“Hacker’s diet,” first published as an online e-book by John Walker, has become an instant success among people trying to lose weight.
Walker himself lost more than 70 pounds in a year following this diet. The diet plan is a structured framework involving calculations that allow people to customize the plan according to their own body weight and limiting features.
The hacker’s diet takes an engineering perspective to weight loss. It focuses on a small formula that regards diet as only how much the body stores and how much it requires. The diet claims that if a person consumes lesser quantities of food than is required for metabolism, the fat that is burned during exercise would be the stored fat. This is the main crux of the whole diet plan. Although not propagating starving oneself, the hacker’s diet promotes a low-carb diet.
The diet keeps track of the calorie intake by using spreadsheet tools and other programming tools. Tracking can also be done by means of a journal, instead of sophisticated computer tools. The record keeps track of the daily weight, calorie storage, and consumption, and is highly meticulous. Then these records are compared by making graphs and are checked for any progress.
The hacker’s diet, although recognizing the value of good nutrition, propagates the use of diet and calorie control. According to the hacker’s diet, weight loss only requires reduction in calories. It also focuses on dieting and light exercise, as most people do not have enough time to include heavy exercises as a primary method of weight loss.
The exercises that are suggested by Walker in his book are largely derived from the Royal Canadian Air Force 5BX program. This exercise program, combined with proper and nutritious diet, is the key to hacker’s diet.
For a number of people, active journal keeping may also seem like a burden and a difficult task. Since everyday calorie counting is necessary to the success of the diet, the journal keeping may seem time-consuming and discouraging for people looking for immediate results. The book may also be hard to follow for the technically-challenged people.