Slashdot Mirror

I agree, i'm interested in the science, but i'm not willing to put the effort into micromanaging my entire life and and analyzing everything in detail.

A geeky friend of mine recently pointed me at the One Hundred Push-Ups program. It appeals to me because it's a webpage, it doesn't require anything complicated in the way of equipment or anything like that, it presents a simple and easy to understand plan with lots of numbers, and it takes place over a specific time period. You follow the plan, and the numbers keep going up till you reach your goal. (Assuming you manage to stick through to the end.) It might take more than six weeks if you have to take some do-overs, but it's definitely a finite period of time at the end of which you should see some definite improvement, something that really appeals to me. (I'm just starting week four myself right now.)

Another site i've used in the past is Calories Per Hour, particularly the BMR and RMR calculator. You can use it in conjunction with an exercise program, or just for setting up a diet plan. There's lots of numbers and math, which appeal to me as a geek, but at the end you have a nice simple number or two which tell you how much you can eat every day if you don't want to gain weight, and how much you can eat every day if you want to lose weight in a methodical and long term manner.

Of course on that note there's also The Hacker's Diet, which similarly takes the fairly straightforward approach that losing weight = consuming less calories than you burn.

You can argue a long time about paleo diet vs atkins diet vs south beach(?) or whatever other fad diet you've heard of, but in the end weight is just a matter of calories in vs calories out. If you want to lose weight you can reduce the calories going in or increase the calories going out. Certainly adjusting the kind of food you eat can make you healthier in other ways, but controlling the number of calories you eat is the first step. And if you start paying attention to the number of calories you eat you'll quickly discover that the healthier you eat the more you get to eat. Even just making the same food at home that you would have gotten at a fast food restaurant will save you a lot of calories than you can then spend on a snack or something. So instead of feeling like you _have_ to eat healthy to fit some particular diet you've decided to subject yourself to, you feel like you're getting rewarded for eating healthy.

I agree, i'm interested in the science, but i'm not willing to put the effort into micromanaging my entire life and and analyzing everything in detail.

A geeky friend of mine recently pointed me at the One Hundred Push-Ups program. It appeals to me because it's a webpage, it doesn't require anything complicated in the way of equipment or anything like that, it presents a simple and easy to understand plan with lots of numbers, and it takes place over a specific time period. You follow the plan, and the numbers keep going up till you reach your goal. (Assuming you manage to stick through to the end.) It might take more than six weeks if you have to take some do-overs, but it's definitely a finite period of time at the end of which you should see some definite improvement, something that really appeals to me. (I'm just starting week four myself right now.)

Another site i've used in the past is Calories Per Hour, particularly the BMR and RMR calculator. You can use it in conjunction with an exercise program, or just for setting up a diet plan. There's lots of numbers and math, which appeal to me as a geek, but at the end you have a nice simple number or two which tell you how much you can eat every day if you don't want to gain weight, and how much you can eat every day if you want to lose weight in a methodical and long term manner.

Of course on that note there's also The Hacker's Diet, which similarly takes the fairly straightforward approach that losing weight = consuming less calories than you burn.

You can argue a long time about paleo diet vs atkins diet vs south beach(?) or whatever other fad diet you've heard of, but in the end weight is just a matter of calories in vs calories out. If you want to lose weight you can reduce the calories going in or increase the calories going out. Certainly adjusting the kind of food you eat can make you healthier in other ways, but controlling the number of calories you eat is the first step. And if you start paying attention to the number of calories you eat you'll quickly discover that the healthier you eat the more you get to eat. Even just making the same food at home that you would have gotten at a fast food restaurant will save you a lot of calories than you can then spend on a snack or something. So instead of feeling like you _have_ to eat healthy to fit some particular diet you've decided to subject yourself to, you feel like you're getting rewarded for eating healthy.

http://www.caloriesperhour.com/

So... to burn an extra 250 calories per day at my weight of 170 pounds, I have to run... Let's see... over 2 miles per day.

To burn 9 pounds in 6 weeks must, logically, be the equivalent of running more than 2 miles/day. Do you not call that significant exercise?

(reducing intake by 250 calories is easy, however)

That's just nonsense unless you are eating cookies the size of dinner plates.

A medium chocolate chip cookie has around 60 calories:
http://www.calorie-count.com/calories/item.php?ite m_id=18164&size=2

A 150lb person will burn that off jogging for 8 minutes.
See http://www.caloriesperhour.com/ and try with your own weight and the activity of your choice.

I don't at all disagree with posters below that detail the other benefits of exercise, but I can't let the "exercising enough is impossible" argument slide.

All this health stuff is too difficult for me-- thank god I am a simpleton engineer and not a nuitritionist.

Correction:
There are approximately 3500 calories in a pound of fat.
http://www.caloriesperhour.com/faqs_pound.html