from Hacker News

The Data Diet: How I Lost 60 Pounds Using A Google Docs

by yubozhao on 3/28/13, 5:21 AM with 5 comments

  • by jgj on 3/28/13, 12:48 PM

    Sounds a lot like The Hacker's Diet (http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/)

    I don't know that there are many problems humans face that you could not, in some way, attribute to a lack of meaningful data (or understanding what data is meaningful and what data serves only to further dilute or affirm our poorly constructed models of what is meaningful)

  • by illegalsmile on 3/28/13, 5:19 PM

    Well I'm confused why it's so hard for people to face basic facts about their diet and what they eat. However, I suppose when you don't care or educate yourself about diet then one would wonder why they're overweight.

    I enjoyed reading your writing but I stopped reading at: "Exercise, I’d say, is irrelevant, to weight loss too" Exercise is most definitely RELEVANT to weight loss and to blatantly disregard it seems ridiculous. A decent diet paired with solid exercise is the cornerstone to a mental and physical prosperity. Neither is irrelevant.

  • by solarmist on 3/30/13, 7:45 AM

    I did this exact same thing starting back starting in 2007 with the Hacker's Diet and building out my own spreadsheet with a 10 day moving average I only need to lose about 40 lbs, but I got down to less than 11% bodyfat using it too. I was so amazed at seeing the curves of my abs.

    Then I got married and the withings scale and stopped using my spreadsheet and I put back on a lot of the weight.

    That 10 day moving average in your face is a huge helper.

  • by lukeholder on 3/28/13, 5:30 AM

    This is an interesting idea. I have been trying to loose weight for the longest time and succeed for 1-2 weeks by not looking at the scale but weighing myself after 2 weeks hoping to see a big drop. This treats weight loose less about the number, and more about the trend. Im gonna try it.

  • by shadowrunner on 3/28/13, 10:41 AM

    I may integrate that into my Indoctrinator program (a program that uses the power of obsessiveness to achieve anything): http://indoctrinator.com