How do people stay thin?

[Gamblerjoe]

Only eat when you're hungry. Eating when you're not hungry is when you gain most of the weight.

the feeling of hunger is your brain's response to low blood sugar and your muscles entering a catabolic state. Ideally you want to eat small meals at scheduled increments. If you do it right you will never feel hungry. If you go for hours without eating, then eat a huge meal because you're starving, you will be ingesting more calories than your body can burn at a time when your metabolism is at its lowest. That is how you gain weight. When you are hungry and eat, the feeling of hunger doesnt go away when the proper amount of food enters your stomach, it takes some time.

This is a good time to segue into another supplement that works quite well if combined with a proper diet and exercise. I dont use it myself, and I would only advocate it if you really think you need it but: Muscle Milk. What that stuff does is level out your blood sugar, and by proxy your metabolism. Think of it as a wave. When you eat, your blood sugar spikes. As you use that energy, it declines. If you can keep the oscillation nice and compact, your metabolism will in turn not fluctuate so much. This gives you the benefit of not being as hungry, and you wont store as much of what you eat. The reason I dont take Muscle Milk is because I dont need to. My metabolism is average to high, and I eat many small meals throughout the day, which gives me the same result. No need to spend extra money on something I dont need.

 

[Sabiancym]

There's no such thing as just not being able to lose weight. It's 100% self control.

No one who has ever been dedicated to losing weight hasn't been able to do so (barring some medical condition).

Eat 1000-2000 (depending on age, metabolism, and gender) calories a day and you'll lose weight. Simple and pretty much guaranteed.


If you're unable to do that than there is some psychological things going on that should probably be dealt with first. You may feel hungry, but eating 2000 calories a day will not make you starve (assuming you're at an average activity level of course).




I've always been athletic and fit, but after high school I put on about 30 lbs. So I just started counting calories and limited myself to 1500-1800 a day and I lost the weight in a couple of months. I didn't even need to exercise much. 20 mins a day on the treadmill and that was it. I've done harder things in video games..

 

[Skoosh]

Weight loss is easy. Eat less, do more stuff.

Don't say "easy", because it isn't. Say it is simple.

Simple is also appropriate, but I'd ague easy is too. It takes little effort to lose weight, people make a bigger deal out of it than they should. Drinking water instead of soda is easy. Taking a walk is easy. The things needed to lose weight are easy and relatively minor lifestyle changes. It's harder to lose weight than gain weight, but that hardly means weight loss isn't easy.

Losing a lot of weight in a short period of time isn't as easy, but no one specified 10 pounds or 100, 5 years or a month.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Fortunately, weight loss is no mystery: reduce your calorie intake below your daily calorie burn (estimated to be between 1800 and 2300 for most adult males, not counting exercise), or increase your burn above your intake. With the help of any calorie/exercise tracker (tons of apps fot this for iOS and Android, as well as many websites), it is easy to keep track of both gain and loss of calories, and thus ensure that you stay below the required intake.

7000-7700 calories respond to 1 kilo of weight (whether from proteins, carbs, fat, etc). This means that if you create a ~7000 calorie deficit, you will have lost 1 kilo. For example, staying 500 calories below your daily calorie burn will lose you approximately 1 kilo each week, since 7 days X 500 calories = 7000 calories = 1 kilo of fat (which, incidentally, is the normal upper limit for weight loss as recommended by most doctors).

Yep, really that simple. Then why is weight loss guides one of the most common and popular forms of guides in the history of man, next to Windows support guides? Because while the theory is very simple, and the practice is just as simple in theory , what people find hard are following the two principles that are key to weight loss: 1) Eat less and more importantly eat right. 2) Exercise.

So, the vast majority of weight loss guides that have any basis in science, deal less with the nutritional principles behind weight loss (or they explain them as quickly as I have, above), and more with motivational factors, ways to stay on target and uphold self-discipline, and ways to gain exercise and reduce calorie intake that might not be directly obvious, but are still based on the simple principles above.

It's always interesting to see all these replies touting a fast metabolism as an answer, when nutritional science is very clear on that calorie deficit versus surplus is the rule for weight loss and gain for damn near every single living human.

Check your math; it takes 2 weeks to drop a kilo by cutting 500 calories a day, assuming you're right that it takes 7000 calories to do so. 500*7 is only 3500. 500 a day is actually supposed to get you to drop a pound a week, which is a significantly smaller amount of mass (within earth's gravity) than a Kilo.

Incidentally, that last sentence was really hard for me to word: the main metric measurements are units of mass, while the main customary units are measures of weight. Nobody ever says "I way one kilo-newton" or whatever an appropriate amount of newtons for a person's body weight would be.

 

[Dags90]

Have I ever told you I find your particular brand of sarky wit extremely entertaining?

I don't think you have. Sometimes it gets me in trouble, but I'm not keen on changing.

Spoiler: A token of my appreciation.

 

[Caverat]

Be more concerned with being healthy, being thin doesn't automatically mean good health.

Eat right, maintain a physically active lifestyle. Who cares how thin you are when you can add 20+ years to your life expectancy? More video game playing time to be had that way.

 

[Cpu46]

My dads side of the family have black holes where their stomachs should be. They gorge themselves and rarely show a pound of it. My moms side eat just as much but tend to show it more. I am a bit of a happy medium where I can eat as much as I want and only pack on a fraction of what I should. Now that I am out of my parents house I normally just eat 2 moderately sized meals a day when I get hungry. Aside from my treks to my classes I don't exercise that much but I am planning on starting, especially as the holidays come around.

So in short, speedy metabolism and a reasonable intake of food, soon to add a mild exercise regimen.

 

[Ayjona]

Check your math; it takes 2 weeks to drop a kilo by cutting 500 calories a day, assuming you're right that it takes 7000 calories to do so. 500*7 is only 3500. 500 a day is actually supposed to get you to drop a pound a week, which is a significantly smaller amount of mass (within earth's gravity) than a Kilo.

Yah, yer right, of course. I'm so used to working with a 1000 daily calorie deficit (and kilos) that I forgot I had lowered the number in all but writing ;-) The downside of doing work as a journalist in two different languages, on two different continents... The math is all good, but the premise was fudged.

Incidentally, that last sentence was really hard for me to word: the main metric measurements are units of mass, while the main customary units are measures of weight. Nobody ever says "I way one kilo-newton" or whatever an appropriate amount of newtons for a person's body weight would be.

But they should! What good is dropping fat, if you might still be overweight on another planet?

(Actually, in modern usage, in popular speech, a kilo is a measure of weight, as it refers (whether knowingly or unknowingly) to the non-SI unit of measure known as kilogram-force. It is a prime example of a word that has gradually lost its formal and etymologic meaning, in favour of its popular content, to the point where the formal meaning has changed, even if the etymology remains the same.)

 

[SillyBear]

I've wanted to lose weight for a while now, and I have tried nearly everything (except diet pills and starving, I have my standards). The weird thing is that quite a few people I know tend to stay thin despite regularly eating burger king and such. I know some of them do work out, but some (like my girlfriend) somehow can stay thin without working out and despite apparently eating a lot (hell, I'm in much worse shape than my girlfriend, yet I have an easier time walking, thank you Mini-Boot Camp). I gotta ask, when it comes to those people, what's their secret?

Then burn more calories than they intake.

Not rocket science budd.

 

[Liberaliter]

Eat less, exercise more. There is a reason this is the advice you will get from most people, it works.

 

[Hummmy]

Yeah. As already said, a good metabolism.
I'm 20 and I have eaten like an ox for years and I'm only like 59kgs, uh.. 130lbs? Yeah.

And combine that with being 6"2' I would say I'm underweight.
I actually want to put some weight on, but and I can't.

 

[Zerazar]

A mild eating disorder keeps me "fit"(on the verge of health risks from underweight). Judging from what I eat and how much exercise I get I would probably end up suffering from many of the symptoms of obesity when I grow older though. Still, there's time to fix that. I'm only 19 thus far.

 

[Hyper-space]

Weight loss is easy. Eat less, do more stuff.

Don't say "easy", because it isn't. Say it is simple.

Metabolisms my boy, metabolisms.

That isn't how people stay thin. It is how they stay alive.

Metabolisms my boy, metabolisms.

This, I eat like a pig and hardly work out (except a 1-hour basketball session with my friends every week), yet i'm still thin as fuck.

What do you do for a living? I doubt you take in as many calories as you vaguely imply you do.

I'm a student and spend most of my time in front of computers, both in school and at home.

When it comes to calorie-intake, I eat whatever (often times fast food, don't do much cooking) and regularly, which is that I don't let myself become hungry for more than 2 hours or so.

 

[crudus]

Simple is also appropriate, but I'd ague easy is too. It takes little effort to lose weight, people make a bigger deal out of it than they should. Drinking water instead of soda is easy. Taking a walk is easy. The things needed to lose weight are easy and relatively minor lifestyle changes. It's harder to lose weight than gain weight, but that hardly means weight loss isn't easy.

Losing a lot of weight in a short period of time isn't as easy, but no one specified 10 pounds or 100, 5 years or a month.

Typically people want to lose weight pretty quickly. At that point it is hard because you are fighting the urge to eat, because your body thinks you are starving. However, if your goal is just a few pounds a month, then it is easy. Although that generally isn't most people's goals.

I'm a student and spend most of my time in front of computers, both in school and at home.

When it comes to calorie-intake, I eat whatever (often times fast food, don't do much cooking) and regularly, which is that I don't let myself become hungry for more than 2 hours or so.

So walking between classes, carrying you backpack, using brain power (takes up ~80 percent of the calories we eat), I would put my money on the fact that you fidget(350 Calories a day, equivalent to a 30 minute run), and I am sure slamming away at the keyboard burns more Calories than you think. It isn't your metabolism; you burn more Calories than you realize.

 

[Mr Somewhere]

I walk often, that and I eat little. There used to be days where I wouldn't cook, as I'd rather use the time doing something I enjoy, such as reading or such. I often regard having to cook as a distraction.