I'm a geek that used a totally unconventional method to lose 50 pounds in 6 months. After being overweight for most of my life, let's say that I had quite a bit of skepticism around me. And you know what, it wasn't that hard.

I started from the following key questions:

* why do I use data in my job but not on my body?

* how do I make my weight loss sustainable? What are the foods that I like that bring a healthier mix to the table?

* how do I hack my daily routine to include a bit more physical activity? (e.g. walking meetings)

* how do I realiably measure my progress?

My question to HN is: what were your own challenges when trying to lose weight as a geek? What made it hard, why did you fail, and how did you decide what to try?

I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with how people approach their lives without being more analytical about it :) I've written a blog post about my approach and there's more where that came from: http://aismail85.tumblr.com/post/97554047348/data-driven-weight-loss