Slashdot Mirror
Book Review: The Healthy Programmer
benrothke writes "Diet books are literally a dime a dozen. They generally benefit only the author, publisher and Amazon, leaving the reader frustrated and bloated. With a failure rate of over 99%, diet books are the epitome of a sucker born every minute. One of the few diet books that can offer change you can believe in is The Healthy Programmer: Get Fit, Feel Better, and Keep Coding. Author Joe Kutner observes that nearly every popular diet fails and the reason is that they are based on the premise of a quick fix without focusing on the long-term core issues. It is inevitable that these diets will fail and the dieters at heart know that. It is simply that they are taking the wrong approach. This book is about the right approach; namely a slow one. With all of the failed diet books, Kutner is one of the few that has gotten it right." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.
The Healthy Programmer: Get Fit, Feel Better, and Keep Coding
author
Joe Kutner
pages
220
publisher
Pragmatic Bookshelf
rating
9/10
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
978-1937785314
summary
A diet and lifestyle guide that works for all, not just for programmers.
While the title of the book says it's for programmers, it is germane to anyone whose job requires them to be at a desk for extended amounts of time.
Kutner is himself a programmer who builds Ruby and Rails applications, and a former college athlete and Army Reserve physical fitness trainer.
The book focuses on two areas that require change: regular exercise and proper nutrition; and it details the steps necessary to create a balanced lifestyle.
While popular diet books require rapid and major lifestyle changes and promise quick weight-loss, the book notes that small changes to your habits can provide the long-term effects that can improve your health. The book focuses on incremental changes and sustainability, not about losing x pounds in x weeks.
The book is different (read: effective) as opposed to other diet and lifestyle books, in that its goal is to make your healthy lifestyle pragmatic, attainable, and fun. It is only with those aspects that long-term change be possible.
As to programmers, Kutner writes that programming requires intense concentration that often causes them to neglect other aspects of their lives; the most common of which is their health. People's bodies have not evolved to accommodate a lifestyle of sitting and there are many negative health effects from it.
The book takes a start small approach, rather than one of drastic changes. In chapter 2, it notes the myriad benefits of walking. It states that walking is a powerful activity that can stimulate creative thinking (a required trait for a good programmer) and is a great way to bootstrap your health. The chapter details the ways in which a few short walks during the day can have a dramatic positive effect on your life.
Chapter 3 is about the dangers of chairs and sitting for long periods of time. It details a number of ways to counter the dangers of sitting. It also notes that while sometimes you simply can't get away from your chair, and when that happens, you can make sitting less dangerous by forcing your muscles to contract without even getting up. It then details a number of different calisthenics to use to do this.
Chapter 4 – Agile Dieting — is perhaps the best part of the book. It details how to fight the real causes of weight gain and details proven solutions that work. That chapter repeatedly uses terms like iterative, sustainable, slow to show what it really takes to lose weight and achieve a healthy lifestyle.
Kutner notes that most of the popular fad diets are idiosyncratic and unbalanced. They will provide short-term benefits, but ultimately fail miserably. The chapter quotes research data on what needs to be in a balanced diet. It then notes that almost every fad diet violates those needs. Nutrition needs to be rounded and well-balanced and the fad diets for that reason will only work in the short term.
This book is everything the fad diet books are not and this is most manifest in chapter 4 where Kutner writes one should cut calories slowly. This is based on research which shows that quick drastic weight loss is counterproductive. While the fad diets talk about drastic caloric changes, Kutner suggests dropping your intake slower, about 100 calories every two weeks until you get you your targeted caloric intake level.
While much of the book is on fitness and nutrition, it takes a complete body approach. Chapter 5 details the importance of eye health. This is an important topic since the average programmer spends much of their week behind a monitor.
Kutner writes about computer vision syndrome (CVS); an eye condition resulting from focusing the eyes on a monitor for extended amounts of time. Symptoms of CVS include headaches, blurred vision, neck pain, redness in the eyes, fatigue, eye strain, dry eyes, irritated eyes, double vision, vertigo/dizziness, polyopia, and difficulty refocusing the eyes. The book also details methods in which to minimize the effects of CVS, and how not to become a victim of it. Kutner writes that CVS is what most programmers refer to as life. But it does not have to be that way.
The rest of the book covers other physical ailments that plague programmers. This runs the gamut from headaches, backaches, wrist problem, carpel tunnel, head strain and much more. Most of these problems can be obviated if one follows proper ergonomics practices and employs some of the physical conditioning detailed in the book.
Another theme of the book is using goals as an impetus for change. The book lists 16 goals which can be used as a progressive framework to improve your health. These goals include buying a pedometer, finding your resting heart rate, getting a negative result on Reverse Phalens test and other lifestyle changes.
Given the preponderance of obesity, diabetes and other maladies associated with a sedentary lifestyle, this may be one of the most important non-programming books that every developer should read and take to heart.
The book has hundreds of bits of excellent advice and subtle lifestyle suggestions that over time can make a significant difference to your health.
The author has a web site and an iPhone app that can be referenced for additional help. The book is full of sage and pragmatic advice. It has no celebrity endorsement, no gimmicks or false claims; meaning it has a high chance of working.
The book concludes with the observation that programmers often say the hardest part of software development begins when a product is released. The real work, maintenance, continues on, much like your health. You must sustain a stat of wellness for the rest of your life, and you need to continue setting goals, iterating and making small improvements.
For many programmers, they love their job but not the lifestyle problems that come with it. For the programmer that wants the challenges of the professional and the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, The Healthy Programmer: Get Fit, Feel Better, and Keep Coding, may be a life changing book, and should find its rightful place on every programmer's desk.
Reviewed by Ben Rothke.
You can purchase The Healthy Programmer: Get Fit, Feel Better, and Keep Coding from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews (sci-fi included) -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Kutner is himself a programmer who builds Ruby and Rails applications, and a former college athlete and Army Reserve physical fitness trainer.
The book focuses on two areas that require change: regular exercise and proper nutrition; and it details the steps necessary to create a balanced lifestyle.
While popular diet books require rapid and major lifestyle changes and promise quick weight-loss, the book notes that small changes to your habits can provide the long-term effects that can improve your health. The book focuses on incremental changes and sustainability, not about losing x pounds in x weeks.
The book is different (read: effective) as opposed to other diet and lifestyle books, in that its goal is to make your healthy lifestyle pragmatic, attainable, and fun. It is only with those aspects that long-term change be possible.
As to programmers, Kutner writes that programming requires intense concentration that often causes them to neglect other aspects of their lives; the most common of which is their health. People's bodies have not evolved to accommodate a lifestyle of sitting and there are many negative health effects from it.
The book takes a start small approach, rather than one of drastic changes. In chapter 2, it notes the myriad benefits of walking. It states that walking is a powerful activity that can stimulate creative thinking (a required trait for a good programmer) and is a great way to bootstrap your health. The chapter details the ways in which a few short walks during the day can have a dramatic positive effect on your life.
Chapter 3 is about the dangers of chairs and sitting for long periods of time. It details a number of ways to counter the dangers of sitting. It also notes that while sometimes you simply can't get away from your chair, and when that happens, you can make sitting less dangerous by forcing your muscles to contract without even getting up. It then details a number of different calisthenics to use to do this.
Chapter 4 – Agile Dieting — is perhaps the best part of the book. It details how to fight the real causes of weight gain and details proven solutions that work. That chapter repeatedly uses terms like iterative, sustainable, slow to show what it really takes to lose weight and achieve a healthy lifestyle.
Kutner notes that most of the popular fad diets are idiosyncratic and unbalanced. They will provide short-term benefits, but ultimately fail miserably. The chapter quotes research data on what needs to be in a balanced diet. It then notes that almost every fad diet violates those needs. Nutrition needs to be rounded and well-balanced and the fad diets for that reason will only work in the short term.
This book is everything the fad diet books are not and this is most manifest in chapter 4 where Kutner writes one should cut calories slowly. This is based on research which shows that quick drastic weight loss is counterproductive. While the fad diets talk about drastic caloric changes, Kutner suggests dropping your intake slower, about 100 calories every two weeks until you get you your targeted caloric intake level.
While much of the book is on fitness and nutrition, it takes a complete body approach. Chapter 5 details the importance of eye health. This is an important topic since the average programmer spends much of their week behind a monitor.
Kutner writes about computer vision syndrome (CVS); an eye condition resulting from focusing the eyes on a monitor for extended amounts of time. Symptoms of CVS include headaches, blurred vision, neck pain, redness in the eyes, fatigue, eye strain, dry eyes, irritated eyes, double vision, vertigo/dizziness, polyopia, and difficulty refocusing the eyes. The book also details methods in which to minimize the effects of CVS, and how not to become a victim of it. Kutner writes that CVS is what most programmers refer to as life. But it does not have to be that way.
The rest of the book covers other physical ailments that plague programmers. This runs the gamut from headaches, backaches, wrist problem, carpel tunnel, head strain and much more. Most of these problems can be obviated if one follows proper ergonomics practices and employs some of the physical conditioning detailed in the book.
Another theme of the book is using goals as an impetus for change. The book lists 16 goals which can be used as a progressive framework to improve your health. These goals include buying a pedometer, finding your resting heart rate, getting a negative result on Reverse Phalens test and other lifestyle changes.
Given the preponderance of obesity, diabetes and other maladies associated with a sedentary lifestyle, this may be one of the most important non-programming books that every developer should read and take to heart.
The book has hundreds of bits of excellent advice and subtle lifestyle suggestions that over time can make a significant difference to your health.
The author has a web site and an iPhone app that can be referenced for additional help. The book is full of sage and pragmatic advice. It has no celebrity endorsement, no gimmicks or false claims; meaning it has a high chance of working.
The book concludes with the observation that programmers often say the hardest part of software development begins when a product is released. The real work, maintenance, continues on, much like your health. You must sustain a stat of wellness for the rest of your life, and you need to continue setting goals, iterating and making small improvements.
For many programmers, they love their job but not the lifestyle problems that come with it. For the programmer that wants the challenges of the professional and the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, The Healthy Programmer: Get Fit, Feel Better, and Keep Coding, may be a life changing book, and should find its rightful place on every programmer's desk.
Reviewed by Ben Rothke.
You can purchase The Healthy Programmer: Get Fit, Feel Better, and Keep Coding from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews (sci-fi included) -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Diet books are literally a dime a dozen. They generally benefit only the author, publisher and Amazon, leaving the reader frustrated and bloated. With a failure rate of over 99%, diet books are the epitome of a sucker born every minute. One of the few diet books that can offer change
That is where you should stop reading. When someone tells you nearly everything in a category is ineffective, then offers you something in that category as somehow worth your money, something stinks.
Whenever I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until the feeling passes away. :)
Dieting is problematic for one huge reason. People generally go about it in the most unhealthy of ways. Balance and portion control elude much of the West in this day and age. I know I'm certainly guilty of it, and I feel crappy healthwise.
Sitting is a huge problem too. Long commutes are similarly problematic. People often neglect to realize how much time they spend just sitting at the office, only to sit for 45 minutes or more both on the way to and from work, and then what little time is left is spent largely sitting at home.
Weather is also problematic, especially in climates where spending time outside is often impractical. The heat of Texas and the cold of some other region I've never lived in are made further difficult by the relative ease of Western life today. Gone are the days when outdoors is usually more pleasant than indoors in hot weather thanks to A/C, and modern heating soruces have all but eliminated the reason to be outside during cold winters except to get to and from heated vehicles. As a result, it's harder to handle the outside temperatures as one never acclimates to it.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
There's an almost magic weight loss formula I've followed that just works. I was going to write a book about it, but as it turns out it would be more of a pamphlet or brochure in length.
Just make sure the following is true: calories consumed
I've been monitoring my calorie intake using a free app (My Fitness Pal) and it's been working great. I can scan barcode for just about anything that has one (it sometimes doesn't find odd things I might purchase in, say, an Asian Grocery). You punch in what your goal weight is, and how much you want to lose per week and it calculates your calorie intake and keeps track of how much of various nutrients you're getting (Sodium, Potassium, etc).
I told the app I wanted to lose 2 pounds per week, and over 15 weeks lost exactly 30 pounds. It takes a bit of discipline, but it helps develop the habits you'll need to keep the weight off.
Didn't we just have an article this morning (EST) about how Twinkies were the programmer's "Breakfast of Champions?"
Well, as we are looking at the category of "diets tailored for programmers", I guess The Hacker's Diet is an obligatory mention. I guess most of you know that book already though. Tell me if you know any others.
The Hacker's Diet did this quite a while ago.
The concept is pretty simple: To lose weight, eat fewer calories than you burn. To not gain weight, eat only as much as you burn. You can increase how much you burn with exercise, or you can decrease how much you eat, or both. Anything else as far as dieting is concerned is window dressing.
I am officially gone from
If more goes in your mouth hole than comes out your butt hole, you get fat.
Oddly, no.
Carbohydrates used as an energy source are oxidized into carbon dioxide and water (vapor); these are exhausted by breathing them out your "mouth hole." Not all the calories input come out your "butt hole." So, you could have put it: "if more (caloric content) goes in via your mouth hole than you exhale via your mouth hole, the difference is incorporated into your body in the form of fat."
The amount oxidized is proportional to how many calories you expend in the form of metabolism and physical effort
Did I miss the special on Amazon where you get 12 books for 10 cents?
Words have meanings: literally has a meaning.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
Don't mess with tradition.
No digital version? No Kindle, epub, mobi, PDF versions? I find it odd to come across a book for programmers that isn't available in digital form.
+ $27, that feels a bit much for a diet book.
Here we go The Healthy Programmer: Get Fit, Feel Better, and Keep Coding DRM-free Format
Still awfully expensive for my tastes, I'll wait till it goes down in price before I check it out.
Hmm, the humour and sarcasm seem to have been be lost on you.
All you have to do to lose weight is eat less calories than you burn. That's it. Simple, right?
It's dead simple as long as you enjoy feeling hungry and irritable all day, have a magical body that burns the same amount of energy regardless of food input, and don't mind losing a ton of muscle mass during your diet.
The real answer is to cut out most of the carbohydrates that you eat (or at least lose the grains, there's some debate about potatoes and such) and replace them with fats instead. After a brief adaptation period, you can just eat when you're hungry and, because fat is more satiating, you'll naturally consume only what you need. Because you're not shoving tons of sugar down your throat, you won't experience the insulin surge-crash cycle, you'll have more energy and be less hungry than you would on a traditional "diet". Because you're eating more protein you'll lose less muscle mass than you would on a typical weight loss diet.
It might seem "extreme" or "fad" at first, but there's a growing body of evidence that suggests cutting carb intake is actually a very healthy and sustainable long-term choice. I do it and I recommend it to everyone who is looking to make a long-term diet adjustment.
Keto FAQ:
Q:But won't eating more fat give me a heart attack?
A:No, the idea that saturated fats lead to heart disease was never more than speculation and has never had any scientific evidence behind it.
Q:It's too hard to eat that way in modern America/I don't have time to cook that much.
A:Get a crock pot.
Well said.
I knew a physical education instructor and his rules were simple:
This sounds simple, but it can be difficult to practice. First, food is a social thing. We all get together and have lunch or dinner. So it's tough to tell the crowd, "You go ahead--I'm not hungry yet."
Also, if you're going out, the restaurant decides the portions and they do so based upon various factors that have nothing to do with your appetite. Yet, many of us were told to clean the plate because children are starving in Europe. At the very least, it was considered rude to not finish your food--your mother spent some time cooking it so you'd better eat it. And that lives with us into our adult lives.
The other good point about this is time. My sister is quite overweight. She's done some things about it and she's losing the weight. But as an instructor pointed out, "You spent 20 years putting on that weight. It's not going to all come off in 20 days."
I have a better diet.
Eat less. Exercise more.
You're done here.
Tell the PHB to stop the 80 hour work weeks then as well the working lunches
Personally I breath out some of the carbon from the foods I eat. You have a very strange respiratory system if that's coming out you butt hole. You may want to see a medical professional in fact.
As long as you're fixing thing, take "literally" out of there. It's literally the exact wrong way to use it.
Imagine for a moment you were invited to a gourmet dinner, and your host said "bring your appetite". What might you do?
Maybe skip a meal? (eat less)
Maybe work up an appetite with a brisk walk? (exercise more)
Now, what makes you think advice that makes people *hungry* is going to help them lose weight?
Fat accumulation is driven by insulin, which is driven by blood sugar, which is driven by carbohydrate intake.
Stop eating carbohydrates. It's simple.
I can't speak for everyone, but I dropped 80 pounds in seven months by eliminating carbs from my diet. I didn't work out. I didn't count calories. I didn't portion control. All I did was keep carbs under 20 grams a day.
So yes, it's sometimes that easy.
The reverse is true. The long period of fasting associated with once-a-day eating tends to lead to reduced insulin during the day, enabling the fat cells to release FFAs and promote fat burning.
Eating all day keeps the insulin high all day, telling the fat cells to hang on to their fat and make more from all the excess glucose in the blood stream. Unless you stick to eating only fat with a little protein.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Guyenet is wedded to a paradigm that keeps his funding flowing. It matters to him that Taubes be wrong not for the health of people, but for his bank account.
Taubes isn't wrong. His logic is rigorous, as befits a physicist who casts his eyes over the wasteland that is nutrition research.
Petro Dobromylskyj will set set your thinking straight. http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
We can create new habits and preferences: http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article16.aspx
"Scientific evidence suggests that the re-sensitization of taste nerves takes between 30 and 90 days of consistent exposure to less stimulating foods. This means that for several weeks, most people attempting this change will experience a reduction in eating pleasure. This is why modern foods present such a devastating trap -- as most of our citizens are, in effect, "addicted" to artificially high levels of food stimulation! The 30-to-90-day process of taste re-calibration requires more motivation-- and more self-discipline -- than most people are ever willing to muster.
Tragically, most people are totally unaware that they are only a few weeks of discipline away from being able to comfortably maintain healthful dietary habits -- and to keep away from the products that can result in the destruction of their health. Instead, most people think that if they were to eat more healthfully, they would be condemned to a life of greatly reduced gustatory pleasure -- thinking that the process of Phase IV will last forever. In our new book, The Pleasure Trap, we explain this extraordinarily deceptive and problematic situation -- and how to master this hidden force that undermines health and happiness."
My own collection of health advice and ideas for goign further:
http://www.changemakers.com/morehealth/entries/health-sensemaking
http://www.changemakers.com/discussions/discussion-493#comment-38823
But it was a cool idea to make a book about health just for programmers.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
1. Do not eat at any establishment that normally has a drive-thru window.
2. Do not drink any carbonated beverage except beer or sparkling wine.
3. Do not eat candy.
4. Eat one fresh apple per day. Generally favor fresh vegetables and fruits over grains, meats and dairy.
5. Eat stuff you like, but don't gorge. For instance, I go to my favorite Taqueria once every week or two, but I get two tacos instead of five. Most days, I eat food I cook myself.
6. Restaurants are not usually making low-calorie high-nutrient food in reasonable portions. If you are going out to eat, eat 1/2 the portion they put in front of you and share the other 1/2 or take it home or throw it out. There's no points for cleaning your plate.
7. Avoid packaged convenience foods. If it comes in a cardboard box with a picture of food on the outside, skip it. It's not food.
8. Count your calories with a smart-phone app. Be honest with yourself. If you log everything you eat, you'll make better choices.
9. A normal deck of playing cards is roughly the size of a day's healthy portion of meat (3 oz).
10. Get a moderate amount of exercise throughout the day. By exercise, I mean getting up and walking 15 mins or doing pushups or planking for 90 seconds. Building the big muscles in your body helps you burn more energy while resting. Overdoing this is useless and causes injury.
For extra credit, try fasting once per week to reset your hunger point and save one day's calories. Learn that being hungry for an hour or two isn't necessarily signaling the imminent end of your world.