[falcolas]

Interesting read; I've encountered many of the problems signaled out here.

I'm overweight, and I've changed my life and my diet to try and fix it. When I took note of where I was, I was drinking between 4 and 8 mountain dews a day. I ate candy in prodigious amounts, and constantly ate until I was full.

Since then, I altered my diet and eating habits to where I drink no pop, and rarely have any kind of sugary treat. I eat only until I'm satiated, and in usually get out to exercise daily.

The end result? I'm the same weight as I was before. My weight has not changed in over 9 years now.

I sure I could go on a starvation diet (< 1,000 calories a day) and exercise for hours on end - it's worked to a limited degree in the past - but that's not willpower, that's torturing myself. The last time I tried, I was constantly tired and sickly, and after coming down with a nasty bout of the flu and recovering from it, all of my progress had been lost.

I've come to terms with my weight. I'm eating healthy, I'm exercising regularly, and I'm thinking of getting into a gym and working on my strength a bit more. I have accepted that getting to a "normal" weight again is not within my reach, unless something outside of my control changes.

[EDIT] Before critiquing my story with the usual tropes of "you're still eating too much and exercising too little", please read the entire article and realize that it may not be the perfect answer you think it is.

[revelation]

I respect your experience with your body and in weight loss, but did you keep track of what exactly you are eating every day and its energ content? It's easy to trick yourself into thinking you are eating less.

There might also be medical conditions that prevent you from losing weight.

[encoderer]

I mentioned upthread, I was overweight. Not incredibly so, but certainly overweight. I was 6'2, 210, without very much muscle mass.

I gained maybe a pound a month during 2010 and 2011. Finally 12/2011 I had enough. I didn't like how I felt. What worked for me is this:

1. No depravation. I ate dessert every day. Period.

2. A large dinner (followed by that dessert) every day. Large as in, feeling totally full but not like so-full-it-hurts full.

3. Three 90 minute visits to the Gym every week.

4. A dramatic reduction in what I eat during the day. Dramatic. I went from free startup catered lunch every day (which is essentially like eating 2 dinners a day) to eating only raw during the day. That was my commitment: Nothing processed or cooked until dinner. But gorge myself at dinner if I wanted.

I started this 12/2011 and eat like this to this very day. It's easy now. In fact I hate it when I have to eat a big lunch. Today my lunch is 1 large apple, grapes, 5 strawberries, 1 small "Babybel Light" cheese and 3 water crackers. (I only added the cheese and crackers once I got down to under 170 and needed to eat more to stabilize my weight). I ate more fruit and veg the first 6+ months after I started this, I've just acclimated now to the smaller intake.

I cannot stress how important the big dinner was to me. Because I tried dieting before. Deprevation is very very hard to make work I think. And most importantly, what I've done was change my diet, not go on a diet. I can literally eat like this for the rest of my life. But a more conventional "diet" diet? No way. I'd hit some goal, then drop that misery like a bad habit, and probably slowly go back to the gaining 1 pound a month.

For me, at the gym, I was 28 but I'd never really done much time in the Gym. All i did for the first 8-10 months was cardio. The Elliptical. I'd just get on there for a full hour. The computer attached (as unreliable as it is) would usually indicate 800+ calories burnt. I had a handfull of 1000+. In one hour at the gym.

i morphed that later to 35 mins cardio, the rest alternating between isolating muscles (the machines) and free weights.

I mention all this not because I think I've discovered "the way." But your comments reminded me of how I felt before I did this. And now I'm so so happy I did. And here's what I really would hope, if I could pick the best outcome of my spending this 10 mins writing this:

People would read this and realize that they can innovate their own solution, borrowing a little from one diet, a little from another, weaving together a solution that works for them. What I do -- no breakfast, small lunch, huge dinner -- is basically 180* from what the conventional wisdom is. But it works for me. I iterated and found what works for me. To hell with the "experts." What I learned reading Pollan, etc, is that the science of nutrition is hardly a science at all and is full of contradictions and confusions.

[eightpersimmons]

This is one of the most frustrating things about how we, as a society, talk about obesity - we act like you can know something meaningful about a person's lifestyle and health from a single glance. Not to mention the related assumption that a thin body is inherently desirable and worth striving for.

A measurement like BMI, which is a great way of looking at a population, is a terrible way of understanding an individual, and the use of weight and BMI as a stand-in for health is infuriatingly wrongheaded.

[joelrunyon]

I'd argue that most people - other than knowing they're overweight - know little about their lifestyle as well (or at least they don't know it as well as they'd like to think).

The prevalence of quantified self & self-tracking is starting to change this & when you're able to measure & track inputs better, you're better able to correlate the results with them as well.

[falcolas]

> we act like you can know something meaningful about a person's lifestyle and health from a single glance.

Based on your sibling comments (which as of this moment consist of "you're still eating too much food and not exercising enough"), I agree.

[mixmastamyk]

You might try the link above given in my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5915794

The new info about sugars and starches is that the starches have the same effect on our bodies, they just work a bit more slowly. What does that mean? Well, we knew in the 90's that starches could rot our teeth just like sugar. But today we also know that grains (wheat, corn, rice, potatoes, oats, other empty carbs) raise blood sugar and are only a bit slower than actual sugar. They are chains of sugar.

In other words, if you don't get rid of the bread, pasta, and crackers too, removing sugar will have only limited effects.

[falcolas]

Yes, I've done Keto to various degrees (including Atkins), and had no success. Yet another fad diet with scientific backing that has no effect.

[mixmastamyk]

Atkins certainly does have an effect, though I don't recommend it.

[jacques_chester]

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701

[falcolas]

Thank you for insinuating that I'm lying. :)

[jacques_chester]

I didn't insinuate that you were lying. I was insinuating that you are under-estimating your daily caloric intake.

[enraged_camel]

>>I eat only until I'm satiated

Yes, but what do you eat?

You can eat a whole bunch of processed carbs and starches until you're satiated, or you can eat chicken and broccoli until you're satiated. The results will be tremendously different.

Avoiding sugar is good, but by itself it is not sufficient - especially if you are still consuming copious amounts of carbs.

[beachstartup]

you didn't mention how many calories per day you're eating, and what type of macronutrients.

you also didn't mention what kind of exercise you are doing. if you aren't doing deadlift, squat, overhead press, bench press, you're probably doing something way too ineffective to burn fat (hint: you need to build MUSCLE, as a man)

you have a general casual attitude about your descriptions, which is probably why you aren't seeing results.

[revelation]

if you aren't doing deadlift, squat, overhead press, bench press, you're probably doing something way too ineffective to burn fat

People trying to lose weight tend to overdo it and eat less than (or the wrong type of food) than is necessary to maintain their muscles. Building any more of them, as unlikely as it is to happen if you eat under your daily consumption, will not help with reaching their goal.