The Engineer Approach to Weight Loss

That's slightly over 2 cans of soda or juice.

Yep. I started the Hacker's Diet a little more than 3 years ago (which basically says “It's the calories stupid”) and dropped about 45 pounds from my peak weight at a rate of roughly 5-6 pounds a month. I'm up about 6 pounds now from the goal weight I set back then and have just started a renewed attempt to re-lose that 6 pounds. The most helpful part of that “program” was the spreadsheet that tracked weight. Rather than seeing a jagged line with the random daily ups and downs, the spreadsheet computed a trend weight (a moving average) using a really simple algorithm that gives both a more honest and more encouraging appraisal of where your weight “really” is. For example, if your measured weight is 2 pounds below the “trend” weight, the trend drops .2 pounds. Encouraging, but more honest than a 2-pound drop that MAY be due to some dehydration or due to the timing of the weighing. Similarly, if your weight is up 2 pounds (due to a late meal or other issues), there is only a .2 pound increase in the trend weight. If the weight “passes” and the measured weight is back where it was the next day, you don't see such a large artificial blip in the trend weight. If the weight is REALLY increasing, it shows up soon enough.

I highly recommend the Hacker's Diet to anyone (but especially geeks).

http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/