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Comment by unprepare | Hacker News Reader

Consuming fewer calories than you burn is the only way to lose weight.

You can adjust either side of the equation by consuming fewer calories, or by burning more calories.

It is much more effective to restrict caloric intake than to try and burn off a lot of extra calories - it takes a great amount of effort to burn a lot of calories

For example, running 3 miles in a half an hour will only burn around 400 calories, thats a lot more effort than just not eating one double cheeseburger a day.

Food choice (or WHAT you eat) only affects your hunger level, it does not contribute in any meaningful way to how you lose weight, other than helping you feel more/less full for longer/shorter (and thus enabling you to consume fewer calories by consuming less calorically dense food)

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> "Consuming fewer calories than you burn is the only way to lose weight."

You need to look at what is driving the calories consumption/burning.

Suppose I have a problem with my sink and call a plumber. He looks at it for a few minutes and then says: "Sir, your sink is overflowing because more water got in than got out." No shit, I knew that. That doesn't tell me anything useful. I want to know if drain is clogged, or if someone opened a fire hose in it.

The question to ask is 'why'. Why am I overeating?

Think about it: You don't see a deer spontaneously explode because there was too much food around it. When it's full, it stops eating.

What you eat influences how your calories are partitioned; what your body does with them.

If I inject you growth hormones, part of the calories you ingest will be used to make you taller. You'll be hungry because your body is growing.

Similarly, if I inject you an extra dose of insulin, you won't be able to just "exercise it away". The insulin will prevent you from accessing the energy in your fat cells (while accumulating more). And because the body sees less energy 'available', it will shut down excessive energy expenditure while sending you a big hunger signal.

> "(and thus enabling you to consume fewer calories by consuming less calorically dense food)"

I don't know why you shifted from total energy consumption to the energy density, but that's just wrong. You can eat fat and still lose weight.

Running a caloric deficit is the only way to lose weight.

everything else is only methods of doing this, and has nothing to do with the underlying principle.

Again, what you are saying is the equivalent of "if you don't want your sink to overflow, make sure less is coming in than is coming out". It says nothing of value.

If you just blindly go into a caloric deficit, without taking into account any of the hormones, your body might not burn what you want (say, for example, muscles). It will also fight you at every occasions and slow down your metabolism, meaning you'll have to be even more in deficit and feel like crap.

That doesn't sound right. Your body burns carbos, then fats, then muscle and organs if you entirely run out. Its designed to be efficient; lets not add scare tactics to the discussion.

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