Hacker News Reader

Comment by sabbaticaldev | Hacker News Reader

> I'll bet another $1000 that there are no foods you can find where you don't gain weight eating 500 above that threshold

oh well, you lost money then. It is not even difficult to understand, some types of food/digestion/absorption will hold more or less water weight to the body so it’s possible to lose total weight even eating above the daily needs, for example a nocarb diet

View on HN

It's not reasonable to account for water weight gains in talking about weight loss. Water weight is transient in that it will reach some maximal state, and often times it is only at the onset of a diet change (i.e., the first day or two) and then it comes right back off. Weight in general flucuates a LOT more than people think. My weight can flucuate by as much as 1-2 lbs per day, even while eating the same exact meals. The only appropriate way to look at weight gain/loss is on a weekly sliding average... and at a 500cal deficit per day, you almost certainly would see that weekly average change downwards.

I don’t disagree with you just replied that by logic it is indeed possible to gain or lose weight depending on the type of calories you ingest

But it’s not when we’re talking about this in the context of weight loss/gain. When people colloquially say “gain weight” or “lose weight” they almost always mean gain/lose fat and/or muscle. Water weight is neither of those, and is generally bounded (unlike fat loss/gain).

Whether you gain or lose weight through water weight has little to do with calories at all. If you take creatine, for example, it’s pretty normal to gain a few pounds of water weight until your creatine levels equalize in your body. That doesn’t mean that your body’s “metabolism” changes or something based on the calories you ingest. You’ve just got another pathway to gain/lose apparent weight, albeit temporarily.

I'm going to guess people find you overly pedantic?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com