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Ask HN: Diet/Fitness program resources?

6 points by Ben_Dean ↗ HN
I'm interested in finding a good set of resources for creating a comprehensive, personal fitness plan. I ask here because I saw an interesting article posted here on interval training which got me thinking about this. Essentially, I have a pretty good idea about what I need in terms of strength and endurance _exercises_, but one key point of this (and every other) article on the subject seems to be that diet is the other key component; however, every time I search, I just end up wading through a sea of fad diets and bizarre voodoo solutions. I just want some places to look for well-founded and human principle for a diet, ideally with some clear explanation of how exercise fits in with it.

9 comments

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stonemetal
Diet seems to be one of those places where there is a lot of variation between people. I believe it is because there is a large physiological component to food and eating. Having said that:

Good Calories,Bad Calories is a book that gets recommended around here quite a bit. I haven't read it myself. Sugar Busters is an interesting read, as it actually covers a bit of the science used in coming up with their program. Flaws in their method have been discussed ad nauseum, but the biology behind it seems sound.

RiderOfGiraffes
I got a lot of useful information, tips and techniques from the Hacker's Diet: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

It's been discussed many times here on HN:

http://searchyc.com/submissions/hacker%2527s+diet?sort=by_da...

Personally I used it to lose about 30 pounds over the course of about 6 months, and I've mostly kept it off. I'm going back onto it to lose about 10 pounds that have crept back on.

whatusername
Hackers diet is good.. but very simplistic as far as diet information goes. Sure it's easy to model your body as calories in = calories out + weight change, but that's kind-of like modeling atoms as pure indivisible lumps of matter.... It gets you 80% of the way there (and that might honestly be enough for most people) -- but there's a whole world of nutritional science that it ignores.

Related note: http://alwyncosgrove.com/2010/01/hierarchy-of-fat-loss/ is probably the best summary of what to do on the exercise side..

drKarl
The key facts are:

1.- Eat 5-6 times a day in reduced quantity

2.- Drink plenty of water

3.- Anaerobic training is important (i.e. strenght training) because it helps to build muscle tissue, and the more muscle you have, the higher your basal metabolism will be, and the more calories you will burn, even while sitting in front of the computer.

4.- Aerobic training (i.e. running, cycling, swimming) is important too, it helps burning fat faster, but don't do only aerobic training because you will burn both fat and muscle, and then, with less muscle you will burn calories slower. At leats 30 minuts of aerobic training per session.

5.- Protein is important to fuel the muscles (meat, egg whites, tuna...)

6.- Avoid fat, specially animal fat

7.- Avoid processed hydrocarbs (pastries, cakes), candies, chocolates

8.- Eat lots of fruits and vegetables.

dmm
> Avoid fat, specially animal fat

You should look into the history of the lipid hypothesis. You might be more hesitant to make such strong statements.

Check out "Good Calories, Bad Calories" by Gary Taubes. The title is pretty bad but the research is epic.

imp
I've been tracking my diet and exercise routines on Daily Burn, and I like it a lot. It's an easy way to track calories and macronutrients. You'll learn a lot about what you eat after you track it for a few days.

http://dailyburn.com/

freshfey
I might be too late for this, but hit me up through email and I can help you out if you want to. I was the interval training article poster and I'm working on something that might help you.