Hacker News Reader

Comment by mrtron | Hacker News Reader

It is a lifelong marathon. If you are serious about solving the weight problem, let me suggest a viable long term solution.

Gain muscle mass. Let's say you are 250 pounds and extremely weak. You may hit the gym and burn 200 calories. Gain a large amount of strength, and you suddenly burn 400 calories in the same session.

I haven't encountered a physically fit individual who has struggled to lose weight. However many fit individuals have a hard time maintaining a comfortable weight due to eating habits/will power.

Also a huge problem with the "eat sensibly" concept is the deck is stacked against you in the US. Portions are huge and calorie dense. I would bet you could not maintain your current weight living in Asia.

View on HN

Quoted from Lyle McDonald, one of the most respected individuals on the topics of exercise, diet, and nutrition :

Q: Does adding muscle burn more calories?

A: "Some of this also comes from the still gross misconception that ‘muscle burns a ton of calories’ (a myth I took apart in Dissecting the Energy Needs of the Body – Research Review). That is, they hope to jack up metabolic rate by increasing muscle mass. Which is a futile activity because the effect is minimal (on top of the fact that the obese are already carrying extra muscle mass). A pound of muscle burns about 6 calories at rest, you have to add a ton to impact on metabolic rate (see also the next issue I discuss, low metabolic rate isn’t a problem). And that takes a lot of time, time better spent focusing on active fat loss."

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/training-the-obese...

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/research-review/dissecting-...

the claim is not that muscle sitting still burns more calories but that a very high weight exercise session burns more calories than a low weight exercise session. if you don't lift heavy things regularly you aren't weak because your muscles can't lift that weight. you are weak because your CNS is not used to firing in a coordinated manner needed to activate all the muscle at once. this is where "newbie gains" come from, you aren't changing anything just learning to use what you already have. until you build up this coordination you are literally incapable of actual strenuous exercise.

If you manage your heart rate properly, you can burn a lot of calories when lifting, close to par with traditional cardio activities. Most people don't lift this way, but doing so can help you reach your fitness goals more efficiently.

"A pound of muscle burns about 6 calories at rest"

Is that per hour or per day?

Typical diets are to blame too. I can not completely back this up, but it is well known in body building:-

Person begins to diet, they actually do lose weight (rather than just the usual water weight), but up to 25% of the weight they lose is actually lean mass, that is muscle. Your body devours itself when it is lacking caloric input, via fat reserves, and muscle tissue. In order to minimise the muscle loss and maximise fat loss, you need to be doing an appropriate amount of strength training, as well as eating enough protein.

The worst possible outcome is that you do a number of cycles of a diet, with zero strength training, and every time you gain weight after a diet, you've gained more fat, and are now the proud owner of a body with even less lean mass.

Muscle burns energy even when idle, fat does not. So you are spot on, the easiest way to lose fat is to gain muscle mass. Most of us are physically piss weak and shouldn't be.

I haven't encountered a physically fit individual who has struggled to lose weight

I do daily exercise, have done strength training for years, and am careful of what I eat and how much of it — even with this scheme it’s not easy to keep my weight at its present level, so while I’m definitely physically fit, it is a big struggle to avoid gaining weight.

If I compare my activities, food intake, etc. to those of my slim peers, it’s clear that the cards are just stacked differently.

>I do daily exercise, have done strength training for years

Mixing those two is a bad sign, because strength training takes a while to recover from. You might be doing something wrong -- how much do you squat?

You might be doing something wrong

I am aware of restoration period for muscle tissue rebuilding — I have struggled with this for 10+ years (getting my BMI down from above 28 to around 22 in that period) and have of course read plenty related to weight loss (metabolism, calories, strength-training) hoping to find the silver bullet, but there is none (for me), it’s just a lot of hard work, hence why I felt mrtron’s comment deserved a reply.

Well I don't know any of that unless you post your back squat. If youre doing strength trainng correctly, the absolute lowest you should be lifting is 250lb for the back squat after at most 6 months. You might get better results with less work if you do it correctly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com