With this in mind, I spent about a month seeking out a variety of diet energy drinks in an effort to find the best tasting mid-afternoon boost. While these reviews are purely opinion based, I did have a few fellow programmers taste test the best and worst of bunch to verify my findings.

NOTE: I would reccomend avoiding drinks with more than 300mg of caffiene or drinking more than 2 of any of these drinks in a day. In rare cases, large amounts of caffiene can cause epilieptic seizures.

The Bad

I know that your average review would start with the good, but making fun of the worst options is often funnier than praising best. With that, let’s get these horrible concoctions out of the way.

Ripit Chic - SinAMan

It took a lot to try this beverage. I got several odd looks buying it and even put up with the crap I got for drinking from a foil-covered pink can. I actually picked it up expecting it to be bad; however, I was unprepared for the horror of flavor that this stuff unleashed on my mouth. The flavor is a blend of Red Bull, grape fruit and cinnamon.

This isn’t the kind of taste that makes you say “Man that was awful”. This is the kind of thing that you try to get your friends to drink to see their reaction. This was a big dissappointment because Ripit makes some really great full-calorie energy drinks.

Sugar Free Bawls

Sugar Free Bawls tastes kind of like diet sprite with a strange aftertaste. While not nearly as bad as the Ripit Chic, I couldn’t finish a bottle of this stuff. Although, this did have one of the best bottles of all the energy drinks I tried.

The Good

Here are a few drinks worth giving a shot. Most of these are on my list of regular drinks.

Tab Energy Drink

This was my personal favorite drink. It had a light flavor, kind of like sprite with a hint of rasberry. Most of my fellow geeks disagreed and I was the only one in the office that would drink it. Apparently, they weren’t alone because this drink was discontinued.

Rockstar Lo Carb

Note that there are 2 types of calorie free Rockstar. Sugar Free in a white can and Lo Carb in a blue can. This was the unanimous favorite in the office. It has a nice cranberry flavor that does a good job masking the bitterness of the caffeine. This has become my go to mid-afternoon, post boring meeting energy boost.

Monster Lo Carb

Apparently energy drink companies don’t like the word diet and consistently misspell the word low. Monster Lo Carb, like Rockstar Lo Carb, is the one in the blue can. It has taste that is more what you would expect from a energy drink. I personally like it, but some of my coworkers likened it to children’s tylenol.

One of the things that’s become clear to me over the various weight loss attempts is that losing weight isn’t about the physical and measurable aspects as much as it is about the mental and emotional aspects. As I’ve been doing research for this site, I’ve been looking at some of the success stories out there. While just about every diet plan has a handful of success stories, but after looking into them, it looks like more people fail than succeed with most of these trendy new plans. The was one exception, Weight Watchers.

While I did find a few people who didn’t find Weight Watchers helpful, there was a much larger percentage of success stories. Even several personal friends of mine have found success with it. Like any geek, I figured it was time to dissect the Weight Watchers program and try to figure out why it works. Overall, the system is only 2 parts:

1. A point based system for figuring out what to eat.
2. Weekly meetings to weigh-in.

I pretty much scratched the point system off right away. Diet plans rarely fail as a result of somebody not understanding the rules, so I doubt that’s the key to weight watchers. That leaves the meetings. At first I couldn’t understand how standing up in front of a group of people and weighing yourself was really that helpful. My first reaction to the idea was that it would be a source of embarrassment or humiliation. I usually try my best to hide my weight, not announce it to strangers.

After talking to my successful Weight Watchers friends, I had a bit more insight into the meetings. The meetings provided a support system for the diet plan. It gave you a chance to see people at every stage of the process. The one aspect that surprised me the most is that members who achieve their goal weight can attend the meetings for free. Since people who consistently failed to meet their goals are unlikley to stick around, you end up with a group composed of both people losing weight and people who’ve successfully lost weight. It’s tough to not believe in a program, when you’re sitting next to half a dozen success stories.

There are a few things to take away from this. First of all, the diet is only part of the plan. Secondly, your support structure is just as important as the diet and exercise. These are the people that help you celebrate losing 5 pounds and help get you back on track when you don’t. Finally, it’s important to have people in your support group who have already succeeded. They can help serve as inspiration and guidance to the rest of the group.

If you look around a bit, I’m sure that you can find plenty of co-workers, friends and neighbors to help start a group. Send out an e-mail or post a flyer and you might be surprised at how quickly you can get a group going. I’m going to give it a shot here in Manchester, and I’ll let you all know how it goes.

There is one thing I have learned over the past few months of stress travel and work… I can only be accountable to do something for myself if I document it and feel others will catch me slacking if I dont. Hence the importance of this blog for me and weight loss.

I have friends who have done weight watchers with amazing success, but i think the reason is was successful for them is because it helped them establish a community around their goals. Like-minded people with similar goals and approaches. While the idea of weight watchers doesn’t sound all that appealing to me (I work too much and don’t get to see my son enough anyway- why would I spend the time I have to be with him in meetings?) I do like the idea of making a community around weight-loss and healthy habits. That is why I am still so excited about this website and i am going to jump right back on the documenting bandwagon today.

I hope you will partake.

With that being said, Kelley and I have started writing a few articles and have a few more planned. In addition, we’ve been talking to a variety of other geeks willing to share their stories, ideas and tips on living healthier.

Our goal for A Thinner Geek is to provide a resource for anybody who wants to lose weight, especially those of us that spend most of the day behind a computer screen. Losing weight is tough, and sitting at a desk all day doesn’t make it any easier. Through this site we will be providing tips on eating healthier, finding ways to exercise and general tips for being healthy in interesting and geeky ways.

We also want to make sure that anybody with a story or idea to share has a voice. If you want to share your experiences with your fellow geeks, let us know. We will always welcome new authors.

Fortunately, I spend a lot of time dining out and have learned from many chefs a number of simple secrets to successful healthier home cooking.

Smaller Portions

Of course, you say, that’s obvious. I need to eat less. But there’s more to it than that. Feel free to put a number of different things on your plate to have variety (mixing color, taste, and texture will give you a more satisfying experience than one big plate of the same thing). By combining a bit of richness with other healthier items, you will meet your craving for a bit of butter or cheese without breaking the bank.

Kick It Up A Notch

Sure, Emeril may say this so much that you find it nauseating, but the truth is that adding a little punch to your cooking in the form of more powerful flavors will help you enjoy your food more. Herbs and spices don’t bring any serious calories to the table, but they do provide potent tastes.

That bland chicken breast just became a whole lot more appealing once you put some chili spices on it or served in with an herb dressing. Keep a bit of tobasco, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, fresh ground pepper – whatever you like best – on the table and sprinkle it on any food you think needs a flavor boost.

Chicken Broth

If your pantry isn’t full of boxes of commercial chicken broth, you’re missing out on a great tool for healthy cooking. Make sure you get the lower sodium variety, of course, not just because we all get plenty of salt, but also because it lends more versatility to it.
Chicken stock isn’t exactly a magic bullet, but it comes darn close. Most recipes that call for water will take on an added flavor dimension just by using chicken stock instead. Use it when you make rice and suddenly that white rice has a bit of flavor to it. Making mashed potatoes? Use chicken stock instead of butter and cream. I won’t say you can’t notice the difference, but it comes darn close at a fraction of the calories.

If you want a flavorful sauce, just cook your chicken (or other protein) in a sauté pan, then add in some chicken broth, crank the heat to high, and reduce the liquid in half or so until you get the consistency you want. Mix in some flavor components (maybe sauté some minced onion, garlic, or shallots before you add the broth or just put in some chopped herbs after the sauce has mostly reduced) and you’ve got a way to improve both the flavor and “mouth feel” of your dish.

Lead with Fiber

Fiber is your friend, and I’m not talking that putrid powder in a bottle. If you start your meal with a salad, you’ll fill up faster and eat less of the main course. This can be particularly effective in restaurants as well, provided you don’t load up with tons of salad dressing. Try olive oil and vinegar or just put the dressing on the side and dip your fork in it before taking a bit of the salad – you’ll get the flavor with far fewer calories and fat.

Better still, have lots of dishes with beans as a main ingredient. A nice bowl of black bean soup will leave you feeling satisfied without hearing the calorie buzzer go off. Mix in plenty of beans with that chili too and you end up balancing protein and fiber. Craving pasta? Try pasta e fagioili a quick and easy to make soup featuring white beans and pasta. You eat less pasta, more beans, and no sauce, yet you get your pasta fix.

Learn to Love Your Blender

Blenders aren’t just for margaritas, you know. One of the most important things you experience when eating is “mouth feel.” Often, people enjoy that velvety sensation that coats the tongue when you have a cream sauce, but we’re not going to load up on fat, right? Your blender is your friend when it comes to giving you great mouth feel without the guilt.

If you are looking for a quick and easy sauce, pop open a jar of roasted red peppers and throw it in the blender with some seasoning and a small amount of good olive oil. One minute later you have a great sauce ready for warming up in the microwave or on the stove. Heck, it is even good cold.

Your blender can also puree cooked vegetables like potatoes or carrots that will help make them a great base for sauces and soups. In fact, the starch in potatoes gives you thickening power similar to that in a butter-and-flour roux but, again, without the guilt. Pop in some white beans with your olive oil and a bit of garlic and suddenly you have a great dip to use when watching the game. Slice up some pita bread, toss it in the oven to brown it, and you can enjoy the game without chips and dip and not even notice it.

Bottom Line

There are lots of creative things you can do with cooking, and most of them aren’t hard or time-consuming. Take advantage of these secrets and discover your own to put yourself on track to healthier home cooking.

Overall, the book is pretty good. I’m normally afraid of the word diet because it’s usually associated with a plan that is either absolutely insane or calls for moderate starvation. Fortunately, Mark’s book isn’t based on some crazy fad diet. The book focuses on ideas to improve your eating habits and develop long term dietary improvements. Many ideas also address the psychological challenges that often derail diet plans, which is a nice departure from the typical hardline menu enforement / boot camp style that many authors take.

Faithful also has a good grasp on what the geeks are looking for in a diet book. The book is rather short, I read it in about an hour, and even has a single chapter “quickstart” to get busy geeks going immeadiately. There are also several elements that make this book decidely geeky including several humorous references, citing terms in wikipedia and presenting diet ideas in code format (although I do take away geek points for not commenting code).

Finally, the ideas presented in The Geek Diet are solid. It’s the same kinds of things that my nurtitionist has been saying, but presented in a easy to read format. I’ve also tried some of these techniques in the past and they’ve worked for Kelley and I.

The Geek Diet is definitely worth reading. While it’s unlikely to cause any life-shattering revalations about dieting, it does provide a solid foundation for working towards a healthier diet. The ideas in this book are easy to follow and is better than most of the other diet advice books I’ve seen, none of which contained a single Monty Python reference.

If you’re interested, visit The Geek Diet site to download a PDF of the book.

NOTE: The author of this review was not provided with any compensation, aside from a review copy of the book. The authors of A Thinner Geek will never accept payment for reviews because that’s how we roll.

One thing I am thinking of bringing over to Amplify is something we did at Hatchling. We had a lunch break. Its not what you think. I don’t mean we had a mandatory lunch break, where you clocked out and went your seperate ways. I mean some one would declare lunch time and everyone would goto one table to eat. It started out very innocently, as some conversations, but over time people began to anticipate it and people would find themselves all eating at the same time, everyday, together. The reason it broke me of my habit of not eating, was because it made it so some one else was reminding me to eat.

I think I’m going to start this at Amplify. Here’s how I propose to do it. I’m going to set my outlook to remind me to eat at 12:00 everyday for a week. At that time I am going to goto the conference table and eat my lunch, who knows- maybe someone will join me! After a week I’m going to see if the rest of the company is participating, or if I need to extend my outlook reminder :)

This attachment to video games can be quite fun, but are not exactly a key part of successful workout routine. I don’t know the specific amount of calories burned by mashing the b button, I doubt it will get your heart rate up. Fortunately, there are a few good ways for gamers to burn a few calories while playing. Here are a few games that will give you and your video game console a workout.

Dance Dance Revolution (DDR)

DDR is the king of video game exercise. Even at early levels in the game, DDR will have you burning as many calories as the treadmill at the gym. DDR is also a blast, as long as you can accept that you will look quite goofy while doing it. A DDR setup with a mat and a game can be had for less than $100 dollars, which may seem like a lot, but pales on comparison to the cost of most exercise equipment. I’ve played 4 or 5 DDR games and I would reccomend DDR Max 2 for PS2. It’s got a huge number of songs and a customizable workout mode.

Yourself Fitness

Yourself Fitness is not really a game; It’s more of a virtual personal trainer. It’s currently available for the XBox (and XBox 360 with a patch) and provides exercise routines, yoga routines and low-calorie recipes. I found the game motivating and useful. There are a wide variety of exercises and the virtual instructor, Maya, provides plenty of motivation and encouragement. It also provides the ability to do goofy looking aerobics in the comfort of your own home. It’s not as fun as DDR, but provides a great energizing experience with the exercise programs and a nice relaxing break with the yoga programs.

Wii Fit

I haven’t had a chance to play this yet (since I don’t live in Japan), but based on the quality of the other Wii games I’ve played it should be good. The only downside to the activity oriented Wii games is the motion sensing. Most of the motions can be done with very little movement, which makes it easy to cheat yourself. The game has sold amazingly well in Japan and will be released in May 2008 here in the US. One word of warning, my good friend Andy managed to throw out his back with Wii boxing, so take it easy.

Kilowatt Game Controller

This isn’t a game, it’s a controller for games. The Killowatt is a rather large device that looks a lot like a piece of traditional exercise equipment and allows you to control any console game through movement. Different parts of the device allow you to push, pull and move them with a variable amount of resistance. Each of these controls is able to be mapped for each game you play and the whole thing works with multiple consoles. It seems like a good idea, and the people at G4TV liked it, but it has a hefty price tag of $800 or more.

These are just a few options for burning calories while playing games. These games alone may not allow you to shed the pounds at lightning speed, but combined with healthy eating and possibly some traditional exercise can make the weight loss process a lot more fun.

During this week we were both able to stick to the caloric restrictions, and we managed 2- 3o minute sessions of exercise.

At the end of the week my weight was down 3lbs and Ian’s was down about 5 lbs.

This seems like a lot to me, and it could be because of several factors. I do not believe it is because of water weight- because we have been staying well hydrated all week. It might be because we have a sensitive scale- but we both stepped on the scale multiple times on the same day and came up with the same number. It may be, because we actually were successful in losing that weight, they do say the first few pounds are the easiest… we’ll see if we can maintain momentum.

As a reward we did go out to eat to a soul food restaurant in Manchester called Premier Pallet. Not exactly the healthiest of foods- but the restaurant is relocating to Philadelphia, and I wanted to make sure we got to eat there at least once. I think my meal counted as a meal and part of my cheat for this week.

Ian and I have set a goal to lose 2 lbs a week. We are going to be accomplishing this by restricting our diet to 1800- calories (3 400-500 calorie meals, and 3 100-150 calorie snacks.)and by exercising a minimum of 3 times a week. Seems simple right? Of course not! with busy schedules and a toddler nothing is as easy as just doing it. Here are some of the ways I am going to help me stick to this plan…

How we are accomplishing these goals

- I am bringing my lunch, breakfast and several snacks to work every day

This is one of my biggest weak points. I don’t eat. I know that seems kinda funny for a person of my size to say, but I don’t. On a busy day I will go into work forgetting to eat breakfast, will be stuck in meetings all morning and into the afternoon and next thing I know its 3 PM and I am starving. So I’ll quickly run out to a fast food restaurant and get fast greasy food. then 3 hours later I’ll go home and have dinner with Ian and Mannix.

By packing my lunch and breakfast the night before, and bringing it to work work, with the snacks, I am reminding myself to eat, and also saving money. This past week was my trial run at this, and it seemed to work. I had good food to eat and didn’t have to wait for a convieneint non-meeting time to eat.

- We are eating at home every night of the week

As I mentioned earlier, we are a busy and we have a two year old. This combined with the fact we live in a city with so many restaurants you could eat at a different restaurant every day of the year, made it so we were going out to eat at least 3 times a week. We weren’t paying attention to what we were eating either.

Eating at home will allow us to monitor our portions and calories better, and it will also allow us to save money. A win-win situation.

- We have a Gym Membership… And we’re using it.

My Company did work in trade, which resulted in us all getting family gym memberships…I don’t know about you, but I don’t really find exercise exciting. I mean, I do it… but generally if there is something more interesting on TV, I would rather just watch that. Thats when I discovered the best thing at our gym…. Treadmills and elliptical machines with built in personal tv’s! Yes thats right- the other day I found myself on the treadmill longer then my minimum amount of time because I wanted to watch the end Project Runway.

There are other things I love about our gym too, there is such a wide array of things you can do… Monday I am going to take aquatic kickboxing, today we went and checked out the treadclimber (=treadmill + climbing wall), and there’s also tennis, Raquet ball and more. Plus they have very good, very reasonably priced childcare - which means I can work out and even go in the sauna afterwards, with out having to worry. If anyone is from the Manchester area- I recommend the Executive highly!

- The reward

There is no denying that I am motivated by rewards. I think everyone is. To me, the immediate rewards give some sense of euphoric one step closer to the goal. Some of the reward happens naturally… I feel great as I’m leaving the gym and that motivates me to come back. Some rewards don’t really have an effect one me- me dropping weight isn’t something I notice because my sense of body image is so skewed, so for these I need some other sort of reward. So… for this, we have developed this condition.

If at the end of a week- Ian and I have dropped two pounds each, which was our goal, We will allow ourselves to go out to eat at a non-fast food restaurant. This serves as a little treat for the weekend, given we met our goal. We are of course, still counting those calories….

During the week we allow for two “cheats” (1- 100 calorie, 1- 500 calorie) There are always those days you are just really hungry….

Well, thats the plan. I will try to update weekly with how it is going and the additional methods we are going about to accomplish them.

If you don’t have a Panini Press- I’ve discovered a George Forman Grill works perfectly!

2 slices of sourdough (240 calories)

3 slices of cheddar ( 180 calories)

2 pieces of Turkey Bacon ( 40 calories)

1/4 c spinach (0 calories)

1 tsp Mustard (0 calories)

However, after a few unsuccessful months of my most recent diet, I spent a day trying to track down extra calories in my diet. It turned out that over the course of a day, I was eating 500-800 calories a day in snacks. That’s a whole extra meal.
With this in mind, I decided to declare war on my out of control snacking. I took a look at a two things: when I was snacking most, what I was snacking on.  The times that I was snacking were important because that indicated times that I was spreading meals out too much or not getting enough healthy food to eat. The snack items I was choosing were also an important consideration because they indicated some of the things that I may be craving as a result of my new diet.

Cutting down on the amount of snacking I’m doing is a matter of planning meals better and trying to avoid unconsciously nibbling throughout the day. One thing that has helped is portioning snacks. I used to just snack out of the bag, now I put it in a bowl and put the bag back in the cupboard. It helps prevent me from eating half a bag of something before I even realize it.

Choosing better snacks is an area where I have a bit more control. I’ve been looking for snacks that fulfill my cravings that have fewer calories than my current snacks. Below are a few craving categories I’ve narrowed my snacks down to and some healthy snacks that fulfill them.

Candy & Chocolate

My biggest offenders in this category were Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and cookies (man I love cookies). Here are a few items that I eat to overcome that chocolate/peanut butter craving.

• Hershey’s Snacksters – These are like a Hershey’s interpretation of chex mix. They’re pretty tasty and about the same size as a bag of candy. Not a good snack to fill you up, but this is good for some quick and sweet.
• Sugar-Free Instant Pudding – Thick, creamy, sweet and low calorie. 
• Sugar-Free Fudgesicles – You really can’t go wrong with these, they taste almost exactly like the normal ones and have about 30 calories.

Salty Snacks

Cheetos and Goldfish crackers were my biggest downfall in this area. I tried the low-calorie option of both and neither was very satisfying.

• Quakes – These are little flavored rice cakes that are a surprisingly good substitute for cheetos.
• Pretzel Crisps – Kelley and I just found these, but they’ve already jumped to the top of the snack list.

New Snacks

In addition to replacing some of my existing snacks, I’ve been adding a few other low calorie snacks. My goal was to find items that were more filling so that I didn’t have the desire to eat as much.

• Fresh Fruit – I’ve tried fruit as snacks a few times in the past, but this is the first time it’s worked. The main reason is variety. In the past I would buy a huge bag of apples or oranges and get tired of them half-way through the bag. Now I buy a few pieces of fruit at a time then change to a different fruit.
• Low-Fat String Cheese – It took a while to find a decent tasting brand, but I like the Sargento Stringsters.

Hopefully these snack ideas help you cur your calorie intake a bit and still have plenty of snacks.

This is hardly an uncommon situation. Many of my fellow geeks are overweight. Some just want to lose a few pounds, but many of us are suffering from health issues and other problems. There’s a lot of information out there about losing weight and living healthier, but most of it is difficult to find and there are almost no resources directed towards the tech-savvy, connected geeks.

I started this website to help provide that resource. A community oriented site where users can share their successes and failures, find information about eating better, find ways to get some exercise and provide a support system at a time when many of feel very alone. With that in mind, here are a few things that you should know about A Thinner Geek:

•  Negativity and degradation will not be tolerated. Any users that put-down other users will be immediately banned.
•  Anybody who has advice to give or a story to tell is welcome to. As a community we can all learn from each other.
•  A Thinner Geek will never charge it users for content. Our bandwidth and hosting are currently donated by Sunder Media. If we exceed what Sunder Media can provide will may solicit donations or put up a few text ads, but our primary goal will always be to help our users, not commoditize them. 

Losing weight is hard, but as a community, we can work together to make it easier. I hope that this site can help you live a healthier life. If there is anything that we can do to help let us know on the feedback page.