After 'The Biggest Loser,' Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html <comment><USER2> Well, I'd say that the endocrine reason sounds like a valid one. I can at least be counted in that group.

Last December, I was diagnosed with T2 diabetes. After talking with a researcher about this (have worked with diabetes research school locally due to job), I came across a few things:

1\. Damage is done to the pancreas at 140mg/dL 2\. Too long at 140mg/dL or above can cause permanent damage to the pancreas. 3\. Early estimates indicate that 110mg/dL is a lower limit of beginning damage to the pancreas

Ok. There's a lot of moving parts in food. Nutritionists will tell you all sorts of bunkum, other than mineral assays and tests have discovered. But there's a simple way here: keep blood sugar under 140mg/dL, no matter what.

Is that possible? To keep your blood sugar under 140mg/dL? Yes. The answer is "Don't eat foods that raise your blood sugar above 140mg/dL". That's interestingly easy. What it amounts to, is cutting out sugars and carbohydrates out of your diet, and extensively testing when you come across foods you're unsure of.

My research shows that all the standard sugars are bad for me (Sucrose, glucose, fructose, lactose). I spike, and then fall. It also depends on what I'm eating with them. In those cases the rise and fall are longer.

Some complex carbohydrates I can handle. Potatoes are a nope, as are bread products. But spaghetti squash works with me well. I can handle it nicely, with a very low rise and fall.

I also end up eating a lot of fats, protein, and veggies. But I don't crave sugar at all. I've always liked meats, and this gives me the ability to continue that.

<comment><USER3> ^ This times 1000000. There is so much chicanery and malfeasance in the nutrition and fitness industry.

I was diagnosed with T2 diabetes a few years ago. I went to dietitian who prescribed a diet with 60% carbs (I believe its roughly the same as the ADA dietary guidelines). The standard treatment is medication, followed by more medication, then insulin shots.

Frustrated, I read everything I could get my hands on, and found two books that I'd highly recommend: 1) Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution, and 2) Think Like a Pancreas by Gary Scheiner. Dr. Bernstein is notable because he was diagnosed with T1 when it was a fatal condition. He survived, became an electrical engineer and ultimately went on to become an MD. He lobbied the AMA to allow patients to have blood glucose meters, when the AMA wanted them to be restricted to doctors offices.

I stopped listening to medical practitioners and starting experimenting with the foods I ate, using pairs testing with a glucose monitor. There is no question that a low carb diet is the way to go.

<comment><USER4> > I stopped listening to medical practitioners and starting experimenting with > the foods I ate, using pairs testing with a glucose monitor.

I sometimes wonder if the state of medical ethics is killing us. We've made it so expensive to do a medical study that nobody is going to do it unless the end result is something they can sell, so the only "solutions" we get are drugs because there is no money to be made in prescribing diabetics a diet of fish and vegetables.

It's a sad state if an individual can learn more by experimenting on themselves than their doctor knows because the doctor isn't allowed to participate in or publish the result of the same experiment without a multi- million dollar budget.

<comment><USER5> Aren't there tons of studies on whether some particular food is good for the heart, good for the brain, etc.? It's not that nobody does them, it's just really hard to get a conclusive result that applies to everyone. There are lots of foods that are both good and bad for you, depending on the study.

I think the problem might be more that there aren't very many universal results, and the fish and vegetables diet that works for one person won't work for others.

<comment><USER6> > Aren't there tons of studies on whether some particular food is good for the > heart, good for the brain, etc.?

Not really. There's tons of studies on whether some particular food is connected to some very narrow positive or negative outcome for the heart, brain, etc., on which popular ideas about the food being _generally_ good for the heart, brain, etc. are built. (And, from those, even flimsier popular ideas about the food being _generally healthy_ or not.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The results of this study, while interesting, seem flawed to me because losing 200+lbs in only 8 months' time is ridiculously fast. I would be more interested in a study following people who lost weight very slowly and steadily over time, and curious about their metabolisms and recidivism rates.

I've lost 100lbs over the last three years and have had zero issue (so far, not saying I won't ever) with keeping at this weight. I maintained the same weight, +/\- 3lbs, for most of 2015 without counting calories or following a diet. In December 2015, I decided I was ready to start intentionally losing more weight, so I tracked calories and lost an additional 15lbs over the course of three months. My experience with losing weight and maintaining weight loss are completely different than the results of the study in the OP, and I am curious how much of that difference can be chalked up to how long it took me to lose that weight.

Studies like the one in the OP are fascinating to me because no one seems to go "Hey, your body achieved homeostasis at 450lbs (maintaining that homeostasis for however many years the person was at that weight) and it probably royally screwed with everything dropping half your body weight in 8 month's time." It seems obvious to me that at that point the body is in full blown crisis mode trying to get back to the homeostasis it had developed previously. Eight months is not a long enough time to adapt to a new homeostasis, not to mention whether or not the body is freaking out because it's "starving" and dropping fat stores at such a high rate.

<comment><USER8> Maybe there's something different about the metabolism of people who manage to reach a weight of 450lbs in the first place. Without exercise and watching what you eat, almost everyone will gain weight, but most people never get anywhere close to the 300lbs+ range.

<comment><USER7> Maybe! I was 305 at my heaviest, but I was also a serious powerlifter and was at the gym 10-15 hours a week lifting, plus training for competitions. I often wonder if having that strength base made it easier, in some ways, to drop the weight than if I had been totally sedentary and had to start from zero with regards to exercising.

<comment><USER9> Having a lot of muscle will increase your base metabolic rate. Being a serious powerlifter, I imagine the increase due to muscle was significant (speaking just as someone who reads into this, not as a qualified professional!). Also, being a powerlifter, if you don't maintain the muscles, they would atrophy, taking a lot of weight with them.

<comment><USER7> Interestingly enough, I stopped powerlifting about a year ago and the atrophy hasn't happened as quickly or as much as I thought it would. Now, I say that with the caveat that I have NO idea how big my muscles were when I was at my strongest (which is also when I was 300 pounds), but I still have 25+ pounds of muscle that I didn't have the last time I was the size I am now (scientifically deduced from being able to fit into the same pair of pants that I did when I was 180lbs, when I am now 205lbs). I currently have a knee injury that's keeping me from doing any lower body lifts, and am only doing upper body bodybuilding style stuff twice a week. I'm absolutely not as strong as I used to be, but I'm still muscular... although, again, don't know how much of that is a hold-over from my powerlifting heyday because at the time I was like a muscular manatee... couldn't see the muscles for all the blubber on top.

[edit] 5'11", about 1.80 meters

<comment><USER10> How tall are you?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I managed to lose 40 pounds last year, using intermittent fasting. That impressed people, but what's impressed me is how easy it was to keep it off. I expected to have to do a lot more work than I have, I really seemed to have found a new 'set point', where I can simply let my body self-regulate eating and I won't gain weight. Sometimes it even goes down.

I think a person's state of mind plays a huge role. I used IF because it seemed the easiest way to incorporate a sustained caloric deficit into my lifestyle. The knob of "how many times a day I'm eating" was far easier to tweak than "what I'm eating" or "how much I eat when I'm eating." I'm just really fucking lazy and found that over time, skipping meals works with my laziness.

With IF, I can eat what I want, as much as I want, just only once a day. I used to be really strict about once a day, now I'll have a snack here and there, sometimes I'll even have what amounts to a light meal outside of my main one. Getting adjusted was a pain, but I'd alleviate it by eating small amounts outside of the 'window' and trust that I'd cheat less over time. Which I more or less did.

Ultimately I feel it's not really worth it to try to fight your body too hard. If your system perceives a shock, it will defend itself. But humans seem hard- wired for big, dramatic gestures, and so they'll do grievous damage to their metabolic systems like crash dieting simply because they can't trust themselves to maintain a safer, more sustainable course of action like simply "eating less and exercising more." I think a lot of people think of the idea of "sustained lifestyle change" and balk. Like they can never eat ice cream again or something.

<comment><USER12> I think the message here is to listen to your body. Too often one finds themselves eating just because they were invited to lunch, or even because they are bored. If you listen to your body and just eat when you are hungry, magical things will happen.

<comment><USER13> Although this may work for some people, it definitely won't work for me, and many others. I constantly get "cravings" which, AFAICT, are indistinguishable from hunger. I have to consciously add up my calories to know if I've been eating too much. If I was to "listen to my body", I would overeat constantly.

<comment><USER14> Agreed. I never eat when I'm not hungry. I can't imagine doing that. I'd suspect a real eating disorder if I were forcing myself to eat.

<comment><USER15> I think the idea is to not eat because it feels good or because you've got to finish your meal, but only because you're hungry.

Says I, who just completed my meal even though it was slightly painful....

<comment><USER14> I guess that's the only exception I can think of - I may continue eating at a restaurant when I'm full because I don't like to waste, and I also don't like to take things home.

That alone doesn't explain the 40 pounds I need to lose, though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> Extreme diligence seems to be the only way to fight this. If I stop exercising, the pounds pack on within weeks. If I insure I burn at least 3000 calories a day (usually much more), I can maintain my weight indefinitely. But I walk to work and I exercise for 1-2 hours daily. Most people cannot or will not do this.

Add in the extreme carbohydrate and fat-laden diets most readily available to America and it's a perfect storm for our Wall-E future, no?

When I cook at home, I can avoid this by eating a little bit of meat/tofu/tempeh/etc with a pile of greens, but restaurant fare is a little bit of vegetables, a small slab of meat, and a super-size portion of some fancy grain of the week if not just white rice. Sigh...

<comment><USER17> How do you manage the 1 to 2 hours of daily exercise with a programmer lifestyle(assuming you are a programmer)?

<comment><USER16> I get up from my desk and go to the gym mid-day or I do so at the end of the work day depending on my flow. Also, I've cut most meetings out of my life, especially pointless time-eaters like daily scrum.

Also:

1\. No kids

2\. I only watch 4-6 hours of TV per week

3\. I walk to work, there's an extra hour right there at the expense of a higher rent (totally worth it). Previously, I worked from home

4\. Most of my social life revolves around exercise rather than tech

5\. Don't work for self-destructive managers

TLDR: Find your way to a results-oriented rather than a process-oriented position.

<comment><USER18> I so want to try this. Any tips and pointers? I'd quit the industry due to health issues (Obesity, NAFLD, Plantar fasciitis, etc) and would love to return if I can stay healthy in such a manner

<comment><USER16> While everyone's situation is unique, what's stopping you?

<comment><USER18> Depression I guess, I see most activities as fruitless given countless attempts to lose weight or strengthen my muscles. I recently met with an accident that destroyed my only healthy knee (ACL + Meniscus tears). Had an ACL reconstruction a month ago and for some reason I'm actually hopeful.

I've charted out a diet and a fitness routine and have surprisingly kept up with the rehabilitation process fairly well. I guess this is one of my last opportunities to lead a healthy life.

Also, not having a social group to aid in activities could've been an issue I guess. I'd like to learn the social aspects of sticking to a routine (Gym buddies, mates who take part in a physical activity, learning some new tech with a similar group of friends, etc).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> > _A study of Season 8's contestants has yielded surprising new discoveries > about the physiology of obesity_

No it didn't. Just another example of junk science.

> _Now burns 800 fewer calories a day than would be expected for a man his > size._

"Expected for a man of his size" is a fiction. What they are insinuating here is that the rapid weight loss did long term damage to his metabolism. But to confirm that, you have to have data on what is burn rate was when he was previously at his current 295 weight. (Which he must have reached at some point in his life long before the participation of _Biggest Loser_ , on his way to becoming 400-something). Comparing to what can be "expected" based on plugging 295 into some model is not adequate.

Maybe he previously also burned hundreds of calories less than what can be expected of someone of his weight. Maybe it's been like that most of his life!

<comment><USER20> And that may well be why he was heavy to begin with.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> There are at least three equilibriums that are apparently of relevance, based on what I have read. These are:

1\. the hunger cycle - the hormones emitted during hunger

2\. the metabolic cycle - the neuropeptide y's and other such unmemorable names, near the decision making part of the brain

3\. the hydrocarbon cycle – the hormones emitted as a result of fat cells that are not flush with hydrocarbons

Diets address number 1. Number 2 and 3 are the more relevant for long-term success, but not enough is understood about them.

Here's a TED talk with some illumination:

[https://www.ted.com/talks/sandra_aamodt_why_dieting_doesn_t_...](https://www.ted.com/talks/sandra_aamodt_why_dieting_doesn_t_usually_work?language=en)

Research about weight control and loss is further conflated by profit-oriented companies that derive their primary income from "diet cycles".

That said, the failure of dieting is not new information: [http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/Dieting-Does-Not-Work- UCLA...](http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/Dieting-Does-Not-Work-UCLA- Researchers-7832)

The only known sure way to achieve substantial long-term weight loss is hyper- diligence in portion control and metabolic stimulation. Few can do it.

One of the unknowns is whether fasting survives long-term trends, such as the "5-2 fast" [https://thefastdiet.co.uk/](https://thefastdiet.co.uk/)

All to say, the long-term results of the biggest loser accord with the latest research in weight control and loss.

</comment><comment><USER22> Now, here's my opinion, and I know it might be wrong. Anyone, please feel free to correct me, but:

Everything I've read suggests that 1lb muscle requires about 50 calories a day to maintain.

The workout programs these contestants are using are focused _solely_ on cardio, or very heavily focused on cardio.

If _as part of_ the 239lb weight loss, Mr Cahill lost 8lbs-10lbs of muscle (and never regained it), there's your _entire_ 400-500 calorie difference right there.

Like I said, I could totally be wrong, but over the last year I lost 93lbs (as of today), but my measured BMR is actually _higher_ than it should be (and higher than it was when I started). I attribute that difference to my focus on lifting weights more than cardio.

<comment><USER23> Muscle burning 50 calories a day is a myth. Gaining 20 pounds of muscle adds 80-100 calories to your RMR for a typical person: [http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/16/health/la-he- fitness...](http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/16/health/la-he-fitness- muscle-myth-20110516).

<comment><USER24> Yep. It's muscle recovery that is very calorically expensive. Those who have lifted or lift can probably attest to that crazy post workout appetite.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > The difficulty in keeping weight off reflects biology, not a pathological > lack of willpower affecting two-thirds of the U.S.A.

Fifty years ago, two-thirds of the USA were not obese. Biology has not changed in that time. What has?

<comment><USER26> Fat cells never go away once you've got them. Fat cells also really don't want to be empty. When you loose weight the fat is broken up in to H2O and CO2 (you literally breath and pee fat away) but the fat cell generally holds onto the water for a while and then, along with a load of other fat cells, will expel that water in one go(which is why you tend to keep a stable weight for a few days and then find you've lost 1 or 2 lbs "overnight"). It's called the Woosh effect I think?

Problem is that the body doesn't want to get rid of that fat cell because "hey, it might be handy one day to store extra energy when we can't eat for a few days because the baboons ate everything" and so it's fairly easy to top that cell back up with fat in the future.

With regards to the slow metabolism refereced in the article (I skimmed it) this is tied to leptin levels which needs to be topped up with "refeed days" every now and then just to kick start you metabolism again. A refeed day is basically a day where you eat a lot of carbs and keep your protein and fat as they usually are on the normal diet days.

Very broadly speaking (and short cutting lots of science and variations), it is easier for a previously fat person to get fat again than it is for a skinny person to get fat in the first place.

<comment><USER27> Why is it that fat cells never go away but your muscles will start catabolizing as soon as you stop drinking protein shakes ?

Are there any studies on this or is it more bro-science ?

<comment><USER28> Because, survival. Muscle is expensive - your body wants only enough to survive. Fat is life - your body wants all the stores it can afford.

<comment><USER26> This, our DNA isn't set up to maximise muscle mass. Big cats however are a good example of animals that are designed to keep muscle mass on - damn things can eat once a week, sleep all the time and look like they work out everyday

<comment><USER27> Right, I understand the idea.

I just haven't seen any studies on the idea that an empty fat cell will never be destroyed.

I have seen quotes like "your whole body is reconstructed over a period of years", i.e. cells have a lifespan, so if your body is reconstructing cells why would it put resources into rebuilding empty fat storage containers. Or, the other option would be fat cells are immortal, which seems to be extreme as well.

Just looking for some actual studies on this ...

<comment><USER26> ah, ok - get what you mean. To be honest I can't point you in the direction of any studies so any explanation from me would be educated guess work.

Ok, a quick google pulls up this article in the NYTimes referencing a study - have read the first paragraph or so and article is on the right lines of what you are after.

[http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/health/research/05fat.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/05/health/research/05fat.html)

<comment><USER27> Thanks for the link, it didn't really satisfy my curiosity though :)

Obviously there are a lot of biochemical triggers for fat storage, muscle growth etc. Leptin has a very large part to play along with insulin, etc.

If something controls the fat storage levels, it makes sense that they will grow back after being removed via liposuction, especially if the person doesn't fundamentally change what / how they are eating. Their insulin resistance, leptin levels, etc will control this regardless of the actual surgery implications.

I'd be interested in a longer term study where an obese person undergoes something like liposuction, then also changes their diet to something more in line with low carb to fix these insulin and leptin issues and see if those cells actually regrow.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> In the other direction, see the documentary "Why Are Thin People Not Fat" where a group of thin volunteers are overfed by about double their normal calories for 4 weeks:

[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7838668.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7838668.stm)

[http://youtu.be/U1hbPXooB1U](http://youtu.be/U1hbPXooB1U)

They all easily return to their starting weight, and at least one volunteer gains muscle but not fat. The body is amazing at maintaining homeostasis. Here's an nytimes article from 2011 that discusses much the same thing as the article submitted:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker- pope-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat- trap.html)

<comment><USER30> There's a lot of research being done right now, that suggests your gut microbiome has a lot to do with it. Very interesting stuff.

[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut- bacteria-h...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria- help-make-us-fat-and-thin/)

<comment><USER29> Yup, also see this recent research that bariatric surgery causes changes to the gut microbiome which account for some of the weight loss:

[http://www.livescience.com/51739-bariatric-surgery-gut- bacte...](http://www.livescience.com/51739-bariatric-surgery-gut- bacteria.html)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> From the article (emphasis mine):

> Mr. Cahill was one of the worst off. As he regained more than 100 pounds, > his metabolism slowed so much that, just to maintain his current weight of > 295 pounds, he now has to eat 800 calories a day _less_ than a typical man > his size. Anything more turns to fat.

Presenting the numbers like this seems intentionally confusing. Casually reading this seems like he's eating 800 calories a day and still gaining weight.

What they're really saying is that he's eat $AVG_295_LB_MAN_CALORIES - 800 per day. That's probably around 4000 calories a day.

<comment><USER25> Using the USDA supertracker here ([https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/](https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/)) with the following data/assumptions:

Weight: 295 lbs Age: 46 Height: 5 feet 10 inches (average height for US male) Work activity: sedentary Leisure activity: sedentary

The _normal_ maintenance calories come out at 3117. Less 800 is 2317.

That is still enough to eat well and feel full, in my experience.

<comment><USER32> >That is still enough to eat well and feel full, in my experience.

That's because your hormone levels aren't crazily out of whack like the individual you reference. If your hormone levels were changed to reflect the person that lost weight, I doubt you'd say that.

<comment><USER25> Perhaps that is true.

I have also experienced that if I eat total shit, my hunger is boundless. Whereas if I eat well, my hunger tops out at around where it needs to be to maintain a healthy weight. It is not obvious why this should be the case.

<comment><USER33> I've had the same experience. My family has a history of heart disease, and for a long while I tried to follow a heart healthy diet. I was always starving, and I had difficulty concentrating. I actually managed to gain weight as well.

A year into this experiment I gave up and started eating foods that I felt help me concentrate the best: red meat, dairy, potatoes, butter, starchy vegetables, deli meats, etc. I suddenly felt much better. I found it much easier to maintain a healthy weight, and I had much more energy throughout the day.

I spoke with my internist and a cardiologist, and they were more than ok with the change. My BMI is exactly where it should be, my cholesterol and blood pressure are incredibly low, and I exercise all the time. I don't want to give the impression that everyone should start eating "unhealthy" foods, but at the very least the foods I'm eating are much healthier than the sugar-laden foods that are prevalent in the average diet.

For what it's worth, my cardiologist, believes "bad" cholesterol is damaging in the absence of "good" cholesterol. His wife, who is a dietitian, disagrees with him entirely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I really need to lose weight, my heaviness has started to lead to other health problems, but I find that whenever I try to eat significantly less, I have difficulty concentrating on heavy mental tasks (i.e. programming, my job).

The constant feeling of hunger distracts me, or my mind just drifts, until I get some food in me again.

I never see any of these articles even acknowledge this as an issue, either as if no one else has this problem, or no one else who is dieting has a job that requires so much brain power.

Since there's other programmers here, I was curious if other people have noticed something similar, and how they addressed it.

My current plan is not so much to limit my eating (beyond some mild calorie restriction) and instead force myself to exercise more often, but I'd like to be a bit more aggressive with my diet if possible.

<comment><USER35> I've definitely seen this. The trick for me was keeping my calorie restrictions reasonable.

At first, I was able to compute what my body needed to live in a day and then would cut from there. A lot of the time, I was hungry, distracted, etc. When I got a fitbit, I connected it to MyFitnessPal. I used the same baseline and used my exercise (walking) to add calories. This would give me a daily goal which is basically base_calories - weight_loss_calories + walking_calories.

I found that by targeting the computed goal, I didn't suffer the same problems. Sometimes that meant that I had to eat a bit more to get up to the target. It also made me think about how to spend the calories that I had.

Part of what made it work for me is that I didn't go crazy trying to lose weight. I targeted one pound per week which is a significant amount of weight over the course of a few months. I didn't always go down by exactly one pound but I was happy with the results.

Of course, that was my experience and yours may be different. One thing that I think is key for anyone is to find foods that you like which are high in nutrition and low in calories. Get some set meals that you know you can order and stay on track. That could be some fruit and a sandwich, a particular bowl at chipotle or whatever. Use memoization - compute the amount of calories in something you're going to eat and keep using that information. It lowers the cognitive load a lot and you know you'll be getting something you like.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> It seems like exposing your body to colder temperatures is a sure-fire way to increase your metabolism: [http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/does- glo...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/does-global- warming-make-me-look-fat/383509/)

May be a little uncomfortable, but way better than screwing up your metabolism via extreme dieting. I'm consistently perplexed as to why the ice-vest-under- the-clothes weight loss method hasn't taken off yet.

<comment><USER37> Interesting. I read in Body By Science (McGuff) that drinking two liters of ice water a day will force your body to burn an additional 125 calories to maintain core temperature.

I know that since I've been following the weight-lifting protocol advocated by McGuff that my ability (and desire!) to sleep without covers, and skip wearing a coat in cooler weather, has increased.

<comment><USER38> cold, heavy breathing, all silliness because you won't be able to maintain the lifestyle

find changes you can live with to shave 400-500 calories per day and each week you'll lose one pound which is a reasonable method that can be maintained

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER39> I can give personal, anecdotal experience as to why this happens and a chart from Withings will illustrate perfectly. I know what I have to do now, and I'm fighting like hell to make it happen.

[http://i.imgur.com/LR1wbH8.png](http://i.imgur.com/LR1wbH8.png)

</comment><comment><USER40> Boxers and other people doing martial arts competitively have always known this. There has been a "walking around weight" concept since I can remember. Maintaining lower or, even more importantly in that context, higher weight takes concentrated effort.

BTW it's a really weird post-Christian belief that there is some you apart from your body and it can do things against your will.

<comment><USER41> >weird post-Christian belief that there is some you apart from your body

The body/mind have a lot of different parts doing different things. In the article the folks conscious minds tried to lose weight and the body's mechanisms tried to regain it. Not sure that's that weird?

<comment><USER42> I totally agree. Lots of parts of the body are in conflict at any given time. For example, visual stimuli "compete" for cognitive processing. There's no unified "you", so it makes sense to say that part of you is trying to lose weight while another part is trying to gain it.

It's certainly not dualism in the Christian sense, but the idea that the mind is made up of many semi-independent agents has been around since at least the 80s, probably earlier.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> _" Soon the scale hit 265. Mr. Cahill started weighing and measuring his food again and stepped up his exercise. He got back down to 235 to 240 pounds. But his weight edged up again, to 275, then 295.

His slow metabolism is part of the problem, and so are his food cravings. He opens a bag of chips, thinking he will have just a few. "I'd eat five bites. Then I'd black out and eat the whole bag of chips and say, 'What did I do?'""_

The article is light on the details post-TBL, but it sounds like recidivism in terms of diet is probably a major root cause of weight gain. Also, maybe it's hard to tell whether they're doing steady-state cardio or high-intensity interval training (steady-state cardio has been shown to paradoxically cause weight gain in people). In any case, it sounds like they need more guidance and check-ins post-show.

<comment><USER27> "He opens a bag of chips, thinking he will have just a few."

Thats the problem right there. Don't have things like that in your house.

Want a snack, try raw carrots or broccoli, by the time you finish binging you would have consumed about 50 calories :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> There was an article on /r/science 1 or 2 weeks ago which stated that the body needs about a year after the weight-loss to accept the new weight as normal. Before that normalization is done it is very easy to regain the initial weight, after the normalization it gets easier.

<comment><USER45> This article says this is six years later.

</comment></comment><comment><USER46> I encourage everyone to read the "physiology" chapter at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adipose_tissue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adipose_tissue)

TLDR: Blood sugar spikes above certain level are toxic, so the body responds with an emergency action of stashing the sugar wherever possible, including muscle, liver, and fat tissue. The former two are rather limited in their capacity, while the latter is unlimited. Ongoing elevated levels of sugars in the bloodstream is an ongoing cleanup job for the fat cells, and they never get aground to release the accumulated energy back into circulation.

At the "hardware" level, that's all there is to obesity - overabundance of quick carbs (sugars, flour, starch).

<comment><USER47> Which is similarly why a diet high in carbohydrates can lead to your body storing more fat. It's easier for your body to turn the carbohydrates into energy than it is to turn the fat into energy. So when it gets both, it stores the fat for leaner times (less energy abundance) and turns the carbs into glucose for energy. It seems like the more we learn about high fat low carb diets, the more it seems that our body was built to use fat as its main energy source.

<comment><USER48> Indeed. A basic understanding of the science is all you need. However, the main narrative is that the body is a simply a black box that obeys solely the laws of thermodynamics.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I'm curious about how the metabolic rate of these former contestants is determined. Are they confined to a lab where their dietary intake and physical activity can be accurately measured for an extended period of time? Probably not. My best guess is that the subjects being studied are asked to keep food and activity journals and then these, plus their weight, is used to calculate their metabolic rate.

I've experimented with keeping a food journal in the past, and it's exceptionally difficult to keep track of _everything_ you eat without this extra work impacting your food choices. e.g. The chore of writing stuff down might prevent me from casually snagging a handful of nuts on my way through the kitchen, and consciousness about how it will look in the journal might make me pass on those chips. Even ignoring these problems, it takes a lot of effort to produce even remotely useful data. e.g. "I ate a pear." is actually pretty vague. Breed, size, and ripeness all have a pretty big impact on the nutrients you'll get from that pear. You need to weigh everything as a bare minimum. Also, you need to keep the journal _all_ of the time, because if you keep it for just a week or two that sample likely won't be very representative of your normal habits.

Likewise, activities are hard to keep track of. With a fairly standard ergometer (such as a Concept2 rower) you can get a reasonable measure of activity level in a workout. Lifting weights, running, walking, etc. are all much, much vaguer. 30 minutes of "moderate jogging" means different things to different people. Most people are likely to overestimate or habitually pad their activities.

So, you have a really vague, spitballed idea of what these people are eating and doing, combined with weight gain. Are their metabolisms really slower than expected, or is there a systematic error common to these people in that, after a period of extreme privation (i.e. the competition) in which some of them lost more than a pound a day, they are now underestimating their food intake and overestimating their activity levels?

How much can basal human metabolism really vary anyways? If humans can get by on substantially fewer calories, why don't we all _typically_ do this? Where does all the extra energy normal people inefficiently burn off go?

<comment><USER50> > How much can basal human metabolism really vary anyways?

The range is within 200-300 kCal for people of the same height and mass: [http://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two- peop...](http://examine.com/faq/does-metabolism-vary-between-two-people/)

Also, you are correct to ask how data was collected: people routinely fudge reports of intake and activity, to the point that self-reported data is considered completely unreliable.

<comment><USER51> You might try reading the linked study, which answers the question of how RMR data were collected (hint: it's accurate). Actually, this entire site would benefit from actually reading the paper.

<comment><USER50> You mean the broken link to the study? I'll posit _you_ didn't even click through the link I provided. Pot, meet kettle.

Just judging from the article (which leaves a lot to be desired), though, it sounds like a small sample size, with no control group, and hasn't been reproduced.

Edit: I'm not saying it's impossible; it's a known issue: [http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/69/6/1117.full](http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/69/6/1117.full)

There are reasons that most doctors recommend lifestyle changes, slower maintainable weight loss (eg 1lb a week) and resistance training to combat muscle wasting. The Biggest Loser is already picking outliers, then putting them through programs that are definitely not sustainable long term. It's very possible that all this study shows is that losing weight TBL style is very bad for you, _not_ that everyone gains the weight back. I still haven't after nine years.

<comment><USER51> The link isn't broken, and I have absolutely read it. [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full). Please note their methodology. And metabolic adaptation is fairly well established at this point, it doesn't just apply to people who lose tons of weight at a rapid rate.

<comment><USER52> Hi, can you address this comment on reddit that I found interesting?

[https://www.reddit.com/r/Health/comments/4hhdsj/the_science_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Health/comments/4hhdsj/the_science_of_fat_after_the_biggest_loser_their/d2re6qs)

On the face of it it isn't obvious to me why using a least-square model trained on just the baseline of these 16 individuals (the way they predict RMR in the paper) is better than the standard equation, and if the standard equation is a much closer fit to measurement, this seems suspect. But I know next to nothing about metabolic measurements.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> It's worth noting that the amounts by which their metabolism was lowered are not as shocking as they seem at first.

The 300 calories a day difference in calories burned is very limiting if your BMR is 1800. But for some of these contestants their BMR, even at the lower weights, might be 2000 calories per day. And if they do moderate exercise, they can burn up to 1000 calories more than this. If you are expending 3000 calories per day then a 300 calorie difference is minimal.

</comment><comment><USER54> Isolating a few of the variables would help clarify some of the questions this study raises:

1) Amount of excess weight / median weight. E.g. Does the effect of the bodies homeostasis change as a person gets more severely overweight?

2) Speed of weight loss. Does loosing 1lb/day/week/month affect the bodies homeostasis differently?

3) Types of foods affect on homeostasis. Do substances like sugar have a worse effect than others? Does a diet high in something like vegetables tend towards a healthier homeostasis?

4) Amount of time for homeostatic change. Does being 100lbs overweight for a year or 5 years make a difference?

>> And with his report from Dr. Hall's group showing just how much his metabolism had slowed, he stopped blaming himself for his weight gain.

Its critical to help people struggling with weight loss to deal not only with the nutritional challenges, but also psychological issues behind weight loss (guilt, depression, helplessness). However, presenting the problem as a binary (purely biological vs purely will) may actually not be the best approach. The individuals still played a part in their initial weight gain. The repeated dietary decisions leading to obesity are obviously complicated by family history, misinformation, failure to realize the full consequences, and other factors both within and outside the control of the person. And neither does the person's complicity, to whatever extent, in gaining weight mean they should receive any less sympathy or help. I say this because of the persistence of the myth that weight gain can be easily undone with just a few weeks/months of discipline, a myth perpetuated by shows like The Big Loser. Weight gain is an insidious danger that can have long lasting implications and be very difficult to extricate oneself from. That point seems quite clear from the research but never addressed in the article.

</comment><comment><USER38> Well of course they did.

That show had them losing a POUND PER DAY - that's insane.

You'll never be able to maintain that kind of metabolism and calorie burn, it would be a full time job and then some.

I spent the last year losing a pound per week and that was challenging enough.

I still can't touch more than 2000 calories per day or I will gain weight and I run every morning.

</comment><comment><USER55> This jibes pretty well with my experience. Used to weigh about 220 at my peak, and I was eating a lot those days. Cut back, drank less, exercised more (running). Lost about 45 pounds.

However, at that point, I was running about 1000 calories a day, sometimes less (a big reason I think The Martian is bullshit). I was not starving. My body wasn't starving. You can (and many people should) subsist on far less than the recommended daily allowance of calories.

If I eat a typical 2000 calorie diet, I will not just gain weight, but I will gain weight at a rate of about a pound or two a month.

I've currently gained back about 10 pounds of what I lost, so I'm going to have to turn on the afterburners again, but we really need to change the dialogue of what a standard of consumption and health is.

It's very simple: if your body has a slow metabolism, you have to eat a lot less than most people.

<comment><USER56> You are either a very small person, or you are not accurately counting your calories. The reason some people can subsist on less than the recommended caloric intake is that the recommendation is an average. If you are below average in size and/or activity level, then you need a below average amount of calories.

<comment><USER55> 5'11" and 185. It's possible I'm miscounting calories (given how much of a crapshoot the task is), but not by so much that it would matter greatly.

<comment><USER56> Yes, it is very possible that it would matter greatly. People routinely count their calories at 1/3 of what they are really consuming. Get a scale, weigh your food. It is the only way to get useful accuracy.

<comment><USER55> I've lost 40 pounds before. I'm not new to how to do it. I know my input is anecdotal but I gave it because apparently it's been backed up by hard evidence.

<comment><USER56> It has not. Hard evidence constantly has shown the opposite. The only "evidence" that supports you is "studies" that use self-reported data. Which is worthless. Every study where people's caloric intake was measured for them shows that your belief is mistaken.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Practicing weight _maintenance_ before going on a diet helps to keep the weight off after a diet. Many people who struggle with their weight "yo-yo" as they go on various short-term diets, losing and regaining weight and never learning how to maintain a specific level.

</comment><comment><USER58> I am curious if this same effect is also seen in those who lost weight via a calorie restricted diet without exercise. It could be plausible that the extreme exercise regimen alone causes the body to become more efficient.

</comment><comment><USER37> Very little was said about the type of exercise they were doing. I'd guess that most of it was "cardio." Would they have different results if they were involved in more specifically muscle building exercises, i.e, weight lifting (and with adequate rest)?

I've been following McGuff's Body By Science protocol for the past 6 months and I believe that with increased muscle my overall health is improving much more than would have resulted from typical long and slow cardio.

Has anybody else tried this?

</comment><comment><USER59> I have followed "The Perfect Ten Diet" and began swimming. Within a year, I went from a size 40 jeans to a size 33. I think I'm now a size 32. I haven't weighed myself yet. I'm a lacto vegetarian (butter, cheese and curd, no milk).

I think that barring health reasons (e.g. Thyroid issues), it should be possible for an individual to eat healthier and shed excess weight. But it also comes down to "How badly do you want it?"

</comment><comment><USER60> I wonder if it would be possible to ramp down like 10% in calories one year at a time instead of binge dieting like this. We are always looking for quick fixes.

<comment><USER61> You could of course. It's just easier to cut 50% for a couple of months than 10% for years because the results come faster, and so does the motivation to keep it up.

Also, counting calories is not really an exact science, so you want to make sure you stay way below your daily goal, just in case the lunch had 300 calories more than you calculated. This is much easier with lower calorie- goals.

For me a good pace was 1 kg a week, which I could do by sticking to 2000 calories. Most weeks it lost only 0.5 kg but there's still some progress. Luckily, maintaining my weight works just fine with a daily intake of ~3000 cal.

Regarding quick-fixes: You still have to keep tracking your intake long after you reached your goal of course, otherwise the old eating habits will come back slowly but surely. I think this is where most "diets" fail: They hold your hand for a few months, when you need them to do so for the rest of your life.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> I think the biggest thing we should take away from this study is that losing weight "The Biggest Loser" style is bad for your long term health, _not_ that everyone who loses weight will gain it all back or that weight loss is impossible. In other words, don't follow a "Biggest Loser" style program to lose weight.

</comment><comment><USER62> And I'm in the second week of the Fast 5/2 diet. Not very encouraging to read this.

Problem though is that I have to diet, my triglycerides are off the chart, my LDL cholesterol too and my fasting blood sugar are at the limit.... Hope I can keep my weight off somehow later.

<comment><USER38> Not sure what "Fast 5/2" is but if you are losing more than a pound a week (maybe two) it's going to be impossible maintain it because it won't feel natural and your calorie craving is going to rush right back.

Those poor people were manipulated into losing a pound PER DAY which is insane. I cannot even fathom that.

Take your time, schedule a year, and see what you can do. Be patient and persistent. Change your lifestyle/habits, try to keep busy instead of eating. Worked for me. Not easy but doable.

<comment><USER62> Thanks for the encouragement! Very much appreciated!

Fast 5/2 is basically intermittent fasting with two days/week below 600 calories (which I find surprisingly easy to do) and the rest eating normally (but I'm also refraining from eating chocolates/biscuits/cakes and anything overly sweet).

So far, I've lost 3 pounds in a week and an half which I think is an healthy rate.

<comment><USER63> Getting out of the chocolate habit is probably the best part (most difficult part?) for making a difference.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> Here's a link to the paper: [http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full](http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full)

</comment><comment><USER65> I wonder why, when we talk about obesity, there is this tendency to use language that removes responsibility from the person, or at least move it from their mind to their "body", as if they were different entities.

I think obese people fit the definition of addicts. Most of the time, other addictions are fought by pushing awareness on the person, forcing them to recognize they have a problem and that they need to change.

I don't hear much "you were born this way" or "that's just what your body wants" for other drugs. Is it because other drugs are always viewed negatively, whereas food is a pillar of life under normal circumstances?

Maybe it has to do with the very high prevalence of obesity, and the echo chamber being big enough that deflection and denial are harder to combat?

<comment><USER45> This attitude is tiresome for precisely the reasons outlined in the article. That one guy in the article has to consume 800 calories a day fewer than a normal person his size to maintain his weight which likely means dealing with constant hunger. It's not exactly surprising that few people manage to succeed under those circumstances.

I also, frankly, think the opposite is true -- most material about obesity spends a lot of time vilifying fat people.

<comment><USER65> I don't think that's how hunger works. Do you think hunger is triggered by an absolute number?

Isn't hunger the sensation you feel when your body starts dipping into your fat reserves because the content of your stomach / blood is not sufficient?

<comment><USER45> No... I said no such thing. However, if you lose weight you will generally feel hungry until you start eating at levels that would restore your weight, as detailed in the linked article and also this one: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/opinion/diet-advice- that-i...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/30/opinion/diet-advice-that-ignores- hunger.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> So, on a show where they have people lose weight in the most unsustainable (read: dramatic) way possible, they are then surprised they don't keep it off? I am shocked. Shocked, I say!

</comment><comment><USER66> Extreme weight loss indicates that your weight has high variance. A history of being overweight shows that its mean is high.

</comment><comment><USER67> Whilst all of the contestants needed to lose weight, I am concerned with the premise of this show. It has many good qualities: exercise and a balanced diet is very important. However, I note the following:

 _" Mr. Cahill knew he could not maintain his finale weight of 191 pounds. He was so mentally and physically exhausted he barely moved for two weeks after his publicity tour ended."_

This cannot be healthy. My concern is that the weight gain has occurred over the person's lifetime, yet they can lose up to 30 pounds in a week. _The New York Post_ , which I realise is not a terribly reliable source, reports that the show has frequent injuries and many contestants have had serious side effects. One contestant started losing her hair. Another showed possible signs of kidney failure. Yet another has president issues with short-term memory loss.

When I first saw this show advertised for the Australian version I thought it looked amazing, even inspirational. Then I saw the weigh-ins and the show's mechanism used to judge contestants. It was for week-to-week weight loss. If you gained even a small amount of weight, there was a real danger of being evicted from the show.

It's already known that yo-yo diets are incredibly dangerous. So I would like to know what the doctors on the show were doing - they must be aware that what they are doing is not medically recommended. They have a moral and ethical duty to ensure their charged live a healthy lifestyle, not an extreme one that the contestant goes through. I also wonder if the contestants are give enough information to consent to the regime the show puts them under. I think it's telling (and frankly, I don't think it should protect a doctor!) that the contestants must sign the following waiver:

 _" No warranty, representation or guarantee has been made as to the qualifications or credentials of the medical professionals who examine me or perform any procedures on me in connection with my participation in the series, or their ability to diagnose medical conditions that may affect my fitness to participate in the series".

Are these really doctors? If they are, then this should in way reduce their liability for poor medical advice, nor the show's.

My final concern is a bit more out of left field. This show is a data driven show. They record their calorific intake, blood pressure, time and means excercised, weight loss, psychological studies are taken... You name it, they do it. And it's done under a very controlled environment.

The show is basically a medical study, albeit not one with a control group or published in a scientific journal, or ine that publishes their full results. Yet a study it is: whilst the methodology and transparency are flawed, their are plenty of studies that exhibit the same characteristics. The difference is that in a normal medical study at a university the study would need to be approved by an ethics committee and follow certain parameters. _The Biggest Loser* does not. Which means that I seriously wonder what level of liability - both personal and corporate - the producers of this show are letting themselves in for. They may have legal disclaimers, but if even one contestant can prove corrosion or a lack of informed consent as to what they were agreeing to, then those waivers would be worthless.

This show, frankly, is a huge concern.

</comment><comment><USER68> This is a truly horrifying piece of information. It basically amounts to that going on a diet will make it harder to stay at the weight you had before your diet.

<comment><USER41> Severe dieting has long been know to do that. Mild dieting combined with exercise seems to work better. We're a bit lacking in quantification on that though. It was interesting to get some numbers from the article.

<comment><USER69> Yeah, this is what I'm curious about. All the weight loss diets described in the article seem quite extreme, some even dangerously so.

Maintaining something like a 200-400 calorie deficit will lose you weight slowly but surely, and maybe hopefully not cause extreme changes in metabolism?

<comment><USER41> Yeah, I'm trying to lose weight like that so I hope so. People say doing some weights to keep up muscle mass helps and it probably does though there doesn't seem much good data on how much does what.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> It's weird I was allowed to submit this if it was already submitted. Maybe a bug?

<comment><USER71> If you submit it and it was already submitted recently, it counts as an upvote (probably the case here).

<comment><USER72> No, since it created a submission for them, which it doesn't if it recognizes the dupe.

<comment><USER71> Ah, ok, I stand corrected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> What raises metabolic rate? High intensity interval exercise? Long slow distance?

I'm wondering if 2-3 hours of exercise training would be necessary to readjust the metabolism. It's my gut as an athlete... Especially the very high intensity interval training.

This comes from sprinters having almost magically low fat in many cases, despite not doing nearly as much aerobic execise as, say, even a recreational marathoner.

</comment><comment><USER74> Does that mean that formerly fat people who lost weight and eat little to keep a low weight with their slower metabolism live longer because their body has less energy throughput?

</comment><comment><USER75> I get it: low-carb, hi-fat works for people and high-carb, low-fat works for people. Let's just get that off the table, but can we, for the love of the sustainable planet, have a hi-fat person give their testimony on how they did it with plant foods instead of just feeding the "mmmmmm more bacon, burgers, chicken and cheese!" mentality?

</comment><comment><USER76> While these people are on the show, they are living in house with other contestants. You can't just order a pizza and sit on the couch with TV cameras and your co-stars watching you.

They're forced to exercise for hours. If you're at home you're not going to wake up at the crack of dawn and do a 5 mile run and then do weights.

They're forced to eat right. Food selection is limited. There's no cheese and donuts and fast-food.

It's no wonder that it's impossible for them to keep this up. They just go back to normal which is 'being lazy'.

<comment><USER77> Did you even read the article or are you just jumping on the /r/fatpeoplehate bandwagon?

The takeaway is that we need to focus on prevention, don't get obese in the first place. Once you're obese, the deck is _really_ stacked against you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> Man this is so frustrating because I have a family member who is like this. I would really like to help them, but they just don't seem to get it.

I think the problem is that these people want instant results. That's not how the body works. If you want to become a runner, you start running often and because you love it. You don't force yourself to start doing intense, one-and- done sessions in an attempt to get to your goal and then go back to your old lifestyle once you achieve it. You have to learn to play the long game and be patient.

I really believe that if these folks worked on a farm for several years, it would do much more to help them with their weight problems than these TV shows do.

<comment><USER79> Did you even read the article? One of the winners is literally a farmer.

<comment><USER78> Yes, sorry my comment was extremely useless. I did read the article but did not see the image showing Rudy Pauls the farmer, my mistake.

My comment was very off topic, so I won't try and clarify it here.</comment></comment></comment>


"This is "how I tricked my co-workers" into using Racket." - <AUTHOR> https://developer.squareup.com/blog/making-openapi-swagger-bearable-with-your-own-dsl/ <comment><USER2> A fluent interface plus reflection allows one to nearly auto-generate swagger documents. For an example, check out Swashbuckler for ASP.Net/ASP.Net Core. It's very easy to configure and extend, and you can easily write in-line documentation for JSON APIs.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> [https://developer.squareup.com/blog/making-openapi- swagger-b...](https://developer.squareup.com/blog/making-openapi-swagger- bearable-with-your-own-dsl/)

</comment><comment><USER3> I'm getting a 404 when I visit that link.

<comment><USER4> Correct link: [https://developer.squareup.com/blog/making-openapi- swagger-b...](https://developer.squareup.com/blog/making-openapi-swagger- bearable-with-your-own-dsl/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> can't delete. Ugh.</comment>


Ask HN: I just don't care anymore. Any advice? - <AUTHOR> I've recently realized that college is killing my desire to do anything programming related. However, as I'm a full-time student without a job, dropping out and not working at Burger King boils down to getting lucky (although I've had a few headhunters call me, so maybe that's a start).
The reason I'm so underwhelmed is that in highschool, I really took off with a passion for computer programming. By my senior year, I was fairly fluent in Python and PHP, and I was spending time reading and working my hardest to finish the exercises in Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. In addition to that, I started working (and have kept on working) at mastering C, Common Lisp and Haskell. It was somewhere between starting to read "Godel, Escher, Bach" and learning the basics of the theory of computation that I also fell in love with mathematics. I was pretty apathetic towards everything related to highschool, but I could take AP classes and get an 'A' with no effort while spending the rest of my time studying things I cared about, so it didn't seem all that bad. When applying to college, I had scores to get into/get noticed by a couple of nice-to-decent range schools (Columbia, RIT, Rose Hulman; my GPA/scores were consistent with the bar for Duke, CMU and others). The problem is, while I had put in minimal effort to get a really high GPA and nice test scores, I wasn't the minority captain of the football YMCA church team thing, so I didn't really stand a chance of getting scholarships at nicer schools. Since I have to pay for everything myself, I decided to enroll at the state university which gave me a nice chunk of cash to attend. Problem solved, right?
Fast forward to college, where my first programming class considers 'for' looping and arrays to be advanced techniques, and where showing that you know more than what is taught is actually considered cheating, and I'm burnt after the first semester. The thing is, there are so many things that I don't know (and so many of them are things that I want to learn), so the idea of just 'dropping out' is absurd, since I'm sure there are people here who can help me learn the material even better than if I was doing it on my own. At the same time, every class is a boring trudge that promises me that it's the last boring class I'll have to take and then it'll all be exciting from here and blah blah blah blah. The litmus test I used recently was "If I didn't have a scholarship, would I pay to take this class?" I realized that I probably would not pay for a single CS class offered here. I made it through last semester fairly unscathed, but this time around I feel an extreme apathy setting in. My grades are just at the beginning point of slipping - they're not quite terrible, but they're not the high 'A's I'm used to. This is purely due to my lack of interest.
What should I do? Should I just drop out? That seems like a bad idea, since at this point I know enough to know I don't know that much at all. Should I switch to something non-CS, and then just study CS on my own while occasionally popping in and picking the brains of the faculty? I'm sure some of you who've been through this exact dilemma are scoffing at me not finding the obvious answer myself through "soul-searching", but I really haven't found anyone who feels the same way I do to discuss this with. I've gone for too long without asking for help or advice. <comment><USER3> First and most critical piece of advice. Don't drop out if you can financially afford to stay in. You will grow to regret it later.

Second, talk to your professors, adviser, and the dean of the department about your situation. Let them know your skill set so that advanced answers do not come across as cheating.

Third, most major universities allow you to test out. I have completed almost 30 hours towards my degree by testing out of classes and using previous work experience to apply for credit. Testing out usually involves either taking the final exam for the class, doing a major project, or a combination of both. I would highly encourage you to talk to your professor.

Fourth, the classes will get harder and more challenging. Talk to your adviser, professors, and the dean of the department. Determine what your options are for classes and take the most challenging classes as electives.

Fifth, look into a minor that may provide a release from the rut you are in. Even if the minor is something like underwater basketweaving it can provide a break and also provide a way to gain experience in an environment outside your comfort zone.

Finally, see if your school offers any independent study programs or credits for internships. It sounds like you have good skills that could be applied to real-life scenarios while at the same time accomplishing your goal of completing your degree.

<comment><USER4> Overall very good advice, but your school may not have professors or advisers who have the time to give helpful guidance to undergraduates.

Consider auditing a more advanced class that's related to your interests, with permission of the professor, and do as much of the work/reading as you can.

In my experience, sitting in on one inspiring or interesting course can make surviving four others bearable or even expose surprising corners in previously dull material.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> If you're underchallenged, dropping out will make you underchallenged and unemployed with no prospects of securing gainful employment in the immediate future. People who are both better credentialed and better skilled then you are _also_ looking for work right now. You do not want to compete against them on the basis of "I was something of a PHP hotshot in high school."

Your classes are not the only avenue you have in life. Phone it in for the CS classes if you have to. (I did that for I think the first two years of my undergraduate degree, because even at a quite good school that was mostly "We'll teach you Java syntax! This is how you do a variable assignment! Study that for the next week and we'll do complicated stuff like doing _two_ variable assignments!") If there is _nothing_ in the department worth studying (which I kind of doubt), transfer to a better school and apply for loans.

You're probably a good candidate for a double major in CS and a field which will teach you something useful. This is a good strategy for future employment prospects and, trust me, you can find something interesting and challenging. I did Japanese and it changed my life.

Your college classes are not your sole outlet for personal growth, by the way. Society has agreed to give you 21 hours a day, five days a week, for the next three or four years, free of any expectation that you have to show up anywhere and put in eight hours of work. Use that time well. Think you know programming? Build stuff. You'll find out how much you have yet to learn.

<comment><AUTHOR> >"I was something of a PHP hotshot in high school."

That's not at all what I mean to imply. I wasn't trying to come across as "I'm cocky because I know a few things" so much as "I'm depressed because I'm learning even less than what little I learned on my own in highschool"

>"We'll teach you Java syntax! This is how you do a variable assignment! Study that for the next week and we'll do complicated stuff like doing two variable assignments!"

Exactly.

>You're probably a good candidate for a double major in CS and a field which will teach you something useful. This is a good strategy for future employment prospects and, trust me, you can find something interesting and challenging. I did Japanese and it changed my life.

I've already started on that route.

>Think you know programming? Build stuff. You'll find out how much you have yet to learn.

I agree completely with you on this. After doing so, I really do realize my limitations, and I know that there is so much more I have to learn. It's just that to learn anything in any useful depth requires mostly self-study (since school is slowly-paced and bent towards getting you a low-rung C++ job when you graduate), which I enjoy more anyway. But when you realize that, you wonder what the courses are there for.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> You do realise that college/university isnt so much about being spoon fed information but learning how to figure it out for yourself.

Keep up your grades (they will be worth more to you then you think later on) and start reading the papers your professors are writing. Ask them about them. Understand them. Doing this will open up all sorts of doors. I landed a job writing code for a Doctoral student by doing this.

Not only will you be learning more you will stand out in your professors minds because you took the initative to learn what they do outside of teaching students "for loops". This is the point of being there. Learning for learnings sake, not just to get a piece of paper at the end.

<comment><AUTHOR> >You do realise that college/university isnt so much about being spoon fed information but learning how to figure it out for yourself.

If I came of as wanting this, then I apologize. In fact, all I really want is challenging, fast-paced course where I can do just that. Instead, I take courses where what you haven't learned in class is 'illegal', and what you actually have learned is very little.

<comment><USER6> Ah I see. Remember that the course is designed that way so that everyone is on an equal footing (which makes marking easier).

In your case I would say stick with the course. University/College isn't about learning things from the subjects (you will find later most is useless) but it proves you are willing to stick it out and finish which does mean something to an employeer. If thats all you want then fine. However it seems you want to learn for learnings sake. In which case as I said, find out what your professors are doing and learn from them. Its the best place to learn.

Perhaps use your time to learn something you know nothing about. CPU design? Compiler design? AI? I spent my spare time learning how to Decode Captcha's because I thought it was interesting and looked like magic until I learnt how. Thats the point of being there.

Best of luck with it! Having been in the same situation I can understand the frustration. I found improving my social life and learning on my own projects helped me a lot in the first year. Then I did as many here have suggested, branched out and took Chinese Language (in China) which challanged me and kept my focus.

You can also take harder courses (if possible). Taking things like Theory of Computation and Algorithms and Data Structures were some of the harder but more satisfying courses I took while a student.

<comment><AUTHOR> >Perhaps use your time to learn something you know nothing about. CPU design? Compiler design? AI? I spent my spare time learning how to Decode Captcha's because I thought it was interesting and looked like magic until I learnt how. Thats the point of being there.

I'm really starting to like Lisp, which leads to AI. I might look at something along those lines.

>Taking things like Theory of Computation and Algorithms and Data Structures were some of the harder but more satisfying courses I took while a student.

Rest assured, I've been waiting with baited breath to take those courses. It's just that getting to them requires about 3 or 4 boring classes.

Thanks for your advice!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> if i were in your shoes, this is what i would do:

1) do the due diligence and research to determine if the CS classes got harder. see if i can test out of or just generally skip some of the classes, if it isn't too late. talk to your advisor.

2) consider taking on a double major while you're wading through the terrible CS classes. math, physics, engineering, philosophy, etc.. something that interests you. if CS ends up getting harder, you can always trim it back to a minor.

3) do more stuff on your own time. college affords you tons of free time, especially if you're coasting through easy classes. build a startup. start a business. contribute to open source projects.

</comment><comment><USER8> Being more than twice your age I can assure you of one thing. You will get these feelings in College, in your job and in your business. Even with your partner wife etc. You need to find a method that works for you to cope.

During College I got terribly bored of lectures and was quite ahead of my class mates - and wouldn't be surprised some of the lecturers. I decided to infrequently attend lectures and studied for _exams_ and _assignments_ only. Piece of cake really to sail through. My social life improved by 1000%. I loved and love learning. I would go into the library and borrow all sort of interesting books from anthropology to physics (even dated one of the librarians). I was fortunate to study in London. Visited all the museums - <USER2> patent library (amazing). I worked part-time in a fish-and-chips shop (was a great experience to learn customer service). It was like physically surfing. I even took diving classes and went diving in a reservoir in Scotland. Really if you want not to be bored is easy. Refocus - you are there to earn a _degree_ that is your target. Learning is a different and _solo_ activity.

It is much more difficult if you get these feelings in your work. Again you can channel energy into other activities, you can put research into areas of your job that others consider routine. Changing a job would merely put you into a similar spot once the novelty wears out. Divide your efforts into

      - must do
      - this is my life things

The _must do_ you do for survival and you handle them as best as you can. In the _this is my life things_ you add the variety.

</comment><comment><USER9> Expanding into non-CS fields I believe is a great idea, as CS is a science, lots of great cross-polination of knowledge could be amazingly helpful one day. Pick something you find interesting and go for it. Even if it is not science related, many fields are in need of good programmers to move them along to the next level, and the more you know, the more valuable you may be.

However, you mention that you aren't getting the high 'A's anymore. If all your classes are so trivial, why not? I assume you've spoken to your professors, or the dean of CS? If not, i'd do so. They may be willing to bring you into some more challenging environments if you show an interest and the capabilities.

I dropped out of Uni, and have absolutely no regrets. But you sound like you would be really into it if it were more challenging, so maybe stick with it.

Is there a local tech company that you find is doing interesting work? If so, before dropping out, you might be able to work a program where they bring you on as a co-op with the University. That way you get the challenge along with true work experience, the business gets a deal, and gets to see how you work, and the university gets... I have no idea what the universities get, but in Canada, co-ops are pretty common, I assume they are in the US too.

<comment><AUTHOR> >However, you mention that you aren't getting the high 'A's anymore. If all your classes are so trivial, why not?

Because I look at the fact that we've done the same type assignment for 5 weeks now in CS class and decide I just don't care. Normally you'd think "Oh, it's easy, just finish it up!", but after the third of fourth time of doing the same thing, I just can't make myself do it. "Write a class that contains 3 variables name x,y,z. For next week, make sure they're named pizza, ham, eggs" and so on.

>"They may be willing to bring you into some more challenging environments if you show an interest and the capabilities."

That would really change my outlook. I'm not normally very outgoing, but I guess I could go ask a few of the professors.

<comment><USER10> Unfortunately, there is a certain amount of tedium to life. Whether that is doing the dishes night in/night out, chasing down invoices, doing your taxes, provisioning servers, some things just need to get done. Unless you can pay someone else to do them, then there is the tedium of managing those people, paying them, etc.

Anyone can excel at the things they like. It is highly unlikely you will make it through life isolated to only the things you enjoy. Ultimately, you'll need to learn to take care of business whether you enjoy it or not.

You're almost certain to need credits outside of your major. Even if you enjoy learning, there will be some classes you are going to need to grind through. "Bank" your easy A's now, save those grade points for a rainy day.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> For me the best thing you can get from university is the people you can talk with. Many smart people with good ideas. Ignore stupid/incompetent profesors, learn from the smart ones, talk with smart people and try to do sth great with them, later you won't have time to try new things.

If there is some students' educational club (I don't know how to say this in English - students teach students about what interests them) - go to it, ask if you can help, start new class about functional programming or what interests you, if there aren't any - you'll learn much more from trying to teach others than you could learn by reading the book.

I've met many great people that way, and made connections so in my 5th year of studies I got programming job , becaus people already working there knew I was good.

PS - if you become used to "B"s then "C" will come, etc. I was "A" student without effort at first year, and have great difficulties later because I got used to having "A" with no effort.

</comment><comment><USER12> Even if you're bored and feeling unchallenged, you should stay in college and perhaps take the initiative to self-study on more advanced topics, or better yet, broaden your skill set with other things that you're interested in.

For example, I can tell you that it's very rare to find somebody who has strong software skills AND a solid background in mechanical engineering/civil engineering. Which explains why finite element software, alot of it feels like its stuck in the Stone Age. That's a field that could use a ton of help from a user-interface standpoint.

That's just one example, I'm sure there are many others. College is one of the best chances for you to learn something without being hampered with alot of responsibilities like a full-time job or other obligations, so make the very best use of it that you can.

</comment><comment><USER13> Have you talked to the faculty about this? If you can show your professor that you know everything he is teaching, I'm sure he will help make it challenging for you. Ie either by giving harder assignments where you'll learn more or he wont take your attendance and let you sit in on some other advanced class which you'll find more challenging.

Do NOT leave school. There's no other place where you'll find smart people who are paid money to teach you the stuff that you want. And those grades will make a huge difference in your income and how your viewed when you go in for a job.

Ask for help with your problem from the sources available to you and you will get it. It might take a few attempts to get to a professor who understands your situation but it will be worth it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Study math or physics. You should be able to get a programming job out of college, if you still want to write code. I knew a really good programmer who studied Latin in college. Getting an entry level programming job with another degree shouldn't be too difficult.

<comment><AUTHOR> This is something I've strongly considered, but I know nothing of how 'difficult' it is to land such a job. There are so many neat things to do, but I can't really tell how many companies only care about skill and knowledge as opposed to having just "BS Computer Science" on a piece of paper.

<comment><USER14> Do really well in physics or math and you'll be fine.

<comment><USER15> That's what I've observed of others. I certainly know I would hire a math or physics major if they demonstrated they knew their programming and CS (in fact, I did hire one who had an U of Virginia Applied Math major that was largely a CS major, 6 months out of college for his 2nd job).

In general the advice here is good. Play the games the CS department insists on _if_ the higher level courses are worth anything and find other areas that are genuinely challenging.

If the "you're cheating" attitude is a reflection of the department instead of a quirk of the instructor (who good wants to teach that sort "Learn Java Syntax!" course?) then think really hard about your options that don't include taking many/any more courses in it.

And as others say, find a professor to do research with. If you can't, find another school, don't look so much for a "good" school as for one where you can do research. You should be able to find someone who needs good code written cheap.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm sure there are a few good courses. It's just wading through the crap that makes it unbearable.

Hilariously awful example: the "teacher" of the class wanted to explain what a pointer was, so he gave us a link to a Wikipedia article on pointers.

<comment><USER15> " _I'm sure there are a few good courses._ "

"Trust, but verify."

WRT pointers, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointers> is _wonderful_ additional reading, but a very poor first introduction to the concept. Maybe better than the pointers and arrays chapter in K&R, which didn't work for me, but only that.

Yep, this guy is worse than useless (the accusations of cheating). The high school coach who taught my high school computer programming course (punched card FORTRAN "IV" on an IBM 1130) was a lot better ... then again he gave us a not in the book blackboard lecture on the two's compliment system, which I found to be _tremendously_ useful going forward (just knowing that there was something behind the opaque veil of integers and floating point numbers was in and of itself useful).

See if you can find a non-loser CS professor (or maybe one who needs some FORTRAN worked on ^_^ ... anything real and concrete ought to beat this) and go from there. Good luck!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> 1) Find some research with a professor. Look at their websites, see what interests you and talk to the professor. Make sure you understand their papers and have intelligent questions for them. Make them feel that you'll be useful.

2) Look into some of the theory. Its probably quite different from what you've done in high school. There is some fascinating CS theory out there. Algorithms, turing machines, graph theory, etc... are beautiful fields.

3) Find a crazy minor. By crazy, I mean non-technical. Film, english, political science, etc... You'll branch out, be more useful to any employer, be challenged and have fun.

4) Talk to your dean (someone else said this, but I think its a great idea). Let them know your background and tell them what you want to do.

Good luck.

</comment><comment><USER17> I was in your shoes years ago. I dropped out of computer engineering and ended up getting a degree in english literature - and I kept improving and learning programming and systems design. Now I am a literature nerd who can also code. That is a tremendous advantage for me since I meet and work with people from all walks of life. The pay is lower outside of the pure CS / programming disciplines but I don't regret it one bit. Hope this helps. Stick with school and maybe think about why you are in that super boring course when you could either go all the way and test out of it / talk your way into upper year courses, or learn something unexpected/unknown.

</comment><comment><USER18> Transfer. Seriously. I'm in a similar situation and that's what I plan on doing.

Go to a better place that you deserve to be at and that will challenge you. Apply for loans if you can't afford it. In ten years, you will be glad that you did.

<comment><AUTHOR> I've been feeling like that a lot lately. I might look into it, but from what I gather transferring into nice schools is even more painful than applying normally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Another area is 3-d animation + coding...if you're already a good artist, you can rule if you have a robust set of programming skills (so I am told).

</comment><comment><USER19> A large part of what a college degree demonstrates is that you're willing to complete 4 years of crap, only some of which was fun / challenging / etc. Not many people want to hire a "whiz kid" who has already demonstrated that he'll quit on you if he feels bored for a year.

Also, someday you might find yourself interested in a masters or doctoral program. That's gunna be a tough sell if you weren't able to complete a Bachelors.

Suck it up, do your work, and find some other way to amuse yourself until the coding classes get more interesting.

</comment><comment><USER20> It depends on what you want to do. The college CS curriculum typically is good for teaching students to become professors. If that is what you want, stick to CS.

If you want to go more toward the software engineer approach you have a few options. You can stick with CS, but try to work on actual projects. For example, you can contribute to an open source project or start a company. The main thing is to work on projects that aren't cookie-cutter tasks, such as the ones that are common in school.

Switching majors so you can learn something new is also a great option. What are your other interests? If you do go with the school route, you will probably learn more about problem solving by learning a new field. You can still use your programming skills with many majors.

Another option is to get a job. Frankly, I think college is overrated. School is good, but there it is not the only route. You could probably get a good position at a startup, and will probably learn more than in school.

I didn't get interested in programming until I was a sophomore in college. I graduated with a BS in Engineering Physics. I'm glad I didn't major in CS, and I was still able to pursue software development. You will have plenty of opportunities in school to try new things. I have to say that I have learned more about problem solving (at a faster rate) while in the workforce, than in school.</comment>


"Chess-Playing Excitement" in 1859 - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/message/why-chess-will-destroy-your-mind-78ad1034521f <comment><USER2> I love chess but stopped playing around the age of 20.

I played a lot in school and was captain of my school team. I played in league and cup matches for 2 years and every day I practised on fellow students in the sixth form prefects room. There was nothing quite as nerve wracking as sitting opposite your opponent in an important match and shaking hands and the first moves. On the other hand there was the excitment of knowing when you had beaten your opponent and just had to finish him off. I remember going to a tight end game with a top table opponent and had just Queened a pawn with another one 2 moves away. The referee gave me the Queen and said "Shall I leave another Queen here?" I replied "no thanks I just need the one" and grinned at my opponent. It's been said chess is more brutal than war.

I had to give it up as I began obsessing about the game. It was driving me slowly mad. I was having nightmares about being chased around a large chess board by the pieces. I haven't played a game since.

<comment><USER3> > "Shall I leave another Queen here?"

I realize it was probably obvious in your case, but I would have been bothered by the ref making a comment or question like that during the game for fear of tipping off my opponent.

<comment><USER4> I'm sure his opponent knew.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> My Starcraft coach tells me that if I want to get better I have to practice about 10 hours a day.

So although, like chess, the game may hold some benefits for the brain [1], the opportunity cost is astronomical.

Improving your brain while destroying your life . . . well, one could do worse.

[1] [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....](http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0070350)

<comment><USER6> Are you already GM level? If not, then your coach is nutso.

<comment><USER7> Agreed. StarCraft is not as hard as people make it out to be. The path to Masters is pretty straightforward and achievable in under 3 hours a day. You just need to be smart about how you practice.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> > Here's the thing, though: We can chuckle at what seems like a nutty, off- > base argument — except the author makes some extremely good points. Take, > for example, the argument that chess is too sedentary a pasttime for people > who were living increasingly industrialized and sedentary lives. This was > true, and still is!

Idea: make a chess clock where the two sides are independently powered by rechargeable batteries that start with low charge.

Each clock side is hooked to a separate treadmill, which charges that side's battery.

If your side of the clock runs out of power during the game while the other side still has power, you lose. It is up to you to decide when and how much to use the treadmill during the game, as long as you can keep your clock powered.

Implementation Note: it would probably be better to not do this by actually having the treadmill control the power supply for each clock side. It would probably be better to just do this abstractly. The clock would keep track of an allowed run time parameter, a treadmill distance to run time conversion factor, and then would flag if "allowed run time" \+ "treadmill distance" x "conversion factor" \- "actual run time" < 0.

<comment><USER9> [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing)

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I was a low-level recreational player as a kid, got freaked out when I beat a state-ranked player, and have never been able to finish a game since then.

That's not chess per se, it was a reaction to perceived stress. Plus I know that if I really got in to it it'd take over. Chess scares me.

<comment><USER11> >> champions are afraid of losing, everyone else is afraid of winning [1]

I found this to be true of myself. Chess afficianatos probably know better than me, but wasn't Bobby Fischer a big proponent of alternative rules for chess that removed the advantage of "merely" memorizing strong opening games and mid game strategies, something the soviets of his era trained specifically for? please correct me if I've got that wrong.

[1] billy jean king

Edit spelling

<comment><USER12> Yes, Fischer wanted the back line to be drawn such that the order of the pieces was not set in stone but still imposed some limitations to retain castling and bishops being on alternate colors (instead of having two bishops on black)

Typically called Chess960 or Shuffle Chess: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess960)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Nice piece about "chess sickness" and Duchamp (and he created less art and became more consumed with Chess) that echoes this post: [http://thepointmag.com/2014/examined-life/exiles- game](http://thepointmag.com/2014/examined-life/exiles-game)

"Much of an exile's life is taken up with compensating for disorienting loss by creating a new world to rule," wrote Edward Said. "It is not surprising that so many exiles seem to be novelists [and] chess players."

</comment><comment><USER14> Nabokov wrote a wonderful novel, "The Defense", about a chess player who goes mad.

</comment><comment><USER6> > "I have wasted too much time on it already; I cannot afford to do this any > longer; this is my _last_ game."

Who wants to take odds on whether or not this guy stopped playing after that game? I can't even remember how many times I've said this about various activities...

<comment><USER15> Would posting comments on HN happen to be one of those activities?

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> My main programming activity these days is working on my chess GUI. Working on problems like; How can I quickly search 10,000,000 games for a given position without creating a fully indexed multi-gigabyte database? Etc. Sometimes it bothers me. Am I wasting my life?

</comment><comment><USER6> So I'll reach out to you guys because I've been racking my brain to no avail for the name of a particular blog, and have come up empty.

The blog in question would have been _perfect_ for this article, as it had both chess related questions, as well as articles of historical curiosity. Math articles, as well, would appear, and any sort of other kind of post that would interest folks who find these kinds of things interesting. I thought the name was related in some way to "meandering" or "useless" or something "trivia" related in the title, but I'm completely blanking.

I would have sworn up and down that I heard about this blog from an XKCD comic (the same one that brought me here 3 or 4 years ago), but when I went back to look at the comic in question, I couldn't find the blog.

I apologize if it's off-topic, but it's sort of inverse-relevant, I suppose?

<comment><USER17> Almost certainly Greg Ross's "Futility Closet". [http://www.futilitycloset.com/](http://www.futilitycloset.com/)

[EDITED to be less diffident -- I'm at least 95% confident this is what you're thinking of.]

<comment><USER6> This is absolutely correct, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> I spent my late teenage years and early 20s often playing chess with old guys in the park. I regret I didn't engage in more productive pursuits, like chasing girls and taking them on dates. I am not kidding. If I had to go back I'd seriously cut down on the chess and up the dating.

</comment><comment><USER19> Arthur C. Clarke had a short story (so short, it fit on a postcard), in which chess defeats AI. [http://wargamerscott.tripod.com/swordandshield/id14.html](http://wargamerscott.tripod.com/swordandshield/id14.html)

</comment><comment><USER20> To play chess is the mark of a gentleman; to play chess well is the mark of a misspent youth.

</comment><comment><USER21> I lost interest in chess when I realized that, in order to be really good, you had to spend a lot of time studying and memorizing openings. That seemed like a boring waste of time.

</comment><comment><USER22> Its sort of funny how the original SA article sounds like a beautifully crafted work of satire. I had to constantly remind myself that the original article is genuinely sober.

<comment><USER23> Just like articles on the evils of video games the past couple decades.

<comment><USER24> This is exactly what I kept thinking of. You could basically do a search/replace of "chess" with "video games" and be pretty close to the sentiment towards gaming in most media until very recently. And with the advent of eSports, the comparison seems all the more apt.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> "Why Clickbait Article Titles Will Destroy Your Mind"

<comment><USER26> I hope they post the Medium stats on Views vs Reads

<comment><USER27> I entered the website for a sub-second, glimpsed the first line of text, and I was gone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> some one please change the title. It looks very close to a link bait.

<comment><USER29> The article feels rather click-baitey. It's basically a submarine for the book. While it does offer an interesting historical position, it completely fails to compare and/or contrast that to modern opinions, despite foreshadowing this in the opening paragraph.</comment></comment>