The Hacker's Diet

What did I do on my day off from work today? I read a diet book of all things. Chris Hardy mentioned that he'd lost ninety pounds by following the plan laid out in The Hacker's Diet.

Written by John Walker (founder of AutoDesk, makers of AutoCAD), it combines engineering and management approaches to come up with a feedback cycle to control weight. I'll boil it down to its essence:

• Eat more calories than you burn and your body will make and store fat
• Eat fewer calories than you burn and your body will burn stored fat to create energy
• Pay attention to your weight trend instead of your daily weight (since daily fluctuations are more likely to due to your level of water retention at the moment)

The home page for the book (freely available online in a variety of formats) describes the book thusly:

The Hacker's Diet, notwithstanding its silly subtitle, is a serious book about how to lose weight and permanently maintain whatever weight you desire. It treats dieting and weight control from an engineering and management standpoint, and provides the tools and an understanding of why they work and how to use them that permit the reader to gain control of their own weight.

I plan on giving it a try. Hopefully those of you who know me personally will be able to tell a few months from now...

—Michael A. Cleverly
Monday, February 21, 2005 at 20:43

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