Google "intuitive eating". There's a shocking amount of dangerously incorrect information in this thread.


It’s just an energy balance. Change in energy (fat) = energy in (food) - base body energy usage - energy used in exercise


Overdoing it is an excellent way to hinder your weight loss goals. KISS. All the advice you need is here in this thread.


Don’t eat sugar. Remove simple carbs. Altogether. This is all you need for a big kick off. Observe the scale. Good luck


Just workout and eat less. Drink only water.


There are no weird tips. Just throw out 90% of what you read in mainstream "health/lifestyle" magazines


I've become one of those crazy intermittent fasting people. Lost 75 pounds in a year. It really reduces hunger!


Increasing muscle mass is one of the fastest way to lose fat, because muscle mass burns calories in your sleep.


There are very unsafe compounds that make you loose weight quickly. Unfortunately they can cause death easily.


Do this exercise whenever you are offered junk food — move your head from left side to right side thrice.


- Stop looking for weird tips or gimmicks. They're usually bullshit.

- Recognize that media and the weight loss industry have absolutely no interest in helping you lose weight permanently. The incentives are wrong. They want a captive audience and repeat clientele. If there's any truth to what they say it's incidental. e.g. Blueberries are not a magically healthy food that will transform you into a greek god or goddess if you eat them. Some asshole blueberry farmers just commissioned a study to drum up sales and idiot health reporters picked it up on a slow news day. I'm not saying blueberries are bad for you. They're just fruit.

- Everyone has advice that has worked for them (or maybe hasn't really). That doesn't mean it will work for you.

- Maybe you stress eat or eat when you're bored. Maybe you eat way too much of the wrong foods. Everyone is different. The path to being healthier starts with observation. Keep a food and activity journal and crunch the numbers. An apple isn't so healthy that you can ignore the calories in it. Write things down and figure out where you're paying the biggest costs.

- Change your behaviour. This is what works. Read a book on cognitive behavioural therapy if you have no idea where to start. Your weight isn't a temporary condition that can be permanently fixed by temporary action, such as a short-term diet. It's a reflection of your diet and activity habits. Permanent changes to how you think, eat, and act are necessary to change your weight. Little changes can yield big results. e.g. Get in the habit of asking yourself, whenever you open the fridge door, "Am I hungry, or am I bored?" If you're bored, close the fridge door and go do something interesting.

- It may seem like there is a sea of advice and help out there that might make things easy. However, you really have to figure this shit out for yourself. It's going to take some mental effort, but it's worth it. You can do it if you try.


"The path to being healthier starts with observation. Keep a food and activity journal and crunch the numbers." Downloading MyFitnessPal and actually using it alone was such an eye-opener. That mirror to the face is sometimes all a person needs to commit properly.


As someone deeply involved in the weight loss space (CEO of Alfie, men's health starting with weight loss), I would not recommend biology "hacks" to lose additional weight. Hacks often result in a series of other physical and sometimes mental harm. The best ways to lose weight are dietary changes and exercise, in some cases combined with medication for individuals who have struggled to lose weight via lifestyle changes alone.

Additionally, weight is lost mainly as CO2 because of the metabolic processes that convert fat into energy and this process' byproducts ~(84% CO2 and 16% H2O). Additional O2 intake would not cause your body to burn more calories, and it's unlikely this strategy would result in passive weight loss.


If you drink, cut back or stop. You'll lose the bloat, and find yourself eating more healthily.


don't go to weird sh*t to lose weight ... Your body produces fat ... so decrease the consume of it You have extra fat ... burn it out: walk, run, jump, exercise Challenge your self... a healthy diet and some exercise for 3 months, check your goals every week


Reduce carbs to 200/grams day switch sugar for honey. How do you gain weight without carbs?


Count calories.

Then all the loose advice you hear around will fall in place and make sense.

Physics is on your side on that quest!


Check out the Shangri-la diet, I haven’t tried it, but it certainly qualifies as a weird hack.


Why do humans have the capacity to be overweight in the first place?

The most effective way is to simply strictly (water) fast until you reach your desired weight. [You don't even have to be that strict and can drink some <10kcal drinks like coffee, tea etc. Watch out for electrolytes, vitamins, EAA and probiotics (gut biome)][0]

But most people in the modern world want "another" ("easier", "high-tech" etc.) way. Some magic exercise, pill, protocol, weird thing ... indulging in the myriad choices.

Why? Because habit-forming for adults is frikkin' hard. For some the best benefit-cost ratio is Bariatric surgery with all its nasty side-effects.

As with other addictions (loosely defined here) the optimal way (most of the time =/ effective way) is quite personal one has to account for the history, motivation, etc.

So for some an O2-tank might be the right trigger.

That's why - at the end of the spectrum - I'm even all for homeopathy if it facilitates a powerful placebo effect to change one's habit. It has by definition no side effects (except of course for nocebo).

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_Barbieri%27s_fast


Do cardio every day and shrink your meal sizes. Everything else is just a long way around.


Weird ha? Get stressed:

- Get a full on 80 hr/week job

- Swim in cold water

- Do HIIT - e.g. run like a lion is chasing you for a minute every day

- Watch horror films

- Drink coffee

- Have sex


> Swim in cold water

This makes your body easier to gain fat. (I did cold water swimming. They warned about this effect.)


I have read countless counter points to that (and some supporting it). Doesn't look that clear cut.


The counterpoints, afaik, amounts to "it consumes tons of calories". Which in fact it does. You then also get really hungry after. And when I ignored that hunger I got sick or was trembling and cold for longer, it was purely dumb to ignore it.

People who do winter swimming are not thinner then average. People who start don't seem to be getting thinner. The advice was to be mindful of what you eat after. But never seen advice to do winter swimming with intention to get thin.


Falling in love makes you eat less. Also bad heartbreak, lost 3kg in a week last time.


put on the table all the food you rationally decided you need to eat and never touch the fridge/cupboard again. Focus on other things: food is not a pleasure when you're losing weight. It should be considered just a fuel


You probably have a food addiction. This does not only materialize in eating, but also in thoughts about food or inventing ways to not eat. Thinking about food is very primal and you can easily slip into a different kind of food addiction (other kinds of eating disorders) if you are not cautious.

Your plan needs to be simple and reduce the mental capacity used up by thoughts about food.

Detailed calory tracking is counterproductive as the logging makes you think about food all the time.

Example low-mental capacity plan: Only eat one moderate meal per day (and one little other thing if you really get too hungry) for a set number of weeks, maybe 6. Don’t look at the scale more than once per week. Have one cheat day per week. Recover, then repeat.

Less difficult example: Fast for one or two days per week. Track calories with a method requiring low mental capacity all other days. (Noteworthy trivia: Obama fasted every Sunday.)

Use gamification like:

* AppleWatch with CaliCalo (you get exp for every calory saved) plus some simple fast way to enter calories into AppleHealth on your wrist

* Fitness games like RingFit Adventure, Fitness boxing (sports don’t help you loose weight substantially but do improve health)


I love intermittent fasting. It's working really well for me a couple months in.


Vyvanse 70mg. I suffer from Binge Eating disorder and it literally changed my life.


- build muscles to increase you "static" calories consumption.

- Semaglutide shots

- Have you heart broken


Remove all large plates, only use very small plates and don't rush eating.


Caloric Deficit. Burn more calories than you consume. Eat less or do more work.


Eat more, I lost some weight when I realized that I wasn't eating enough.


Eat less, drink more water, do more exercise. That's all there is to it.


Wear a casual weight vest under your normal clothes during your regular day?


Motivation. Goal. Once you have it, you'll find a way to lose weight.


stop buying snacks, candies, biscuits and industrial food and buy only raw ingredients, meats and vegetables. Cooking is fun!

Ban sugar and salt as much as possible.

Bonus: replace coffee or tea by maté => awesome fat-burner.


Maybe should be on another thread but: any weird tips for weight gain?


1. Regularly (three days per week seems to be about right) lift heavy weights using whole-body movements (three sets of five reps of back squat, bench/shoulder press, and deadlift at near maximal weights for you is the ball park of what you're shooting for).

2. Eat lots of calories with adequate protein (30% seems to be good).

If you're a really hard gainer and that still doesn't work for you, try adding a gallon of whole milk a day. That will definitely do it--whole milk evolved for the purpose of putting a lot of muscle on baby cows quickly. I wouldn't say it's a particularly healthy thing to do long-term but that will almost certainly make you gain significant amounts of muscle.


Bike daily. Even low speed, it will increase energy expenditure a lot.


maybe not exactly what you were thinking:

  o  hair cut
  o  fasting
  o  amputation (It will messed up BMI-calculations)
  o  going to the toilet
  o  undressing
  o  going off-world and g < 9.98
  o  donate blood
  o  get the common flu (not recommended) 
  o  drugs
  o  start smoking
on a more serious note, weight loss is about those small victories. one step at a time. gram for gram. there is no quick way to make weight loss.

  o  avoid stress
  o  make sure you get enough sleep
  o  exercise/activity
  o  muscles are heavy, if you start exercising, don't worry if you gain
  o  reduce intake of of calories, but must match you level of activity


Something that nobody does: Talk with a doctor specialized in diets.


Skip breakfast and walk everyday. Not weird tips but they sure work.


Why not skip supper instead?


Personally speaking, it's easier for me to endure a whole morning without food than going to bed feeling an empty stomach. But if it works better that way for you then by all means skip dinner.


Here’s a weird tip: Don’t take tips from HN and find a nutritionist


Sleep earlier, then you have less chance to eat at late night.


"84% of all weight that is lost is in the form of carbon dioxide"

1. Question the premise you're starting with (because it's false).

2. Do more physical activity. Ramp up slowly, but ensure movement and cardio every single day.

3. Eat less, and eat healthier.


Intermittent Fasting, specifically OMAD. Cut all sugars and processed foods. If you want to pursue this, highly recommend watching this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuOvn4UqznU


Drink coffee in the morning. It will suppress your appetite.


there is one, highly effective way to lose weight

STOP EATING

that's really it, if you can't grasp this concept you will not lose weight no matter how many 'tricks' you attempt


Use nicotine gum and black coffee to suppress your appetite


"If it tastes good spit it out" - Charles Barkley


Less food in. More exercise out.

That’s weird in this day and age apparently.


TL;DR: Plan ahead what to eat. Most importantly: establish a routine that you have a chance of following for months without thinking about it.

Find something to reduce energy intake that you can consistently and persistently follow. Eating a bit too much for a long time is easy, but eating too little is very difficult, because you will be hungry, so managing this is key. Establish a routing where you don't need to think too much about eating and you do not feel too hungry so easily. Plan ahead what to eat, don't delay the decision until it's time and you open the fridge. This way, you think less about this question. You need something you can do for months or even years, ideally without stress.

How to best manage this is individual, so experiment and observe yourself. Maybe there are times a day when you do not feel hungry that much: then don't eat at those times. Maybe volume of food makes you feel less hungry even if calory intake is low: then eat a lot of low calory food. Maybe you cannot do this every day, so structure your week, have some low and some normal calory days. Still control the normal days to avoid eating way too much -- it should be normal and fun to help you keep the routine.

Eat delicious and healthy and natural and fresh food -- no half-, or quarter, or reduced, or 0% sugar/fat stuff, or artificial sweetener, or whatever other crap -- this takes out all the fun of eating. And without the prospect of fun, you probably won't manage your routine for months. You should always be looking forward to your delicious food that you planned for the day.

Maybe sugar is not essential to you, so cut that down. But maybe you need chocolate, so just put it on your plan to keep it fun. Same for oil or fat. Food without fat may taste like sh*t to you. Plan with that, put some amount of delicious oil or natural fat in the delicious food you will eat. It only works if you plan ahead: only if it is on your plan you have control of the amount. You cannot evaluate this when the fridge is already open.

And excercise. Strictly speaking, a different thing, but also important.


eat well (cut out sugar, soda, eat fruit, veggies, and complex carbs everyday).

Barring medical condition, it’s really as simple as eat less and move more … consistently.


CPAP therapy made me lose 1kg/month consistently.


CICO. Put in the work and you'll see the results.


If requiem gor a dream is anything to go by, do meth.


Reduce food intake.


Weird: The right amount of laxatives.

Extra weird: adopt a tapeworm.


Drink kava. It's a good appetite suppressant.


If simple thing like exercise doesn't work for you then just stop eating for few days. You'll suffer on 2nd day, the rest should be fine. Then run on juicing for 2 months.


...and by juicing I mean blend stuff like spinach, avocado, cucumber, apple mixed with ie. oat milk, ginger and lemon juice (adding apple juice will make it more tasty). Or oat milk, cashews, coconut milk and bit of salt. etc.

The funny thing that happens – and nobody mentions it - is that while mostly fasting if you sip those juices - your body will quickly learn to love them. You'll very quickly start craving them. You'll not have to change yourself, you'll simply start liking this kind of healthy, nutritious food.


Drink water when feeling hungry. Not kidding.


Tase yourself every time you open the fridge.


Coffee dampens appetite. (Drink it black)


Eat more fat and absolutely no sugar.


I think you'd be best served by counting and limiting your calories. That's the easiest "hack" I've found.


Just eat less. Much less. And don't drink alcohol, juice, milk, ice tea, or soft drinks. Drink water.

My suggestion:

Skip breakfast. Take a cup of black coffee.

A lunch consisting of a salat made of half a cucumber and a medium sizes tomato and either 1) a can of tuna (in brine, not oil) or 2) smoked salmon (100 gram), will make you quite full without adding more than 200 calories.

Afternoon snack: Lots of chewing gum is a great way to feel full.

Eat a normal dinner. One portion. Why dinner? Because that's usually the social meal and usually the hardest meal to skip. Look at what skinny people are eating if you wonder what a normal potion is. Don't eat two portions. Don't eat dessert.

If you want a drink after dinner, drink carbonated water (club soda) in a nice glass with ice cubes.

Do this, and you will lose around 1 kg per week, give or take. It may sound slow, but it's actually about as fast as it gets and after 2-3 weeks you will notice the results.

It will speed up the process a bit if you walk 1-2 hours a day and exercise 2-3 times a week, but it's really not required. Reducing calorie intake is key.


A couple nits from someone who has owned multiple gyms, done nutrition and weight loss counseling for various specific populations, etc.

1. This is overly prescriptive advice ("eat this exact thing", "no tea!", "no breakfast!", "no dessert!") that isn't appropriate for everyone, and will set a lot of people up to fail.

2. I don't have a problem with chewing gum specifically, but it's a crutch. There's nothing wrong with being hungry and just not eating. Everyone is capable of doing it, we just tell ourselves we're "starving" because we haven't eaten in three hours. Like actual crutches, use them if you absolutely need to, but the sooner you get rid of it the better.

3. Two hours a day is more than most people have the time or willingness for.

4. Calorie intake is irrelevant. Calorie deficit is the key. If you have a very physical job, you can eat more than the person who works at a desk, and lose weight faster than them. Some people will find achieving this deficit easier if they ramp up the frequency, intensity, or length of their workouts. Some people will find it easier by just eating less. The healthiest option is almost always somewhere in the middle.


I feel like 4 is needlessly pedantic because there's no way people in real life are able to realistically gauge their personal caloric discharge except by modulating intake and watching for symptoms of deficit. I know too many people who have been burned by exercise burning too few/too many calories.


Most of your calorie deficit comes from your Basal Metabolic Rate and it's very hard to excercise enough to achieve a calorie deficit. While strictly possible, practically speaking for most people the only term you control in the equation, if any, is the intake.


> it's very hard to exercise enough to achieve a calorie deficit

I don't know what your definition of "very hard" is, but you can burn anywhere from 100-150 calories for every ten minutes of high intensity work (more calories burnt as your weight increases, for the same level of intensity). So 30-40 minutes a day will get you 1500-3k calories over five days depending on your starting weight. Unless you're eating 3-4k calories a day you will very likely lose weight with that level of activity.

Your last sentence is so wrong I'd say it's dangerous. The hard truth is a lot of people "go to the gym" for two hours every day, but end up doing 30 total minutes of low-intensity work. That might be a nice social activity but there is very little physical benefit. Or they go on a 15-minute walk that doesn't get their heart rate up. Again, if you want to do it because it's enjoyable I'm all about that (I love walking my dog). But don't fool yourself or lie to other that you're doing something for your health, because you're not.

Put bluntly, most people just don't work out hard enough. Spike your heart rate, sweat, lift heavy weight and have sore muscles. If you're trying to lose weight, and you don't break a sweat and you're not out of breath, you're not going to get where you want to go. Do a group class like OTF or CrossFit if you aren't sure what to do or want the supervision. But you have to be uncomfortable (not in pain, which is an important distinction) to change your body.


> Put bluntly, most people just don't work out hard enough.

Yup. Most people won't. Certainly not every day. 100 calories for ten minutes of excercise means that you're undoing your one workout you did this week on your first soda.

I think that the threshold of discipline for maintaining that kind of training schedule is higher than the discipline required to cut your calorie consumption. While the math correctly says you can excercise enough to offset any amount of bad eating habits, realistically forcing yourself to excercise is a similar task to forcing yourself to stop eating ice cream or whatever your vice is.

I also think that, as you pointed out, you burn so few calories while doing the type of low intensity excercise that amateurs, myself included do, you're really getting very little measurable impact on your calorie needs. So it becomes an act of self deception: oh I can cheat but I'll make up for it. You won't!


As an anecdote, I’ve been happily somewhere between skinny and sufficiently toned (depending on how much I’m working out) my whole life, and I largely attribute that to the fact I hated my mother’s cooking growing up (sorry mom), so finishing my meals often didn’t happen. I got used to only eating until the hunger signals stopped, not until the full signals started.

Fast forward 20 years later, I almost never finish my meals at a restaurant. I take it home or let my friends finish it or just let them take it away; I’ve already paid for it, I don’t feel any kind of guilt. Especially after moving to the states, I realize that restaurants almost always give you way more food than necessary. I’m consistently blown away by friends who claim to be struggling to lose weight, yet will still get two beers, an app, and a main, and finish all of them. Just eat less!


Weight gain and loss is much more about biology that "just eating less". There are significant genetic and metabolic factors that contribute to each individuals' appetite and ability to control that appetite.

The stigma around weight gain has been reliant on this argument of overeating for so long, while the research has indicated that there's a lot going on behind the scenes that has to be considered.

"obesity is innate, that weight regulation is not governed by a uniform tally of “calories in–calories out,” and to quote Jules Hirsch, that “there is a biochemical or basic biological element in what it is that we call `willpower.'”5 The views of many Americans notwithstanding, weight is clearly far from being entirely within an individual's control. Genetic predispositions, in tandem with the development of food environments that facilitate overeating and built environments requiring minimal energy expenditure, may help explain why so many Americans are obese today."

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmp1400613


I don't doubt that there are genetic and biochemical factors which rule how much we desire food and how often we'd like to eat. I'd go as far as to say nearly every impulse we have can be traced back to a genetic predisposition, one of our greatest gifts as humans is our ability to fight our genetic impulses.

I really love recreational drugs, cannabis and cocaine especially, and I'd hazard to say that part of the reason I enjoy them so much is due to a genetic predisposition. It takes a tremendous amount of willpower for me to control when I use and how much I use, while other people I know can smoke or party once a year and never feel an inclination to otherwise.

I don't think coddling overweight people and telling them that they're only overweight because of genetic and metabolic factors is anymore beneficial than telling an alcoholic they're only addicted for the same reason. Everyone has a cross to bear, and while some are heavier than others, I think it's defeatist to tell people that their obesity (or their addiction) is an innate part of who they are, not a challenge they can overcome.

Obviously I'm no expert, these are just my individual thoughts.


The major difference between your vices and overeating is that you don't need to have some cocaine every day to live. Total abstinence is not an available option for food.


That's a good point, they're definitely not equivalent. If it was societally expected of me to have three small bumps of cocaine every day, I'd have an incredibly hard time not overdoing it.


> I’m consistently blown away by friends who claim to be struggling to lose weight, yet will still get two beers, an app, and a main, and finish all of them. Just eat less!

It's not a struggle to comprehend how to lose weight. They understand that they can just eat less.


In general I agree, but I would oppose the "much less" advice.

If one is not morbidly obese, it is much easier to reduce the number of calories by a small amount and adjust to this lifestyle. Short diets with a strong calorie deficit require careful planning to be effective (exact nr of calories, protein, diet breaks etc).

If you assume an average person who is 10kg overweight due to slacking over the last 5-10 years, then we are talking about a daily surplus of 20 calories per day. Cutting your daily intake for around 220 calories will allow one to go back to the initial weight over the course of a year without dramatic lifestyle changes.

To cut these 220calories out, all of your advices apply, I would just not combine all of them in rapid manner. Most humans are not bodybuilders and will not have the willpower to sustain such a diet with appropriate planning.


If you can cope with eating a lot less for 2-3 weeks. It helps a lot. The stomach stretches but if you eat to satisfy hunger instead of eating to feel full. And do that for a few weeks. You will begin to notice that you feel fuller sooner. As your stomach shrinks a bit as it’s not stretched with food. Doctor told me that and wow huge difference, but that 2-3 weeks was hard.


It’s not perfect though. Plenty of people get their stomachs stapled to reduce their weight, lose weight, and subsequently gain much of that weight back because they’ve behaviorally overcome their stomachs.


Not everybody benefits or reacts to skipping breakfast the same. It sounds like IF is a little out of OPs scope.

Having said that, IF altered my relationship with food much more profoundly than going plant based whole foods only. I skip dinner and probably eat what others would call dinner for breakfast way more than average.

This could be personally investigated by someone with a meticulous food journal and periodic (like every 2-4 hours) blood sugar tests. Look for what spikes you.


The portion advice here is so important. I had a job where I travelled, and I immediately gained 20lbs because American portions were so insanely huge and I had been trained by my parents to "eat everything on my plate".

My new strategy is calorie counting and a hard rule that at a restaurant where you don't know what's in the food, small portions, eat half or a third of the meal and then immediately get it taken or boxed up so you don't pick on it while the social aspect of the meal is happening.


For me, skipping breakfast is a no go, because I'll binge lunch. I like to make sure that I have some sort of protein in my breakfast, usually eggs- and I find that I'm less hungry by the time lunch rolls around. But then even more importantly, I try to eat lunch at a set time, even if I'm not totally hungry yet, this way I don't eat too much.

This advice may not be for everyone though, as I usually engage in around 14 hrs of strenuous exercise weekly. So without breakfast, my ability to train is impeded.


Eat the same, eat whatever you crave. Eat junk if you insist but give an occasional serving of fruits and/or vegetables a chance.

Don't ever read the ingredients unless you're deathly allergic to something.

Alcohol is poison, but as long as you recognize that, proceed however the hell you want.

Get a chair that makes you uncomfortable. Sit up straight, move around, take a walk around the block, try moving to music (dancing) whatever you want in private. You'll sleep better, think better, live better as a result. The weight will fall into the range you are ultimately comfortable with. Don't fight yourself.

Water is wonderful, all-the-time.


This is mostly terrible advice. Being aware nutrition and ingredients in the foods you consume is very important. Dont accidentally eat 40% of your daily sugar intake because you were craving a powerade.


For sure. We live in an age where foods are engineered to maximize repeat purchase. In our evolutionary history, the main way to get concentrated sugar was to try to take it away from bees. If candy bars were similarly guarded at the convenience store, you can bet that people's consumption of it would be much closer to the recommended level.


The only way to make it without ever reading the labels is to only cook everything from scratch. Else you'll think that eating granola bars every day is good for you, or simply think that hot pockets are normal food.


Man, just poop more than you eat.


Eat 6 large carrots every day.


Lots of vodka and cigarettes.


Eat whole food plant-based.


Exercise. Eat right. QED.


Fasting.


Here’s is my weird tip. I’ve done it in reverse, meaning I gained weight by eating faster. In my 20’s I was very skinny, I tried many things for gaining weight, then someone told me I should eat faster. In the past twenty or so years I’ve gained 30 kilos and am actually overweight now.

TLDR: eat slowly, your brain feels stomach is full with small portion.


Perhaps not that weird, but bariatric surgery. I had a gastric bypass in 2016 and am currently about 35kg lighter than I was when I started.

If I could go back and change things, I would have gone with gastric sleeving which seems to be the most popular (effective with less side-effects). Unfortunately it was not available to me due to a prior lapband.


Eat less exercise more


Meditate before eating


not weird. but skip breakfast. fastest way to lose weight.


get a big mirror and make sure you see youreself every day


Squats and deadlifts.


* Cut out as much sugar from your diet as possible.

* Drink at least 2L of water a day

* Walk for 30 mins a day.


Use smaller plates


Regular colonics.


"Tell me you're developer without telling me"


Smaller portions


Don't eat.


Skip breakfast


get a dog so you have to go walk it?


Take adderal.


Wegovy


I've been subscribing to Monthly Applications in Strength Sport for over a year now -- it's a research review primarily intended for competitive powerlifters/bodybuilders and their trainers, right at the intersection of "we actually have skin in the game and lots of practical experience managing body composition for ourselves and others" and "we know how to interpret studies and perhaps more importantly not over-interpret studies" -- and below is a writeup I did on the topic based on what I've learned from them (and applied to myself very successfully):

- forget about the idea of a "diet"; pretty much every popular "diet" doesn't result in sustained fat loss for most people when tested experimentally. if you want to lose body fat and keep it off, what you're trying to do is modify what you habitually eat "ad libitum" (eating freely) such that you end up completely satiated despite eating fewer calories than you do now. (yes, it just comes down to calories; some otherwise-sharp people will misinterpret a few studies to conclude that it doesn't, and those people are wrong.)

- there are lots of factors that go into satiety, but one of the most important ones is just having a lot of stuff in your stomach. so, the "caloric density" of what you eat, as in energy per mass, is good to know: if you want to eat less energy, then you want to eat more foods that have few calories per gram, and less foods that have a lot of calories per gram. this mostly reproduces the generic conventional wisdom on what you should be eating -- fruits, vegetables, unprocessed meats, cottage cheese and yogurt, and starches with high water content (potatoes, rice, pasta) are generally your best bets in the former category, while desserts and fast food and so on fall in the latter category -- but there are some surprises you might observe if you actually calculate that "calories per gram" ratio for the stuff you eat, e.g. nuts are ridiculously energy-dense and you should probably eat less of them if you'd benefit from losing body fat. (this doesn't apply to liquids, pretty much every liquid besides milk has negligible effect on satiety.) that said, you shouldn't plan to completely cut out whole categories of food, since that's much harder to adhere to than just eating more of the types of food that will make you full more efficiently.

- i believe that macronutrient-focused "diets" typically work for people to the extent that they cause you to accidentally eat a diet with lower caloric density. both carbohydrate intake and fat intake seem to be relatively uncorrelated with how much you eat ad libitum, but the average caloric density of what you eat is a much better predictor of ad libitum caloric intake. (protein is probably good for satiety though independent of caloric density.)

- rigorously logging your caloric intake for at least a few months is a good idea for multiple reasons, but i think the most important one is that it helps you develop an intuition for which foods are "worth it" in terms of satiety per calorie and result in you effortlessly hitting your calorie target, especially when fuzzier factors besides caloric density are at play (e.g. your own eating habits around specific foods). when i say "rigorously" i mean weighing absolutely everything you eat or drink unless you have nutrition facts for exactly how much of the thing you ate (i.e. single-serving packaged foods and food from restaurants that give nutrition facts), then looking up how many calories you ate based on how many grams of each thing you ate, and actually logging every single thing with calories that you put in your mouth, not just 80% of it. not everyone has the temperament to do this, and that's fine if you don't, but if you do then i'd highly recommend it. personally i just keep my food log in workflowy (you can use any note-taking app), but you could also look into "noom", which has a nice educational program in addition to the food and weight logging, or "macrofactor", which doesn't have the educational program but does do you the favor of actually telling you your macro intake and estimating your long-run TDEE for you.

- even if you're solely trying to lose body fat, regular exercise of some kind is a good idea because your satiety in relation to your energy balance becomes "dysregulated" when you're completely sedentary -- with at least a little exercise, you'll tend to match your caloric intake to your caloric expenditure, but with none at all, you'll be more prone to overeating. as a corollary, exercising a lot for fat loss is probably not a good use of time unless you intrinsically enjoy it, because you'll likely end up compensating for most of the energy you used by eating more.


Check if your problem is about "eating behaviour" or if it is just a symptom of another issue in your life.

In most cases, the reason you are overeating is rooted in something else. Not fixing that would not really give you a proper solution - and you need to have a critical eye to analyse where it is coming from.

Some potential examples are;

* You are stressed - the way you deal with it is by eating. (You could explore ways of reducing stress and/or different coping strategies such as daily nature walks etc.)

* For whatever reason, you don't sleep early. Research shows that when you don't sleep, you are more likely to eat and eat bad (e.g. McDonald's, KFC etc.).

In my case this was because I was doing what's called "reverse bedtime procrastination" (I hope I remember it correctly). Essentially "I don't want tomorrow to come, I haven't spent time for myself/my project etc. I will stay up a bit more."

* You have been conditioned to "clean up your plate" to the point that you eat even when you are full. (Usually from childhood)

Apart from these;

* Remember to drink water (if hungry, just drink a glass of water and then if you are still hungry, eat.) * Prefer "unprocessed over processed" and "protein over carbs". You don't need to avoid everything - just make sure to pick one over the other when you can. (e.g. instead of bread with Nutella as your lunch, eat bread with an egg.) * Do NOT starve yourself. If you feel hungry, eat! Otherwise you will end up bingeing. Just keep your portion size "intentional". * In order to keep your portion size intentional - prepare your food on kitchen, put it on your plate in terms of whatever is a "good size" and then leave the kitchen, eat in another room. Having food on the table where you eat as much as you want usually leads to overeating - mainly because at some point you switch to "eating for pleasure" and it takes a while to notice that. * While this won't make you lose weight by much - please walk for 20 minutes a day. Make sure to leave your house for this. Don't use your phone, don't listen to a podcast or anything just go out, and walk for 20 minutes. It will be good for your mind and your weight (it is quite a short period of time but it is your _disconnecting_ time.). * Finally - sleep, sleep, sleep! I am saying it twice but it is extremely important that you get your proper amount of sleep. There is always a next day, and you need rest. A well rested mind & body makes for better decision making & will-power as well.

I hope it helps. Remember - weight loss is not a goal, a balanced life is. You need to find a sustainable lifestyle that is healthy for you, and then your weight will fall into place.


I think the ultimate weird tip for weight loss is the Shangri-La Diet[0]. Seth Roberts was a professor at Berkeley who pioneered quantified self, and he ran many experiments with N=1. While it didn't do much for me, about 50% of the people that try it have some success. I would skip directly to walnut oil if you try it, as the other oils are less palatable. Since I wasn't seeing any effect after a couple of months, I went back to using those 300 calories on food I enjoyed while losing weight.

Everyone on this forum should be familiar with The Hacker's Diet[1], a free book from the founder of AutoCAD with a very engineering orientation. I have been recording data into my free account at The Hacker's Diet Online[2] for four years, and I find the exponential smoothing very useful to turn daily weight measurements into the underlying weights. If you weight yourself every day, you can notice trends in a few days and make corrections, instead of catching a trend over a few weeks. Just be aware that something like 8.3lbs of "stuff" (food, water, feces) flow through your body every day, and there are major variations day by day. Don't panic just because your daily weight is up one day. And after awhile, if you are at least writing down what you eat (just the name, not weights) everyday, you will pretty easily predict your weight the next day because that list is rather longer than a normal day, or you had a big pile of french fries for lunch one day.

A few tips I use:

Eat quantized food if possible. Instead of sitting down with a bag of chips or a box of cookies, eat food that is always in the same size so you have to make the mental decision to eat more than one. Babybel cheeses, Snyder's 60ct box of 100 calorie pretzel packs, etc. work for me.

Weigh in every morning, naked, empty bladder (so the minimum possible for the day), and write that number down BY HAND. Do not use some automated app that saves you that mindfulness period between reading the number and writing it down. You will see a thousand messages today suggesting you eat. You must take some time everyday to think about what you weigh, and what you are going to put in your mouth. The food companies are counting on you not putting any attention on it. You must put regular attention on it, or you will gain weight.

Sometimes we have a minor craving for something sweet, but popping a cookie whenever that happens can blow the whole day. I keep jars of jalapeno relish and when I have an urge for something sweet, I eat a small spoonful of the spicy relish. I get the urge for something sweet in my mouth satisfied, but it is spicy enough that I'm not eating a lot of it. Walmart's Bread & Butter Pickles do the same for me: a few chips in the sweet/tangy juice and the craving is satisfied, and only $1.50 for a big 500 calorie jar.

Be very careful with fasting. It is a great technique if you manage to retain muscle tissue. If you fast without exercising, 25% of the weight loss is lean mass, which is an utter disaster for your health, especially as you age. Bone broth is high protein and may be a nice supplement while fasting. The more active muscle on your body, the more insulin sensitive you are and that mitigates the crashes from eating carbs.

Avoid potato chips like the plague. Since chips are dehydrated, you can eat an enormous number of calories at one sitting and not even feel full.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shangri-La_Diet

[1] https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

[2] https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/online/hdo.html


Lots of posts here, and I didn't see this (but didn't read them all). My "one weird trick" to losing weight: I didn't make weight loss, itself, a goal.

I spent my 20s being unfit and overweight (periodically pushing into obese). In my late 20s I started playing soccer (two seasons a year), but did not train or exercise beyond the games. At the beginning of the season I'd be gassed in 5 minutes, by the end I might have been able to stay in for an entire half. So I established a fitness goal (run a 5km in < 30 minutes, consistently) in order to be fit enough to participate in soccer. I did not track my weight during this time, I just tracked my fitness level (basically running performance + heart rate measured ~5 times a day: on waking, before run, after run, about five minutes after the run, before bed). I happened to lose weight, because you almost can't help it when you go from being sedentary to running 3-5 times a week (which started as walking, not as running).

I didn't, initially, make any dietary changes other than cutting out sodas (which were a daily habit at that point), switched to coffee (about two espressos a day in the office break room, we made a coffee club) for my caffeine source. As I got into running (versus the initial walking) I started adding more fruit and nuts as snacks, because I was getting hungrier and found myself craving them (versus a candy bar, like might have been my snake previously), they were not a deliberate choice (that is, I didn't say today I switch to fruits and nuts, I just started craving them, and I didn't deliberately drop candy bars, I just stopped wanting them). Again, the goal was not weight loss, I wasn't measuring my weight at all and only learned my weight at my annual (or 6-month, I had very high cholesterol at that point) physicals.

I think the above is important, I had, in my 20s, made a few efforts at weight loss where weight loss was the goal. The problem was that once I hit it, I lost track of what I'd done to achieve it and the weight would come back. By having some longterm objective (being "fit", which for me meant being able to play 70 minutes of soccer without needing more than the half-time break) I was able to make sustainable habits. I have had my weight go up a couple times, but it's been because of things like injuries (car accidents, in my case) that took me out of my training routine. When I reestablish some fitness goals, I find that the habits that encourage weight loss (or maintaining a healthy weight) come right back with them.

Another aspect of this is that I wasn't training for a thing or event. I did that, actually, with a half-marathon. But it was because I was already getting fast and improved my endurance so I thought, "Why not try for this?" and I did. But as soon as it was done my running routine went back down to 5km 3-4 times a week with an occasional 7-10km run versus the 3-4x 7-10km runs a week. Why? Because that was enough for my overall goal (being fit for soccer), above that was unnecessary and I found it hard to maintain a higher training level when I didn't have a motivation for it. Training for an event is like dieting to hit a weight target, once it's hit it is harder to maintain the training regimen or the diet. So create longer term goals that encourage sustainable habits.


Deadlifts


Understand that different people experience hunger differently. Some people say they can lose weight without feeling hunger pain. That may not be your experience. The weight loss industry as well as doctors and dieticians emphasize weight loss without hunger, because hunger is such a strong biological driver.

Personally, I am searching for a different way to experience hunger.

So far I have learned a few things:

1. I experience different kinds of hunger - low blood sugar leads to cravings (and eating sugar can cause a blood sugar crash, which will in turn cause cravings); social hunger means I feel hungry around lunchtime; empty stomach hunger can feel like a stomach ache; post workout hunger means I need to feed my body to continue building capacity; starvation hunger leads to reduced mental and physical capacity and exhaustion in the short term, and leads to physical deterioration in the long term.

2. Hunger will always speak up, but it doesn't get the only vote

3. Cravings are managed by planning.

4. Learn to notice when you eat. I did an experiment with jelly beans. I put 3 jelly beans on my desk in front of me while I was working. They disappeared and I did not remember eating them. I did it again and concentrated on noticing when I actually ate them. It was very difficult. Only put as much food in arm's reach as you plan on eating.

5. My goal for exercise is health, not weight loss. When I exercised for weight loss I became despondent because I always gain weight at the start of an exercise program. I started walking 2 miles a day at lunch and gained 15 pounds over the course of a month.

6. Weight is only one number. Track your waist size, or your ability to lift weights, or your lap times, or just about anything ALONG WITH your weight.

7. Learn what different foods do to you. This can be very confusing and time consuming, but it will benefit you for the rest of your life.

8. Protein and fiber are good. Fat can be good. Carbs in whole fruits and vegetables are good. Processed carbs are the literal devil.

9. We eat like kings. Imagine a king 200 years ago. Only a few of them could have ice cream and all the rich foods we eat now. I eat 'celebration' foods from different cultures regularly - tamales, barbecue, cake, etc. The American assumption of "you can have it all, and as much as you want" is not good when it comes to diet.

10. Find a physical activity you enjoy. Physical activity is a triangle - weight lifting, general movement (aka "cardio"), and limberness/freedom of movement (often represented by stretching). Each one of these helps the others. If you only lift weights, you may neglect your ability to enjoy a long hike for instance. Gains ain't shit if you can't have fun.

11. I'm almost certainly wrong about a lot of important details, your experience WILL vary. Don't follow someone else's plan uncritically. There are many good places to start, but realize you may need to update the plan after your initial success.


Surprised only one other person has mentioned this! (well, OK, not really, since this is still kind of a weird tip)

The current gold standard for weight loss is a combination of medication (for appetite suppression) and following the advice of a registered dietician (for implementing the lifestyle changes that are required for maintenance). If you're in the US, you can search your insurance company's website for a list of RDs in your area that take your insurance.

The medication you want is semaglutide (brand name Wegovy), which was FDA-approved in June of 2021 for weight loss (it was previously approved for treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus, under the brand name Ozempic; Wegovy is just a dose increase from 1.0mg to 2.4mg). Stephan Guyenet has a good article on the subject [1], which links directly to the FDA studies [2][3] that consistently find a previously-unheard-of 15-18% weight loss over 68 weeks.

You'd be taking this as a once-weekly subcutaneous autoinjection, and its function would roughly be described as appetite suppression (although hunger/satiety is a very complex mechanism, and it actually does a lot more than that). Your primary care doctor could prescribe this to you, assuming you can get prior authorization for it from your insurance (for me, they asked for my current weight and what I've tried previously, which was a lot). My doctor also recommended that I test my blood sugar regularly, since this can result in you not eating enough at first, which can cause issues.

The hard part with this approach initially would be getting a hold of the first 3 dose packs, since Novo Nordisk underestimated demand and was impacted by supply chain issues. I called around at every pharmacy in my local area, and found that my local Costco (supplied by McKesson) was the best at getting it in stock. NN focused their initial efforts on building up manufacturing capacity of the final two doses, so once you get up to 1.7mg you should be in the clear on this problem.

The second hard part (besides insurance shenanigans) is tapering off. That's where you start heavily relying on the habits your dietician helped you set, the lifestyle changes you've made, and good old-fashioned willpower. Ultimately, though, the consensus on most obesity experts is that since obesity is a chronic condition, most people who want to maintain the weight loss will need to stay on this drug indefinitely. Personally, I'm keeping an eye on the semaglutide subreddit [4] to see how this develops.

Exercise has a wide variety of health benefits, including assisting with weight loss, but many overweight and obese people find that it's hard to stick with (probably because carrying around the equivalent of a 30 kg. weighted vest means most of the movements you'd be doing require much more energy), and ultimately most of your weight loss is going to come from dietary changes. Also, losing weight requires you to eat less, which in the short term means you have less energy to exercise and it's much harder in general, and focusing on the weight loss will make it easier to exercise in the long term (because you're ditching the weighted vest). So I'd recommend starting with the weight loss first, and then you can work on setting habits around exercise as you continue to lose weight.

I'd also recommend that you work with a licensed psychologist who specializes in obesity to examine the factors that led you to develop the obesity in the first place, and work on addressing those concurrently. For me, this turned out to be chronic stress caused by multiple undiagnosed mental health issues, and getting treatment for those (which did include making other lifestyle changes) helped immensely. If you're in the US, Psychology Today's Find A Therapist tool [5] is good for finding someone.

I started at 132kg five months ago, and now I'm down to 111kg with 34kg more to go, and this is how I did it so far. It's a lot of balls to juggle at first, but setting those initial habits around weight loss helped me set more habits, which makes this easier.

One last thing I want to address: increasing the amount of oxygen in your environment may help give you some more energy (taking it from a canister very likely won't in practice, since those canisters are quite heavy and any affects would only last for as long as your increase in O2 saturation does, which would be about 1-2 minutes after you disconnect from it to do any sort of physical activity), but for many people it's not practical to redo their home/work's HVAC to add a concentrated O2 line. However, going outside regularly (where the CO2 buildup is very likely much lower than it is in indoor environments), as well as finding a good place to work outside when the weather permits (if you work from home), can definitely increase how energetic you feel and provide a wide variety of other health benefits.

So, to summarize: * Start by talking to your primary care, as well as a registered dietician * Try Wegovy if you can, it's pretty great * Talk to a psychologist who specializes in obesity * Carrying around an O2 canister probably won't help, but going outside probably will

Best of luck!

[1] https://www.worksinprogress.co/issue/the-future-of-weight-lo... [2] https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2032183 [3] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777886 [4] https://old.reddit.com/r/semaglutide [5] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists


Lose the gimmicks (oxygen tanks) first of all. You'll waste a lot of mental energy on things that don't work or will frustrate you.

Chicken. Fish. Rice.

Make that the core of your diet. If you're a vegan or vegetarian this obviously won't work for you. White rice is perfectly fine (just as it is in healthy long-living Japan), with this diet it simply won't matter whether you eat white or brown rice.

Ideally throw in some stray vegetables that you like (cold broccoli, carrots, cauliflower happen to be my favorites). The vegetables are sides or snacks, you never need to consume actual salads-as-meal, it's purely optional.

Stop consuming any beverages with high-fructose corn syrup in it, including all sodas (if in the US). Ideally stop drinking sugar in general, avoid sugar sweetened beverages. Drinking lots of sugar is typically one of the most common and dumbest things overweight people do.

Never consume high-calorie breakfasts, switch instead to lower calorie breakfasts (if any). I prefer yogurt, turkey bacon, or egg & cheese sandwiches. There are a lot of ways to go with a low calorie breakfast though.

No garbage snacks during the day. The little high-calorie snack fillers are weight monsters and people often don't notice them, they don't count them into their dietary problems when they're trying to figure out what has gone wrong.

Once per week you can eat anything you like. You can eat a bag of doritos. You can eat an entire pizza. Chocolate. A tub of ice cream. Consume a soda. Fast-food / drive-thru. Whatever you like. The once per week garbage day is meant to be slightly over-done (so you don't want those things for a while), it's meant to get rid of cravings and act as an outlet to consume unhealthy things. Unless you're a savage about it, you won't be able to consume enough calories in that one bad day to meaningfully wreck your progress from the other six days.

No weight lifting or working out required at all. Although I'd suggest if you don't like working out, to just go on long walks every day for the general health benefit.

Count your daily calorie intake before you begin changing your diet (for two weeks or so). Understand your body and its metabolism. How many calories do you need to consume each day to gain / lose / hold steady on weight? Then as you begin to change your diet, continue to count daily calorie intake, this is part of the experimentation process for yourself.

~1400 to ~1800 calories per day is the consistent target (depending on your height; if you're much shorter or taller than 180-190cm, adjust accordingly), and it's easily reached. You can vary that based on what weight you prefer, how strict you want to be.

If you're consequentially overweight (let's say you weigh 210lbs / 95kg and would like to weigh 170lbs / 77kg), the weight will melt off over time quite trivially. Your body won't have a choice. You won't have to kill yourself in the gym every day, you don't need to do anything special at all.

What you'll find is that there are likely just a few killers in your diet, particularly bad villains (eg soda, ice cream, pasta) that are causing most of the problem. Usually if you eliminate just a few things from your diet, you'll see a big change. The calorie counting is also meant to reveal the primary villains in your diet, they'll typically jump out from the paper after a few weeks of tracking what you're consuming.


Adderall.


I have been overweight during many years. I have made several half-hearted attempts to lose weight, which failed. All the time I had the wrong impression that it is really impossible to lose weight.

Eventually, one day I decided that I really must do it, and after about 10 months I lost 36 kg (78 pounds), reaching a normal BMI. That was 15 years ago. Now I still easily gain weight, the next day after a culinary orgy I may gain 1 kilogram, which will need a week of eating less to lose the extra weight and reach again the target weight.

In my opinion, the main secret of losing weight and the one which determined the success of my last attempt, in contrast with all earlier failures, is the permanent use of accurate weighing instruments, one digital weighing scale for your body and one digital weighing scale for your food.

You must measure your body weight once per day, every day, and at the same time and in the same sequence in relationship with eating, drinking or relieving yourself, because all such activities will change your weight by several hundred grams, i.e. by much more than your expected weight loss per day, which should be around 100 to 150 grams.

You must also measure all the food you eat either by weight or by volume (e.g. a certain number of spoons). Eating anything in random quantities, or until you are satiated, guarantees that you will fail to lose weight or you will regain it immediately.

Once you have begun to eat predetermined quantities of food everyday, losing weight is trivial. You look at your weight this day, and if it is not less than in the previous day by about 100 to 150 grams (one quarter to one third of a pound), then you must diminish the planned quantity of food. You must cut calories, i.e. carbs and fat. You must not reduce proteins and vegetables.

The hard part is to form the habit to eat according to a plan, i.e. no spontaneous snacks or sweet beverages at random times. It is likely that in order to reduce enough the number of unwanted calories, you need to eat no more than twice per day.

Otherwise the quantity of food eaten at one time will be too small to satiate you. It is much easier to resist the idea of starting to eat, than to stop eating after you have started. So fewer larger meals are better than more small meals.

Besides the 2 meals, you should not eat anything, but you should drink only beverages with neither sugar nor artificial sweeteners (nor milk or other fatty drink).

The beverages with calories are not only more difficult to count in your eating plan, but they would also increase your hungriness, because they provide some of the nutrients that your body desires, but not enough of them.

After the first difficulty, of making an eating plan and sticking to it, the second difficulty is coping with the hunger. That cannot be avoided, but it can be minimized when eating fewer larger meals and nothing between them, to stimulate the hunger. The hunger sensation is usually periodic, i.e. when it is not satisfied it disappears when you are busy with something else, even if it may reappear some time later.

Usually after a few weeks of continuous slow weight loss it should become easier to cope with the hunger.

Even after you reach the target weight, you must persist in eating preplanned food quantities and not until satiety, otherwise regaining weight is very likely.


> I am making the assumption that the lungs can handle being 100% saturated.

I would do some reading about that before trying it.

The "weird tip" I have is this: Do many different diets, sequentially.

Most of us who have been significantly overweight and spent time dieting will have noticed that in the first weeks or months of a new diet (keto, low calorie, paleo, vegetarian, unprocessed-food-only, or whatever), it works well, it's easy or not-too-hard to stick with, you feel great, and the numbers go generally down.

Eventually, the numbers aren't going down noticeably, you no longer notice feeling great compared to last week or last month, and even though you're eating exactly the same thing as you were a month ago, now it's unappetizing and always leaves you wanting more. You're not looking forward to the next meal, and the cravings are enormous.

Congratulations! If you have iron will, you can just stay in this mode, live an ascetic life, and your weight troubles are over.

Many of us do not have iron will, it turns out.

Portions we have to measure start increasing a bit. We convince ourselves that we'll have a few more calories right now but a few less tomorrow. If we miss some calories due to circumstance on day N, we feel entitled to "reward" ourselves with at least most of those calories on day N+1, when the surplus will certainly be stored.

But, didn't we start out by saying we know how to lose weight for a few weeks or months? That happens when starting a new diet, right? Sure, eventually the downward trend flattens, we get less strict or stop constant reminders not to snack and to carefully measure each portion of everything, and maybe even go "off" the diet for a while. For a lot of people, this is when all the lost weight plus a few units comes back.

What if we found a way to keep our diet interesting without increasing caloric intake, without eating a lot of diet-specific hacks ("I'll just replace all the sugar with xylitol!") and without spending more and more time researching and preparing slightly different recipes? What if we could do this without portions slowly sliding up, and without massive cravings?

So, that's the idea: Try (e.g.) low carb. Dive in, read all the popsci that cherrypicks studies, etc. Watch the scale numbers decrease. At the first hint of boredom ("I only have broccoli, eggs, and steak in my fridge. Ugh!"), figure out another diet to do! Dive into Weight Watchers! Read supportive articles about how WW is all you need, and load up your fridge with WW meals. After a few months, when you are tired of the thought of eating yet another one of those WW meals (but before you've started adding 5 points every other day), figure out another diet to do!

Will this work long-term? I don't know yet, and even if I lose 100 kg on this diet, it'll still be a single data point, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Go Gym


Xx


cut off all sugary drinks


don't eat simple


eat less, move more


Calorie counting is the one and only thing you need. Exercise, nutrition, less sugar or alcohol etc. are all good for you in their own ways but at the end of the day you need a caloric deficit. You can't trust yourself to do this without tracking, your body is a crazy lying conniver that wants you to perpetually stock up for a period of famine that is (probably) never coming. I lost my first hundred pounds mostly changing nothing but restricting calories with the Lose It app.


Here is how I lost about 100 pounds of fat in a year, while putting on muscle and kept it off. There is no shortcut. You can loose about 2 lbs of fat per week if you follow the instructions below. Increasing weight loss beyond that is counter productive due to muscle loss.

Recommend following these steps in order. The biggest issue people face with weight loss is education. While this sounds simple, the amount of misinformation out there is extreme.

1.) Watch “that sugar film” << Available on prime. Think hard about what you learned. This is the truth about weight gain and loss. There are other documentaries like it, but I personally like this one.

2.) Read “eating clean” and follow the recommendations OR hire a good nutritionist, preferably one that bodybuilders use. Bodybuilders have mastered weight loss and a nutritionist targeting bodybuilders is probably competent.

3.) Exercise daily using a combination of resistance training and cardio. Start with reasonable intensity level. Hire a personal trainer or train with an experienced friend if you have not done resistance training before. Hire a personal trainer who trains bodybuilders using conventional methods. You don’t need to train like a bodybuilder, but these personal trainers are actual experts and not frauds. This advice applies to both men and women. They can help you get the most out of exercise without getting hurt.

4.) Don’t consume alcohol or consume very little as rarely as possible. Alcohol consumption can interrupt sleep and stunt human growth hormone, which slows down weight loss. Impact can last for several days and also causes a loss of motivation for some individuals.

5.) Drink at least a gallon of water per day.

6.) Stop eating 3 hours prior to bedtime to sleep better and increase HGH production.

7.) Eat small meals more frequently, like 5-6 times per day. I would recommend logging all food intake along with calories consumed / time of day each meal was consumed.

You might experience withdrawal like symptoms for at least a few days if you have been consuming enough high glycemic index foods on the daily. After withdrawal ends you can loose weight while never being hungry. Hunger caused by high glycemic index / sugar crash is a vicious cycle. If you want to know more, watch “that sugar film”.

Also, keep in mind that diets, which is IMO anything not like “eating clean” are just scams that tend to cause metabolic syndrome. Your body ends up consuming muscle to get the protein it needs on many of them. This lowers your BMR. To fix years of damage done from scam diets, resistance training is the solution.

This is the honest truth in a world full of misinformation. I hope this helps make the world a slightly better place!


Just do keto.

There are tons of people who call the metabolic state of being in nutritional ketosis a "fad", but those people are wrong, or don't understand what a "keto" diet is.

A lot of times these people will want you to adhere to some complex, confusing, and ultimately prone to failure diet.

Carbs are very nutritionally dense. If you remove them from your diet you will probably lose weight.

Is it really that easy? Yes.


I hate when weight loss comes up on HN because you always get multiple of the, "Eat less. Move more. Burn more calories than you consume," responses. Like, "Duh, never thought of that. Thank-you, thank-you! The scales have fallen from my eyes!"

The eat less, move more advice is like your typical Microsoft help manual. It's technically correct, but of little use whatsoever.

There's a huge amount of nuance going on. There's psychological pressures, hormonal pressures, food availability pressures and lots of other issues that I don't really want to list out as the ELMM zealots will just start arguing minutiae with a pronounced lack of compassion. It's too tiring and tiresome.


This is so so right. I've went from someone who was skinnyfat until my early 20s to maintaining an 8-pack (around 7-8% bf) which has its own problems..but i digress it is generally great, simply by controlling hormones and eating to sleep well. I usually eat whatever I want, but I consider the effects a certain food has on insulin. By the way, this change coincided with me studying nutrition/biochemistry and undergoing a master in dietetics at a tertiary institution so it isn't based on pure anecdata. REMEMBER THIS - CONTROL YOUR HORMONES

Your body won't put on fat without insulin, the downside is that you probably wont put on a lot of muscle either. This is a heuristic I employ however is more complicated in reality. We can go into this if you want.

In order to blunt the insulin response of say a sugary snack, you can combine a fat source (pistachios) etc. so there is a balance of fats, carbohydrates and protein. This lowers the insulin response, and leads to lower fat accumulation - remember fat not weight - you still gonna put on weight. Other tricks you can employ include timing these treats or taking magnesium which helps your insulin sensitivity.

What I do: Usually perform some fasted training - usually 20-40 minutes of loaded carries in the morning, something like suitcase carries, farmers walks that requires some form of resistance - not everyday maybe every other day.

morning green tea usually boosts my energy levels - and has some l-theanine and caffeine for body composition benefits

what is actually important is receiving some low-angle light from outdoors as this is optimal for mood, depression (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm1TxQj9IsQ) and sleep later in the day - (https://hubermanlab.com/toolkit-for-sleep/). Why is sleep important - A deficit in sleep will reduce leptin [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535701/] which is a hormone that suppresses hunger. If you sleep badly You might crave certain foods (especially carby crap/sweets that you dont really need). So let's control sleep, because you are controlling the root cause of your dietary compulsions. When i don't sleep well, it helps to know that I am simply at the whims of my hormones, and I nap lol. I also perform: Cold exposure according to andrew huberman protocol - this lowers body fat/increases the expression of dopamine and primes your body to create brown fat which has more mitochondria https://www.instagram.com/tv/CT2j35IAeLZ/?hl=en

I usually exercise outdoors in the sun - which is kind of a bad idea for other reasons here in Australia due to a hole in the ozone layer (https://www.cancer.org.au/cancer-information/types-of-cancer...) but it ensures adequate vitamin d which has been shown to be important lately given the rise of COVID..

The time I exercise is important - it's in the afternoon around 4-6pm for an hour or more.

I take magnesium (chelated 100-300gr, you should take biglycinate if you can 100-300gr) 2 hours before bed. This alone improved sleep by 50%. THen combined with blue light blockers and f.lux - this usually results in 8 hrs uninterrupted sleep 99% consistency. Probably the biggest ROI of any product was the blue light blockers, they knock me out around 30 minutes after i wear them - not sure if placebo but when I don't wear them i dont sleep well.

Also - forget your idea of weight loss. You want to be in health. This doesn't mean weight loss - if you're 90kg and 10% body fat that's far superior to 80 kg and 25% bodyfat...

FWIW: If you want a magic pill to fix your problems you probably won't find it. You need to take care of the main things: sleep, diet, exercise (in that order)...sleep rules all.

remember - we are simply meat bags with levers (that are hormones) my guy. you can pull the levers with sleep, diet, exercise and timing of these factors.

That being said, there are certain things you can take that might bring you from 95% to 98% - i write about nootropics at https://nootritious.com - hint there's nothing that is better than sleep. so optimise that before anything else.


You only have so much willpower. Move temptations out-of-sight, out-of-house, and your willpower will have a better chance of seeing you through the day.

Aside from that, prayer and fasting. With God all things are possible!

"Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."

- Ezekiel 16:49

Derek can cheer you on a little:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzm5TBBPf44


This is not "weird" but may be weird to some. I'm going to let you in on the most obvious way which is used by MOST animals, as low as arthropods to lose weight... and that is "not eating" a.k.a. fasting.

Other animals do it out of real scarcity during various times. We have evolved for scarcity, so we store fat for when food is not available. (Un)fortunately, there has been no food scarcity most people in developed nations for decades on end, even centuries... hence the obesity problem.

The lack of food scarcity for longer times has happened before in various cultures in various parts of the world. Therefore, all of them had introduced ritualistic fasting into their culture. The current western culture (which is also prevalent in most of the westernized world) is based on selling, so they have only ever sold eating something else to lose weight... which is not the real solution. Lately, selling apps, books and other content at scale became profitable so we have seen some rise in fasting but it is still drowned out by other highly profitable non solutions... like pointless physical labor (a.k.a. "working out" or "exercise") or complicated and mostly pointless dietary restrictions (a.k.a. "diets").

I can point to some resources to get you started with fasting:

- Book: Complete Guide To Fasting by Jason Fung

- YouTube Channel: The Fasting Fatman: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheFastingFatman

- YouTube Channel: Snake Diet: https://www.youtube.com/c/SnakeDiet

- Forum: Reddit's r/fasting: https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/index


As you're specifically asking for "weird" tips...at 6'1" I was able to go from 85kg to a persistent (as in, no Yo-Yo effect) 75kg gradually in two years, without any deliberate dieting by changing my own mental stance towards being "one of the fatties".

1. Develop a "I'm better than you" attitude towards overweight people. In the woke age of "no body shaming ever", a lot of external motivation (i.e. fat jokes) has gone away. But for me, it was exactly those fat jokes or remarks about being chubby that finally put me over the edge of doing something about my weight. Let's face it, nobody actually thinks that being overweight is OK. It's merely tolerated, but thin people judge you for it. I know, because I was judged when I was at 85kg and I am judging overweight people now as I'm not one of them anymore. You're simply lesser than me, no matter how much you make, what car you drive, or how beautiful your girlfriend may be. Because deep down I know you're still not happy until you are thin, which for some reason is a higher mental hurdle for you than getting and keeping a high-6-figure job. You're weak.

2. In the same vein as 1. but more specifically, I was always interested in street wear, and especially Japanese street wear brands. But the thing is, until you're rail thin (like a 20-something Japanese skater dude, for instance), those clothes will look bad and try-hard on you. Nowadays I don't wear street wear anymore but I still want to be able to tuck a dress shirt without showing "the bulge". Making clothes look good on myself was another huge motivating factor to lose weight.

How exactly you limit your calorie intake while starting to burn off more, i.e. the specific diet is the uninteresting part. You first need the mental framework that allows you to change your habits, and will keep you adamant in the hard times of resisting that will definitely come. You're already starting to realize that, using the nickname "fatmoron" which hints at a healthy self-hatred caused by your current weight. Keep on in that spirit and soon you'll be the one who judges, not the one who's being judged.


> How exactly you limit your calorie intake while starting to burn off more, i.e. the specific diet is the uninteresting part. You first need the mental framework that allows you to change your habits

Not sure about your specific strategy of fat shaming yourself, but the above quote is on point.

At the end of the day it all comes back to reducing calorie intake. However you can trick yourself into doing that long-term, great.

For me it was becoming vegan (and lost 50 lbs in about 10 months). I didn't go vegan because I want to "save the animals" or anything. Purely a way to (severely) limit the available options when eating out at restaurants, shopping for groceries, etc. No more fried chicken 5 days a week!


I guess you're addressing the question correctly, giving "weird" tips. How does this not just turn into self-loathing and depression that drives you to become worse and worse though?


You mean a situation where the motivation to change is never great enough to actually make a person do something? I wonder what the difference is, I was probably just lucky to realize what the key to change my habits was before I was too far gone.


I really appreciate this advice and it is also extremely refreshing. My sister is in amazing shape and for the longest time kept a picture of her younger "fatty" self on her fridge.


Become snobbish and arrogant asshole. Look down on those who consume junk food. Consider yourself to be above such lowly habits. This way you can social pressure yourself for your own betterment. You might make a few enemies along the way but if you're successful enough you might make new friends who are all equally obnoxious as you have become with your new attitudes. Surround yourself with those you aspire to be. Elitism is the first step on becoming the elite. 1337 diet


There's a kernel of truth in the humor here. The healthiest family I've known are not coincidentally also the most ruthless when it comes to the food that comes into their house. They are pleasant about it, and relax their standards somewhat in social environments, but I think they would be rightfully offended if I showed up to their house with a box of donuts, and immediately toss it after I left.


I know you are joking but it works. We have become a society where unhealthy lifestyle is encouraged because we are too afraid to hurt feelings.

My health journey basically started with wanting to marry someone out of my league. I saw my friends with unhealthy lifestyles, marrying and having kids with other unhealthy people. And then their kids developing unhealthy habits. Food worship is big in my culture, and so is diabetes and heart diseases.

I was unhealthy skinny-fat loser. It is probably the worst body type. This is when I first slowly, then suddenly removed all unhealthy people from my life. I even avoided shopping at places where there were too many obese people like Walmart. I stopped eating at restaurants where there were too many overweight people. No buffets for me.

While I lost unhealthy friends, I also developed better friendships with healthier friends. I also adopted new habits and hobbies that brought me in contact with attractive people. Gym, coffeeshops, Whole Foods, yoga.

Initially, I felt outsider. But eventually I started to feel like one of them. Also I lost my gut, developed decent back and legs muscles. And it didn't felt like work. I didn't even try any diet or workout program. Just ate where attractive people ate and just used random machines in the gym.

Since having kids, I have stopped avoiding unhealthy people and have become more accepting of unhealthy lifestyles. And also gained a lot of weight and struggle to lose it now.


I know you're being snarky here, but you're not entirely wrong.

I am a former fatty who has kept the weight off for over a decade by developing an intense hatred and disgust for being fat. It's really the only thing that works long-term.

Hate yourself enough. It works[1].

[1]: One exception to this: do NOT try this approach if you are prone to depressive spirals with positive feedback loops - it could have the opposite effect. This approach is only recommended for people with normal serotonin and mood.


Eat less. Move more. Burn more calories than you consume.

Every piece of advice will go into exceedingly detailed depth on how to achieve one or more one of those factors. And it is worth listening to those details - but don't lose sight of the basics. Way too many people get caught up in their rituals of weight loss and forget to stay simple.


This is the only correct answer.

I've put on, and lost, 25 lbs probably 8+ times in my life (intentionally). I weigh 180 at my heavier end so that's a meaningful percentage for me. Depending how disciplined you are able/want to be, the easiest and most consistent way is to count calories.

If you don't want to be that strict, then just cut either your portions by 1/4 or remove a meal/snack that you estimate to be 250-500 calories. For me I just cut breakfast since I'm not really a breakfast person. Some people like to call this "intermittent fasting" and will give you an entire lecture about it's benefits. I call it "skipping breakfast".

Assuming you've cut 250-500 calories per day, weigh yourself every morning before any food/water. You should be losing 1-2 lbs per week, but it can fluctate so I would really look at 4-8 lbs per month as a reasonable target. If you are not losing that weight, you didn't cut enough calories, remove another 250/500 and try again.

On top of this do weight training and cardio, the type doesn't matter.

Good luck!


I managed to lose about 10% of my body weight with calorie counting in a few months. I was quite happy.

But it made me generally very hungry and I gained almost all of it back within a year or two.

I guess it only works as long as you don't stop calorie counting.


I think the idea is that once you've been counting long enough, you know the reduction that you need to make intuitively. Of course weight will come back if you revert to old habits, but I don't think counting calories forever is necessary.

If you're hungry between meals, eat low calorie density foods like broccoli and drink water. I realize that's not exactly as fun as eating doritos, but it's how sustainable change happens. Fad diets never work because they are by definition temporary.


+1, as other user wrote, this is the only correct answer, including reading, learning and applying details like what to eat and what to not eat.


Delete all delivery aops, burn your credit cards, sell your car and refrigerator. Only buy fresh food regularly that you can carry in walking (or public transport). Buy a bicycle and ride everywhere possible. Never carry money unless you are buying grocery.

If you do all this, you are guaranteed to lose not just weight but also any leftover fun in life


It’s worth asking what the root cause of being overweight is?

This leads to two approaches to weight loss that are non-obvious: 1. Cognitive behavioral therapy. Often food is used as a coping mechanism to manage stress or negative emotions. It’s very possible to improve these coping mechanisms. Many of the guys we work with see other life improvements when doing CBT. 2. Medication, particularly the new wave of GLP-1 therapy including Wegovy. Once you’ve been at a heavier weight for a long period of time your body’s hormonal systems resists change, making it hard to have significant weight loss.

We’re a Y Combinator backed company which combines these two approaches specifically targeted towards men.

Here’s our website if you want to learn more https://www.joinfella.com/ or shoot me an email at Luke.harries@joinfella.com




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