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Comment by p1dda | Hacker News Reader

Stop eating junk food. It's as simple as that.

It’s not as simple as that. All people don’t get fat for the same reasons. I never eat junk food, and yet I still got fat during the pandemic.

For me the issue was that I stopped exercising during the lock down, but continued to eat the same amount out of habit. This led to me putting on a bunch of fat without realizing it.

To fix the issue, I primarily scaled back the quantity of food I ate without changing its composition too much.

Most people only burn 150-200 calories when they work out.

If you were eating the exact same and just not working out, you wouldn’t have put on “a bunch of fat” at all. Maybe 10lbs over two years.

Assuming not working out vs. working out for 150-200 calories burned 3-6 times a week, you would gain (assuming the entire surplus went to fat, @ 3500 calories surplus -> 1 lb fat gain), 13.37 to 35.66 lbs of fat, which assuming starting at the US median adult male weight of ~200lbs, is a gain of 6.7-18% of starting body weight, all in fat, which would, especially at the high end but even near the middle to low end, be "a bunch of fat".

You can’t assume the entire surplus went to fat. That’s nuts.

Junk food easily to blame for the initial weight-gain (most of the time), but cutting it out usually isn't enough to reach optimal weight, unless the excess weight is marginal.

Define "junk food."

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