Food (and diet) management for the unix geek, a python script
For many a scientist like myself, the pear-shaped waistline which has become synonymous with the unix guru has become all too familiar. While there are a number of mitigating factors, I'm going to chalk it up to the sedentary lifestyle of the typical programmer. A study posted on Digg last week showed that on average, dieters who kept a food journal lose twice as much weight as those who don't. That's a pretty powerful tool. Carrying around a notepad doesn't make a lot of sense for me, as I'm almost never without my laptop, so I've been keeping a csv spreadsheet like below:
07:53 ,oatmeal , 160
07:55 ,water , 000
10:40 ,kudos , 100
10:40 ,water , 000
Which is fine. It accomplishes what needs to be accomplished, with regards to the diary at least. However, I would like some statistics with my diet. How many calories do I have left in the day, how many glasses of water, how many calories did I eat at lunch, etc. These little statistics and calculations really drive home the message. I always keep today's .food file on my desktop, and I have my .bashrc set up to show me my dietary information whenever I login or open a shell like so:
# display how many calories I've left/eaten today
echo "Remember to fill in your .food file today"
echo "-----------------------------------------"
~/Scripts/DotFoodStatistics.py ~/Desktop/*.food | grep today
echo "-----------------------------------------"
Attached-> python “food processor” diet statistics <- is the simple python script I wrote to calculate food statistics and keep track of my dietary intake:
As you can see it's a very simple procedural script. Took me all of 20 minutes for the python. Only time will tell if the dieting is as straightforward.