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Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

> In other words, it’s way easier to out diet a bad lifestyle than out lifestyle a bad diet,

Depends on the person. If someone is eating such a large caloric excess and consuming highly processed calorie dense foods, changing diet is the only way out. You’re not going to out-exercise a 1000 calorie excess every day.

The average person might only be eating 200-300 calories more than their grandparents did, though. That’s actually within the range where you could overcome it with daily activity.

Really though, this isn’t a situation where you should pick or choose. Most people should be improving their diets and getting a little more activity.

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> You’re not going to out-exercise a 1000 calorie excess every day.

I spend 4 hours on my phone every day per recent record. If I spend 2 of those outdoor then I'll have that 1000 calories.

It's realistically a choice.

I know this because I used to average 1500 active calories and around 2 hour of zone 2 training before my baby was born. Now I'm more time squeezed but looking at what I'm doing every day it's still a discipline issue. Getting back there though, goal is cracking 150 miles of running this month.

Its not, your thinking is way to simplistic. Body is not a simple machine. Hormones have dominant role here. Produce more insulin for whatever reason, you can eat whatever and you will be fat. Produce less insulin, you can eat whatever and you will still be lean. Exercise more, have more appetite.

What is unrealistic is caloric deficit, that is unsustainable, not sure why people have such a hard time understanding that. It is never about deficit on the long run.

You're right that it is fundamentally about caloric deficit and my argument is that you can exercise enough that you can eat essentially as much as you want without gaining any weight.

I'm on double serving most days for breakfast and dinner since I eat 2 meals a day - and insulin wise I think I'm just normal medically speaking.

Gut microbes are only recently being studied as a potential weight gain cause, too.

People having the exact same lifestyle and diet may have very different results.[1]

[1]: The Diet Myth from Dr Tim Spector

Not at all. This is also known for decades. Sterile mice get fat. Low dose antibiotic is used for animal fattening as dominant antibiotic source.

Okay, sure it's been studied for longer but until very recently it wasn't really in the debate—or rather, in the average Joe's mind. Go to a nutritionist and they will tell you to eat less than you consume despite it being much more complex.

So I maintain my point. In fact, most of HN, which I consider educated, probably doesn't know about that. I myself heard about it very recently.

I find HN's general knowledge extremely lacking when nutrition is in question, basically at the level of general population.

Your contention regarding diet and out-exercising surplus is generally true but not universal. I am occasionally at one extreme, where for a week or so I'll be expending 7000kcal/day and it's physically impossible to replace that amount of calories even with eating the highest caloric density foods I can stomach.

Are you running ultras every day?

You allegedly expending 49,000 calories in a week when the discussion is about average people is irrelevant. The post already says it depends on the person too. On the other hand, I am curious how you are possibly exercising that much.

This is why I qualified my experience with being 'occasional.' Basically I do long distance bike races where you're biking for like 18+ hours a day for 2-6 days depending on event. It's an insane thing to do and an insane comparison to make when talking about normal people's diets, but it does illustrate that there is a limit to 'you can't out-exercise the calories.'

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

But honestly these sentiments reflect my experience. When I bulk for muscle I will still get 5 miles of walking in daily on top of a cardio/strength workout and manage to still grow.

I've yet to hit a hiking season and gain weight tho, and those are the more interesting data points. Imagine eating 4k calories daily and still losing weight. 8 hours of trotting through mountain passes is a vibe

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