Ask HN: Have you hacked your nutrition?

tl;dr DON'T EAT SUGAR<p>The biggest difference I've noticed in my general level of health was when I cut out all refined sugars from my diet. It was a difficult thing to do, but was well worth it.<p>When I say all forms of refined sugar, I mean all forms. Sugar, corn syrup, brown rice syrup, etc, etc. There are a lot of names for sugar, and lately a lot of "health food" items have been sneaking in sugar by calling it something else.<p>Read all labels carefully. Avoid anything that is not sweetened exclusively by fruit. Once you do this, you'll find that 80% of food at the grocery store (yes, even health food stores) is out of the question. You'll be forced to eat things like fresh fruits and vegetables, and only the best breads.<p>It's easiest to make this switch in the summer when there is a lot of access to fruit. I first tried in the winter and only lasted a week. I tried again that summer and have been 100% sugar-free for 3+ years. The <i>only</i> thing I changed about my diet was the simple rule of no refined sugar, and my weight dropped 30 pounds over the course of the next year, and I stopped getting drowsy during the day.<p>If there is any single change in diet I recommend, it's cutting out all refined sugars. It's not easy but it's worth it.

Paleo baby, Paleo. I've never in my life been into specific diets, and have been very skeptical about crazy sounding ones like Atkins, but I'm sold on Paleo.<p>The underlying reasoning makes sense to me - homo sapiens have existed for the 200,000 years (and our various ancestors for millions of years before that), and for the first 190,000 years we lived on and evolved with hunter-gather diets.<p>It wasn't until 10,000 years ago that agriculture was invented and our nutritional intake, lifestyle, culture, economics, and everything else changed with it. But physiologically we haven't fully overcome millions of years of adaptation to the hunter-gatherer diet.<p>Paleo is about constraining your diet to something as close to the hunter-gatherer diet as possible - no processed sugars or grains, but rather meat/fish/poultry, nuts, berries, roots, vegetables that don't require agriculture to obtain, some fruits, etc.<p>A few benefits off the top of my head - I'm less hungry, more satisfied, and have more sustained energy throughout the day, with less food. I feel 'cleaner' and healthier, and have almost no gas (the biggest revelation). And I've never had a terribly unhealthy junkfood diet, but Paleo is still a noticeable improvement.<p>You can also cheat and go 70%-80% Paleo, instead of strictly 100%, and still derive some benefits (enough to sell you on it), although 100% Paleo is exponentially better.<p>There's also no crazy initiation period like there is with Atkins and South Beach, you just go read a book about what constitutes Paleo food, and start integrating it into your diet and replacing non-paleo foods at your own pace.<p>I highly recommend checking it out:<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet</a><p><a href="http://www.marksdailyapple.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.marksdailyapple.com/</a><p><a href="http://www.arthurdevany.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.arthurdevany.com/</a><p><a href="http://reddit.com/r/paleo" rel="nofollow">http://reddit.com/r/paleo</a>

DRINK MORE WATER. Seriously, drinking more water yields <i>great</i> results. Many of us don't break a sweat during the day, so it's easy to feel like we're properly hydrated, but if you have a salty diet, smoke, drink a lot of coffee/soda and don't drink water to compliment it, you are almost certainly dehydrated and don't realize it (even if you're not thirsty).<p>Gather empirical data if you are skeptical. Try drinking 6-8 glasses of water per day, even if you're not thirsty. You'll feel more awake, you will be less prone to headaches, your eyes won't feel painful and dried out by the end of the day and you'll start to notice many other subtle benefits that add up to a big net positive in terms of how you feel daily.

There are a few ways I've "hacked" my diet. None of these are really groundbreaking or new, but they really do make a huge difference in my energy and motivation throughout the day.<p>1. Eat several small mini-meals all day instead of 3 big ones. Aim for 6-8 per day. This keeps your metabolism and energy level much more even throughout the day. If you eat your last one before 8pm you may notice losing a few pounds in your sleep as well.<p>2. Yerba Mate. Magical stuff. Much more sustained and focused energy for a longer period of time than coffee. Once it wears off you don't crash like coffee either.<p>3. Replace..............With<p>-- Red meat.............Fish (and white meat if fish is too expensive)<p>-- White bread........Whole grain bread. A popular switch...make it.<p>-- Soda....................Tea? Or at least 100% fruit juice.<p>-- Peanut butter.......Natural peanut butter. Skippy natural is as good as normal.<p>-- Sugar...................Nothing. You don't need it.<p>4. Start reading labels. Remember: Not all calories are created equal. Look for how many of the total carbs of an item are from sugar. Look how many total calories are from fat.<p>Look for these 4-letter words... -- Hydrogenated oil -- Artificial _____ -- &#62;4 syllables and you can't pronounce it (Yeah, someone's going to disagree. I'm just saying it's a rule of thumb)<p>Those are just a few I use daily. I hope some other people add to this list.

It will depend on your goals.<p>Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to gain weight? Are you just trying to maintain?<p>I personally have not hacked my nutrition. I have used common sense.<p>If your goal is to lose weight, you will need to burn more energy than you consume.<p>Do you want to gain weight? Perhaps by lifting weights even, you will need to consume more energy than your body burns.<p>In terms of nutrient partitioning, just don't be an idiot about it. Experiment, find out what works best for you and you can stick with. Use common sense.<p>Yes, there are better foods than others in terms of nutrients, satiety, etc. However, No food needs to be eliminated or restricted. It will only set you up for failure and the ability to be consistent. There are no bad foods and there are no magic foods or ingredients that will cause weight gain or loss (for example, sugar causing weight gain).<p>If you want to lose weight and you have estimated you burn x calories, then eat less than x on a daily average or weekly basis. Do you want some ice cream some night before bed? Sure, go ahead, just fit it in your caloric goals, using common sense. Just don't eat excessive amounts going over your x allotment and you will still lose weight. You can even make calories a weekly goal and cycle them, workout days be higher than say a rest day. Just use your weekly average.<p>If you want to gain weight you will have to eat more than you consume. Using the same types of guidelines and common sense.<p>No one is the same. There are no magic ingredients, foods, etc that will cause gain or loss. You will need to experiment to find out what works best for you though (mood, satiety, appetite, attitude, etc).<p>Define your goal, keep general track of your progress (you don't need to be anal about it), and be consistent about it.

In the past year I've dropped 40lbs of fat and have put on a good amount of muscle. For my goals, which are fat loss and lift as much weight as possible, Id say I've hacked my nutrition pretty well. Instead of limiting how much I eat, I limit the ingredients I eat. For 6 day out of the week I'll only eat red meat, chicken, fish, sweet potatoes, broccoli, natural peanut butter and ezekiel bread. I keep it high protein, typically around 50-60% protein, then fats and carbs make up the rest. I don't count calories, if I get hungry I eat and just make sure I'm eating more protein than fats or carbs. 1 day out of the week I have a massive cheat day, eat anything and everything. If you do this right, you'll feel sick by the end of the day. The cheat day is great because it gives you something to reward yourself with every week, this greatly helps me eat clean during the week, knowing that I can reward myself in a few days if I stick with it.

I have a long history of health issues. Changing my diet was a big part of overcoming them. One of the things I did: I researched vitamin deficiencies based on the symptoms I had and then researched what the best chemical form was and what other supplements needed to be taken with it and so on.<p>For example, I had started going grey in my early thirties and found that PABA deficiency and adrenal stress are two things known to promote grey hair. I treated the grey hair as a symptom of an underlying problem. I have less grey hair than I had ten years ago. I also suffered RLS (restless leg syndrome) for years and read some article at some point indicating that it could be due to iron and b-complex deficiency. For many years, any time I got RLS, I would take b-complex and then if that didn't resolve it I would follow up thirty minutes later with iron. Treating my RLS symptomatically began resolving more serious problems by addressing the underlying root causes and at the age 40 I suddenly began having regular menstrual periods for the first time in my life because I stopped being severely anemic. I had never been told there was a real problem with me having irregular periods. It was "normal" for my family, no big. Well, turns out "normal for my family" isn't actually proof of no problem.<p>I also tried taking things out of my diet that, by observation, appeared to be causing me issues and then researched after the fact why that might be so as to better understand it. One thing I eliminated early on was peanut oil. Turns out it is very pro-inflammatory and my main medical issue has a very significant inflammatory component.<p>I no longer take boatloads of supplements. I have figured out what foods support good health for me and what foods are a serious problem given my medical condition. I make sure I routinely get adequate quantities of those foods that meet my needs well and fairly stringently avoid those foods that cause problems and keep a keen eye on limiting foods that are tolerable but not ideal (as too much of such foods do start causing issues after a while). I got off a long list of drugs and I now also do a lot of walking for exercise. I have the best quality of life in terms of my health that I've ever had.

I eat OK (I tend to cook chillis and currys using sauces, a couple vegetables/pulsars and meat), however I exercise at least 3 times a week (games of football [soccer], run, squash, climbing etc). I also drink a few pints of water or cordial a day. Recently I've been cutting down on my sugars in the hope of slightly more sustained energy levels and it does seem to have had a small effect. Although I'm still only 20 and have a fast metabolism the only thing that really scares me is saturated fat, because I can't really exercise it away. Otherwise as long as you're reasonable (not eating fast-food all the time) I don't see it being a huge problem.

I fast for 24 hours (i.e. no food, only water and a couple cups of black coffee) twice a week. Contrary to popular belief this does not activate "starvation mode", it burns fat and keeps the weekly calorie intake low.

Before 2011, I'd never been athletic and I don't naturally have a runner's build, but this year I started entering road races - first a 10K, then a half-marathon, and now a marathon. By <i>committing</i> to running the race, I am incentivized to train hard.<p>That's a roundabout way of saying that I do a lot of exercise. I can't recommend this highly enough for so many reasons, but to answer your question, one particular benefit is that I've found this regulates my appetite to the point where I eat only the calories that I <i>need</i>.

Dinner canceling:<p><a href="http://www.drhuber.at/downloads/cancer_chemoprevention.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.drhuber.at/downloads/cancer_chemoprevention.pdf</a>

In my experience, Nutrition is an area where the mental shortcuts that humans tend to use are counterproductive (e.g. looking to "experts", trusting in "conventional wisdom").<p>Do your own research, and give it some thought.<p>(You might start by looking into "Paleo." You will see quacks there (as elsewhere) but generally speaking, its proponents seem better grounded in scientific understanding.)

I have pretty bad GERD. The result is that any high-sugar, high-fat, or even overly starchy foods cause me to get severe heartburn. This provides a huge disincentive to eating unhealthy foods which has worked out well for me so far. I do not know if intentionally developing GERD for this effect is a good idea though, or if it is even possible.

I make sure to block off an hour or two every day for physical exercise. Eating right is only half the battle.<p>I eat almost completely vegetarian (Indian) which is all home cooked so I can control the type of oil, the amount, and all other variables to make sure it stays healthy. Plenty of restaurants take healthy dishes and make them unhealthy...

I built a minimum viable web app that tracks my daily nutritional intake. Using it Ive lost about 40lbs in a few months. Im also adding a part that tracks what I do in the gym. I have some real good ideas but im scared the market might already be flooded with similar tools. Should I pursue it further?

Personally, I usually avoid listening to anecdotal evidence on something that has a huge body of scientific research behind it.<p><a href="http://www.choosemyplate.gov/" rel="nofollow">http://www.choosemyplate.gov/</a>

First, of all, no, I have not "hacked" my nutrition. I have improved it, though, and I'll tell you how.<p>I drink about 14-21 Oz. of water before eating anything (when I had a metric water bottle, I would try for a little more than a liter - I don't know if those volumes are even comparable).<p>Every Sunday, I make 1-1.5 pounds of dried beans or lentils for the week, according to recipes I found online [1][2]. For breakfast, lunch A, and lunch B, I eat about 3 large spoonfuls of this, plus an egg, plus a lightly toasted corn tortilla (the tortilla keeps me sane, if you can skip it more power to you).<p>For my evening meal, I eat pretty much whatever I feel like making for myself. Practically, this means that I cycle through chile colorado, chile verde, pad thai, pad kee mao, green curry, and the occasional random thing I feel like making myself (what can I say, I'm a creature of habit). This probably isn't optimal, since I use all sorts of sugars and rice noodles and red meat and stuff, but I don't eat much (in large part because of the 20 Oz. of water I just chugged) and it doesn't seem to have any major adverse effects. There's often some sort of salad type deal in there too.<p>I only eat out socially. If I'll be eating alone, I pack myself the kind of lunch I described earlier. I also don't eat frozen meals of any kind. I don't eat cheese, and I only eat bread for my evening meal (if you can cut the bread entirely, more power to you. I just love bread and figure I can eat a slice or two at dinner and it'll be OK). I eat a cookie or two after lunch, but never anything sweet unless it's directly after a meal (itself directly after 20 Oz. of water).<p>I also intermittently take fish oil, glucosamine, and some random brand of one-a-days that I bought.<p>Unfortunately, my attitude towards this is that of an optimization solver and not a scientist, so I really can't disentangle the effects of e.g. not eating bread and e.g. exercise, but I'm pretty sure that if you just don't pay anyone else to prepare your food you're already taking a giant step in the right direction.<p>One big practical effect is that I've put a giant damper on my appetite. The amount of food I can eat in one sitting is probably half the amount of food I typically ate in one sitting two years ago, much less the amount of food I could, if pressed, eat in one sitting two years ago.<p>I only stuck to this seriously for about 5-6 months out of the year (the first 2-3 and the last 2-3), and I'm 40 pounds lighter than I was at my December 28 physical and I feel like a million bucks compared to how I felt then. I'd have probably knocked off 50-55 if I'd kept it up through the summer months. Well, that's what 2012's for!<p>[1] <a href="http://laylita.com/recipes/2010/01/24/menestra-de-porotos-or-bean-stew/" rel="nofollow">http://laylita.com/recipes/2010/01/24/menestra-de-porotos-or...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://laylita.com/recipes/2008/01/11/arroz-con-menestra-lentil-stew-with-rice/" rel="nofollow">http://laylita.com/recipes/2008/01/11/arroz-con-menestra-len...</a>

It sounds like you might want to read Tim Ferriss's book, The 4-Hour Body. I'm not aware of anyone else who has 'hacked' their diet as much as him.<p>My tip is to eat double-fiber bread. Also, it's generally expected that vitamin D recommendations will be increased significantly. I think they're around 400iu now, and likely to be set somewhere in the 1,000 - 5,000 range.