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Comment by issa | Hacker News Reader

I couldn't agree with this more. It is possible for me to lose and keep off weight if I literally devote all my energy towards it. It's important to remember that everyone is different. Some people would struggle to gain 100 pounds, others could do it easily, and most people understand that. But for some reason when it comes to losing weight instead of gaining, understanding goes out the window.

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I appreciate people commenting and trying to offer advice, but I think you missed the point of my post. Imagine this: Someone offers a group of 100 people a huge prize (that they all desperately want) to gain 100 pounds as quickly as possible. If we checked back in on these people in 3 months, I guarantee that some of them would have added 100 pounds, but some of them wouldn't be even close. What would you say to the people who weren't able to gain weight? Would you tell them about how it is just simple thermodynamics and lecture them on physics? I'm guessing you wouldn't. We all understand that it will be harder and easier for different people. Losing weight is the exact same.

Losing weight is hard (speaking from experience), but ultimately it's still just a question of physics. Eat less, eat food which will fill you for longer (breakfast: porridge, lunch: fruit, nuts, etc.), and eat a reasonably healthy meal you've cooked each night. Meanwhile, eat smaller portions and do some exercise. Your body can't defy the laws of physics, so you will lose weight. It is that simple.

Overthinking it and coming up with horse shit reasons why it's totally fine to eat the amount you're eating and blaming some external factor (e.g. one's body) is the problem.

This is the same dismissive, ignorant, platitudinal advice that the parent commentator was directly referring to.

I find it supremely hilarious that you refer to the person's own body as an external factor.

Thermodynamics doesn't lie.

Operate at an energy deficit and I guarantee you'll lose weight.

Is it going to feel horrible? Hell yes.

Thermodynamic doesn't lie... but it isn't even close to being the most important factor at work.

A Pound is 3,600 calories. I can easily eat 1,800 calories over my maintenance requirement.

Do you think in one year I am going to gain 180 pounds or .5 pounds per day?

Thermodynamics is only involved at the simplest levels. Hunger and satiation are regulated primarily with leptin, not thermodynamics. Fat storage is controlled primarily with insulin which is itself regulated by various endocrine system components. Thermodynamics is only involved at a level far below complex systems control dynamics.

The truth is, it's none of those things. I am just unwilling to indulge people's fantasies on this issue, because I've lived through it having been clinically obese myself in the past.

>I find it supremely hilarious that you refer to the person's own body as an external factor.

It's external in the sense that we have no control over our DNA, which is implicitly being blamed when one speaks of one's own predisposition towards weight gain. It's not that funny.

Not sure why downvoted, maybe a bit harsh...but this is the absolute truth. I'd argue that exercise itself doesn't even play a huge role, though it does help. Eat less calories until you start losing weight. I understand there are mental hurdles to this simple mantra, but its truth is unchanged.

And this doesn’t help when one’s body switches into “starvation mode” lowering one’s BMR making it even _harder_ to lose weight. One’s microbiome can also substantially affect one’s BMR.

Neither your comment nor your parent comment add anything except noise to this discussion.

Weight, health, and fitness are all _correlated_, but sometimes in ways that aren’t intuitive and that western society’s fat-shaming (of which the “just eat less” mantra is a prime example) completely misses the point.

I don't mean to fat shame, apologies if it comes off as such. My own weight fluctuates a lot, as I go through periods of something akin to depression. When I'm overweight, I know what needs to be done, yet for whatever reason, don't do it.

That said, we are not adding noise. We are giving the physics level truth. It's like being told an answer, and being told to show the proof, in my opinion. The answer is to eat less calories, but working the problem isn't so simple. There are a ton of variables into how or why someone can't follow this regime, some valid, some probably not.

Starvation mode is vastly overstated.

I wonder why people in starving nations don't have this magical starvation mode, or glandular problems, or microbiomes that make them fat. Are we exceptional?

I think overthinking and coming up with bad excuses is just a symptom, not a cause. First the human does something their rational mind didn't want to, because the rest of the brain outvoted it, and then the mind comes up with an explanation to feel more in control.

I'd actually be surprised if there's much correlation between understanding physics and having one's weight under control.

Zero correlation. And everyone can learn calculus, but some people will have to put in a LOT more effort than others.

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