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Comment by jwr | Hacker News Reader

Losing and maintaining weight is hard, and I agree with Michał that there are no quick and easy solutions. It's about making a firm decision and sticking to it for the rest of your life.

Incidentally, I found that losing ~10kg (22lbs) is the easy part. The really hard part is losing those last 2-3kg or burning the remaining fat.

And all of that becomes more difficult as you age.

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How is 2-3 kg even an issue? I mean, for what reason would anyone say "I need to lose 2 kg"? What difference does it make?

I'm a little bit underweight and my weight naturally fluctuates by +/- ~2 kg from one week to the next. If I lost 2 kg, I wouldn't notice.

Everyone has an idea of their "ideal weight". If you're trying to lose weight, it is always a little (or a lot) below your current weight. In everyday life losing the last 2kg doesn't make much difference, but we naturally like to set goals and challenge ourselves.

In my experience you're not going to maintain that exact weight anyway. If I wanted to lose 2 kg, I would dehydrate myself for a day and the weight is gone.

Why not lose weight until you feel good, instead of setting some arbitrary exact number as your goal.

We're talking about maintaining a certain average weight over a period of time. Day to day fluctuations are not important.

I've found regular weighing and having a certain target weight useful, together with food intake logging. It helps me stay objective, and helps me with my self-control, especially with avoiding bingeing on unhealthy foods.

I just can't relate, I guess. I never wanted to reach a certain kg number; whenever I wanted to alter my weight, I just did it until I reached a state I was content with. I've gone from ~15 kg under to ~15 kg over, back to normal and maintained that. It took some time, but it was effortless.

Good for you, but some people don't find it so easy. I know I need a bit more structure to support my efforts.

It's not about the specific number, it's about not getting way off track. The numbers are just a tool.

I would ask though, if it is all so easy, how you ended up 15kg over/underweight in the first place?

Living in poverty during childhood (often gone hungry), borderline alcoholism (drank a lot of beer) as a young adult. Gone from ~68 kg to ~97 kg to ~80 kg over the course of a few years during adulthood, without any effort. I can alter my weight very fast if I want to.

> It's not about the specific number

If you're saying "I need to lose 2 kg", it's about the specific number. If you're saying "I need to lose more weight to reach my goal", then it's not about the number.

Best not to get hung up about two ways of saying the same thing.

Your weight fluctuates during the day, which is why it's important to weigh yourself at the same time of day, especially if you're trying to lose weight.

But 2-3kg is enough to make a difference as to whether or not you're considered overweight (BMI is, of course, a horrible indicator of health, but it still gets used that way), and if you're on the edge, it can also make a difference in the size of your pants.

And if you do e.g. amateur cycling races, at the same power levels 2-3kg can be the difference of being a pack fodder or getting a podium finish.

+1 on the last part. I've just started trying to lose about 3kg (slightly more), and the trigger is that my jeans were feeling tight & my t-shirts now looked unflattering. It's difficult to find clothes that fit me and rather than replace my semi-custom wardrobe imported from overseas, losing weight & getting in shape seems a better option. 3kg for me, if purely fat, adds 5% to my body fat percentage (ie from 15% - 20%).

2kg, for me, is enough to go from, 'these jeans are too tight' to 'these jeans fit'.

It'll depend on where you carry weight too.

I'm a competitive runner, and 3kg makes a big difference to my running speed.

Once you get closer to your ideal weight, you will likely want to get rid of the tummy or "love handles", as they are affectionately called. My point was that getting 80% there is easy, the last 20% or so is really difficult.

I never was overweight, but tried to lose weight for the aesthetic reason. 3 kg of fat can be a difference between "no abs" and "visible abs".

As a keen cyclist, I often find myself thinking "I should lose 2kg." This amount of weight does make a difference for getting up mountains fast. I'm quite thin already, but it would clearly be possible to lose that much fat. But I've also found that losing these last kilos is quite hard.

> Losing and maintaining weight is hard, and I agree with Michał that there are no quick and easy solutions.

Actually, nicotine patches might make the whole endeavour quite easier (if your body can take them)? Stimulants tend to depress your appetite.

Caffeine also works; something extra in tea and coffee (perhaps the bitterness?) seems to work beyond that.

Of course, easier doesn't mean easy.

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