Now I already mentioned Jeremy Zawodnysblog entries on losing weight. Well he based his plan on something called "The Hackers Diet" a free online book by John Walker. Jeremys description absolutely captures the essence of what The Hackers Diet is about. So if you think Jeremy is on the right track then go straight to The Hackers Diet and read it as well.
It is pointless for me to recap what is in the two sources listed above. If you are not motivated enough to go read them for yourself then I doubt you'll be motivated enough to actually lose weight. Besides which they write quite a bit better than I do.
The previous paragraph notwithstanding, what you will learn is that a diet is for life not just for Christmas. Sorry what I mean is that we need to change the way we live our lives and that change will result in the ideal weight for us. This is not a process to lose weight. It is a process to change how we eat that will allow us to control our weight. Initially we will reduce that weight to a desired amount and then we will keep it there for the rest of our lives.
There are no gimmicks and no short cuts. It has taken a lot of hard work gradually over the space of years to reach our current weight. Such a monument of effort will not be torn down in a flash. It will take time to dismantle brick by sodding brick. Alas, to stretch the metaphor beyond all reason, there is no magic diet Semtex to demolish the edifice of our overeating.
It is also worth mentioning that there is nothing special about The Hackers Diet. It simply says eat less than you need and you will lose weight. It gives an engineering approach to doing that that works for my type of personality. However, there are many different ways to achieve exactly the same thing and it may well be that one of those works better for you. I will mention one in particular, weight watchers. From everything I've read and seeing one very common denominator on the blogs of those that have lost weight. This seems like a good method that teaches real lifestyle changes and improvement and above all gets lasting results.
There are many paths to the goal. They have common themes. Find the path that works for you and don't give up.
Eat less you say. Perhaps you jest sir! everybody knows that. Knowing is not the hard part, doing is the hard part.
This is very true, we (lucky enough to live in the first world) live surrounded by food most of which is terribly bad for us, but strangely tastes great. It's like an alcoholic working in a brewery; An arsonist in a refinery; a burglar in a jewelry shop; well you get the idea. As GWB is known to say "its hard".
Well, the only reason for this blog to to explain how I managed to do it. I'm sick and tired of reading miserable blogs of people failing to lose weight (you know who you are you non losers). The few that succeed stand out. Well they did it, here is how they did it, I can do it too. Well this is going to be one of those helpful blogs. I can say this with confidence because I waited until I was five weeks into this and down 14lbs before I started the blog. And no I don't gamble either.
This is the way I have found to lose weight. It is based on what I have learned on the net and on what I know I'll put up with. In the next few entries I'll outline where I got the information, how I applied it to my situation and how well it has worked for me. If you're reading this looking for support or as a starting place then I hope you find it helpful. Whatever your situation remember it is your body and you can control it. The only thing between you and the weight you want to achieve is YOU.
We call them an executive summary to distinguish them from summaries for the plain old masses. It makes them sound more important, like they matter because this is not a summary for the plain old man on the street. NO, this is a summary fit for an executive, who are by all accounts a higher life form. At least they use that excuse to get paid more. So read on, Oh Fat Executive and learn in a short and snappy manner just the intimate secrets of my fantabulious weight loss system.
The idea is simple, eat less calories than you body needs and you will lose weight.
It is far easier to eat less than to exercise it off, 1 hour running is the same as 1 side french fries, so its easier to just not eat the fries (than to run for 1 hour)!
Don't exercise to lose weight, do it to get healthy; eat less to lose weight.
You don't gain or lose weight overnight, it is the slow accumulating imbalance of what you eat versus what you need that causes the gain or the loss.
There you have it, the innermost secrets of the billion $ diet industry. Perhaps I should look for a Venture Capitalist.
I started Hang Gliding last November. Lots of fun and I thought that lots of running and jumping off mountains would be good exercise and might even help me lose weight. That's right, just take up a whole new hobby involving expense and effort that just might (no research or data needed thank you) help lose weight. OK, well actually I really wanted to learn how to Hang Glide and weight loss was just an excuse to get started. For the record, Hang Gliding doesn't help you lose weight in the traditional sense, but it does allow you to attain a state of weightlessness, whence you fly through the air as if the law of gravity has been issued a temporary suspension. So I was partly right.
Then a guy died, we'll call him Larry because that was his name. He didn't die in some heroic Hang Gliding disaster (mid air collision with an F16, or by being attacked by flying monkeys). No, he just dropped dead of a heart attack walking up the training hill. He wasn't very old and just a few days before we had attended Hang Gliding ground school together. It was a bit of a wake up call. I had suspected that we weren't immortal, but here was conclusive proof.
Then by a curious coincidence I happened to read a blog of a chap called Jeremy Zawodny, It was linked from BoingBoing. Now Jeremy is a geeky kind of Silicon Valley dude (much like my self, I'd like to think) and he managed to lose 50lbs. So right there, right then I decided I WOULD TOO. And on that very day I started. Thanks Jeremy, I call it the Larry Memorial Diet.
Hi, my name is Brenor and I'm overweight. Hi Brenor...... WAIT! I hate 12 step programs they are bogus BS so that is enough of that.
I've been overweight since I was about 17 and my weight has slowly increased until about 18 months ago when I was 185lbs. Which while a tad heavy I was happy to live with. Then I gave up smoking and BAM put on another 30lbs in almost no time. That put my firmly in the NOT HAPPY camp, but I frankly didn't know what to do about it. Sounds silly, but I was pretty convinced I was somehow a victim of the magical fat fairy that caused you to get fat even when you didn't eat very much at all (honest). So I did nothing. After a while I continued to do nothing. It seemed like a good plan.
