February 18, 2008: The Hacker's Diet
OK, I admit it. I’m in my 40’s, and I’ve gotten fat. In fact my Body Mass Index (BMI) of 32.5 says I am obese. O B E S E. Yuck, when did that happen?
Now at thise point I’m tempted to go on about how when I was younger I was always thin as a rail, could eat whatever I wanted, yadda yadda yadda. But you’ve heard all that before: it’s what all middle-aged guys say when confronted with their obesity. I’m also tempted to blame American lifestyle, mass media, McDonalds (or just corporate greed in general), my wife … oh, you name it, I’d like to blame it. And we’ve all heard that rap before, too. It doesn’t make anyone thinner.
But I’ve read The Hacker’s Diet (by John Walker) and I realize there aren’t any excuses. Also, there are no get-thin-fast cures, though a few years ago I had good (but temporary!) results from an Atkins diet over a 4-5 month period.
The answer is to find a system for a lifestyle change. The system you choose must be sustainable for the rest of of your life, or you’ll just get fat again. Now, you can take the time to read The Hacker’s Diet (it’s free on the web), but since I already did, I’ll give you the Quux Notes version:
- Record your weight and calorie intake daily.
- Compute weight gain/loss trend
- Adjust calorie intake to make trend go in desired direction.
- Optionally, excercise a little bit (15-30 minutes) a day. An easy calisthenics program is included.
- Keep doing steps 1-3 (and optionally step 4) for the rest of your life.
That’s really the whole thing. There’s no call for diet pills, gym memberships, home exercise machines, milkshake mixes, attitude adjustments, special clothing, regular meetings… or anything else the get-thin-fast folks have been trying to sell you.
Oh, The Hacker’s Diet will explain why these things work, and give you some information about feedback loops and simple statistical analysis, and most importantly give you some tips on how to actually do this stuff. It’s definitely a worthwhile read.
But all you really have to do is start on the steps I’ve shown, today. Handily, Mr. Walker provides a free web-based tool for the weight recording and trend watching. I’ve just gotten through the first week and have lost a pound. It’s working.
Now all I have to do is devote 15-20 minutes a day (including the exercise) to this for the rest of my life. Shouldn’t be too hard …
(No, really, I’m serious. No sarcasm intended.)