Initial Rush: Waiting for other shoe to drop...

Heh, given my ability to see the grey lining to every silver cloud..

I was surprised to see myself another pound lower this morning. I knew I
was pretty good yesterday, even at the birthday dinner of the GF's
stepdad, but I don't think I've been at THAT much of a calorie deficit...

So since starting calorie monitoring (and still laughably easy Hacker's
Diet exercise) on Wednesday, I've dropped 5 1/2 lbs. I know that's some
chunk water weight, so I'm kind of dreading the plateaus that I'm pretty
sure are in my future. But still.

I'm still finding calorie recording to be as freeing as it is restricting.
Unlike previous diets, I don't have to vaguely "be good", and/or get a
groove on where I'm eating the same thing every day (which I don't mind
THAT much, but still, I know variety is generally a good thing for
me nutrition-wise) Plus, because I'm saying that I'm commiting to this in
perpetuity (at least the daily monitoring, if not the calorie summing) I
don't even need a specific calorie goal beyond "aim for 1500-2000".

Inspired by Doug I took some before pictures in a mirror today, though
ones more blatantly posed to show my gut, not with the same casualness of
Doug's.

Finally, I'm a programmer so I'm making myself a little custom app for
recording calories etc. I'm still also using the Hacker's Diet Palm
software, because I'm not sure when if ever I'd get around to making a
nice weighted moving average graph tool. The app (all my apps start with
"k/", so this is "k/alorie", har har) is geared at some specific UI ideas
I have and makes it easy to add in any previous day's calorie/food combo
to today, since I'm a bit repetitive in my eating.

Alrighty, take care everyone

Kirk, 227/221.5/180

--
QUOTEBLOG: http://kisrael.com SKEPTIC MORTALITY: http://kisrael.com/mortal
MISTAKES "It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve
as a warning to others." --Demotivators, http://despair.com

"Kirk Is" wrote in message
...
Heh, given my ability to see the grey lining to every silver cloud..

I was surprised to see myself another pound lower this morning. I knew I
was pretty good yesterday, even at the birthday dinner of the GF's
stepdad, but I don't think I've been at THAT much of a calorie deficit...

So since starting calorie monitoring (and still laughably easy Hacker's
Diet exercise) on Wednesday, I've dropped 5 1/2 lbs. I know that's some
chunk water weight, so I'm kind of dreading the plateaus that I'm pretty
sure are in my future. But still.

I'm still finding calorie recording to be as freeing as it is restricting.
Unlike previous diets, I don't have to vaguely "be good", and/or get a
groove on where I'm eating the same thing every day (which I don't mind
THAT much, but still, I know variety is generally a good thing for
me nutrition-wise) Plus, because I'm saying that I'm commiting to this in
perpetuity (at least the daily monitoring, if not the calorie summing) I
don't even need a specific calorie goal beyond "aim for 1500-2000".

Inspired by Doug I took some before pictures in a mirror today, though
ones more blatantly posed to show my gut, not with the same casualness of
Doug's.

Finally, I'm a programmer so I'm making myself a little custom app for
recording calories etc. I'm still also using the Hacker's Diet Palm
software, because I'm not sure when if ever I'd get around to making a
nice weighted moving average graph tool. The app (all my apps start with
"k/", so this is "k/alorie", har har) is geared at some specific UI ideas
I have and makes it easy to add in any previous day's calorie/food combo
to today, since I'm a bit repetitive in my eating.

Alrighty, take care everyone

Kirk, 227/221.5/180

--
QUOTEBLOG: http://kisrael.com SKEPTIC MORTALITY:
http://kisrael.com/mortal
MISTAKES "It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve
as a warning to others." --Demotivators, http://despair.com


Hey, welcome aboard! When I started counting calories, it was almost like my
"diet" took care of itself. I was able to see what foods were filling, which
ones weren't and just made me hungry, etc. I've been at this for seven
months now, and its going really well. After a while, exercising every day
and eating the right amount of food becomes your lifestyle. Your body
adjusts to it and its no longer a chore.

You've got forty pounds to lose, so you're looking at hitting your goal in
the late fall or early winter. That's a long time away and there are a lot
of ups and downs. Commit for the long term, and don't let the fluctuations
and platau.... plata... flat spots get to you.

Mike

Mike90732 wrote:
Hey, welcome aboard! When I started counting calories, it was almost like my
"diet" took care of itself. I was able to see what foods were filling, which
ones weren't and just made me hungry, etc. I've been at this for seven

Yeah! and I find that careful food journaling is, just by itself, a push
to eat better, because I think "well, I could have that tasty but not
great for me snack, but I'd have to record it".

And conversely, I don't feel compelled to be a saint, because as long as
I'm in my calorie limit AND getting a reasonable balance of nutrition,
I should be ok. This is a big change from my previous program, where
indulgence was much harder to quantify, which lead at first to guilt, and
gradually probably too much indulgence...

Heh, I remember a few months ago thinking how the by-the-lb salad bar at
my office park made me calculate every damns food tastiness per pound...
now every food gets a long hard look at its satisfaction/calorie ratio.

You've got forty pounds to lose, so you're looking at hitting your goal in
the late fall or early winter. That's a long time away and there are a lot
of ups and downs. Commit for the long term, and don't let the fluctuations
and platau.... plata... flat spots get to you.

And the flip side is, if I'm planning for the *really* long term
("Hacker's Diet" is kind of geared to be an external "When To Eat
Indicator" in perpetuity, to replace my if-fy internal one, much like I
wear glasses every day forever (don't complicate the metaphor w/ laser
surgery ;-) to suplement my if-fy eyes) then Fall, Winter, next Summer...
whenever... it just isn't that big a deal.

I'm not *quite* the newbie I sound like, which means I can toss around the
concepts like WOL/WOE... alas that means I've been here before. My
previous loss actually had a semi-decent maintenence period for years
after, but unfortunately that turned out to be too linked to my married
lifestyle, and when that blew up, so did I. There were also a couple false
starts that I can shame-facedly dejagoogle up.

I got the scale in the divorce, bodyfat measuring but I don't trust that
reading in general, but it seems to be a consistent (and accurate relative
to the Dr's) reading in general.

Anyway, I've always appreciated the support this group gives. And I don't
remember seeing so many "succesful losers" around! People who have hit
their goal and still talk about the maintenence, or people who seem so
close and have lost so much and our on the final stretch. It's
encouraging!

--
QUOTEBLOG: http://kisrael.com SKEPTIC MORTALITY: http://kisrael.com/mortal
"Evaporation is God's paper towel" --Dylan Murray

Also, I wanted to say that I'm grateful that this group is accepting of
almost any weightloss goal, from people who are almost looking for a
"cosmetic" drop, to some others who have a much larger struggle and are
likely taking steps that should have profoundly positive impacts on their
longterm health and their shortterm wellbeing.

I guess I think of myself somewhere between those two regions. But
technically I was in the "obsese" range for a reason, and that reason has
to do with probabilities of weight-related ailments for certain
weight-population demographics.

Kirk, 227/221.5/180
(first day w/ no drop, but the digital scale wavered between 221/221.5 ;-)

--
QUOTEBLOG: http://kisrael.com SKEPTIC MORTALITY: http://kisrael.com/mortal
"Dixie to Cicero: The Jazz Migration" [...] Songs include: "She Be Big,
Maybe Too Big Blues," "Can I Has Yo Fish?", and the classic
"Wha's Dis on Yo Shoe?" --Humans

Mike90732 wrote:
Hey, welcome aboard! When I started counting calories, it was almost like my
"diet" took care of itself. I was able to see what foods were filling, which
ones weren't and just made me hungry, etc. I've been at this for seven
months now, and its going really well. After a while, exercising every day
and eating the right amount of food becomes your lifestyle. Your body
adjusts to it and its no longer a chore.

You've got forty pounds to lose, so you're looking at hitting your goal in
the late fall or early winter. That's a long time away and there are a lot
of ups and downs. Commit for the long term, and don't let the fluctuations
and platau.... plata... flat spots get to you.

Plateaus are the worst part of dieting for me - because I am very
susceptible to getting depressed when I see no results so I understand
what you mean - makes me just want to pig out because I always feel
like what's the point, I could live on water and dirt and not lose the
weight. That is the attitude I am trying to battle these days - that
despair thing. It WILL get better, it WILL happen (or you know, that is
what I am telilng myself nowadays.

I find that having a little diary log that you can record the calories
you had often helps me - because seeing it in black and white written
in front of me has way more of a curtailing effect on my eating habits
than just mentally trying to figure out what some certain item has
calorie-wish and averaging it all in my head.

On Sun, 04 Jun 2006 16:23:04 GMT, Kirk Is
wrote:

Finally, I'm a programmer so I'm making myself a little custom app for
recording calories etc. I'm still also using the Hacker's Diet Palm
software, because I'm not sure when if ever I'd get around to making a
nice weighted moving average graph tool. The app (all my apps start with
"k/", so this is "k/alorie", har har) is geared at some specific UI ideas
I have and makes it easy to add in any previous day's calorie/food combo
to today, since I'm a bit repetitive in my eating.

Is this something you're working on for your own use or do you plan to
make it available in some way for the general use? I'm sysadmin and
do a little coding, but I'm always interesting in seeing other
people's unique UI ideas.

Binky wrote:
Is this something you're working on for your own use or do you plan to
make it available in some way for the general use? I'm sysadmin and
do a little coding, but I'm always interesting in seeing other
people's unique UI ideas.

Did we talk about this a while back?
Anyway, if not... there's not much to it, actually. The only "interesting"
UI idea in it is that I have a single day represented as a single
textarea, with each line in the format "CALORIECOUNTwhitespaceFOODNAME".

Press the "submit" button and it gives you the running total. It just
seemed to be the most effecient "notepad but with integreated calculator"
like way of entering this data.

I keep meaning to add the feature where you can click next to previous
days' food entries to add that entry to today, which reflects my often
repetitive eating habits.

I also keep meaning to add the built in graphing, hopefully without
resorting to a Java applet.

Once I get those features, I might make a publically available version.
Actually Ive reserved the domain "diethackers.com" in case I ever get
around to making a forum and toolset for a web version of the Hacker's
Diet support kit. (Though first I kind of want to make sure I'm a decent
"case study")

--
QUOTEBLOG: http://kisrael.com SKEPTIC MORTALITY: http://kisrael.com/mortal
"If I can't be free, at least I'll be cheap"--some guy on the net

On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 17:33:26 GMT, Kirk Is
wrote:

Binky wrote:
Is this something you're working on for your own use or do you plan to
make it available in some way for the general use? I'm sysadmin and
do a little coding, but I'm always interesting in seeing other
people's unique UI ideas.

Did we talk about this a while back?

*laff* yeah. I was going through some old posts

Anyway, if not... there's not much to it, actually. The only "interesting"
UI idea in it is that I have a single day represented as a single
textarea, with each line in the format "CALORIECOUNTwhitespaceFOODNAME".

Press the "submit" button and it gives you the running total. It just
seemed to be the most effecient "notepad but with integreated calculator"
like way of entering this data.

Sounds elegant, simple and easy to code

I keep meaning to add the feature where you can click next to previous
days' food entries to add that entry to today, which reflects my often
repetitive eating habits.

Most of the software I've tried makes it kind of cumbersome to group
foods into a "preset" you can add with one click. I kind of eat the
same way- I get into a comfortable rut. I'm using fitday, and if I
could control-select meals out of my food log and rclick them into a
"preset" or a meal it would be perfect.

I also keep meaning to add the built in graphing, hopefully without
resorting to a Java applet.

Once I get those features, I might make a publically available version.
Actually Ive reserved the domain "diethackers.com" in case I ever get
around to making a forum and toolset for a web version of the Hacker's
Diet support kit. (Though first I kind of want to make sure I'm a decent
"case study")

Cool. What language are you writing it in?

Binky wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jul 2006 17:33:26 GMT, Kirk Is
wrote:
Binky wrote:
Did we talk about this a while back?

*laff* yeah. I was going through some old posts

heh, it was weird, because I had been Dejagoogling your old posts so I had
an idea of what capacity scale you'd need for the other thread, found
this, but figured "eh, maybe I emailed or something offline" not noticing
the date.

Anyway, if not... there's not much to it, actually. The only "interesting"
UI idea in it is that I have a single day represented as a single
textarea, with each line in the format "CALORIECOUNTwhitespaceFOODNAME".
Press the "submit" button and it gives you the running total. It just
seemed to be the most effecient "notepad but with integreated calculator"
like way of entering this data.

Sounds elegant, simple and easy to code

Thanks, yeah... it just required thinking a little bit less like an
engineer for a second. Blank lines, too many spaces or a tab in the text
field, no problem. It's a very loosey-goosey UI but it has worked great.

The bigget problem is I'll llikely never really do great integration with
a CalorieKing, but actually I depend more on "Nutrtion Facts" on packages
anyway, at least for now.

Once I get those features, I might make a publically available version.
Actually Ive reserved the domain "diethackers.com" in case I ever get
around to making a forum and toolset for a web version of the Hacker's
Diet support kit. (Though first I kind of want to make sure I'm a decent
"case study")

Cool. What language are you writing it in?

My default for goofy little personal projects is always bad ol' Perl...
I would look for an off-the-shelf message board though.

--
QUOTEBLOG: http://kisrael.com SKEPTIC MORTALITY: http://kisrael.com/mortal
"If you feel it, but it isn't right, don't do it and don't
believe it. We can be better than natural -- we're human."--Penn Jillette