How I lost 105 lbs. with diet, exercise, and a spreadsheet

I won my lifelong struggle with obesity the only way anyone ever lost any real weight: through a monitored routine of diet and exercise.

I was never an athletic person. I had been diagnosed with asthma at a young age, and this fostered a long dislike for physical activity, as exercise only exacerbated my condition.

I was puffing at least four different inhalers three times a day, in addition to various pills, the hookah-esque nebulizer and at the worst of times, the nasty steroid prednisone.

So by the time I reached high school, the combination of no physical activity, a family that loves to eat, my asthma steroids, and my insistence that I was happy fat, I weighed an alarming 270 lbs.

While I eschewed weight loss for vanity reasons (and still do to a lesser extent), I wanted to lose weight mainly to increase my personal mobility.

In the first semester of college, the combination of a healthier diet and walking to class, I lost 30 lbs. Throughout college, I was 240 lbs but could not shed the weight beyond that.

At some point I remember reading John Walker’s free ebook, The Hacker’s Diet, but at the time I mostly shrugged the book off.

After college, before I left for the Peace Corps, I was still only at 235 lbs. For the first five months I was walking more, eating less, and generally stressed out: and I inadvertently lost another 50 lbs.

I was down to 185 lbs., the thinnest I’d been in years! Eager to maintain my new, slim self, I reread The Hacker’s Diet, and starting weighing myself everyday, watching what I ate.

The book changed the way look at my body, and I recommend it to anyone who wants to lose weight, especially but not only people who have analytical minds. Don’t let the title scare you off.

I kept track of my weight using a small paper notebook, but as in most things I wanted to use my computer to help. The author produced some excellent Excel Computer Tools, but as a proponent of open source software, I use OpenOffice.org.

Instead I used the spreadsheets available here:

The Hacker’s Diet with OpenOffice.org

Only three months later, I was down to 165 lbs., and maintained so for several months.

In all I had lost 105 lbs., 10 inches off of my waist, and got my sexy back.

However, being 15 lbs. underweight for my height made me look emaciated, was probably just as unhealthy as being obese, so I started eating more, and started running.

As of January 2008, I am maintaining a healthy 180 lbs. and am now focusing on getting physically fit. I still update my spreadsheet weights about once a month, but I now use the author’s Eat Watch, on my PDA for my daily weigh-ins.