Checking out the Hackers’ Diet

I'm back now from Washington, and the journey back wasn't nearly so bad as when I came back from Nashville, or at least the jet-lag isn't, anyway. The fact that my flight left Washington at 8.00am, and got in to Heathrow around 8.30pm, meant that by the time I got home I went straight to bed and woke up as normal around 7.00am local time, getting me back into the new time zone. Given the time difference between the US east coast and the UK, the only way this would work is if you got a really early flight, but it gets all the travelling into one "logical day" rather than stretching into two, and you then having to "catch up" with the time difference whilst you're tired out from having not slept one night. Anyway, I'm up and about now, but as my wife Janet pointed out earlier this evening, I seem to have brought an extra something back with me - about an extra half a stone to be precise, which I suspect has got something to do with being away in a hotel for the best part of June, and a few too many cooked breakfasts in the morning.

So, being the sort of person who always seems to need something to do, and I've just got a bit more free time now the various conferences are out of the way, I think it's time for a bit of exercise and a diet, with the objective being to shift one stone within the next four weeks. Being the sort of person I am, I've checked out the old "life hacking" websites and came across the "Hackers' Diet" by John Walker, the founder of Autodesk, which treats weight loss in the same way as debugging a faulty program:

"...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?"

Through all the years of struggling with my weight, the fad diets, the tedious and depressing history most fat people share, I had never, even once, approached controlling my weight the way I'd work on any other problem: a malfunctioning circuit, a buggy program, an ineffective department in my company."

Well that sounds interesting to me. Of course being over in the States, a little bit of a "dad's belly" is nothing compared to the morbidly obese people I came across at the hotel (ODTUG was running alongside the United Steelworkers convention) but it's the best thing to nip this sort of thing in the bud, hence I'm going to give it a go for the next month or so. I had considered the Atkins Diet, but it looked a bit too faddy for me, and I do actually do a bit of exercise - I'm off to the gym tomorrow and I'll go at least one more night next week - but I thought it'd be interesting to try out the Hacker's Diet and report back on how it goes. It'll make a change from transportable tablespaces anyway.

Anyone else had any luck shifting a few pounds in a "non-boring way"? (apart from contracting dysentery on holiday, or something else similar). Anyway, I'll give it a go and occaisionally report back.