These lessons learned is what worked for me. Your situation may be different. This code is designed to be used on your own data. This is a n=1 experiment it is not statistically representative of any population. This was not a scientific experiment, or a "study"; rather, it was a personal journey of experimentation and discovery. But evolution has been hard at work for over 2 billion years shaping the chemistry of all eukaryotes, multi-cellular life and eventually mammals. The Krebs cycle, glucose metabolism, insulin spikes, glycogen in the liver, carnitine, lipase, are as real for you as they are for me. We may be very different in environments in our genes and traits, some are more insulin resistant, for example, but we cannot be too different in our most fundamental metabolic chemistry. The chemistry which drives fat synthesis and break-up.
Observations:
Like most people with time and stress I've been gaining more and more weight. I peaked in 2013 at 210lbs, over 60 lbs higher than my 150 lbs steady-state weight of my twenties. North America is an area where obesity is an epidemic. Our western typical lifestyle is IMHO the root cause (Constant TV ads; Fast food is highly available, very cheap compared to most alternatives, most food we buy and eat is heavily processed). "No Fat" and "Low Fat" labels are everywhere on supermarket shelves. Many foods are enriched and sweetened with high-fructose corn-syrup. I realized I need to think for myself. Ignore most "experts" advice. Question widely accepted ideas like the FDA "food pyramid". Start listening to my own body, my own logic and data that I can collect myself and trust. Once I did, the results followed.
What didn't work
I tried several times to change my diet. After reading one of Atkins' books, I realized, checked, and accepted the fact that excess carbs are a major factor in gaining weight. But that realization alone has not led to success. My will power, apparently, was insufficient. I would reduce my carb consumption, lose a few pounds (typically ~5 pounds), and then break-down, go back to consuming excess carbs, and gain all these pounds back, and then some. My longest diet stretch lasted just a few months. It was obvious that something was missing in my method. I just had to find it. I could increase my physical activity, say start training for a mini-marathon, but that's not something I felt comfortable with. I realized early on that I need to adopt a lifestyle that not just reduces carbs, or add exercise, but is also sustainable and even enjoyable so it can turn into a painless routine. Something that: I could do for years. Never feel the urge to break habits. Is not hard, or unpleasant for to do.
Insights
Early in the process I figured I could use machine learning to identify the factors that made me gain or lose weight. I used a simple method: every morning I would weigh myself, and record both the new weights and whatever I did in the past ~24 hours, not just the food I ate, but also whether I exercised, slept too little or too much, etc. The file I kept was fairly simple. A CSV with 3 columns:
For the data pictures and graphics please goto
https://github.com/jean-francoisgiraud/LCHF-HowToLoseAndControlWeight
Credits and Acknowledgements:
This study (version controlled in github) is a fork from the github of arielf/weight-loss (I edited his original work to fit and add my data observations and experiences).
BSD 2-Clause License (https://github.com/jean-francoisgiraud/LCHF-HowToLoseAndControlWeight/blob/master/Licence.md)