I'm routinely surprised at the popularity of articles in this category. It's no secret that eating less and exercising more leads to a healthier person. Is it just the variety of systems and self-discipline utilized that is found so intriguing?
Articles in this category are popular for the same reason articles in the "don't make these extremely elementary mistakes" category are popular in business magazines. Everyone knows that you need to eat less to lose weight, and everyone knows you need to have strong internal communications to run an effective business. But people have consistently have trouble doing either thing, because they are hard and require a lot of discipline. So people want to read about coping strategies to overcome their natural impulses.
He already said he tried eating less and it didn't stick. So the point isn't that eating less is a good idea (he already knew that), but which method works for him.
I think people would rather read or watch about other people losing weight than actually doing something about it. Seriously, it's hard to lose weight, stop smoking, etc. If anything, at least it gives people momentary hope and a few take changing their diets seriously instead of looking for a miracle pill or momentary diet.
Some of these comments reminded me of a story Clotaire Rapaille told in his book 'The Culture Code.' He gave a talk at an obesity conference. Each speaker gave their own solution to the obesity problem. Rapaille's observed:
“I think it is fascinating that the other speakers today have suggested that education is the answer to our country’s obesity problem,” I said. I slowly gestured around the room. “If education is the answer, then why hasn’t it helped more of you?”
It is well understood that exercise does not generally lead to weight loss and can even be counter-productive. This has well documented by Gary Taubes.
Caloric restriction does work, but it is quite difficult to track and maintain. This weekly fasting approach is a new concept, at least to me, and worthy of serious consideration.
> It is well understood that exercise does not generally lead to weight loss and can even be counter-productive.
Right, exercise is important in weight loss not because it promotes weight loss directly, but because it enables maintaining muscle loss during weight loss, which is critical to healthy weight loss--which is mostly fat loss--and because it promotes cardio-vascular fitness (which is often an important part of the real goal served by weight loss.)
Weight is a problem lots of people have, and lots of people are looking for "one simple trick" to make it go away, and there are entire major industries that survive of selling a rotating array of quick fixes.
Obviously, free articles offering the same thing are going to be popular. Throw an analytical veneer over it with some charts and references to productivity, to meet the cultural biases of HN, and its popular on HN.
Have you read the research about "eat less move more"? Because while it's obviously true it's also clearly not helping reduce the incidence of obesity.
Working out a method to help fat people lose weight would be worth a lot of cash.
