Checking out the Hackers’ Diet
June 24th, 2006 by Mark Rittman
I’m back now from Washington, and the journey back wasn’t nearly so bad as
when I came back from Nashville, or at least the jet-lag isn’t, anyway. The fact
that my flight left Washington at 8.00am, and got in to Heathrow around 8.30pm,
meant that by the time I got home I went straight to bed and woke up as normal
around 7.00am local time, getting me back into the new time zone. Given the time
difference between the US east coast and the UK, the only way this would work is
if you got a really early flight, but it gets all the travelling into one
"logical day" rather than stretching into two, and you then having to "catch up"
with the time difference whilst you’re tired out from having not slept one
night. Anyway, I’m up and about now, but as my wife Janet pointed out earlier
this evening, I seem to have brought an extra something back with me - about an
extra half a stone to be precise, which I suspect has got something to do with
being away in a hotel for the best part of June, and a few too many cooked
breakfasts in the morning.
So, being the sort of person who always seems to need something
to do, and I’ve just got a bit more free time now the various conferences are
out of the way, I think it’s time for a bit of exercise and a diet, with the
objective being to shift one stone within the next four weeks. Being the sort of
person I am, I’ve checked out the old "life hacking" websites and came across
the "Hackers’ Diet" by John
Walker, the founder of Autodesk, which treats weight loss in the same way as
debugging a faulty program:
"…The absurdity of my situation finally struck home in
1987. "Look," I said to myself, "you founded one of the five biggest
software companies in the world, Autodesk. You wrote large pieces of
AutoCAD, the world standard for computer aided design. You’ve made in excess
of fifty million dollars without dropping dead, going crazy, or winding up
in jail. You’ve succeeded at some pretty difficult things, and you can’t
control your flippin’ weight?"Through all the years of struggling with my weight, the fad diets, the
tedious and depressing history most fat people share, I had never, even
once, approached controlling my weight the way I’d work on any other
problem: a malfunctioning circuit, a buggy program, an ineffective
department in my company."
Well that sounds interesting to me. Of course being over in the
States, a little bit of a "dad’s belly" is nothing compared to the morbidly
obese people I came across at the hotel (ODTUG was running alongside the
United Steelworkers
convention) but it’s the best thing to nip this sort of thing in the bud,
hence I’m going to give it a go for the next month or so. I had considered the
Atkins Diet, but it looked a bit too faddy for me, and I do actually do a bit of
exercise - I’m off to the gym tomorrow and I’ll go at least one more night next
week - but I thought it’d be interesting to try out the Hacker’s Diet and report
back on how it goes. It’ll make a change from transportable tablespaces anyway.
Anyone else had any luck shifting a few pounds in a "non-boring
way"? (apart from contracting dysentery on holiday, or something else similar).
Anyway, I’ll give it a go and occaisionally report back.
June 25th, 2006 at 10:55 am
…a few too many cooked breakfasts in the morning…
Just how many breakfasts each morning?
June 25th, 2006 at 8:07 pm
One thing is for sure — Atkins is a load of nonsense. “Lose weight by eating protein and fat” is a triumph of wishful thinking over common sense, and it’s extraordinary that people are allowed to make such idiotic claims. Thankfully the late doctors wife seems to have run the Atkins empire into the ground.
One of my friends claimed to have lost 12 pounds in two weeks — a little math tells you that 12 pounds of fat is 42,000 calories, implying that he cut back his calorie intake by 3,000 per day. Nonsense.
To lose a stone in a month you just need to take in 49,000 calories less than you need for stable weight, so that’s around 1,600 less a day … sounds like quite a challenge, and not very healthy.
June 25th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Hi David
You’re right about realistic objectives - reading more in the Hackers’ diary PDF it’s much more likely you’ll shift between half and a pound a week, which means you’re looking at _tops_ about half a stone a month, and that’s with a bit of luck on your side.
I’ll be setting myself some formal objectives in the next couple of days, and pulling them together with the Hackers’ Diet spreadsheets. I’ll report back on it later this week.
cheers
Mark
June 26th, 2006 at 10:45 am
Hi.
Good luck
Portion control is the name of the game. Most people rebel against strict regimes. Instead, eat whatever you want, but reduce the size of the portions to a level where you start to loose weight.
Keep it simple and you stand a chance of pulling it off. Over-complicate things and you will get bored and give up.
Excercise will speed things up, but it won’t salvage a bad diet.
Remember, it’s for life, not for 1 month
Tim…
June 26th, 2006 at 4:38 pm
After hearing Seth Roberts http://www.sethroberts.net/ interviewed on the Dennis Prager radio show, my wife started the Shangri-la diet. It’s working _very_ well for her.
June 26th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
I’m a fellow ODTUGer who got a stern warning from his doctor on January 11, 2005, that I was on the verge of being morbidly obese, with major ramifications for my health and longevity. I went to see a dietician, and together we worked out a plan for healthy eating that I could follow. I have since lost over 85 pounds. I have to admit that I am currently stalled (good food at Collaborate and ODTUG didn’t help), but at least I’ve maintained my weight loss.
There are no easy paths. Weight loss is simple in concept - take in less calories than you burn, but hard to do. My top tips:
Get some help - mine was a good dietician, but I’ve heard from people who have done well with Weight Watchers or Overeaters Anonomous.
Cut intake AND increase output - neither strategy alone will do the job.
Cut out refined sugar. I found that even a little increases my cravings for more.
Read the nutrition labels, ignore the rest of the package labeling. Manufacturers are getting VERY good at making their products look nutritious, when they aren’t. Pay particular attention to portion size. I looked at a muffin label once - hmmm, only 120 calories, not bad… then I noticed - that is for 1/3 of a muffin - who ever ate 1/3 of a muffin?
June 27th, 2006 at 1:56 pm
As I recall from OOW2K5 the danger lies not so much in the cooked breakfasts so much as the deep-fried, sugar-glazed ones. I hope to finish off my arteries in SF this October
I have registered for OOW2K6 but have not yet booked a room (slight confusion over the charge code for my exes). I will try to get into the King George as well.
June 27th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
I’ve lost about 6 pounds in the last 4 weeks on a modified Hacker’s Diet. How did I do it: Pain, deprivation, and hunger.
Just a little challenge to the myth that Europe is thin from the WHO: http://www.euro.who.int/document/mediacentre/fs1305e.pdf
“Although the numbers of those overweight (BMI over 25) and obese (BMI over 30) are rising
everywhere, The world health report 2002 revealed that Europe now has one of the highest
average BMI of all WHO regions – nearly 26.5.”
June 27th, 2006 at 8:15 pm
Hopefully I’m not alone in finding humour in the name “Overeaters Anonymous”
June 28th, 2006 at 8:58 am
John Flack: What a fantastic achievement! That’s like loosing a whole super-model
You should be really proud of yourself. Keep it up.
Jim Bernstein: Good on you mate.
Mark: These guys have thrown down the gauntlet. Are you going to rise to the challenge?
June 28th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Food combining (http://www.netfit.co.uk/fatcom.htm)
Stops you eating loads of processed food at least
June 28th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Thanks everyone for the advice and feedback. I suspected that this might be a popular topic …!
So far, day 3 of the Hackers Diet - the exercise bit is going well, two trips to the gym with about 45 minutes of fairly intensive exercise. The diet bit is a bit harder though - it’s easy to be sensible and not overeat, avoid the bad stuff and so on; the difficulty though is “under-eating” so as to loose weight. So far, I’m trying Tim’s “portion control” and John Flack’s suggestion about avoiding refined sugar. I’ll keep on going and if not a lot happens, I’ll have to move over to the rabbit food.
thanks again
Mark
June 29th, 2006 at 9:51 pm
Mark,
To make the exercise more engaging (notice I did not say fun), I would suggest taking up a high energy martial art like Tae Kwon Do, Krav Maga, etc. If your excercise has meaning and learning involved you are more likely to be committed plus you will learn something useful for those late night walks home from the pub in downtown DC or San Francisco. Since martial arts is a life time endeavor (like keeping our weight down) you will never get bored with going to the gym.
December 28th, 2006 at 10:08 am
Hi
I lost over 20 kg over 10 weeks using the Lighter life diet : it was easy, apart from a couple of days of occasional dizziness.
It involves only eating their food supplements and drinking huge amounts of water. Normal weight loss is 4-5 pounds per week.
Keeping it off invlves identifying trigger foods tat give the munchies; look at Paul Mckenna for ideas on this, and the Shangri La diet
December 14th, 2007 at 12:18 am
I do the Hackers Diet. It works and makes sense. Actually, I figured out the same thing before I had read the HD. 3500 cal/lb. That’s all you need to know. John Walker is correct that it is not easy. You will not loose by exercise alone, or only so slowly that you’ll become discouraged. You must take in less than you output. Figure out your burn rate, then take in less. It won’t be forever, but then you must maintain which is not much less difficult. How have you done?, Me, ok, but I go up and down. At least I know how it’s done!