Hacker News Reader

Sorry, but I think the approach of treating the apnea with or without weight loss is an obvious win. Trying to summon any type of willpower when you're constantly sleep-deprived is almost impossible, much less the amount of discipline that chronically obese people need to break that cycle.

Is it possible that the amount of planning and self-discipline required is maybe what is sometimes neither practical nor maintainable, depending on the individual?

Having lost and gained weight multiple times, it can be a psychological hell when it seems both the body and the mind are doing everything they can to fight against your discipline and planning and keep you where you are instead.

Yeah, it's gotta seem like a very weird thing to say if you haven't been through it, but your mind isn't the single entity you think it is. There are different components each with different motivations, purposes, responsibilities, etc. And a few of them really don't like what you're doing. They have access to the same reasoning engine as the parts that want to lose weight so they can make convincing arguments. Fighting them off wears down your will until they eventually win if you aren't careful.

And that isn't counting the effects of other parts of your body like your gut microbiome.

>>Is it possible that the amount of planning and self-discipline required is maybe what is sometimes neither practical nor maintainable, depending on the individual?

In my personal endeavors I've found that the amount of self-discipline something requires is inversely proportional to how motivated I am to achieve the end result. If I'm being required or forced by an external circumstance, I end up needing enormous amounts of self-discipline. But if I really want it (as in, if I'm internally motivated) then all I need to do is resist the occasional temptation to veer off the path, so to speak.

I actually find it's the reverse of this for me. I'd almost rather be forced to lose weight at this point because then I think I'd have a better chance at accomplishing it.

Trust me when I say I want to lose weight but have started to succeed multiple times only to eventually fail in my internal battle of will

> Having lost ~50 lbs last year

Trust me, it's too soon to say what you're saying. Source: lost >150lbs and kept it off for the past decade.

Maybe. I've actually implemented a rather complex set of rules to maintain my weight and it has been working so far. I keep a rough estimate of the calorie intake every day and try to keep it within reasonable bounds. I do make exceptions (hey I still love eating 2 pounds of steak with 3 pints of beer), but those days are followed by heavy dieting days to bring the calorie balance back. I also have a high-watermark/low-watermark system for my weight, so in case it runs away (like during holidays or trips), I am still 1.5-2.5 weeks away from reaching my normal weight.

I'll level with you: the easiest part for me so far was the initial weight loss. I got down to 15lbs less than I am now and it was much easier than it has been since. It's like my body adjusted and got much more conservative but it took a year or two. Maybe that won't be true in your case, but give it time before you make an assessment about the difficulty.

how many hours did that "implemented a rather complex set of rules" take?

Perhaps your anecdote does not qualify as a suitable counter argument. Is yours a normative experience? It is easy to lose weight in the sense that the solution is easily stated. Just restrict calories enough and weight will be lost. I suggest this is one of those things that is easy to say and hard to do. Isn't it akin to telling lifelong smokers, "Just stop smoking."? After all, if one simply doesn't smoke cigarettes then one will no longer have a smoking problem.

Can you see that perhaps your level of commitment is not possible for some people? Some people simply lack the willpower to do this.

> Isn't it akin to telling lifelong smokers, "Just stop smoking."?

It absolutely is. And I say this as someone who, after 25 years smoking, I stopped one day. I wasn't even really wanting or trying to quit. I just... stopped.

I consider myself incredibly fortunate at the complex, unlikely, and non-transferable, set of conditions that made this happen to me. Despite my success, or precisely because of my success, I am the least valid person to help a smoker quit.

> Sorry, but I have to call BS on that. Having lost ~50 lbs last year (after my blood pressure started getting scary), I can tell you it's all about planning and self-discipline.

Ah, I see, you have the highest possible qualifications in the medical field!

> instead of giving them a strong motivation to resolve the underlying cause.

OK, so, please explain, then, how you treat, for example, various thyroid problems that are the underlying cause for increased body weight and that no real treatment is known for? Given that you are so highly qualified as to call bullshit on a medical professional, you sure will be able to offer more than telling everyone who has superficially similar symptoms to yours that they are too stupid to cure themselves because they don't do what you have done?

Don’t know why you’re being downvoted when the parent is saying there’s no valid medical reasons that make weight loss difficult. Quite a few people making absurd comments like that in this thread.

And yes thyroid problems make it amazingly difficult to manage your weight.

You have been probably been very busy over the last year maintaining a very healthy lifestyle(which is awesome).

So what the studies say of everyone who starts a diet some will successfully lose a significant amount of weight. And of those success stories every single study that's followed them for 5-10 years shows that almost everyone regains almost all the weight.

The most famous of these studies was "The Biggest Loser". But are others, but they all show the same effect.

I've tried finding a study that showed sustained long term weight loss through diet, and there aren't any.

Did you accomplish your weight loss while working manual labor 64hrs per week?

No one doing manual labor for 60+ hours a week is morbidly obese.

Rather significant leap to take given the average hours worked per week in the US are over 40 and the % of US adults classified as obese is something like 40% or more as well - lots of candidate individuals out there. You really going to claim it's impossible for someone to be doing manual labor 60+ hours a week to pay rent and also have weight problems? Exercise doesn't automatically make you lose weight, high calorie intake or metabolic issues etc could cancel it out no problem. If it was as simple as 'just exercise a lot' weight issues wouldn't be so widespread.

I don't know about morbidly but have definitely seen many manual laborers that would be considered obese.

If you want to be thin, spend >80% of your effort in the kitchen. If you want to be strong, join a gym.

And also did you have a working kitchen? Access to a decent grocery store? Were you free from constant stress about how you would pay rent?

People don’t have those things any more than they do now 50 years ago when people weighed less.

They also didn't have grocery stores full of elaborate corn subsidy byproducts.