The Hacker's Diet • Hacker News Board

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#31

Post by alexfarran » Sat, Jul 18, 2009, 12:08 PM UTC

discojesus wrote: post #4

an oldie, but a goodie. A good way to keep track of your progress online here: http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/online/hdo.html It will calculate everything for you and even provide the pretty little weighted graphs just like in the book.

It works pretty well for me. I also keep a rough running total of my daily calories - not hard to do after a week or so. Progress is gradual, but sustainable.

I'm posting monthly updates to flickr. http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexfarran/sets/721576162210862...

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#32

Post by tallanvor » Sat, Jul 18, 2009, 1:40 PM UTC

Dove wrote: post #25

kingkongrevenge wrote: post #10

If research about "diets" has found anything it's that they don't work. Any calorie counting approach is doomed to fail for most people. This diet is straight out of the Stalinist four year plan school. Normal people have zero chance of tolerating this. The bondage and discipline rigid planning approach doesn't work in any field. People aren't machines.

Actually, it works very well. The approach outlined here is pretty similar to what Weight Watchers uses. Theirs is a little looser, tracking calories on a weekly basis and offering incentives to eat filling foods. But it's basically the same idea. I lost 70 pounds in about a year on a system like that, and most of the experience was simply being surprised at how easy it was. There was a bit of a fiery adjustment duri…

It works, but it's not sustainable. You can't go through life counting calories. I also used the Hacker's Diet for a time back in 2003/2004. I lost about 60 pounds, and then over the next 4 or 5 years, proceeded to put 40 of them back on.

This year I've re-lost those 40 pounds, and am working on losing another 40, not by counting calories or otherwise trying to find low cal versions of everything (hard to do anyway now that I'm in Norway), but by being more conscious about what I eat (trying to eat more fruits, veggies, and whole grains, while eating fewer processed foods and sugars) and exercising regularly, which is much easier to do. Well, the exercise part still sucks, but I remind myself that once I get to the weight I want to be at, I only have to go enough to maintain that weight.

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#33

Post by rsheridan6 » Sat, Jul 18, 2009, 4:43 PM UTC

michael_dorfman wrote: post #29

blhack wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something that really irks me about people when they talk about diets. It takes a species more than 100 odd years or so to get rid of that "eat whatever the frak you can and store as much of it as you can because there is a good chance that you're not going to find much other than grass for a WHILE". Your body is NOT going to just "discard" (poop out) "un-needed" calories. The other thing that bothers me is p…

Your body is NOT going to just "discard" (poop out) "un-needed" calories. Are you sure of that? I'll offer myself up as a datapoint. My weight is exactly (to the kg) the same as it was 12 years ago. I do not exercise, at all, and eat pretty much whatever I want, whenever I want (and that's a lot.) For comparison purposes, my sister-in-law runs a few miles every day, and consumes less than half the calories that I do-…

Are you sure her calorie expenditure is really higher than yours? You may just have a faster metabolism.

Re: The Hacker's Diet

#34

Post by Dove » Sat, Jul 18, 2009, 5:29 PM UTC

tallanvor wrote: post #32

Dove wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it works very well. The approach outlined here is pretty similar to what Weight Watchers uses. Theirs is a little looser, tracking calories on a weekly basis and offering incentives to eat filling foods. But it's basically the same idea. I lost 70 pounds in about a year on a system like that, and most of the experience was simply being surprised at how easy it was. There was a bit of a fiery adjustment duri…

It works, but it's not sustainable. You can't go through life counting calories. I also used the Hacker's Diet for a time back in 2003/2004. I lost about 60 pounds, and then over the next 4 or 5 years, proceeded to put 40 of them back on. This year I've re-lost those 40 pounds, and am working on losing another 40, not by counting calories or otherwise trying to find low cal versions of everything (hard to do anyway n…

I think it's pretty sustainable. You should approach it as a lifestyle change, though, not a diet. That means don't make any tradeoffs in the process you're not willing to live with for the rest of your life. For me, that means find the occasional space for pie, and chocolate, and pizza . . .

But once you've got the initial engineering figured out, it's just a case of knowing what things cost in unusual circumstances. A little mental effort for a healthy body weight is a tradeoff I'll gladly make for the rest of my life.