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it's so much faster to do both at once though, and you retain more muscle mass during it and so on

so long as you can live like a monk and hit the gym every night for a few months it's pretty good. this is dependent on you being able to stand being hungry and cranky and going to bed exhausted for all that time though

this is not true; I do extended bikepacking trips nutrionally similar to the GP's experience and you feel amazing. Maybe your first time or the first day can be tough but the human body loves to move and consume. I think a good frame of mind is you're a high efficiency furnace pumping out the heat on a very cold day. but this machine actually heals & improves the more it's used!

That’s only true over a relatively short period.

Stuff you can do for a week doesn’t automatically extend to maintaining that over the next 50 years.

In my experience the trick is just to have a small caloric deficit. Then you just feel moderately hungry from time to time, and it's very bearable. The downside is that to consistently maintain a small deficit you have to track your calorie intake quite precisely, which is a pain.