To Lose Weight, Eating Less Is Far More Important Than Exercising More

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/upshot/to-lose-weight-eating-less-is-far-more-important-than-exercising-more.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0&abt=0002&abg=1

by prostoalex • 11 years ago

129 227 11 years ago

nytimes.com

smcl• 11 years ago

This is one of the main themes of the documentary Fed Up - the food & beverage industry have sold us a lie about the US obesity crisis (people are obese because they don't exercise enough) - while downplaying their involvement (hiding\obfuscating sugar in the nutrition information of "healthy" options, lobbying to have Pizza classified as a "vegetable" portion in school meals, etc). It's worth checking out: http://fedupmovie.com/

venomsnake3• 11 years ago

Isn't it obvious - you BMR is 2-3 times higher than your all other energy expenditures for the day. If you overeat nothing can save you ...

vacri• 11 years ago

A lot of people don't know that you base metabolic rate consumes a ton of energy. One prof told me that exercising merely doubled your energy requirements during the exercise - half for the BMR, half for the exercise. Taken in that light, exercise for an hour a day didn't do much to change your energy consumption overall.

The numbers may be off, but the concept is there - it takes energy to maintain the billions of cells that make up your body. Even if they're 'doing nothing', they still live and excrete, for example.

pizza234• 11 years ago

It's not obvious, actually; exercise also affects the BMR, as a matter of fact, according to some theories, certain types of exercise increase the BMR more than certain others (I don't express any support for this, just pointing out).

Although we're not talking about huge amounts, when having a precise dieting regime, even a few hundred calories of "good weight loss" matter.

Definitely nothing can save one from overeating, but that's why overeating itself it's a completely different matter.

To wrap up, while of course in this field little or nothing is definitely proven, definitely no, this is not obvious :-)

venomsnake3• 11 years ago

The increase is 10% or so IIRC. So still not that significant. In our modern life most of the energy spent is to keep you alive.

And you have upper limit on your BMR - you have to maintain a steady temp. We just cannot dissipate much more than currently before cooking ourselves medium rare.

roel_v5• 11 years ago

"It's not obvious, actually"

Yes it is. Changes in metabolism are a second-order effect, at most. There is only one first-order effect: fat = calories in - calories out. Once that equation is OK, one can go look at all the other factors - BMR, how macros are split, genetics, ...

WildUtah2• 11 years ago

"you [sic] BMR[0] is 2-3 times higher than your all other energy expenditures"

Maybe if you work sitting in an office and never go play outside or lift weights.

Try lifting bricks or digging ditches or cutting wood all day and that BMR is just the beginning. Or climb a nice mountain or go on a hard bike ride or get nice and ripped and keep those muscles up.

In the evolutionary environment where you were shaped everybody worked outdoors and sweated. If your BMR is most of your energy expenditure, you're not living the life you're adapted to.

[0] Basal metabolic rate -- the energy you'd expend on the couch watching teevee all day.

Robin_Message• 11 years ago

<sarcasm>Yeah, I tried cutting trees down all day but then I got fired from my job as a software developer. I suggested that maybe we could turn the wood into paper to print the documentation on, but the documentation is all online, so they wouldn't give me a job. Then I climbed a mountain but there was no wifi up there so I missed my 3PM Skype interview for a new role. On the plus side, now the only job I can get is ditch-digger I am feeling much healthier.</sarcasm>

People living standard western lives don't have a lot of time for exercise, so diet is going to have a much bigger impact on their calorific balance. That's the whole point of TFA.

It would be great if we all had a better life-work balance and could climb more mountains, but that doesn't mean people can apply that advice to their lives right now. They can start doing some fork putdowns and head shakes.

sdrothrock• 11 years ago

The phrase I always hear is that "abs are made in the kitchen."

Edit: Or the variation: "Abs are made in the gym, revealed in the kitchen," which I always thought sounded kind of gruesome if you take it literally.

peteretep7• 11 years ago

"Can't outrun a fork"

rockdoe2• 11 years ago

"The best exercises for your abs are fork putdowns and head shakes"

vidarh3• 11 years ago

Abs particularly because abs don't get very big no matter what you do, and so for most people abs won't really be very visible unless you dip below 10% body fat. No amount of crunches etc. will work around that.

For larger muscle groups the body fat percentage matters much less.

joelrunyon7• 11 years ago

Still amazed that people are still considering this a pure caloric issue and not a food quality issue.

When you look at how various hormones (namely insulin) are affected by blood sugar & affect body composition, it seems you'd want to promote a method that bears that in mind.

That said, I think the focus should be on "eating better" not just "eating less."

huehue• 11 years ago

Over eating on high quality bacon won't stop you from being a lard-ass.

paulojreis9• 11 years ago

He mentioned "eating better". Eating "high quality bacon" isn't eating better.

Stately• 11 years ago

Have you tried that though? I'd say the reason why people associate bacon with being fat is because people that overeat bacon tend to overeat junk food, sugary snacks, industrial bakery and drink litres of sodas. Truth is though, that over the last few years more and more studies are disproving[0] the connection of saturated fat with obesity and heart disease.

[0] http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/...

snez4• 11 years ago

Eating 3000kcal of "quality food" every day will still make you gross fat and give you heart problems. And did you know that protein also affects insulin? Insulin is essential for muscle building.

Still find it hilarious how so many people still don't understand that a caloric deficit or surplus is the #1 thing to do when trying to cut or bulk.

rhaps0dy2• 11 years ago

Your point is right, but bear in mind everyone has different calorie requirements.

The "3000kcal" is just a placeholder, it means "1.5 times what you need".

paulojreis9• 11 years ago

Still find it hilarious how so many people still don't understand that a caloric deficit or surplus is the #1 thing to do when trying to cut or bulk.

Don't you think that there's more to human nutrition than "cut" or "bulk"?

WildUtah2• 11 years ago

"Eating 3000kcal of 'quality food' every day will still make you gross fat and give you heart problems"

Eating 3000 kcal every day would make me shrivel away to skin and bones.

"thing to do when trying to cut or bulk"

Most adult males who lift enough weights to care about cutting and bulking are burning 3000+ kcals daily.

joelrunyon7• 11 years ago

Eating 3000kcal of "quality food" every day will still make you gross fat and give you heart problems.

Well, depending on your size, activity level and metabolism - maybe. Maybe not.

Insulin is essential for muscle building.

Sure - post workout. If you get a massive insulin spike first thing in the morning (juice plus bagels and cereal), at the exact time where your body's hormone levels are optimal, you're not doing yourself any favors.

I'm not vilifying any hormones - but there are optimal times to take advantages of the benefits of specific ones (and optimal times to make sure they're not spiking all over the place).

mdemare• 11 years ago

Good luck eating 3000kcal of lentils in one day.

weavie3• 11 years ago

It would make for an interesting experiment. Eat 3000kcal per day of doughnuts and cakes for a few months. See how much you weigh. Then switch to 3000kcal of organic meat, veg and healthy fats per day. Would your weight change in the same way? I can't say what the answer is. Has anyone tried experimenting with this?

dspillett3• 11 years ago

Still find it hilarious how so many people still don't understand that a caloric deficit or surplus is the #1 thing to do when trying to cut or bulk.

But it is far from the only thing, which I think is the point being made by the post you replied to. If you take in your exact calorific requirement each day bot solely in the form of bacon and chips, you are going to be rather unhealthy. You may even gain weight partly because feeling bad makes you do less activity (so you should be eating less to account for that) and partly because the lack of certain nutrients in the balance (and over abundance of others) causes hormone and digestive changes which change the way your body uses those calories.

As you rightly point out the opposite is true too: more in than out will result in weight gain even if everything coming in is in a healthy balance, but there is more to being healthy than being in the recommended weight band for your height.

FYI: I'm no nutritionist, but I have completely changed my form in the last 18 months (dropping from ~15.5 stone to ~10.25 and now running 5K in the real world in ~24.5 minutes (22m27s is my PB on the treadmill, one of my regular routes in the great outdoors is 8K) from previously not being able to jog to the corner shop without being out of breath for the afternoon). All this change was achieved in a large part by monitoring and controlling my intake against activity, but I'm pretty sure changing diet balance and exercise has helped greatly.

I think people who work purely on calorie counting and ignore other factors are as deluded as those who think they can eat too much simply because what they are eating is in healthy ratios.

omnibrain• 11 years ago

You have to see it from the other side. It's about sustainability of the diet.

Eating 1800kcal of white bread, salad and skinless chicken breast will leave you with a raging hunger. Sure, you have a caloric deficit but how sustainable is that going to be? On the other hand eating 1800kcal of salmon, bacon, vegetables and eggs is the same caloric deficit but (for most of us) with way less hunger involved.

vilmosi22• 11 years ago

Counting calories is definitely NOT the way to a healthy body. That's all marketing fluff. 500 calories from Macdonalds is not the same as 500 calories of fresh vegetables. And why did you put "quality food" in quotes?! The type of food you eat make a huge difference!

netcan• 11 years ago

The "food quality" argument (as it is put above) or really any argument claiming that caloric accounting is only a part of the picture basically say:

It's a lot more complicated than that. Even if is caloric accounting is true in the sense that you could control weight gain/loss via caloric surpluses/deficits (pretty hard to deny) this does not account for why caloric surpluses are so common.

A daily surplus of just 100 calories per day (~4% of daily total) will earn you an extra kg every couple of months (7000 calories per kg), 5-6 per year. Being off by in your "calculations" by this much will take you from underweight to obese in a few years. How then, do the many people who don't fluctuate their weight wildly manage to balance out their caloric input/output without precisely measuring their food. In fact, even highly disciplined people who weigh and record every bite could be off by 100 calories just because of inaccuracies in labeling. If your lemons are more caloric than the average lemon, you're screwed.

In the context of intentional and highly disciplined rapid changes in body size (like dieters or body builders) the caloric accounting method works. Add/remove 500 calories per day to add/remove about a pound per week, all else equal.

It's obviously "true," but just as obviously is not a complete picture. The relevance is contextual and practical. IE, body builders and crash dieters should and do reference it. A parent trying to make sure their kids are healthy does not.

We don't really understand metabolism enough to have real science based answers to our questions. That's why I think all these accusations of "bro science" are silly. There is no alternative. Referencing caloric accounting is attractive because it can be lab tested and it works in a lab, but labs control for other factors (like apetite). That doesn't mean it's a complete picture. It's relevant only to the extent that you can mimic lab conditions in your life.

Just like caloric deficit is true when isolated, so are other ideas that get thrown around. Hyper-palatable processed foods. Sugar addiction. Carbs. Insulin responses and appetite. Glycemic indexes. Gut flora. The carb/insulin people are interested in how food affects appetite.

I'll give you an example just to demonstrate how little we know. Say you take a morbidly obese individual and have them lose 100kg of weight, they have a capacity to regain that weight in a very short period much faster than anyone who has never been obese. A regular person usually cannot gain 25kg in a year. Biggest losers do it regularly

The same is true of body builders (power lifters, rugby players, etc). If they lose their 25 kg of "excess" muscle, they will often be able to regain much faster than anyone starting from scratch. IE take two 75kg guys with 15% body fat. One was 90kg with 10% body fat 5 years ago. Have them both exercise and diet hard, racing to put on 10kg of muscle. Use trainers to "control" for experience as much as possible. The ex body builder will leave the other guy in the dust.

I've heard this called "cellular memory," "muscle memory" (which is already takes, so rude) and such. But naming it does not mean we understand it. We don't have any kind of understanding of how or why this works. We just don't know.

This is why diet debates, especially among HN-like intellectual crowds can be annoying. Everyone has their tidbit of "scientifically proven" knowledge, but the truth is that we're in the dark ages. It's like geology before plate tectonics or biology before darwinian evolution.

norea-armozel• 11 years ago

Humans eat for taste and I believe some research has indicated that we depend on taste to convey what will satisfy our hunger (and nutrient requirements). The problem is that most of our food is caloric dense, but nutrient poor. So, we cover the metabolic calories needed to live, but not much else. It's one thing I've learned from getting back on a diet is how much 'diet' food is empty calories and how often I have to eat other foods to cover nutrient deficits (calories are easy, getting enough Vitamin A is hard if you keep eating the 'diet' food).

emirozer• 11 years ago

No, the focus should be eating the right amount of healthy food.

rednukleus2• 11 years ago

That's exactly his point. The approach of merely counting calories ignores the fact that some foods such as diet soda are low in calories but can have an effect on body composition.

You shouldn't just "eat less" you should "eat better", and that means eating an appropriate amount of healthy good.

baddox• 11 years ago

That is a truism.

EliRivers• 11 years ago

There very nearly is no such thing as healthy food. There is only food containing various contents in varying amounts.

paulojreis9• 11 years ago

Yeah, this looks like one of the (many) downsides of the quantifiable self.

Nutrition professionals almost always advocate for diversity, but the Internet-wisdom thing is this approach. I guess it's just easier to do the simple math of in minus out (instead of actually trying to understand the nutrition of a complex organism).

realharo• 11 years ago

Most "Internet-wisdom" always tells you to at least roughly know and adjust your split of macronutrients.

jsmthrowaway5• 11 years ago

Be amazed all you want, but you're conflating two different issues, as does everyone who discusses it the way you do. Your attitude on this is actually a public health risk, because you're implying eating "better" is necessary to lose weight, and eating "better" almost always puts "better" out of reach of low-income families. "Yes, you can lose weight, you just need to spend $60 more a week on things I consider better at the grocery store."

Better is a relative term. Your better is not my better. How do you quantify better? Can you explain that to me?

Eat fewer calories than you need. Lose weight. Not rocket science. Sweat the other stuff later, and treat it like a separate issue, because it is.

Wouldn't disagree so strongly with you if you said "this is good. In addition to just figuring calories out, people should also eat better." Then I'd agree with you, but you're indignant and "amazed" like nobody understands the nuances of one value minus another, and if you're not making a salad, why even try. My entire life I've been overweight, and everybody has told me I need to eat "better," and I just started eating less of exactly what I ate before and it works. It's mysterious.

roel_v5• 11 years ago

Yeah, the GP sounds like my wife - "I need to lose weight, better buy two extra broccoli's". Uh no, to lose weight, you need to eat less, not more - just leave that bag of crisps and forget about the broccoli.

joelrunyon7• 11 years ago

Nothing I said was "indignant."

Just stating that there's other things besides such strict calorie counting. On top of the fact that when practically put into play for people in real life, "calorie counting" feels restrictive, doesn't account for satiety (which then causes hunger & tends to lead to binges).

Re: better - tons of vegetables, high quality meats, low-sugar fruits, nuts and seeds. Carbs when-appropriate pre/post workout.

collyw3• 11 years ago

eating "better" almost always puts "better" out of reach of low-income families.

I learned to cook cheap, unprocessed, healthy food as a student, in order to save money. A big bag of potatoes doesn't cost much and can make the bulk portion of many meals. I currently cook a lot of beans in my pressure cooker - easy, cheap and healthy.

Admittedly, the preparation time increases, which may be a problem for lower income families, but I always see the cost argument as false.

lamby3• 11 years ago

considering this a pure caloric issue and not a food quality issue

I'm sure this will get a bunch of "but calories in calories out" replies - nobody is doubting the laws of thermodynamics, but there is an world of difference being, say, 400kcal under your TDEE eating "better" foods versus junk, both in terms of your mental outlook, how your body will look at the end, and whether you will stick to the diet and therefore succeed at your weight loss goals.

dylanjermiah7• 11 years ago

but there is an world of difference being

How so (in terms of body composition)? Say TDEE = 3000 and one disregards macro/micros and eats at 2500 for 20 weeks opposed to one who ensures appropriate amounts.

dylanjermiah7• 11 years ago

I could eat 4000cals of steamed brocolli and boiled chicken and very quickly become obese.

Quality of food is important, but an excess amount of quality macronutrients or micronutrients will result in excess adipose tissue.

Focus on eating at a deficit, with nutrient dense food.

richardboegli5• 11 years ago

That said, I think the focus should be on "eating better" not just "eating less."

I found that as I was looking for ways to reduce what I ate, I ended up eating better.

Once I had lost the weight, someone asked me how I could still stay the same weight even though I was eating jelly babies. My response was that I am more conscious now of how much of something I eat and will adjust for it.

atemerev• 11 years ago

This is obvious for anyone who tried both approaches and compared efforts/results ratio.

rockdoe2• 11 years ago

Or just counted calories...

mhd2• 11 years ago

The problem here seems that discussions about this are sooo littered with personal biases. "Bro science" is just one aspect of this, far more common is expecting that one's personal achievement is universally reproducible. Yes, person A may eat all the burgers and twinkies, because he's going to the gym all the time and swimming laps like there's no tomorrow. But as a general rule to combat obesity, that's probably not the way to go (we often get the same personal non-exceptionalism in economic debates).

So I hope we'll have less "But it worked for me!" in this thread and more thought about something a bit more universal and averaged out.

learnstats22• 11 years ago

Yes, person A may eat all the burgers and twinkies, because he's going to the gym all the time

One major problem with the standard BMI definitions is that any athlete in a sport that vaguely requires muscles will be classed as 'overweight' or 'obese'.

Although there may be some justification for this categorisation, these are people we normally consider at the peak of fitness.

One of the best things you can do for long-term health outcomes is to follow a strength training programme. For an average person, that may result in weight gain via muscle. This is not a bad thing.

johnchristopher4• 11 years ago

> Yes, person A may eat all the burgers and twinkies, because he's going to the gym all the time
One major problem with the standard BMI definitions is that any athlete in a sport that vaguely requires muscles will be classed as 'overweight' or 'obese'.

Oh, what a major problem it is for the vast majority of overweight people changing their diet and lifestyle. This really is the most important point they have to keep in mind: BMI don't apply to athletes who regularly train and practice. What a bummer.

paulojreis9• 11 years ago

This criticism of BMI is becoming boring, mostly in fitness Internet communities. Yeah, I get it: it's pretty cool to know that there are different kinds of body mass, and - of course - Internet gurus got to show that they know it.

The limitations of BMI are well known; if doctors and nutrition professionals keep on using BMI as an indicator, that's because it's an useful one.

We shouldn't assume other professionals are "dumb"; we shouldn't assume that we are a brilliant bunch, capable of seeing beyond an indicator, while doctors and nutrition professionals use them blindly.

kazinator• 11 years ago

One major problem with the standard BMI definitions is that any athlete in a sport that vaguely requires muscles will be classed as 'overweight' or 'obese'.

1. This is not a "major" problem, because those people are a tiny minority.

2. This is not a problem with the BMI itself; it's a problem with the "healthy BMI range" interpretation of the BMI value. Obviously, this range does not apply to special populations, like muscular athletes or people with missing limbs.

The BMI concept is valuable because it expresses weight in a way that normalizes for height. The BMI value is only as useful as raw body mass, but at least generalizes to different heights.

A better tool than anything derived from body mass (such as BMI) is a tape measure around your waist: keep your waist circumference less than around 40% of your height. That's it. For instance if you're 68 inches tall, you should have a 27" or narrower waist.

For BMI, by the way, I use the improved BMI formula: 1.3 * mass / (height ^ 2.5). The standard BMI's power of two gives taller adults excessively high BMI values, and is more lenient on shorter people.

https://people.maths.ox.ac.uk/trefethen/bmi_calc.html

tjogin18• 11 years ago

There is too much mysticism around nutrition and health; people think it's about the method when it's rather about finding a method that works for you the way you apply it.

People seem to find it very hard to reason about dosages as well; so-and-so is "good for you" and so-and-so is "bad for you", again with the mysticism. Nothing is bad for you and everything is bad for you, all depending on the dose. And vice versa, foods that are supposedly good for you don't do shit if you don't dose it appropriately, and become bad for you if you overdose it.

astrange3• 11 years ago

Yes, person A may eat all the burgers and twinkies, because he's going to the gym all the time and swimming laps like there's no tomorrow.

But as you learned just from reading this headline, that counts as "exercising more" and he'd hardly lose weight! I'll take swimming, though, that really is effective calorie burning if you do it for long enough.

DanBC2• 11 years ago

So I hope we'll have less "But it worked for me!" in this thread and more thought about something a bit more universal and averaged out.

HN fucking sucks at these discussions. There's a strong resistance to the evidence base (exercise doesn't help with weight lose and may make things worse; lifestyle changes of eating different does work; still recommend exercise because of other important health benefits).

mhd2• 11 years ago

We're a pretty egocentric bunch here, both startups and hacking mostly fall into that category. Seeing things from a more objective/statistical point of view is a rabbit hole one might not recover from ;)

richardboegli5• 11 years ago

So I hope we'll have less "But it worked for me!" in this thread and more thought about something a bit more universal and averaged out.

Just eat less and you will lose weight. I hope this is the universal answer you were seeking. "But it worked for me!" ;)

mullingitover• 11 years ago

I found it ridiculously easy to lose weight by eliminating refined sugar and alcohol from my diet. 'Don't drink calories' is a great rule of thumb, sugared beverages are a plague on society. Keep your sweet tooth happy by eating fresh fruit--I don't think it's even possible to get or stay fat if your main sugar source is fruit.

empressplay2• 11 years ago

_especially_ alcohol -- there's huge calories in booze. It also promotes being sedentary, and also over-eating if you drink with dinner.

joss82• 11 years ago

It's a bit oversimplified, because exercising increase your burn rate (your basal metabolic rate), even when you don't exercice.

But anyway: eat food, not too much, mostly plants ;)

snez4• 11 years ago

Did you not know that you can't outrun your mouth?

lubonay3• 11 years ago

It seems like the article downplays the role of exercise - maybe I'm nitpicking, but how is this a valid argument: "Over a six-month period, though, adding exercise made no difference."

I mean who wants to lose weight over six months only to be more likely for them to gain it back?

Also, looking at weight alone is misleading. All other factors being equal, a person burning 2500 kcal per day and consuming 2000 would be worse off than if they burn 3000 kcal and consume 2500. The latter case leads to better body composition (as in the ratio of body weight to fat) and better athletic qualities like strength and endurance.

People doing regular exercise also report being more energetic than their sluggish 0-cals-per-day counterparts. On top of that, prolonged dieting regardless of exercise may lead to depression and moving around tends to alleviate that.

Source: My Ph.D. in Broscience and Anecdotal Evidence :P

roel_v5• 11 years ago

"All other factors being equal, a person burning 2500 kcal per day and consuming 2000 would be worse off than if they burn 3000 kcal and consume 2500."

I have tried every possible generous interpretation of this that I can think of, but I just have to ask I guess: what's the idea behind this?

lubonay3• 11 years ago

Regarding the 2500 vs 3000 kcal thing: move around, lift weights, knock uglies with your partner multiple times per day, do whatever floats your boat in order to increase your BMR by 500 kcal per day. Regarding the "worse off" part: I assume having less strength and endurance is worse for the average Joe compared to having more strength and endurance. Sorry that it wasn't clear in my post, I guess I assumed it was self-explanatory.

joelrunyon7• 11 years ago

As far as I can tell - it also didn't control for "type" of exercise.

Not all exercise is created equal.

kfk2• 11 years ago

Yeah, that is true, but I hold that being overweight and exercising (real exercise, not the fake gym training programs) is far better for your health and your well being overall. At least you keep a functional body - you can do long walks, runs, climbing, etc. - which is a much better life if you ask me, but that's only my opinion, I repeat, only an opinion.

Edit. Just to be clear, of course being slim and exercising is a better option. I am just saying that for health I would prioritize exercise over weight.

dylanjermiah7• 11 years ago

but I hold that being overweight and exercising

How is being overweight 'far better' for health or well being? (assuming you're talking about excess adipose tissue).

Please define 'function' and how excess adipose increases ones ability to walk, run and climb.

kfk2• 11 years ago

I have seen plenty of overweight people back in Italy that were able to do tough 10 hrs hikes or caving explorations with heavy loads or else. They looked far more healthy to me than slim people that do no exercise. I am just very skeptic of using weight as a measure of health or even as a universal goal. That said, being very overweight is a problem and being slim and doing exercise is a better option.

farresito• 11 years ago

And eating better is far more important than eating less.

brohoolio• 11 years ago

It's tough to lose weight. I've had success lowering my calorie intake.

I find that only implementing one change at a time conserves my willpower so that I'm more likely to succeed. I'll either up my exercise a couple weeks before I start cutting the calories or cut calories then wait a few weeks before introducing exercise.

Controlling what I eat, for me at least, is easier than upping my exercise levels.

haydenhall• 11 years ago

For myself at least its always been quite simple...

If you want to lose weight and be healthy - eat little and eat healthy.

If you want to lose weight and don't care too much for your health - eat little.

If you want to be healthy - eat healthy.

If you just don't care - eat whatever you like.

kittiepryde• 11 years ago

I was simplifying of it as:

Calories --> Weight

Food quality & exercise --> health

dspillett3• 11 years ago

That works in my head too, though I'd always add the caveat that you need both and should endeavour not to sacrifice one (even temporarily) in order to improve the other. Along that path (particularly compromising the health side in a pursuit of dramatic weight loss) fad diets and the like lie, and those things rarely work long term.

agounaris• 11 years ago

As always, balance is the key!

MrBuddyCasino• 11 years ago

This is true, but: when I exercise regularly, I find that I am less hungry and eat less. Anyone here made the same experience?

jhh• 11 years ago

If I know I'll go for a run I am very hesistant to eat heavily, as I know I'll regret it.

The more you exercise the more you push back heavy/unproductive meals in your schedule. You just know if you eat wrongly you won't be able to keep up with your own pace of execise.

Eating and execise seem deeply connected to me. Certainly it is hard to put this kind of thinking into a controlled randomized trial.

maknz• 11 years ago

So much this. If you include regular exercise you're way more motivated not to over-eat, you simply don't want to spoil the hard work you did since it's so easy to consume 500 cal but so much harder (relatively) to burn 500 cal. Combining both has certainly been effective for me.

weavie3• 11 years ago

After a heavy weights session I am ravenous. It's not unknown for me to just give in and eat a whole tub of icecream before my proper post workout meal.

curiousDog• 11 years ago

So true. I've found that Intermittent fasting + a 500cal deficit (below TDEE) is the easiest/most-effective way because it fits into my life-style as a programmer. I eat my last meal at 8PM and go to bed at 1-2AM. So not eating anything until 1PM the next day is a breeze (with a couple of cups of coffee in the morning). I've lost 20 pounds over the last 3 months with zero exercise.

collyw3• 11 years ago

I like intermittent fasting, but I am already skinny, and I struggle to keep my weight up, despite having chocolate and crap beside me at work on my non fast days.

jrapdx32• 11 years ago

After years in the practice of obesity medicine, helping people lose excess weight, I'd say the thrust of the article is correct. The main key to successful (that is, sustained) weight loss is modifying food intake. Not for nothing do we call this "lifestyle modification", we should never underestimate the effort and courage it takes to adhere to the better plan.

Thing is one can never exercise enough to "burn off" the tremendous calorie intake most people are subject to. After all around 75-80% of energy expenditure occurs in the resting state, only 20-25% is ordinarily attributable to physical activity.

However I fully agree with the article that exercise is far from useless, certainly can contribute to well-being and has many indirect benefits that assist in long-term maintenance of decreased body fat content.

Of course none of this is really new, it's been established wisdom in obesity treatment circles for a long time. "Getting in shape" is hardly a trivial project as it requires commitment, determination, knowledge and support. Maintaining the benefit of hard won weight loss is not free, the price is eternal vigilance.

dylanjermiah7• 11 years ago

the practice of obesity medicine

Curious, what does that entail?

jrapdx32• 11 years ago

Among other terms for it are "medical weight management" and "bariatric medicine". The idea is prescribing appropriate nutritional programs, behavioral approaches, and yes, exercise to assist people to reduce excess body fat content.

Where indicated, medications can be prescribed to reduce appetite and satiety, perhaps increase metabolism in some instances. Probably obvious, but there are many other aspects to treatment of obesity, not the least of which is addressing other health conditions that contribute to excess adiposity.

There is substantial medical/science literature on all these topics, really not too hard to find using search engines of choice.

FranOntanaya• 11 years ago

Exercise and the lowered depression levels may be a good trigger for lowering the amount of confort food eaten and increasing diet discipline. The lower calorie intake still gets the credit, but many people may never get there without the exercise first.

Htsthbjig• 11 years ago

To lose weight EATING WELL is the most important thing.

For me it is shocking to watch the calories argument, and almost saying that you have to starve in order to lose weight.

40 years ago Americans, or most Europeans did not starve, and being overweight was rare. They ate lots of fat, for example with consumption of butter(calories) three times what it is today.

Traveling around the world I see people that eat well(I have eaten their food) and nobody is fat there. They cook their food though.

People in the Western world eat very badly. Most of their food is precooked, frozen and stored in plastic. That alone removes lots of necessary components of food, like vitamins or fiber, or degrade it making them not usable by the body.

So when the body needs essential components, and could not get it the normal way, it enters panic mode and craves for more food.

One of the most overweight people I have seen in my life were native Americans Indians in reserves and in Alaska or native people from Hawaii. They are so poor and eat so badly no matter how much they eat their body never says enough. People in Hawaii were known for being slender before colonization.

There are natural limitations on industrial food, and we are paying for it.

Industry instead of solving he problems(which is hard) has tricked be body into believing the food is totally ok, with things like artificial flavoring.

gitaarik5• 11 years ago

Nobody says you need to be hungry to keep a healthy weight, but if you are overweight, and you want to lose that weight, there's no way around being hungry sometimes.

You know why? Your fat cells only start giving off their fat to the blood when your blood sugar level is too low, and when that happens, your brain gets a signal you should eat, thus you're hungry.

TheAceOfHearts• 11 years ago

I lost 40lb, and the only exercise I do is walking / running occasionally around my apartment complex.

My trick? I slowly reduced the size of my portions and I limited myself to eating only when I felt hungry.

I didn't do any sort of strict calorie counting, I just tried to have a rough idea of how much food I was eating. Seriously. That's it. If you eat fewer calories, you will lose weight. It's that simple.

At no point did I starve myself or force myself to undergo harsh dietary conditions.

Here's the thing, I think a lot of people fail to lose weight because they try doing too many drastic changes all at once. This is REALLY difficult! But if you just do it really slowly... You don't even notice the change. Sure, the downside is that you won't see super fast changes, it'll take longer to manifest itself. On the other hand, this is probably the easiest possible way to lose weight, because it requires very little effort on your part (you just have to have enough self control to not stuff your face every day).

Just serve yourself a smaller portions than you'd normally consume, eat it, and wait a few minutes. Then if you still felt hungry, go get some more. Otherwise, you've had enough and you're satisfied.

At the beginning of this year I read an article that made me realize something. The article basically said "If you're fat, it means that you're eating like a fat person. You are a fat person." Maybe it seem stupid... But it's correct. If you're fat, it means that you have the eating habits and lifestyle of a fat person. Ask yourself, is that who you really want to be? For me the answer was "no".

You can even cheat with your portions! Every time I go to a ramen shop I disregard all limits and just eat to my heart's content. Although doubtless it won't work very well if you do that every day.

glandium3• 11 years ago

Something related is that a lot of people are eating too quickly. I am guilty of this. And that doesn't leave time to the brain to get the satiety signals, leading to eat more than necessary. Eating more slowly can end up helping reduce portions. It's a difficult habit to overcome, though.

glandium3• 11 years ago

"Far too many people, though, can manage to find an hour or more in their day to drive to the gym, exercise and then clean up afterward — but complain that there’s just no time to cook or prepare a healthful, home-cooked meal. If they would spend just half the time they do exercising trying to make a difference in the kitchen, they’d most likely see much better results."

This. From my anecdotal evidence, weight loss is largely a commitment issue. So when you spend as much time going to the gym and back as you spend exercising there, motivation to continue the effort can disappear despite the reward. So it's just best to find your own right balance between (what kind of/how much) effort and reward.

peteretep7• 11 years ago

    > weight loss is largely a commitment issue

Yes, but it's a "commitment issue" in the same class as "stopping drinking", "stopping smoking", and "getting out of debt" for a lot of people; there's a very large mental/compulsive/dependency component.

moomin2• 11 years ago

To the extent that scientists who've studied it reckon that only 5% of the population are _capable_ of keeping weight down long term through diet.

antirez• 11 years ago

Everybody in the fitness circles (see Reddit Fitness) knows this. It's just that normally doctors, TV & company misadvice you, telling something like "walk more, be more active" when the task at hand is to lose weight. Actually the exercise suggestion should be: do some strength training while seriously dieting in order to retain muscles. A 30 minutes run will burn ~400 calories. The same amount of calories can be eaten in 10 seconds. Do your math.

gd12• 11 years ago

You do your math. Exercise isn't just about how many calories you burn during it. Add a kilo of muscle and it will be burning energy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

empressplay2• 11 years ago

This. Someone who is out of shape will typically have a slower metabolism than someone who is in shape. Also, in defensive situations the out-of-shape person's body can rely more on adrenaline-based fight-or-flight mechanisms potentially leading to anxiety, which can then encourage comfort-eating and lead to cyclic weight-gain.

Once again, everyone wants to boil complex, intricate body and mind mechanisms down to "do this, don't do that." It's absurd. These are sophisticated systems full of roll-on cause and effect, tolerances, etc. not a toaster.

Erwin• 11 years ago

You urged to do your math, but didn't present any of yours.

Muscle burns an inconsequential amount of energy -- 6-10 per pound depending on sources. So if you were somehow to gain 10 pounds of pure muscle, you'd have enough calories for a small apple per day (60 cal).

How fast can you gain 10 pounds of muscle? In an 18-week weight training programme, a group of men gained 4.6 pounds of muscle: http://jap.physiology.org/content/82/1/298 -- most of the gain in 8 weeks. So I would imagine increasing your lean mass by 10 pounds (just to be able to eat an extra apple a day) would be quite an effort.

One study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3139779/

So considering SOLELY weight loss, ignoring calory deficits from diet changes and focusing on building up muscle mass does not seem effective. Instead of building up muscle mass for a 60Cal deficit via BMR increase, take a 600 Cal deficit via diet and lose the weight in 1/10th the time.

richardboegli5• 11 years ago

Exactly. But I had to prove it for myself. So I did, I lost 40kg in 40 weeks without exercise.

vilmosi22• 11 years ago

What a load of rubbish. First of all, losing weight is not the goal itself, it's one of the means to the real goal, which is to be healthy. It's not about eating less, it's about eating healthy. Exercise is absolutely essential to be healthy, regardless of weight.

Exercise is more important that eating less. What a dumb suggestion.

gitaarik5• 11 years ago

But it doesn't mean that when you're healthy your automatically not overweight. You can be pretty healthy having a lot of fat. The point is that in the past you gained the fat by eating too much, so if you want to lose that, you should eat too less.

vilmosi22• 11 years ago

Who cares about overweight? It's about being healthy, but people forgot that. A lot of people from the gym are classified as overweight, with fat or not, but they are healthy as a horse and look good as well. This concern about losing weight has gone way too far.

romanovcode• 11 years ago

Every person has its own goals.

tjogin18• 11 years ago

Being overweight is unhealthy, it can't be done in a healthy way; not in the long term.

While it is possible for an overweight person to not have any of the common health problems associated with being overweight, that is temporary. If you are overweight, you will develop those health problems, it's just a matter of time.

It's basically like smoking and cancer; not all smokers have cancer or get cancer, but there is no such thing as smoking in a healthy way, and if you do it, then the best way to get healthier and to prevent developing health problems in the future is to stop doing it.

Some people can be overweight without developing health problems for a long time, even for a decade or two, but it's just a matter of time. Reducing your bodyweight is easily the best way to improve your health, and to make sure you don't develop health problems in the future.

And, vice versa, many of the things we associate with bad health don't become health problems at all for people who stay lean. Food that we know to have strong correlations with bad health, like eating red meat, sodium, cholesterol, etc, are only really problematic if you also over eat.

Exercise is great, it's terrific, but not over eating is much more important. The saying is true, "you can't outrun a bad diet".

vilmosi22• 11 years ago

>> but there is no such thing as smoking in a healthy way

But there is a way to be overweight in a healthy. Basically everyone at the gym is overweight (officially anyway) because of their muscle mass.

>> Exercise is great, it's terrific, but not over eating is much more important.

True. But there is a difference between over eating and under eating. I never said we should over eat, I just don't agree with under eating.

gadders3• 11 years ago

I think focussing on "weight loss" is the incorrect metric. They would be better off using "body fat %".

It is possible to gain weight, and yet become more healthy. In addition, the metric most often used to work out whether are people are overweight, the BMI, is hopelessly inaccurate.

agentPrefect5• 11 years ago

I'm absolutely floored to see comments here still nit-picking at FOOD QUALITY vs FOOD QUANTITY vs WHAT DEFINES EXERCISE vs ETC.

Whilst I fully enjoy reading some of the opinions on SOD, the myriad of needless front-end frameworks, etc. - this really is not subjective at all. Calories in, calories out. You eat 5000cal of the most nutritious, well balanced meal & run 10km - you will still put on weight (given you're not a giant).

I'm not sure how this is so open to interpretation, it's rudimentary science at best.

peteretep7• 11 years ago

Different foods cause different levels of satiation.

Knowing that eating less will make you lose weight is not the same thing as overcoming feelings of hunger to actually eat less in practice.

agentPrefect5• 11 years ago

Absolutely agree with you, but that is an entirely different discussion. A good use case for the quality vs. quantity issue would be bodybuilders. Throughout a bulking cycle they make (or ... they should make) a concerted effort to do a "clean bulk" - which is healthy, good food. Ask any bodybuilder how difficult that is - which is exactly what you're saying. It's difficult because the food makes them full, satiated, etc.

BUT - they still bulk. They still put on the excess weight regardless of how clean they eat. Calories in, calories out.

pjc50• 11 years ago

At time of writing, this is RIGHT NEXT to a comment saying "Still amazed that people are still considering this a pure caloric issue and not a food quality issue."

agentPrefect5• 11 years ago

Hahaha. Nice.

paulsutter• 11 years ago

Percent body fat is a better metric to reduce than weight alone. Most men would even want to gain weight if it is muscle mass. If you want lean bodymass it's best to control your blood sugar (low glycemic diet) and exercise.

Calories in/out does control weight but there more to it if you don't want to end up skinnyfat. If you think calories is all that matters, try a diet solely of dextrose (glucose) and see how you end up.

agentPrefect5• 11 years ago

Remember this guy -> http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/207071.php

agentPrefect5• 11 years ago

I also should say, that I do agree with you. If it is more that losing weight you want, then the caloric deficiency is not the best way go - like if you're doing resistance training. But somebody who is obese? Eat cleanly yes ... but most certainly eat less.

DanBC2• 11 years ago

You're right, so let's move the discussion on.

Most people know what they should be eating: why aren't they eating it? Why do some people find it so hard to avoid excess calories?

Or, is 2,000 calories of chocolate as satiating as 2,000 of carrot and potato?

Or how relevant is gut flora? (Some people have gut flora that helps them stay slim; other people have gut flora that help them stay fat); how easy is it for someone to change their gut flora?

nomomatta• 11 years ago

Is it really so simple? Doesn't that ignore all other bodily responses to food and assume that food has only one characteristic, to be used for energy? Isn't it possible that some food creates hormonal conditions that result in a body with a higher/lower metabolic rate? Isn't it also possible that some calories are lost through waste? I think it's naive to simplify such a complex process.

bloat• 11 years ago

I always see it presented this way, but calories is a measure of energy, not mass. Clearly a weight loss program is designed reduce the mass of your body.

Can anyone explain if there is a simple proportional link between "mass in/mass out" and "energy in/energy out" ?

jensen123• 11 years ago

I'm currently reading an interesting book - Food and Western Disease by Staffan Lindeberg. Among other things, it talks about how gluten might interfere with leptin (the hormone that makes us feel full). I don't think this has been proven 100% yet, but I've noticed that there seems to be far more fat people in the countries that eat lots of wheat, than in the countries that rely on rice.

henrixd• 11 years ago

Metabolism gets used to aerobic exercise quickly so it is not good for loosing fat. High intensity training (HIT) burns more fat overall.

Timing on carbohydrates is important also. Eat them when you need them like around exercise, before work or in the morning. After your glucose storage is full extra energy will be stored as fat.

How well fat will burn depends mostly how good shape your metabolism is. If your metabolism is slow when you start dieting it will only get slower and you really have to starve yourself to lose weight.

Slowly increasing carbohydrates when not loosing weight and exercise is good way to speed up your metabolism so you are able to loose that fat after you gain some.

Cardio exercises are last resort at the end of the diet when your metabolism is really slow and you want to eat something.

So while eat less than you use is good starting point to loose weight. You can make it so much easier to your self with exercise and proper food.

moomin2• 11 years ago

The fundamental problem with the research he's quoting is that "long-term" means a year to him. Actual long-term, diets never ever ever work.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/05/04/w...

franciscop• 11 years ago

"statistically significant". I ak spoiled for life since reading https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9714985

KaiserPro3• 11 years ago

There really isn't that much science to it. On paper its really really simple.

To loose weight, you must expend more energy than you absorb.

However, conversely to get fit, you will need to eat a balanced diet, with enough calories to replace damaged muscles.

However on the weight loss front here are the golden rules:

Some people exercise (exercise expends energy)

Some people reduce energy consumption (eat less, or eat less calorific food)

Some people combine both.

There are no other options.

Seriously, if you are on a diet and you are not loosing weight, its not because you are unlucky, its because you are still absorbing more energy than you are expending. Exercise more, or eat less.

There is some evidence that efficiency can be altered by eating patterns, however that's not enough to over come eating an extra 300calories a day.

Everything else, is literally junk science. The 4:2 only works if on arrogate you consume less calories. Atkins only works if you can't absorb the extra energy you have in fat and protein. Etc, etc, etc.

This part is the easy part. Weight in 90% of cases is a symptom of one's environment. Changing environment is devilishly difficult.

NLips2• 11 years ago

Assuming that by "4:2" you are talking about intermittent fasting, does anyone believe otherwise? Alternate-day fasting can help people lose weight not because there's any magical effect, but because a faster is unlikely to double their calorie intake the day after fasting - having fast days is just a simple/easy way to reduce overall calorie intake.

Besides, the main benefits of alternate-day fasting are meant to be health related, not explicitly weight-loss. Is it a main-stream weight-loss method?

Sammi• 11 years ago

Intermittent fasting combined with weightlifting means you are more likely to loose fat and not muscles while fasting. The weightlifting will tell the body that the muscles are needed and it will then have less of a tendency to metabolize them for energy.

Also muscles burn energy while you are sitting on your sofa. Increasing your muscles mass by weightlifting means you will burn more energy all the time. I think weightlifting is strongly overlooked for weight loss and especially for loosing fat when combined with intermittent fasting.

KaiserPro3• 11 years ago

It is marketed as a diet.

however its based on the idea that if you have a reduced calorie intake you'll live longer. However:

a) its yet to be proved in humans (worms, flies and lemurs, yes.)[1]

b) to get the benefit we're talking about ~1800 calories a day. Having accidental done something like that for almost a year, I cannot stress how terrible your quality of life is.

[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v430/n7000/abs/nature02...

richardboegli5• 11 years ago

1) Some people exercise (exercise expends energy)
2) Some people reduce energy consumption (eat less, or eat less calorific food)
3) Some people combine both.
There are no other options.

Exactly, I picked option 2 as I had been unsuccessful with both option 1 and 3.

glenra• 11 years ago

Some people exercise [...] Some people reduce energy consumption [...] There are no other options.

There is at least one other way besides exercise to expend energy: cold exposure.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/does-glo...

richardboegli5• 11 years ago

Just eat less. It is just that simple.

My Weight Loss Story 40kg in 40 Weeks Without Exercise where I went from 120kg to 80kg (79.6kg) / 265lb to 175lb.

http://40in40book.com/

This book was born out of the constant positive feedback and requests I received that my story needed to be shared with a wider audience.

</SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION>

EDIT 1: I wanted to do this as a Show HN when I published, but I've been a longtime lurker without commenting and without an account with my real name.

EDIT 2: I've read the article and the points raised are the same as what I noted when I lost my weight. Exercise can help, but you can lose the weight with diet alone.

spacko• 11 years ago

Just watching documentation on people in none-1st-world-countries or even on wildlife animals clearly shows that we are eating wayyyyyyyyyyyy to much for the energy we are losing - that's one reason why I got into intermittent fasting (8/16). This hunger feeling we sense at times has nothing to do what so ever with actual hunger or nutrional depletion.

nikiiv• 11 years ago

As someone who recently lost 40 lbs, I should say that it is generally true. A hard ergometer exercise can have a net effect of 240 kcal for one hour and gross effect of 320 assuming 80 kcal per hour body burn. 240 kcal is not much at all, provided that my body generally burns 2800 kcal a day. Not even 10%

However limiting food intake reduces not only the calories, but vitamins and micronutrients plus minerals. Also not exercising at all means muscle loss and not so much fat loss, which can have severe effects in 3-6 months. So regular exercises are must, swimming for example 3 times a week plus some brisk walk in the park twice a week will do miracles. Not to forget proper feeding is it is as much important as reducing calories intake and creating calories deficiency. If one can't balance his food to have proper vitamins and minerals, one should resort to food supplements at least for calcium, potassium, magnesium, vitamins C, B6, B12 and E if you want to keep you heart and liver healthy during the process. Know what you eat and do the numbers. I started with 39% body fat and 33% muscle.. Now I am 30% body fat and 35% muscle with a lot of cardio. A close friend of mine reduced his food intake and albeit he achieved serious weigh loss, that was on the expense of muscle and tissue, rather then fat loss..

Personally I achieved my loss with the help of numbers and constant measures - get a proper scale that can report body fat/muscle/tissue, cross check with calipers, get a fitness tracker to track daily steps and calories, track you food, exercise, calories and progress.. There are so many sites and applications to do so.. And really important - do a blood work each 3 months for you heart and liver. A few drops of blood can give you so much intel

Hope that helps

ryandvm• 11 years ago

Thermodynamics saves the day...

mikhailt• 11 years ago

Losing weight is easy. Most people can do it by eating less without exercise.

The biggest problem in weight loss (beside the fact that you shouldn't do any dieting as this should be a lifestyle change), is how to maintain the weight once you reach the healthy goal.

I'm having a hard time figuring out how to keep the healthy weight and the best way for me is to exercise in addition to a strict cal limit. Exercise will increase your burning rate, and you have to figure how to balance it with your eating habits because you won't know how your body is burning while at rest for a while. This is the main issue, it is harder to maintain this fight than to lose weight on a simple low-cal limit.

I met a lot of folks who successfully lost weight but gained it back and lost it again, it took them 3-4 times in a row to figure out how to maintain their healthy weight. I'm already in my second battle against this. I found the best method is 16/8 fasting method, eat 8 hours and 16 hours fasting and I already am losing far more weight than anything else. This is so much easy to maintain even when I'm reaching my goal.

It's kind of like people winning the lottery and most of them just bankrupt themselves in a year. There's no real good educational program in US that teaches both kids and adult how to focus on what you eat and how to maintain the weight.

boh• 11 years ago

Articles like this are far too common, generic and pretty useless. X may be better than Y! Here's a study that proves it. Oh wait no, Y is better than X because this study proves it. Eat well and exercise. That's it.

tjogin18• 11 years ago

I understand that from the zoomed out perspective, when you learn about advancements in the field from newspapers, magazines or blogs, it looks that way. But this is mostly the fault of various media sensationalizing findings, drawing their own conclusions and prioritizing shocking headlines over levelheaded critique of scientific study results as well as framing it in the proper context.

The total body of scientific evidence is not really in such disarray as the reporting would have you believe.

However, your conclusion still hits the mark; eat well and exercise.

To Lose Weight, Eating Less Is Far More Important Than Exercising More

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