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Comment by jamesbritt | Hacker News Reader

Re Will power: I've stopped buying crap food (with some rare allowances). If I do not have it in the house, I cannot eat it. The willpower issue comes up once a week while shopping, and I'm not in the mood for junk food while shopping, so it's easier to not buy it than it would be to not eat it were it in the house.

Exercise, though, requires much more deliberate action, and more than once a week. Once I'm out running it's OK, and keeping going is not a problem. It's the initial choice of go running or sit on my ass and drink coffee in the morning. Dicking around seems to have a a magical sway over me. :(

Despite having almost completely slagged off on exercise over the last few months I'm still just below 180lbs (down from 210 last summer), and I'm sure this is because of my diet. I still need to exercise least my body turn to complete goo, but for weight loss I find it much easier to just not have bad food in the house.

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What about running in the evening? I find it requires much more will power to work out in the morning because I'm tired, and I have a bunch of things I feel like I should be doing. But after I'm done working for the day, it feels good to do something physical.

I find that if I don't get my ass out the door first thing in the morning, it isn't going to happen. Not that it's impossible, but far less likely.

I also find it very difficult to run in the morning, not necessarily because I feel like I need to get to work but because I just feel very stiff and tired when I get out of bed. Maybe it's come with age, and maybe it wouldn't be such a problem if I was in better shape, but at my current half-ass shape it's quite a hurdle.

"Maybe it's come with age, and maybe it wouldn't be such a problem if I was in better shape, but at my current half-ass shape it's quite a hurdle."

FWIW: My 50+ sorry ass wasn't so keen on exercising either, but I started by just going walking in the morning,and not trying to be too ambitious. Found some good audio books to listen to. After a while I felt good about that, felt my energy improving, and moved to running. At first it was more walking than running, but I would just push myself a bit, making a game of it. Before long the walking/running ration switched.

I'm in pretty good shape, and training in the morning is always more difficult. I train mid-morning on Saturdays, and it always takes longer to get going. I think just the act of being up and moving for even half a day gets you looser and more warmed up than if you stumble out of bed and start doing something.

The few times I've done strength training first thing in the morning have been hard. I remember doing squats at 9 am and just dragging ass the whole time.

You are telling me that you eat 1000 calories less than required and you aren't tempted to break the diet? :)

I can speak for myself. I've lost 15 kg since last summer, not feeling hungry at all, so it's not "1000 calories less than required", at least not what my apetite requires :) In fact, I don't feel like I'm doing a diet, it hasn't been my intention at all. I simply started eating a lot more fruit, in part by accident (didn't know how delicious is pinneaple), in part for convenience (apples are easy to bring in the backpack, salads come now in cheap bags), in part because of my son (he loves orange juice at all times, I eat the ones that remain).

Also it's better to avoid prepared food. I still eat a lot of pasta and meat (I've just enjoyed a 250 g steak) and enough seafood. The only significant casualties are bread (only with meat or fish) and cheese... like Hurley said "everybody likes cheese", but it does no good to me :-(

I agree that exercise is great. But I live far from sea, so I can't windsurf most of the year, and jogging bores me to death. Once year ago I went to the gym and it was really good, but it made me really hungry, so it didn't help with weight lose. In my twenties it was different, but at the time it was much more intense than what I can do now.

A 1000 cal. less .. what, each day?

I have no idea. I used to eat a lot of peanuts. And peanut butter. Possibly the greatest foods ever. And a lot of granola for snacks. And chips.

Then I found out about the caloric cost of these things. Holy shit. (Well, the chips were not a surprise.)

I was quite sad (did I mention I love peanut butter?), but also quite sad that my weight was slowly creeping up, past 200 lbs and then towards 210. And I saw some pictures of me giving a talk on stage, and cringed. (Big win for vanity, boys and girls. )

So I changed what I ate, and started going out running. Over about 4 or 5 months got down to 180 lbs (and greatly increased my endurance and improved my heart rate). Then the weather got too cool for my wussy ass, and I wasn't feeling well, and excuses, excuses.

Now it's been about 3 months since I did any real exercise (aside from occasional walks around the block), yet my weight has stayed at least constant, though it may be dipping lower.

The combination of exercise and diet change did wonders, but I believe that diet change alone would still have brought the weight down, albeit more slowly.

I'm still amazed that when I weigh myself I never go above 180. Lately it's been 178 lbs. But simply eating less is not a good plan for a healthy body, so I still need to get my butt in gear. Maybe just boot up the Wii again ...

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