| I was driven by necessity to develop a simple spreadsheet capable of the mundane mathematics needed to manage kcal intake. Not rocket-science obviously but excruciatingly monotonous if done manually. Indeed for all practical purposes it was impossible without a spreadsheet. Surrounded by bits of paper or old envelopes with writing on. The idea snowballed rapidly and the spreadsheets evolved, literally day by day. What started as a necessity suddenly became very interesting, then fascinating.
The main driver was the ambition to lose weight (I was seriously obese), under my own direction. I could never have guessed at the time, what the outcome would be. Put simply, it suddenly dawned on me one day that the principal CONSUMPTION spreadsheet was actually etched into my brain as well as my hard-drive. The only spreadsheet data I save daily now on the hard-drive is body weight. Been that way for years now.
Pour 100 litres of fuel into a motor car with a 90 litre tank and 10 litres spill out. Do the same with a human and the tank simply expands to accommodate the extra fuel. If for some reason we could only have a tiny fuel tank on a motor car we would have to devote far more time to management of our lifestyle to ensure we never ran out of fuel. Thus it is with food and the far more sophisticated human machine.
The most important story really is about the spreadsheets, not me. Once released into the public domain there is no turning back. Anyone can use them and manage their own weight completely independently and indefinitely. In time others will develop spreadsheets and ideally dedicated computer applications which do not rely on spreadsheets.
Not everyone is au fait with spreadsheets and this is the principal weakness of the idea, I recognise that. Having said that, excellent free spreadsheet applications are available now which the kcal-watch spreadsheets will function on. Spreadsheets have the advantage that with a suitable application (Microsoft Excel), they can be deployed on both computers and tablets. |
