The Hacker's Diet

July 17, 2000 9:06 AM

The Hacker's Diet has been around for a while (since 1991), created by John Walker, one of the founders of Autodesk. There's no major gimmick, just eat less than you burn. What it does offer, though, is a handy way of keeping track of your true weight using a weighted moving average, that helps dampen the oscillations of your daily water input & output. The author made Excel charts at first, but now he offers a version for the Palm. Happily, it works on even my ancient, wussy little Palm Pilot Personal edition (512K memory). I've been using it for about a month, and lost about ten pounds so far. Your mileage will almost undoubtedly vary.
posted by beth (4 comments total)

I, too, am following the diet, and have lost 2 inches off my waistline in six weeks. Eat fewer calories than you burn. So obvious, isn't it?

posted by Fenriss at 9:27 AM on July 17, 2000

Should be obvious, but I personally kept doing the denial thing for far too long. I like John Walker's attitude, i.e., "Losing weight is unpleasant, so GET IT OVER WITH ALREADY!". Somehow, charting my weight this way has really kicked in my motivation in ways that nothing else I have tried up until now has done. Plus, the fact that my 10-year high school reunion is coming up very soon may have had something to do with it...
posted by beth at 9:58 AM on July 17, 2000

I was on this diet from January to March and lost 45lbs. Its very straightforward. I'm off at the moment, but maintaining. I'm planning on going back on for another 50-75 lbs. here soon. Yes, i'm still a fat bastard. :) just not as bad as I was.
posted by jbelshaw at 5:42 PM on July 17, 2000

I'm down 53 pounds now. I started last December, and took a several month intermission this spring. I've got 17 pounds to go to reach my goal, and don't forsee any difficulty getting there. It's been incredibly easy, really, so long as I stay focused. I've been tracking my progress on my weblog, and wrote a few specific entries on the diet -- visit my profile for links. As you say, it's pretty obvious, but John wrote the text in such a way to make all the difference in getting me up and actually losing the weight.
posted by ewagoner at 9:25 AM on July 19, 2000