I am bootstrapping a startup, and went on quite a journey this year to losing 60 pounds. I've learned a lot. I have requests to write about what I learned but the last thing anyone overweight needs is another preachy, judgy post that says, "it's easy!"<p>to that end, if you tell me what you want to know, I'm hoping to make it more useful to the community as a whole.<p>Here are some potential topics:<p>diet, aka "yes, this stuff is hard."
exercise, aka "how I learned to love running after being a couch potato for 40 years"
Psychology: managing all the crap around this and the feelings it brought up.
resources: books, apps, tools, inspiration, playlists.
Gut Health: what I've learned about probiotics<p>I'm no expert at all in anything other than myself, but I've had so many requests to tell how it was done, I thought this would be more scalable than 1x1 conversations. And where else but Hacker News would I get the unvarnished feedback on how to present it.<p>Watch the fat shaming please in your responses. While I could care less what you call me, there are a lot of your peers out there struggling mightily with this issue who feel pretty bad about themselves. Think of them before you speak. Thanks.
First off- congratulations, that’s an awesome accomplishment.<p>On fitness “advice”, solicited and otherwise. I am a long time fitness enthusiast, I look like a bodybuilder. This makes one a bit of a pariah in the startup/tech community. Geeks are not muscular, if you are into body modification from a transhumanist perspective you’d best do it in some socially acceptable way like piercing or tattoos. This means people are perfectly comfortable telling you, positive or negative precisely what they think of how you look in a manner that they would never consider doing with an overweight person.<p>Part of this is posing fitness “questions” under the impression that in a business environment, dressed in professional attire, what I really want to talk about how I happen to look. 90% of these are not really questions, they are round about ways of making it clear to me they are not responsible for how they look- as if I care or am judging them somehow.<p>The other 10% of questions there is nothing really you can do for them even if you were inclined- “tightening their core”, “get cut and put on some muscle”, “Best exercise for a six-pack” are no more answerable than “My Internet is slow, what is the best computer to buy to make it go faster?”. All you can do is shake the Magic 8 ball and give them a spectacularly oversimplified answer that won’t do any harm, but unless it’s the answer they already have in mind they will just ignore you. The real answer for "where do I start" is not something they want or will do so I never bother giving it anymore.<p>It may feel like you had a great epiphany, but it’s highly unlikely that you discovered some groundbreaking new method for body recomposition. Outside of the realm of very, very elite athletes none of this data is proprietary or secret. All of the information that most people need to achieve a reasonable fitness goal is freely available- they just have other priorities and there is nothing wrong with that. These people are not unfit because they have not heard your secrets to losing 60lbs in a year, they are unfit because that goal is not a priority in the same way it was for you. Trumpeting, or in my experience even relaying your own methods does not achieve much unless you are a professional in the business of charging for that information.<p>That being said, if it it personally satisfying it’s certainly something you should do.
Random idea... what about a browser plugin that presents a random tip on opening a new tab or starting up? I can't imagine you'll rise above the noise with books, videos, or blogs.
I don't really know how to "answer" here. Do what you want in the manner you want to do it. At some point, you have to question the "Why am I interested in doing this?" question. Is it ego? Is it to be helpful? Is it to show off? Do you ultimately want to become the next Jared [1]? What's the end goal here?<p>I'm not judging - I'm pointing out a valid discussion you need to have internally. This post makes it seem more ego-driven - and there's nothing wrong with that. But having that internal discussion will help you solve a lot of this.<p>[1] <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Fogle" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jared_Fogle</a>
You could start a MLM life-coaching business. I met a lady in an entrepreneurship class I was taking was was working in one of those. She had a similar weight story to you.<p>I don't necessarily advocate this by the way. The point I want to make is that the best way to scale 1-1 conversations is to have other people participate in the conversation as well. For some things, weight loss being of them I think, 1-1 conversations with a person telling their story is more powerful than other methods of communication. Even books(which are my favorite, you can always write a book).
Two of the most important things when it comes to weight loss are motivation and dedication. You have to want to lose weight to an almost emotional degree, and the dedication to keep at what you need to do to continue to lose weight even if your body starts to create excuses.<p>It's hard to get people inspired to do so though. It's often something that person has to become driven to do.<p>Alternatively, one can join the Marine Corps and let the drill instructors in boot camp motivate you to exercise.
I lost 40. Put on a fitbit, set the weight goal and did what it says to do - EVERY DAY. Took about 2-3 months. I didn't find it hard.<p>I know many people struggle. What fascinates me about the experience - I'm no different than anyone else, but this was not painful or even difficult. I just kinda blindly did what it says to do. People fail. Isn't the trick not what to do, everyone knows how a body loses weight. How do you trigger in people's minds the motivation and discipline? Now, I'm generally pretty lazy. I don't like chores. I just walked my 10k steps logged my food and it didn't seem like work.
in singapore, we have a conscript army. after our stint in the army, theres 10 years of reservist activities and a requirement to pass a fitness test yearly. failing that fitness test generally means 2mths of 2-3 2+ hours' remedial training sessions/week. a couple of years ago an option became available to overweight people to lose weight and hit some sort of bmi target in lieu of passing the fitness test. that is the motivation. i lost ~20 kgs(waaaay overdid it) in a couple of months by replacing all the rice in my diet to brocolli or tofu and smoking more instead of snacking. the problem i have this year is i dont qualify for that weight loss program anymore..