Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by fingerprinter 4660 days ago
Since this is another weight loss post on HN, I'll tread out the old lines again[1]:

If you only care about weight loss: calories in vs calories out.

However

If you care about maintaining muscle while losing fat, the story is still pretty simple, and calories still count, but the macro ratio of those calories are very important. In this case, keep protein high and get the rest from carbs and/or fat. I personally recommend a more Keto approach in this case because most people will be satiated longer.

The point being, weight loss is one thing, but muscle sparring while losing weight is another. Understand what you are going after and know the correct path.

[1] - When most people say they want to "lose weight", they really mean fat. Really, who wants to lose muscle? Probably no one. That is why calories don't tell the whole story. If, however, you absolutely don't care about muscle (and if you say "yes" here, I would personally question that), sure, just pay attention to calories and ignore the macro ratios.

2 comments

Bullshit. The fallacy is that someone can care only about weight loss.

I tried it for years. I burn 2200 cal/day so I can eat a large Cinnabon every day (800 cal) and still lose weight.

The problem is it fucks your insulin resistance and turns into diabetes.

So, I don't consider a solution viable if one of the side effects is death.

I'm not going to fight you on the point, see my note at the bottom. I feel most people say weight when they mean fat.

Medically speaking, it is always about fat. If a doctor tells you to lose weight, they mean fat.

Can you give some more detail on how burning muscles works? Wikipedia isn't particularly helpful.