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The Hacker's Diet

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Re: The Hacker's Diet

#21

Post by maxlybbert »

rex_lupi wrote: post #6

For me the challenge is not to lose weight, but to gain weight and develop muscles. I'm an otherwise healthy young male but even with proper diet my weight gain rate is way too slow. I'm guessing I've a high metabolic rate. Is there any actually good guide for gaining weight quickly in a healthy way?

I’m certainly no expert. After reading “The Hacker’s Diet” and having some success counting calories, I started reading more about nutrition; but mostly what was in weight loss books. I stumbled across https://www.hockeytraining.com/nutrition/ , which has a lot of information I had never seen since it’s more focused on exercise.

It may not be what you’re looking for since hockey players aren’t trying to bulk up. But perhaps it can give you a good introduction to the basics.

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#22

Post by theoa »

justinator wrote: post #4
rdubs333 wrote: post #2

That was written by the cofounder of Autodesk and coauthor of Autocad, John Walker!!!

Although I commend the effort, I'm not sure if John Walker himself is a good example of this diet's effectiveness.

The last time I met up with John - about 20 years ago, he was quite fit. He was much slimmer and more fit than he had been as the Autodesk CEO.

My primary take-away in all this - even to this day: You are what you eat and (thank you, John) your only limit is your imagination!

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#23

Post by gillesjacobs »

rex_lupi wrote: post #6

For me the challenge is not to lose weight, but to gain weight and develop muscles. I'm an otherwise healthy young male but even with proper diet my weight gain rate is way too slow. I'm guessing I've a high metabolic rate. Is there any actually good guide for gaining weight quickly in a healthy way?

Eat more and lift weights. Starting Strength by Rippetoe has many comments on weight gain and strength training for people in your predicament.

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#24

Post by ralferoo »

I did this years ago and lost some weight doing it at the time, but the basic premise of "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie" is provably not true. The body's metabolism plays a massive part in determining how many calories are consumed, and this in turn is driven by availability. Long term calorie deficit will result in your body learning how to operate more efficiently, and slow down your weight loss.

I've also tried low-carb twice, the first time I lost a reasonable amount pretty quickly, but gained it back over a few years when I reverted to a normal diet, and the second time when I shifted to intermittent fasting as I went back to a more normal diet.

There's lots of good advice available if you search for intermittent fasting, but the key take away is that insulin is produced in response to excess carbohydrates, and not only promotes storage of carbohydrates as fat, but also inhibits burning existing fat. Of course, if you are at a calorie deficit, you'll probably still lose weight especially with regular small amounts, because the insulin effect will be low, but if you have few carb-heavy meals, your body will still create a lot of insulin to get rid of all the carbs, and then after you work through the hunger phase after that's happened, then you will start converting that fat back to energy, and in a calorie restriction situation hopefully burn more than you need.

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#25

Post by ungamed »

rex_lupi wrote: post #6

For me the challenge is not to lose weight, but to gain weight and develop muscles. I'm an otherwise healthy young male but even with proper diet my weight gain rate is way too slow. I'm guessing I've a high metabolic rate. Is there any actually good guide for gaining weight quickly in a healthy way?

Its very unlikely you have a high metabolic rate, this has almost no factor in muscle building. You need enough workload, calories, protein and rest to gain muscle, its really that simple.

The amount of horseshit around the diet is unbelievable. Its not fun, its not catchy, do the work and results will happen.

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#26

Post by kuhewa »

ralferoo wrote: post #24

I did this years ago and lost some weight doing it at the time, but the basic premise of "a calorie is a calorie is a calorie" is provably not true. The body's metabolism plays a massive part in determining how many calories are consumed, and this in turn is driven by availability. Long term calorie deficit will result in your body learning how to operate more efficiently, and slow down your weight loss. I've also tr…

You are right in that caloric expenditure is going to affect the CI-CO balance, and at a deficit your expenditure will decline due to both a decrease in basal metabolism as well as decrease in spontaneous activity.. but at the end of the day a calorie deficit is by definition the only way to lose weight.

Choice of macronutrient composition directly (and indirectly through hormones) affects satiety, and many find it easier to eat less calories by restricting carbs, but for weightloss at the end of the day a calorie is still a calorie.

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#27

Post by kuhewa »

ctur wrote: post #19

The Hacker's Diet has helped me lose a good bit of weight over the years, but it is a somewhat simplistic model. Metabolism isn't quite as simple as CICO and can adjust over time to compensate for lowered metabolic rate. Herman Pontzer's recent book, Burn: the Misunderstood Science of Metabolism, goes into metabolic differences in quite a bit of detail and is very well researched and based in science. https://www.che…

> can adjust over time to compensate for lowered metabolic rate

Isn't that part of CO?

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#28

Post by pizza234 »

rex_lupi wrote: post #6

For me the challenge is not to lose weight, but to gain weight and develop muscles. I'm an otherwise healthy young male but even with proper diet my weight gain rate is way too slow. I'm guessing I've a high metabolic rate. Is there any actually good guide for gaining weight quickly in a healthy way?

You're very likely what's called "hardgainer" in the fitness field. Just search for it, you'll find lots of information.

However, starting with the idea of doing things "quickly" is the worst possible approach. In the fitness, quick improvements are also lost very quickly; plus, staying fit requires permanent, lifelong changes, and in this perspective, quick or slow don't matter.

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#29

Post by strken »

justinator wrote: post #11
gumby wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? It’s been a few years since I saw him last but the diet had really helped him to lose a lot of weight and keep it off. I know others who have lost a lot of weight with it. And his “floater/sinker” graph has been copied in several applications.

I think it's solving the wrong problem. If I look at a picture of Mr. Walker himself, https://through-the-interface.typepad.com/through_the_interf... (just the first one that came up on a Google Search) This doesn't look like a fit and healthy man and I don't some that isn't fit and healthy should dole out advice on how to control a chaotic system such as human physiology using engineering. Perhaps - and this is a th…

When you say that being skinny fat is bad, in what sense do you mean that, and what evidence is there for it? Are you talking about aesthetics, cardiac risk, mortality risk, quality of life, or something else? Do you mean e.g. with 5kg extra fat but no extra muscle he'd have equal risk of a heart attack?

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#30

Post by benjamin-lee »

I followed this plan and lost over 100 lbs (45 kg) in about a year and have kept it off for the last five years. Even more impressively, I did it while eating the very same junk food that made me fat, albeit in different quantities. I tried every diet you could imagine before reading the book and failed every single time. As a programmer, the approach Walker uses just clicks with me. If you're overweight and have an engineering mindset, it's absolutely worth the read. It changed my life.

I still follow the plan to this day, albeit with more sophisticated logging. I use a combinatorial optimizer web app that tells me what to eat every day so that it completely takes the element of choice (and ability to screw up) out of the equation. I've developed it for the last five years and am hoping to release it as a product and/or open source eventually. If anyone's interested, shoot me an email (link on my website) and I'll share access.

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