Hacker's Diet Fan

I've been posting here and there with my opinions but I thought maybe I should start a thread to explain where I'm coming from and why I think what I do to find like minded (and critical) people to support (and challenge) me.

My first well documented attempt to lose weight focused on exercise: lots and lots of exercise. This was sort of working, because I was very overweight, and even though it was taking 1.5-3h every day I managed to keep it up for a short while. Here's the chart:



At that time, I wasn't doing daily weigh-ins because I believed (wrongly) that weighing in less frequently would be less noisy; so the empty circles on the chart are that charting system assuming linear changes between each data point. In any event, I did manage to lose about 20lbs and that's with a (pretty visible) 1-week vacation in February, through exercise alone. I couldn't keep it up though, and the next step was to gain and lose and gain and lose it back, until by Christmas the following year (2005) I was pretty much the same:



The following summer (2006) I got serious again, but this time with a difference:



And the difference was I'd read "The Hacker's Diet" in August that year. The nearly linear straight down drop was the new plan: frozen dinners to control portions, and as much fruit and vegetables as I wanted. It worked excellently; I was hungry at first but then became used to my new intake and recognized that I used to call "full" what I'd now describe as "stuffed"; and that I used to call "hungry" what I'd now describe as the "absence of being stuffed". I came to view hunger at mealtimes as desirable and normal; and at other times as a reminder that I was succeeding and losing weight. This happy situation was interrupted by special occasions, trips, business travel, and so on, but prevailed enough of the time to keep my weight moving down for a while ... about 15 months total, until October the following year (2007):



But then, I messed up big time. I started to think "I've been doing this for over a year. It's easy: I can lose weight whenever I want; I know how to do it, I can stick to that plan." And I started to give myself exceptions, and then recover from them. Except I wasn't really recovering fully; each time I wound up a little worse off than before. Each time I thought it was the time I'd get back on the wagon. But somewhere along the line I totally lost it and just stopped really tracking.

The first year of this problem wasn't even that bad. It was 2008, and it looked like this:



I mean, yes it is bad. But I was still 170, a weight I hadn't been in 10+ years, and this was 2.5 years after I'd done the big weight loss. I still was thinking I was successful; diet registries consider you successful if you've kept off more than 30 pounds for a year (http://www.nwcronline.com/join.aspx). However, I was wrong, as 2009 was to prove:



You see, the problem in 2009 is I wasn't weighing daily anymore. I wasn't focused on the issue, I was stressed out by various things and letting the issue pass and eating for comfort like I've often done. Comfort, but at what cost! 2009 was a good year in other ways, but in retrospect it was the year I let go of thinking about my weight, and I just can't afford to do that.

2010:



As you can see, 2010 was more of the same, until the very end. This time my focus only lasted a couple of months, into the start of 2011, before I fell off the wagon again:



Then, physicsdiet.com stopped being reliable. I started using a withings scale, but didn't have a graphing system I liked. I didn't really do much about it, though I was weighing myself: I wasn't looking at the graph. My weight didn't change much for better or worse from the middle of 2011 right up until this past August, 2013.

But on August 25th this year, I found Libra (Android only) and trendweight.com ... and these integrate with my withings scale. So now I have charts like this for no effort - all I have to do is eat right:



I'm motivated again, and I'm on it. I know the rules: a diamond below the line: success. A diamond above the line, and I know I've been egregiously bad. Since starting on this weight loss effort I've been to a wedding (see the scary diamonds near the line on the second weekend) and eaten out at least twice per week (one work dinner, and one with my wife or my family each weekend). In other words, I'm living a pretty normal life ... but a life with the trend pointed firmly in the right direciton.

One year. One year of this and I can turn my thoughts to maintenance. Goal: 132 lbs or 10% body fat, whichever comes first.

Off I go.

Osric