Followup on the Hacker's Diet?

shayne321 writes "After learning about the Hacker's Diet on /., I started the program myself. In a little over six months I've lost a little over 35 pounds and around 6% of body fat. Lately I've been substituting the Tae-Bo workout in place of the recommended exercise program and I've been having even better results. I was just curious as to success stories/failures of other Slashdot readers... I was also curious for those who've had success as to if they've been able to keep the weight off."

Re:Works great

[Andrej Marjan]

It's great that you've found success, but I have to warn you: losing that much weight that quickly is unhealthy. It's a tremendous shock for your kidneys and liver to process that much fat -- and all the toxins stored in that fat -- that quickly.

As a reference, the healthy range for weight corrections is 3-5 kg a month (~6-10 lb.). It's sustainable, and most importantly, it won't send you into toxic shock.
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Re:Interesting

[Andrej Marjan]

I was somewhat dramatic in my previous posting. If you're healthy, you won't notice much, provided you don't do it often.

Fat cells are used to store all kinds of toxins that you've ingested, and that your body can't expell at the moment. When you start losing weight and expelling those fat cells, then you're also releasing those toxins back into your system. It's your kidneys' job to flush them out. The faster you lose weight, the faster you release the toxins, the harder you work your kidneys (and other organs). This can, and does, lead to organ damage. Then you may need medication to make your kidneys work, or if you're really unlucky, dialysis.

As for the 3-5 kg a month, I have it on good authority from some well-known gastroenterologists, and I've also seen the figure in at least one book on fasting.

On a related note, here's something that I haven't experienced, but I've heard from people who claim to have: people who undergo a strict cleansing fast, properly, experience the recurrence of all sorts of illnesses they had had years ago and had forgotten about. Things like throat infections and abcesses. I guess as they purged themselves of new junk, their bodies focussed on expelling old problems.

Basically, be careful. Everything in moderation. :)
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No Palm & Office 2000.. what to do?

[myconid]

I dont have a palm (feel free to send me one :-), and I only have Microsoft Office 2000 (it came on the machine.. sue me..). Does anyone have any idea (besides pen & pencil) I can do this? Has anyone modified it for Office 2k?

Re:Interesting

[unitron]

What symptoms would I have been experiencing?

Extremely uneven moderation of your posts on Slashdot.

Lost 30lbs so far

[David Ishee]

My weight loss is 1.14lb/week over the past 6 months. I use the Palm software to record my weight every day and that is the key for me. I started at the end of October and am down 30lbs so far. I figure I've got about 20 to go.

I try to eat a 1500 cal/day diet, but I do go out to eat on the weekends with no significant effects. I don't exercise at all and the weight is just coming off each week. I've lost about 4 inches in my waist.

Overall, it's working great!

Works great

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

I started in July. In 4 weeks (of very strict adherence to the diet) I had lost 20 pounds (yes, really 5 lbs/week). 8 more weeks (of semi-strict) lost me another 15 pounds. That's 35 lb in 3 months.

Then I moved. I lived with someone else temporarily (4 months) and so had to eat their dinner with them AND didn't have access to a scale. Afterwards I found I had gained 15-20 back. I'm now back on the semi-strict and have lost 10.

But is it easy to keep off? Yes. I don't attribute the 4 months of gain to "not sticking to the diet" but to "not weighing (and charting) myself every day". That is the absolute key.

For reference, for me "semi-strict" mean "never eat to the point where your stomach hurts" AND "take the low-cal alternative where possible (diet soft drinks, mop up the grease puddles on pizza, etc)".
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Interesting

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

What symptoms would I have been experiencing?
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Re:Lost 30lbs so far

[Anthony Kilna]

I'm also 30 lbs. down, about half way to my goal and I've only been doing this since January. The Hacker's Diet rocks, it really works if you apply it. My doctor said it was a very sensible plan too. The palm software is a great tool for tracking your daily wieght... BTW, a great use for the notes section in the software is to write your current calories for the day (that has to be why he added that but gave you so little space).

It's Worked for Me

[wildstar]

I started on the Hackers' Diet in July, shortly after I read about it on Slashdot. At the time, I weighed 300lb. I picked 1200cal/day as my target, and am now down to 202lb, with about 20lb more to loose before I'm down to where I think I should be.

I haven't been following the excercise plan in the diet, since I have some concerns about some of the excercises. However, now that I've lost enough weight that being more active is easier: I've started karate class, and am enjoying the ability to ride the local bike trails on evenings and weekends.

I've been using the Palm Eat Watch application to track my daily weight, and created a spreadsheet on my PC to record my food and calorie consumption. I also have a "mini" version of the spreadsheet in Tiny Sheet on the palm, so I can track my calories even when I'm on the road. Staying on track hasn't been incredibly hard, but I do have to be aware of what I eat, and how much.

My Unintentional Diet

[Racher]

I am a regular geek since child hood. I am a high school senior currently taking classes at a local college until I graduate. I was around 225 lbs last summer while I worked on most of my computer projects and didn't get out much.

Than as school started and I had to drive to college I hadn't had the time nor the money to eat. I would leave my house around 6:30am and sometimes depending on evening classes not get back until 9:30pm. I did work, but I never carried much money on me.

I went from 225 lbs in August to around 185 in September. Just get a busy, geeky, college, working lifestyle with no money on you and you be suprised how quickly you slim down.

Lost 10lb in 2 weeks

[stienman]

I started following the diet loosely (watching my intake, mostly, cutting back to about 1000 callories a day) and went from 170# to 160# in under two weeks. I've been hovering right around this weight no matter what I eat or don't eat, so I'm going to have to go for it again. I'll end up doing about 1300 to 1600 calories instead, the 1000 was great to start off with, but I couldn't keep it up and remain healthy. (Plus I have finals this week, and family vacation next week. Not gonna diet until after that!)

-Adam

Weight control is just mind over platter.

My Diet Success

[SaxMaster]

Since the end of January 2000, i've lost 38 pounds. My secret? Eating 3 good meals a day and a SHITLOAD of exercise. A good steady jogging pace produces the best results. I'm in great physical shape compared with what i used to be. I started at 292 and am now 254. My goal is around 200, as my bodyfat is 23% right now. I dont trust those stupid "magic" diets because each one deprives your body of something. The "balanced" diet i eat gives me plenty of nutrients. Follow my advice and you too can lose that "Server Case" and bring it down to a slim "Mini Tower"

It's mostly attitude,

[revlee]

but it works for me. So far I'm losing a pound a week. Not much pain and no gain. The biggest thing is realizing that my physical feedback loop can be supplemented by a mental feedback loop and the Palm software.

Re:my hacker's diet

[dattaway]

Want to gain weight? Beer helps, but try some of those greasy foods that seem to be so popular at those fast food places in the morning. Next time at the drive through, get a McBreakfast with greasy sausage, eggs, and enjoy all that pork.

How do you think people get those big butts and have massive guts sticking out of thier shirts? Its the fat content. The body has an easier time burning sugar and would rather just store the fat.

My only problem is that greasy foods don't hit the sweet spot on my taste buds. So I look like a wimpy toothpick with no backbone.

my hacker's diet

[radja]

working on my own one. I am right now trying the beer-belly approach, eat/drink lots of calories, have an office job. Still no weightgain.. bugger.. losing weight is never a problem, gaining is...

//rdj

Re:Works great

[coyote-san]

I believe that the reason rapid weight loss is strongly discouraged is not because of concerns with fat-soluable toxins - it's because that much weight loss implies you're losing much more than fat. The problem is that the only way to burn fat is via the "Kreb's Cycle" in your muscles (aka aerobic exercise), and someone who has enough fat to lose more than a kilogram or so per week is probably not in good enough shape to maintain the high aerobic levels required! This implies that the weight loss is actually due, in part, to loss of muscle mass... not a Good Thing.

Your liver and kidneys will need to handle anything dissolved in the fat, and that can include some pretty nasty toxins. But unless you live on the Love Canal it's unlikely you're talking about more than milligrams (or even micrograms) of toxins per gram of fat. Of course, when you consider how nasty dioxin and other toxins are...

(Before I get a nitpicking response, I believe the liver does use modest amounts of fat in the production of other compounds, but it's not enough to have any impact on your weight.)

Also, IIRC fat cells don't hold onto fat until you finally go on a diet. Instead, they constantly release a little bit at all times, and constantly absorb a little bit from the blood stream at all times. (I think they show up on blood chemistry profiles as triglycerides, but I could be mistaken.) That said, the fat (and dissolved toxins) could simply take a scenic trip around your body before being absorbed by another fat cell, but this does tend to "stir" the toxins up so you shouldn't get any nasty spikes in toxin levels.