Jimmy the Geek

The Hacker's Diet

Now THIS I can do!

I stumbled upon a website today that totally caught my attention.  It's called The Hacker's Diet.  The byline is a tongue-in-cheek 'How to lose weight and hair through stress and poor nutrition'. 

Thinking it was a humorous slam on hackers, I was drawn in.  What I found was very different from what I expected.

It's actually a serious online book written by John Walker, founder of AutoDesk, who approaches weight loss 'as an engineering problem' .  I think I like that!  Here's an excerpt:

The absurdity of my situation finally struck home in 1987. “Look,” I said to myself, “you founded one of the five biggest software companies in the world, Autodesk. You wrote large pieces of AutoCAD, the world standard for computer aided design. You've made in excess of fifty million dollars without dropping dead, going crazy, or winding up in jail. You've succeeded at some pretty difficult things, and you can't control your flippin' weight?”

I'm going to give it a read.  Not that I'm overweight or anything like that... snort!  It looks like a great how-to for following the standard equation that we all know and love... eat less food than your body burns.

OK! I gotta get my butt in gear...

I've been really neglecting my weight-loss and exercise plan.  And once you start slacking off, it's so hard to get it back in gear.  Time to have a meeting with myself. 

I've been wearing my pedometer every day, but I'm nowhere near the 10,000 steps a day I'm shooting for.  I'm averaging 5000 - 6000 steps a day.  Time to "step" it up a notch!

Also, there's so much bad food in the house... I feel like we need to use it or it'll go to waste.  Silly me!  It wouldn't hurt to toss some of it.  After all, my health is far more important that those evil calorie-laden foods.

Trans Fat Rant!

While I agree that trans fat is bad for us, I've got to chuckle at how the marketing people have leveraged it into a nationwide trans fat panic.  Seeing the "No Trans Fat" on products like potato chips and Doritos gives the impression that they're somehow "good" for you.  Puleeeese! 

And some of the fast-food joints are proudly waving the "No Trans Fat" flag too.  Is the general public that gullible?  The marketing people seem to capitalize on that fact.  It reminds me of the KFC commercials telling us that their fried chicken is healthy.

Trans fat used to be known as "hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oil".  I guess "trans fat" is a catchier name for marketing.  Here's a good explanation of several types of fats - good and bad.   

Yes, we should avoid trans fats... but sheesh!  There is so much more to a healthy lifestyle than panicking over trans fats. 

10,000 Steps

Well, I'm in my fourth day of tracking how many steps I take per day.  I was a little shocked that on an average day I was only taking about 2900 steps a day.  That'll never do!  We gotta get that count up to 10,000 steps per day...

So yesterday, before taking a walk, I visited the hardware store, a grocery store, and Fred Meyer (dept. store).  As I was looking for a parking spot, it occurred to me that there was LOTS of parking out on the fringes of the parking lot... DOH!  A chance to get a few more steps in!

Parking in the "north forty" at the three stores equated to 3400 steps... MORE THAN MY AVERAGE DAY!  And I avoided the fight for the "best" parking spot to boot!

Let's see... less stress, more exercise, a general good feeling about myself...  works for me! 

I ended up with 6949 steps yesterday...