
The Hacker's Diet (2005) - eb0la
https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/
======
drallison
Most computer folks find John Walker's site,
[https://www.fourmilab.ch/](https://www.fourmilab.ch/), fascinating. Not only
is it home to _The Hackers Diet_ but it also hosts other things John has done.
Start-up folks should read _The Autodesk Papers_ , which details the growth of
Autodesk.

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bertr4nd
I've used this method for almost exactly 6 years now, and I have a very
interesting chart on trendweight.com to show for it. My success has been
rather mixed. In that time period I've twice lost 20 lbs and twice regained
it.

The first time, I gained very gradually, the result of having moved to an
employer with free food, and needing to learn new habits of self control.

The second time, I regained very rapidly, because I was a new dad, and really
underestimated the combined stress of working and parenting.

Hoping I can pull off a third time and keep it off.

~~~
mgiannopoulos
I’ve been using it for five years as well. I find that when I regain some
weight (usually 2-3kg on vacations and holidays) I tend to loose much quicker
than the last time. Have you noticed that?

~~~
bertr4nd
Interesting -I haven’t noticed that myself, but my weight tends to move in
macro-trends: long periods of time when I’m either gaining or losing.

I did notice that the second “losing” time was much harder than the first.
Possibly reduced metabolic rate due to aging?

~~~
AstralStorm
That or reduced exercise. It can get you that extra 10% or so burn rate you
need.

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krupan
I've been weighing myself every day and entering into the hacke diet online
website for a good 6 or 7 years now. Seeing my trend (and not worrying about
day to day fluctuations) has been a great tool to help me maintain my weight
and not let it get out of control.

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aidenn0
Note that this diet does presuppose not just the hacker's love for numbers,
but also the drive that founders tend to have. Just counting calories requires
a certain sort of discipline and drive that many (including myself) do not
have.

~~~
amasad
It's draining and kind of silly of you think about it. Why don't we also track
and and count other activities: like when you go to the bathroom, how much sex
you have, and perhaps how many breaths a day you take.

Animals with no analytic faculties still manage to live healthy lives, so how
do they do it? Simply, our bodies have built-in systems for regulating
automatic functions. The problem is it's built to survive in the state of
nature and modernity is an unnatural environment that throws a wrench in the
system.

Once you realize this, the solution is clear: minimize the bad influences of
modernity and try to live as close as possible to how our ancestors did. Eat
meat when hungry, drink water when thirsty, lift heavy weight, and sleep at
night and wake up in the morning, get some air and sunlight etc.

I've been down the quantified-self road before and at best it leads to a big
useless unanalyzed database. At worst, you become paranoid constantly
questioning whether you're getting the optimal sleep, calories, sun etc.

~~~
bbeonx
Different strokes for different folks, man. I get off on quantification. I
hyper focus and I cannot do anything passive.

Dieting? That's passive: it involves _not_ doing something. All I can think
about is the fact that I shouldn't be eating, which makes me think about
eating, which makes me eat.

Obsessively counting calories? It makes me do something active: strive for a
minimal caloric intake for the day (I say minimal but minimal for me is
healthy for anyone else).

I need to do the same thing with reading papers. Reading a paper is a passive
activity while writing a paper review is active. I try to find at least one
major flaw with each paper I read so that I have something active to keep my
attention, a goal.

Saying "behavior xyz is silly" is unfair and not super constructive. Each of
us has a single data point of human experience. Generalizing from that is kind
of silly if you think about it.

If I could curtail my bathroom activity healthily, and if that would lead to a
better and happier life, then dammit I'd track that shit in a heartbeat. Ditto
for breathing. And unless you are having an unhealthy amount of sex there is
nothing to gain from tracking it (except for ego/lack thereof).

The examples you list above all have something in common: there is no
_benefit_ to tracking them. For calories, there is an actual benefit.

~~~
amasad
I meant silly from a species perspective -- like you never see a bear counting
calories ;)

There are two kinds of animals that suffer from obesity, modern humans, and
animals that modern humans feed. The culprit is clear, it's our
interventionist mindset. It's the USDA telling you exactly to eat the opposite
of what you're supposed to eat.

The answer is less intervention, not more. Try eating an all or mostly meat
diet and I assure you'll feel a lot better and food will go back to being an
automatic function for you: [http://justmeat.co/](http://justmeat.co/)

~~~
mateuszf
> There are two kinds of animals that suffer from obesity, modern humans, and
> animals that modern humans feed. The culprit is clear, it's our
> interventionist mindset. It's the USDA telling you exactly to eat the
> opposite of what you're supposed to eat.

There could be a different reason. Getting more food is lot easier for these
two animals. Other animals (at least meat eating) need a lot more effort to
get their food. It's a natural limiting factor. Non-meat eating animals need
to digest a lot of fiber which makes eating a lot quite hard.

~~~
amasad
I doubt it. Alas, it's not studied yet but a lot of people are going on the
carnivore diet and finding that there system reset and find it hard to over or
under eat -- they just fall into a natural way of eating. Certainly my
experience.

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fomojola
I built [https://www.eatclock.com](https://www.eatclock.com) after I started
reading this: I really liked the idea of an "its-now-time-to-eat" indicator. I
tried to keep it super simple (one of 3 meal sizes, and no history editing)
and there is quite some ways to go to get to full eat watch status from where
I am, but it has been immediately useful to me just to have a weekly "you ate
49 times last week" email. After the third week where I ate 49 times I started
paying a bit more attention (down to 42 now).

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koolba
> Before sending this file to a printer, consider that the book is almost 250
> pages long.

My immediate reaction is how can someone with a programming background write
250 pages about a topic as simple as dieting?!

So I skimmed it a bit and it’s quite a fun read! It’s reads as if the author
is speaking directly to you, with both pure facts and colorful analogies.
Looking forward to going through the rest.

~~~
retzkek
> a topic as simple as dieting

Diet and nutrition has to be one of the most complex and divisive topics
currently. There is an incredible amount of anecdotal advice and "scientific"
evidence for every theory imaginable, driven by the vast diversity of the
human population and commercial agendas.

Or do you think in terms of "calories in - calories out = weight gain", which
is as simple as it is useless?

~~~
hudbuddy
> as simple as it is useless

I have found this mindset helpful. Is it regarded as useless in a dietetic
context?

~~~
TeMPOraL
From what I observed, there are two factors at play that work to discourage
this simple model:

1) The body is good at up and downregulating its calories use and cravings
depending on what you eat.

2) The "calories in/out" approach doesn't depend on particular foods you eat,
which means you can't sell your new magic fad diet without doing your best to
discredit it.

~~~
AstralStorm
1) Yes, which is why it gets much harder to lose weight the longer the diet
lasts, which makes more people do it as they don't get any effect.

2) Everyone wants a magic bullet, but sip far there isn't one. On the other
hand, specific diets and restrictions may be easier to keep and cause faster
or more weight loss than others, as well as suppress appetite more or less.

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jamilbk
I made it through the first few pages and the author seems to treat calories
from all sources the same. I wonder what his take on the theory that calories
from some sources (e.g. saturated and monounsaturated fats) are generally not
translated to fat in your body whereas calories from other sources (glucose,
fructose) generally are.

For example, a tbsp of coconut oil contains 117 calories while the same volume
of sugar contains 48. Yet anyone following a ketogenic diet would argue in
favor of calories from the coconut oil over sugar any day.

Another great nutrition book for the analytically-minded among us (not
actually a prescriptive "diet" despite the title): Perfect Health Diet
[http://perfecthealthdiet.com/the-diet/](http://perfecthealthdiet.com/the-
diet/)

~~~
lubonay
Then again, lots of studies point towards the keto diet being equivalent to a
moderate-carb (e.g. 100-200g for an average person) diet that has the same
amount of _calories_.

Personally, I think low-carb diets seem to work better for most people,
because almost all junk food is high in carbs, and therefore forbidden.
Obviously if you want a healthy and lean body, you need to focus on healthy
foods and keep the junk to a minimum.

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julianz
I used this to lose a decent amount of weight a few years ago, it was a good
read and quite motivating. Unfortunately I then got back into homebrewing,
increased my craft beer consumption, and most of it came back. It's good to
know what's possible though :)

~~~
dawidw
Beer has female hormones which make belly and boobs. Try to switch to wine -
producing, or at least consuming.

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mikehollinger
This takes me back! I ended up using the excel sheet that comes with this to
start measuring myself, and literally ran my ass off on a treadmill over a
couple of years.

It’s good stuff, and I trusted it because he was “one of us.”

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ameixaseca
Tracking what you eat is important, counting calories not necessarily. The
calories-in/calories-out model misses a number of important factors like the
effect of insulin on weight and lowering of BMR on non-fasted caloric
restriction.

IOW, 100 calories of fat are very different from 100 calories of sugar, and
that's completely erased when everything is standardized as a simple
"calorie".

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cncrnd
The easiest thing to do to reduce your caloric intake is to start
cooking...it's very hard to get to high calorie numbers if you are making your
own food instead of eating out.

Oh, and when you're hungry eat a meal first then snack later. Don't start
snacking first or you can find yourself over indulging in chips to make up for
the meal you didn't eat on time.

~~~
cup-of-tea
When I started to cook I actually gained a huge amount of weight. I've no idea
what you mean by being hard to get high calorie numbers. It's as easy as any
other way: you eat too much food. It was only when I actually learnt what a
sensible serving size was and actually weighing out my ingredients (especially
carbs) that I became normal again.

~~~
cncrnd
Usually I just throw some meat on the grill and put it in a quesadilla or
sandwich with various toppings. I occasionally make a salad, but very very
occasionally.

I feel pretty full and rarely take in more than 2k calories a day - I'm not
limiting intake in any way.

I've never struggled with weight though, just a few pounds after college
prompted me to start cooking.

------
AstralStorm
The problem with such external drive is that it is trivially easy to flub. It
takes one good binge to wipe out a year of a diet, one slip of control.

The more you can rely on appetite control, the better.

------
cup-of-tea
I read the introduction to this and thoroughly disagree with it on multiple
points. I'm someone who used to be obese but I've been in excellent shape (six
pack etc) for more than eight years now.

For a start, you should not be aiming to "lose weight". You should be aiming
to maintain weight, and that weight might be lower than what you currently
maintain. A diet is not a short term thing that is hard. If you think about it
like that then when you finish "losing weight" you'll just go back to your
normal mode of eating too much. This is what most people do. What you actually
want to do is change your lifestyle forever.

Changing your lifestyle forever cannot actually include counting calories. You
are not going to do that for the rest of your life. Counting calories should
be merely an educational exercise. Before long you should just know how much
to eat. If you're the kind of person who can't drive a route you've already
driven with GPS a second time without GPS then you won't have much luck. Learn
to be that person.

The biggest lifestyle change you can make is cooking everything you eat
yourself and do not snack at all. Learn to be hungry and look forward to your
next meal. I observe fat people all the time and they don't necessarily eat
huge meals, they just eat constantly throughout the day.

A hacker's diet should be one that is incredibly easy to follow. I eat two
meals a day. I weigh out starchy ingredients because I know how much I need. I
do not place calorific items into my mouth between meals. Never ever.

~~~
AstralStorm
Unfortunately for most of us, work lacks proper kitchens and reheated food is
vastly inferior and harder to prepare. Plus you're not getting paid for the
time cooking unless you work in a restaurant or as a house maid.

~~~
cup-of-tea
Why does it need to be hot? I eat room temperature food for lunch (not cold. I
don't understand why people put their lunch in a fridge).

~~~
hellogoodbyeeee
People put food in the fridge to slow bacteria growth. This quote is from a
USDA Health brochure

>Bacteria grow most rapidly in the range of temperatures between 40 ° and 140
°F, doubling in number in as little as 20 minutes. This range of temperatures
is often called the “Danger Zone.” That’s why the Meat and Poultry Hotline
advises consumers to never leave food out of refrigeration over 2 hours. If
the temperature is above 90 °F, food should not be left out more than 1 hour.

~~~
cup-of-tea
Yet somehow people survived for a very long time without refrigeration. In
fact, we evolved to live without it, so those bacteria are probably good for
us if anything. Personally I don't even like to eat cold food as it diminishes
the flavour.

It's super easy to bring food to work and just eat it at room temperature. But
instead people insist on this weird fridge then microwave ritual then complain
about it being too difficult.

~~~
hellogoodbyeeee
Or maybe we didn't survive. Life expectancy was half what it is today for most
of humanity up until 1900. Even if you remove childhood deaths, life
expectancy was still only about 33 years in the Paleolithic era.

I don't understand the romanticization of a time period where it was normal
for people to die before they were 40.

~~~
cup-of-tea
Life expectancy has increased mostly thanks to modern medicine and in
particular drastically reducing infant mortality. Keeping food in the fridge
at all times has no effect other than reducing your enjoyment of the food and
making it less likely that you bring food to work, thus decreasing your
overall health.

