How I lost 6 pounds in 5 days doing almost nothing.

This week I lost six pounds (170 => 164) with minimal diet changes and no working out.

My Effort:

1. 3 hours on Sunday reading 20% of The 4-Hour Body
2. Eating eggs for breakfast instead of fruit
3. Eating beans and spinach instead of fruit, potatoes, bread, and rice.
4. Being thoughtful about what I ate at 3 meals outside of my home this week.
5. Turning the shower on cold for a minute or so (not sure if this contributed or not)

The diet primarily consists of eating meat, legumes, and vegetables

Surprise
I'm still somewhat skeptical, but I'm proving myself wrong by doing it. I didn't think I could lose that much weight in such a short time frame and especially without major effort. In fact I may have eaten more than usual this week. I'm not sure how this will go, but I'll be happy to update in the future with continued progress.

Backstory
A few weeks ago my pants were getting tight on me. In 2012 reading The 4-Hour Workweek changed my life more than any other book I'd read (thanks Brian!) and knew the author had a weight loss book that promised maximal change with minimal effort. I was interested in losing weight, if I didn't have to eat stuff I don't like, work out, count calories. Basically I wanted to lose weight without expending much effort or changing my diet much. This diet fit me perfectly because I like to eat a lot and I like to eat a lot of meat.

Going forward
The book advocates a cheat day where you ignore the diet and today is my cheat day so we'll see how it goes (fruit and beer) )

As my experiment progresses I'll post updates on this blog. If it is successful I'll have before and after pics :)

Foundations of C++ /CLI, Book Review

I just finished reading Foundations of C++/CLI: The Visual C++ Language for .NET 3.5 .  I read this book hoping to get a grasp of how to wrap native libraries with C++/CLI.  Unfortunately I didn't read the Amazon Editorial review and only chapter 13 covered this topic.  The book assumes the reader knows C++ and wants to learn .NET.  This made the majority of the book review for me.

This book would probably be good for someone with a C++ background wanting to learn .NET, although if one isn't going to do interop the book recommends using C# instead.

C# Programming Language Book Review

I just finished reading The C# Programming Language (3rd Edition).

For those interested in learning C# try Programming C# 3.0 instead.  The specification is about 650 pages and some parts describe the grammar of familiar subjects at great length without explaining how to use C#.  The best part about the book: the cool factor of having it sit on my desk.  Chicks dig nerds ;)

This was a good read now instead of earlier in my career so I could appreciate the annotations and lexicon.  The book pointed out things I didn't know C# could do, and don't see why I'd want to do, but would make good trivia (does this compile?).  Some things were interesting like the fact that the this keyword is a reference in structs.  Also I had never looked into the unsafe features of the C# language, making that chapter good reading.

Customizing the Microsoft .NET Framework (Book Review)

Last week I finished Customizing the Microsoft® .NET Framework Common Language Runtime.  This book was mildly interesting with lots of code samples making it a good reference book for those writing CLR hosts within their application.  Most of the chapters discussed features from the perspective of SQL Server requirements and then an implementation of the feature.  It seems like a lot of work to leverage the full customization capabilities of the CLR with minimal benefits.  A lot of the configuration can be done via XML as well further reducing the benefits of writing your own CLR host.

Extreme Programming Adentures in C# (book review)

At the Central Ohio Day of .NET last week I won Extreme Programming Adventures in C# (DV-Microsoft Professional) by Ron Jeffries. The book is a case study about using XP programming on a small scale project and team. It is well written and immediately sucked me in. I have been experimenting at work by trying the simplest thing that works and using test driven development.