[tomp]

Weight loss is in theory very simple - just eat less. In practice, however, doing that is extremely hard (for a lot of people), as it goes against our upbringing and evolutionary and social pressures.

The key of any weight-loss diet is that it somehow hacks our brain so that we end up eating less. But everyone’s brain is different, so different hacks work (or not) for different people. That’s why you have so many diets - fasting, intermittent fasting, keto, paleo, zero carb, low fat, food separation diet, ...

Personally, intermittent fasting hasn’t helped me lose weight (might have helped me maintain it though). So far, the only thing that has helped was very strict calorie counting, but that was accompanied with severe emotional/mental discomfort (constant hunger). I’m now experimenting with one-day fasting (turns out not eating, for me, is associated with less hunger than eating too little, go figure ...), we’ll see how t goes.

[dghughes]

Not eating was easy for me even as a teen, 20s, and 30s. I found eating a necessity and that's it. That didn't mean I was eating healthy food but small amounts of anything. For me going a day or two without eating was easy. I didn't do it to lose weight and I never did lose weight I was a consistent 150lbs from early teens to my early 40s.

But then in my 40s my thyroid failed and I have hypothyroidism. I suspect it was failing for a decade maybe a bit less. I should say my thyroid was working less not really failing since that takes a while to notice rather than an outright failure.

Now I consistently weigh 40 pounds more than I did all my life. I was always the slim guy who never gained weight. Now I have to fight the urge to eat food when I am not hungry. It feels like I need something to reset my clock or reboot my programming.