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Comment by ogre_codes | Hacker News Reader

I see a lot of comments from people I suspect have never struggled with weight loss here.

"Put the fork down" is easy advice, but for many it's a lot more challenging than it sounds.

For me, and I suspect a lot of people, focusing on exercise first is the key. I can plot the number of miles I post on the bike against my weight. Of course I absolutely do more than 300 minutes a week on the bike.

Diet is super important, likely more important that fitness, but diet is vastly more difficult for me. Also, when I'm working out regularly, my diet naturally shifts. If I'm sitting at my desk or on the couch for weeks at a time, food intake increases.

I'm sure if I could ever properly reign in my eating I could change this, but I've tried so many times and it never works. Working out on the bike does, and as I mentioned above, the intake adjusts correctly when I do it.

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"Eat less" is the correct advice for weight less just like "don't drink" is for alcoholics and "don't think of him" is for someone going through a breakup. It's just basically useless advice totally lacking empathy. People are different. They have different bodies, different psychological dispositions, different experiences, etc. I think more people should ask themselves some basic questions. What would need to happen in my life to put me in the position of being 100 pounds overweight? What type of person would I be? How would it feel to try to fight my way back? How can I gain a bit of perspective?

> Eat less" is the correct advice for weight less just like "don't drink" is for alcoholics and "don't think of him" is for someone going through a breakup. It's just basically useless advice totally lacking empathy. People are different. They have different bodies, different psychological dispositions, different experiences, etc.

None of what you described changes the example solutions you gave. An alcoholic does need to not drink to improve their health, just like to lose weight you do need to eat fewer calories. The way to solve a problem is to find the solution, and empathy doesn't cure being overweight or addiction. Only when you know the solution can you work backwards to find the steps to get you there from where you are today

> empathy doesn't cure being overweight or addiction

No, but it would prevent a lot of insensitive, boneheaded forum posts.

EDIT: Wasn't trying to suggest your post was insensitive or boneheaded.

> EDIT: Wasn't trying to suggest your post was insensitive or boneheaded.

Maybe it wasn't, but I think your original sentiment wasn't far off from my reaction to the same OP.

While I haven't struggled all that much with my weight, I know people who have. One of the most important things for weight loss (and anything else for that matter, up to and including break ups, as was in the original example) is support networks. I learned that lesson rather harshly when I went through a really ugly break up earlier this year.

Humans are social creatures, after all, and I can't fault you for your original response.

We need others around us who are a positive influence.

> Only when you know the solution can you work backwards to find the steps to get you there from where you are today

I specifically said that the advice was _correct_. My point is that fact isn't that useful. Knowing the solution (i.e. eat less, drink less, think less) is the _easy_ part. It's the part these people have usually been told many times. It's rarely a lack of advice that is missing.

It's true that empathy doesn't cure these problems. But it is through empathy that you can understand what someone's true obstacles are to the "obvious" solutions.

> My point is that fact isn't that useful.

Do you think the fact isn't useful to the people who don't know it yet?

In fact I do. To the people who don't know it yet it is useful. However, to the people who already know it, it's really just useless information. Information they've heard many times before and potentially only makes them feel worse about themselves and less likely to follow the recommendations given. If you're making the argument that most people don't know that eating less leads to weight-loss, then okay. I admit I don't have statistics, but I find that quite suspect. If we can at least both agree that telling it to people who already know doesn't help anything, then I'm content here.

I don't agree with that. 1) because knowing a fact doesn't mean that you really understand it or that it's really made an impact beyond a theoretical awareness. Repeated exposure can hammer it home. And 2) because a lot of people don't know things you know. Even the simplest thing you know, you didn't know until a certain point, and some people haven't reached that point yet. And every day people are born who don't know it yet, or people can be convinced that things are different. For these reasons I think it's important to keep broadcasting the message

> An alcoholic does need to not drink to improve their health

Pretty much everyone who drinks needs to not drink to improve their health, but whether alcoholics have a particular need to not drink is controversial and largely widely accepted because of quasi-religious doctrine that has been well marketed.

> Only when you know the solution can you work backwards to find the steps to get you there from where you are today

Yes, but here’s the thing. Lots of research has actually gone into the steps for weight loss, its not something people need to work out from scratch. Its a lot more productive to follow a path that works even without deep understanding of the rationale than to start with a target and try to work it out from first principles, which most people will fail, and fail very badly, with.

Sure, “eat fewer calories” might be generally part of a solution (and “eat fewer calories than you use” definitely will be). But neither of those are particularly useful advice on their own for people who want to lose weight.

My failures in dieting have always been from losing sight of my goal, and my successes in dieting have always been from making a proper decision.

My current target is feeling hungry most of the day, usually eating a ham and cheese sandwich for breakfast and lean meats/vegetables for other meals, and if I'm still very hungry by the end of the day I may indulge in a protein or granola bar and possibly a small glass of milk. I feel like my target of feeling hungry helps put the hunger pangs into perspective, and helps me stay on track.

The conclusion was that exercise can help with appetite suppression. These people have not struggled with their weight but do struggle to RTFA.

A pound is 50 extra calories a day for a week. It doesn't take much fork action to eat 50 extra calories a day.

What? Don't know where you heard that but fat has about 9cal per gram. That's ~4000cal.

Did you mean 500?

One pound of weight is equal to 3500 calories, so that's 7 * 500. Whoops, looks like I dropped the extra 0.

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