<story><title>The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving</title><url>https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RobertRoberts</author><text>I did tests for weight loss. I found that you don&amp;#x27;t lose weight until you sleep. (stay up all night and weigh your self repeatedly, in the morning, no loss, but after you sleep and wake, your weight goes back to &amp;quot;morning weight&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;I found that if you don&amp;#x27;t sleep well, you don&amp;#x27;t lose as much. If you eat too late before going to bed, you don&amp;#x27;t lose as much.&lt;p&gt;If you adjust your diet (however you want is my experience) to always be hungry for around an hour before every meal, you will lose weight. (no exercise at all)&lt;p&gt;What these guys are doing seems to be actual &amp;quot;work&amp;quot;, I don&amp;#x27;t think stress alone makes you lose weight. With the anecdotal data I have observed over the years &amp;quot;stress eating&amp;quot; is more common that &amp;quot;stress based weight loss&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Maybe the activity that causes the stress directly relates to it&amp;#x27;s effect? And not all stress is equal in this way? (tournament stress vs paying the bills stress)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>riazrizvi</author><text>The difference in the grandmaster situation is that their extreme focus on chess completely displaces their hunger, hunger which needs real estate in your attention to be effective, just like any other felt sensation. And this focus lasts for the majority of the tournament, months.  
This is different to most people. When you have an immersive job you can get in the zone for many hours of the day, but you do stop working, and your hunger returns.&lt;p&gt;The closest thing I ever experienced to what they are describing was when I played the game Civilization for the first time in ‘93. I was so obsessed I played it for three days straight, night and day, before I took my first nap. The fluid drained from body, I looked like a skeleton with black holes for eyes. I also did not eat, I remember literally running to the store to get a single can of coke otherwise I just drank water from the bathroom faucet because it was next to my room. Within five days I had easily lost a couple of pounds of bodyfat.&lt;p&gt;Having played chess competitively throughout school, it’s no surprise chess Grandmasters have this total level of focus in tournaments.</text></comment>
<story><title>The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely moving</title><url>https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/27593253/why-grandmasters-magnus-carlsen-fabiano-caruana-lose-weight-playing-chess</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>RobertRoberts</author><text>I did tests for weight loss. I found that you don&amp;#x27;t lose weight until you sleep. (stay up all night and weigh your self repeatedly, in the morning, no loss, but after you sleep and wake, your weight goes back to &amp;quot;morning weight&amp;quot;)&lt;p&gt;I found that if you don&amp;#x27;t sleep well, you don&amp;#x27;t lose as much. If you eat too late before going to bed, you don&amp;#x27;t lose as much.&lt;p&gt;If you adjust your diet (however you want is my experience) to always be hungry for around an hour before every meal, you will lose weight. (no exercise at all)&lt;p&gt;What these guys are doing seems to be actual &amp;quot;work&amp;quot;, I don&amp;#x27;t think stress alone makes you lose weight. With the anecdotal data I have observed over the years &amp;quot;stress eating&amp;quot; is more common that &amp;quot;stress based weight loss&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Maybe the activity that causes the stress directly relates to it&amp;#x27;s effect? And not all stress is equal in this way? (tournament stress vs paying the bills stress)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>specialp</author><text>It is more of the effect of not eating or drinking for ~8 hours. 1 pint of water weighs around 500g. Also the average human exhales 1kg of CO2 a day which about a quarter of that is carbon weight. You will lose weight if you do not drink or eat for 8 hours awake. &amp;quot;Morning weight&amp;quot; == fasted and somewhat dehydrated weight.</text></comment>