Monthly Archives: June 2006

Experimenting with Open Comments


Posted by katiebird

I’ve changed the site settings to allow open comments. I tried this for about a minute a month ago, but was flooded with spam by in the time it took to save the settings and view the front page. But I found out yesterday that I could control that by requiring that a poster’s first comment must be approved by me. I’ve set it up so I’ll get an email notification when a comment needs moderating. So most of the time it shouldn’t be too long before between when you post and when the comment shows up.

I’ve never liked requiring registration (for one thing we have that pesky password problem holding it up), but I also can’t stand to have comment-spam contaminating the site and our conversations.

So, if you’re new to Eat4Today, welcome — your comments and observations are appreciated whether you register or not. And if you’ve commented in the past this change shouldn’t affect you at all.


I’m not going to talk about moving averages today. But, I’d love it if you could.


Posted by katiebird

The author of The Hacker’s Diet, John Walker, has generously given me permission to discuss his diet in detail using some quotes, with links back to his site. (Earlier E4T articles on The Hacker’s Diet)

If you’re not familiar with moving averages, please take a look at that section — Moving Averages. I’ve already lost a day trying to describe it and I think it’s better to just let him speak for himself.

And now —- Meet Movin’ Marvin

To see how moving averages can show the true trend of weight among the confusion of daily weight readings, we’ll turn now to the unsuccessful diet of Movin’ Marvin. Marvin lost 10 pounds in a little less than two months, then gained back most of it. (I’m forced to use this depressingly familiar circumstance in order to demonstrate how moving averages behave in both downtrends and uptrends.)

The true course of Marvin’s diet is shown by this graph.

(….snip….)

Knowing the true weight trend, you can see it despite the day to day jitter of the weight readings. Marvin, however, doesn’t know the trend nor can he see the course of his diet laid out in advance. He has to live through the creation of this graph, day by day, and if you examine a week or so of weights, you’ll see that these numbers hold just as much potential for false optimism and heartbreak as Dexter experienced in the course of his successful diet.

Looking at that second graph, I think those weight swings would drive me mad! Up and down and up and down. And look at how it gradually kept going up…_ It seems that we’ll be using moving averages to plot our weight. But, how will that keep us from getting hungry?


Upheaval and Commitment: Building new routines after great change


Posted by katiebird

I’m not going to eat between meals and I’m not going to take seconds. Just today.e And I’m going to try this for a year to see what happens.

One of the nice effects of thinking about Just Today (and renewing my commitment each morning) is that everyday is a brand new experience. My struggles from last week have faded in my memory.u And my focus is on the challenge of keeping my commitment today. Regular readers know that for the last month or so, my days have been challenging as I’ve struggled to create new routines since my move to a new office building.

In the year or so before our move, I was nothing but excited about the plan.e And now that we’ve done it, I’m thrilled with my new office. It’s lovely and quiet and it’s got a door._ The building is beautiful and huge — we’ve got plenty of space. It’s perfect for us and I’m completely happy. Continue reading →