HACKER Q&A
📣 chirau

How did you successfully lose weight?


I am looking for regimens that have worked for folks. Would also love to know how much you and over what time.


  👤 jstx1 Accepted Answer ✓
Restricting calories.

How you do this is a continuous negotiation process with yourself - remove certain foods, skip meals (i.e. intermittent fasting / time-restricted feeding), don't eat carbohydrates, eat whatever you want as long as it's within a daily calorie limit etc. Pick the one that's easiest to follow.

The thing I do right now to lose weight is keep a spreadsheet and every day I write down my weight and the calories I consumed that day and I aim to stay below a certain average calorie count. This means that I get to lose weight and eat whatever I want, and I can have high-calorie days as long as I offset them with some low-calorie days. I prefer flexibility over trying to eat super strictly perfect 100% of the time.


👤 crop_rotation
I went from 89kg to 71kg in a space of 1.5 - 2 years. The main thing is to just eat less (and avoid processed food as much as possible). My main principle was to eat fresh and eat less. I did a good amount of exercising too in the start, but I observed that even without significant exercise, as long as I ate well I did lose weight. I put not many conditions on what I ate, except mostly avoiding sugar and sugary foods at home (still ate them in social situations).

👤 simonblack
Reduce carbs to as little as possible. But eats lots of protein instead. Fats too. Bread, pasta and rice are 'killers' for me.

One doctor I know eats lean beef in 500G to 1KG amounts. I don't know that I could do that.

And only 'above-ground' vegetables, so no carrots or potatoes (which are stores of carbohydrates), but eat broccoli, peas, beans, tomatoes, etc. instead.


👤 davidkuennen
Big impact: No soft drinks anymore, just water

Big impact: Reduce sugar intake to max 25g a day

Medium impact: interval fasting (16/8)

Small impact: Fitness. I do a lot, but frankly fitness just doesn't have much of an impact on losing weight.

I'm 34 and keeping my weight of 80kg that way for many years now.