[leidenfrost]

But it's not.

What you're referring to, is the basic concept of thermodynamic calorie in/calorie out. Yes, you can "just" reduce food and lose weight if you hit deficit numbers.

But if you don't do it correctly, you'll feel like trash, you'll suffer bad cravings, and put yourself in a stressful mental situation for days, possibly putting your job at risk.

You have to:

- Eat less than what you're already eating

- But enough to nourish yourself so you keep being in good shape for your work and hobbies

- Manage hunger

- Make the change sustainable so you can keep doing it for the rest of your life.

It's specially hard when your work is entirely sedentary, you live alone and, ironically, when you have a salary that let's you order food every day.

A lot of people don't have it hard. Maybe because they have someone cooking for them at home, because they meal prep the entire week, or because their work is so physically intensive they can just wing it and burn everything with what they need to do for a living anyway.

[throwawaylaptop]

Inaccurate in my opinion. Let's say you eat 2500 calories a day usually. But you want to lose weight so you reduce it to 1800.

Except your calories are from pop tarts.

If you ate 100 calories of pop tarts every hour you're awake for total of 1800 calories... At the end of the month you'd be fatter.

If you ate 1800 calories of pop tarts once a day in 1 hour, you might maintain weight or loose a little. Maybe.

If you had 3600 calories of pop tarts in a few hour window, and then didn't eat again for 48 hours, you'd lose weight in a month.

Insulin control is 99% of losing weight. Yes thermodynamic blah blah, but unless you pay attention to hormone control that controls metabolism in general, it's not going to work without insane willpower to keep your 'calories out' higher than your body wants.

If you repeated the 3600 calories every 48 hours with beef instead, you'd lose weight like never before.

[XorNot]

> If you ate 100 calories of pop tarts every hour you're awake for total of 1800 calories... At the end of the month you'd be fatter.

This is thermodynamically impossible unless your daily calorie use is less then 1800 calories.

[leidenfrost]

Insulin control is about managing hunger more than a direct cause for weight.

You don't even need to do keto or wacky "just meat" diets to handle insulin. Protein consumption prevents insulin spikes for around 1-2 hours after eating. Also, proteins and fats slow down digestion.

Turns out, the good old Mediterranean diet is spot-on for a healthy lifestyle.

[EPWN3D]

The first law of thermodynamics applies to closed systems, which your body is not. Yes it is true that, very broadly speaking, eating more results in weight gain past a certain point. But first principles are not the most proximate reason for that by a long shot.

[dawnerd]

That's exactly why I liked being on keto. Never felt hungry, had way more energy, mental health improved a lot. No other diet had those effects. I've been off it for a while and I feel gross again.

[kjkjadksj]

You can fill yourself up with lower calorie food too. Most people don’t eat enough vegetables. They basically take up space in the gut, make you feel full, while you get your 5 calories from an entire bowl of lettuce or whatever.

[gizzlon]

> Eat less than what you're already eating

Not true for most people. You need to eat fewer calories, not less food. I counted calories for a few weeks an was very surprised.

[kulahan]

Right, so exactly like I said, it's very simple. If you want to lose weight, reduce calories.

If you add extra modifiers like "I want to feel great while doing it" and "I want to lose weight while sedentary" and "I want to continue eating whatever stupid thing I want" and "I need to be able to scroll tiktok for at least 3 hours, leaving no time for cooking", it gets much more complicated.

Side note: LOL at "but if you're craving food you might get fired!!1!" - this is professional victimhood at its finest.