weight-loss on S Anand

My Year in 2025

Wed, 31 Dec 2025 07:51:58 +0000

Here’s the report card for my 2025 goals bingo.

Domain	Repeat	Stretch	New
People	🟢 Better husband	🔴 Meet all first cousins 🟢 Interview 10 experts	🔴 Live with a stranger
Education	🟢 50 books	🟢 Teach 5,000 students	🟢 Run a course only with AI
Technology	🟢 20 data stories	🔴 LLM Foundry: 5K MaU 🟢 300 days of GitHub	🔴 Build a robot 🟢 Co-present with an AI
Health	🟢 300 days of yoga	🔴 80 heart points/day 🔴 Bike 1,000 km	🟢 Vipassana
Wealth	🔴 Buy low	🔴 Beat inflation 5%	🟢 Donate $10K 🔴 Fund a startup

The “Education” and “Technology” rows have a BINGO! Repeat goals were easier than new goals were easier than strech goals (no surprise). 11/20 wins means I’m picking realistic and ambitious goals.

Let’s dive into what worked.

Better husband. I asked my wife “Was I a better husband in 2025 than 2024?”. “You set a goal right? (Long pause.) Yeah… (sigh)”.
Interview 10 experts. I went way over 20. The key learning is that transcription + AI analysis mines insights from normal conversations, so expertise amplifies.
50 books. I stopped after 6 books in Feb. But I learnt how AI can remix books so I “read” the rest last week of the year. Same learning, less time.
Teach 5,000 students. I did a rough count. ~1,500 students x 3 terms at IIT Madras plus 10-300 people in my ~30-40 talks/workshops this year. I’m ahead.
Run a course only with AI. The earliest was a Vibe Coding workshop @ SETU. Just me and AI, no prep. Many followed, e.g. Mining Digital Exhaust, Dec 2025.
20 data stories. Since coding agents generate data stories better and faster than I can, this goal was easy. I created over 50 data stories, many of which are at published here.
300 days of GitHub. As of 25 Dec 2025, I was active on GitHub for 300 days this year. Last year, I was only coding. This year, 12% was reviewing PRs, thanks to AI coding agents.
Co-present with an AI. I co-presented with ChatGPT at The Hindu webinar on AI and twice after that. Unfortunately, it stole the show! So, I’m exploring balance.
300 days of yoga. I didn’t miss a single day this year. Actually, I only had 364 biological days this year due to time zones and a US flight. So, I practiced 12 Surya Namaskars every biological day!
Vipassana. I did a 10-day course in July 2025. Here’s my experience.
Donate $10K. I donated to Sanskrit College, Vipassana and 3 developers: Anton Medvedev, Isaac Schlueter, and Sindre Sorhus.

Here’s what didn’t work.

Meet all first cousins. I met 9/14. (Missed 2 in Chennai, 2 in Coimbatore, and 1 in the US).
Live with a stranger. I tried a homestay at Bangalore, but I don’t think that counts. It felt like a hotel.
LLM Foundry: 5K MaU. Straive’s internal AI portal was transitioned to the IT team in Feb 2025 and I could no longer live-deploy changes.
Build a robot. I didn’t even start, which is strange.
Bike 1,000 km. My wife banned cycling unless I ate more, so I gave up after a month.
80 heart points/day. Without cycling, I didn’t have a chance.
Buy low. I followed ChatGPT’s advice on investment and didn’t time the market.
Beat inflation 5%. Nowhere near it.
Fund a startup. Started exploring but far from it.

These apart, I also:

Lost 25 kg from Jan - Jun just by skipping lunch / dinner. No exercise or diet change. This works for me, but YMMV. Being flexible (type of food, which meal to skip, etc.) helps me sustain habits.
Published Things I learnt weekly and wrote 150+ blog posts.
AI-podcasted my code and a Gen AI WhatsApp Group.

Here’re my 2026 goals:

Domain	Repeat	Stretch	New
People	Better father	Monthly service	Live with a stranger
Education	360 books	Publish 2 books	2 non-English books
Technology	330 days of GitHub	Make TDS self-serve	Build a robot
Health	360 days of yoga	Learn to dance	Build muscle
Wealth	Donate $10K	Monetize AI	Automate finance + tax

I’ll add metrics in a few weeks. But here’s why I added/changed:

Better father. Why? I shouldn’t take my daughter for granted.
Monthly service. Why? Retirement activity planning.
360 books. Why? To build AI-reading muscle.
Publish 2 books. Why? To scale writing/organizing skills.
2 non-English books. Why? To blow my mind with world literature.
Make TDS self-serve. Why? Today, only IITians can fully participate.
Learn to dance. Why? I’ve always wanted to. (Why under “Health”? Um…)
Build muscle. Why? Muscles sag with age and it hurts.
Monetize AI. Why? Practice for my next adventure.
Automate finance + tax. Why? AI beats humans and I lack skill/interest

What are YOUR plans?

Thu, 05 Jun 2025 05:36:05 +0000

I lost 22 kg in 22 weeks.

How? Skipped lunch, no snacking. (That’s all.)

Why? Cholesterol.

When? Since 1 Jan 2025. I plan to continue.

How far? At 64 kg, I’m at 22 BMI. I’ll aim for 60 kg.

Is fasting 12 hours OK? Ankor Rai shared Dr. Mindy Pelz’s chart that fasting benefits truly kick in after 36 hours. Long way for me to go.

No exercise? Exercise is great for fitness & happiness. Not weight loss. Read John Walker’s The Hacker’s Diet.

No LLMs stuff this post? Of course! I vibe coded the data extraction, analysis and visualization with Claude Code for my VizChitra talk:

Data viz: https://sanand0.github.io/datastories/weight-2025-06/
Prompts: https://github.com/sanand0/datastories/tree/main/weight-2025-06

Weight lines, again

Tue, 14 Jan 2014 14:04:44 +0000

A few years ago, I ended up losting weight, mostly by dieting. That worked out rather well up to a point: I lost about 20kgs rapidly. But I ended up putting them back on almost as rapidly.

What I learnt from this was that dieting made me more short-tempered. It also reduced my metabolic rate. My body would adjust to the hunger and enter a “starvation-mode”, using the limited food ridiculously efficiently. So I’d have to eat even less to continue losing weight.

This time, I’m going to try it the slow way.

Firstly, my targets are moderate. I plan to lose about 1kg every month. (It’ll take me a few years to achieve my target. That’s good – it postpones the time when I’ll say “Ah, I’m thin. I can eat now” and become fat again.)

Secondly, I’m not going to keep myself hungry. I’m just going try to stop eating when I’m not hungry.

This happens for two reasons. One’s because I usually watch a movie when I eat, and keep eating until the movie’s done. The other’s because when I’m between activities, I raid the kitchen. It’s not realistic to pretend that I can curb these tendencies. But it’s possible to be a bit more aware of them.

Stocking the house with healthier foods helps. I also find that some fruits in particular keep my stomach full for longer. They’re low value for money energy-wise, but great for dieting and health.

Thirdly, I’m going to start exercising, but in my own, slow, way. I’m not good at running or going to the gym, but weirdly, I rather like climbing stairs So the next step is to abandon lifts and only use the stairs.

None of these is a big step. But I’m not in a hurry, and these are more like habits I’d like to get into for the rest of my life rather than short-term measures.

Here’s to a lighter 2014!

Comments

Pravin 19 Jan 2014 11:46 am: Similar to what you have said –> http://new.ted.com/talks/sandra_aamodt_why_dieting_doesn_t_usually_work
Kalpesh 19 Jan 2014 3:49 pm: Good to see a blog post. I hope you get time to post often, specifically on things you are working on. If you are coming to Mumbai, post it. It will be great to meet you in person.
Suren Reddy 17 Mar 2014 5:39 am: Definetly Anand sir, I agree with you… rapidly loosing weight makes you short tempered. I have experienced it at personal level…
Somnath 27 Jan 2014 1:43 pm: Good to see you write after such a long time :D Taking the stairs is right option - I religiously follow at my apartment except when I am taking my kids up/down or have heavy load (weekly groceries etc.). At office post lunch I go down 5 levels, 10 min brisk walk and then climb up 5 levels. Well that has ensured my weight does not change much. Cheers to “Lighter 2014”!
Shirisha 3 Apr 2014 6:55 am: Great decision!!! Scientists say that when we feel hunger our stomach releases some acids which are helpful for digestion, If we eat without feeling hunger those acids will not get released and the eaten food would not be digested properly!!! All the best for your good health!!
Venkat 8 Apr 2014 5:51 am: Moderate cycling might also help, may be a good bicycle that can help you to get around for normal chores would be a great way to achieve this goal.
chandigarh 12 Oct 2015 7:47 am: Actually regular exercise or 1 hour morning and 1 hour evening can do much more fore you. internet is here to help you to know the effective exercise. taking less but healthy food in disciplined intervals is necessary.

Eating more for less

Thu, 19 May 2011 18:12:23 +0000

A couple of years ago, I managed to lose a fair bit of weight. At the start of 2010, I started putting it back on, and the trajectory continues. I’m at the stage where I seriously need to lose weight.

I subscribe to The Hacker’s Diet principle – that you lose weight by eating less, not exercising.

An hour of jogging is worth about one Cheese Whopper. Now, are you going to really spend an hour on the road every day just to burn off that extra burger?
You don’t exercise to lose weight (although it certainly helps). You exercise because you’ll live longer and you’ll feel better.

I’m afraid I’ll live too long anyway, so I won’t bother exercising just yet. It’s down to eating less.

Sadly, I like food. So to make my “diet” work, I need foods that add less calories per gram. Usually, when browsing stores, I check these manually. But being a geek, I figured there’s an easier way.

Below is a graph of some foods (the kind I particularly need to avoid, but still end up eating). The ones on the top add a lot of calories (per 100g), and better to avoid. The ones at the right cost a lot more. Now, I’m no longer at the point where I need to worry about food expenses, but still, I can’t quite kick the habit, also you might want to check out this Rootine’s comparison of B12 methylcobalamin and cyanocobalamin that will help you in your diet.

Hover over the foods to see what they are, and click on them to visit the product. (If you’re using an RSS reader and this doesn’t work, read on my site.)

(The data was picked from Tesco.)

It’s interesting that cereals are in the middle of the calorie range. I always thought they’d be low calories per gram. Turns out that if I want to to have such foods, I’m better off with desserts or ice creams (profiterole, lemon meringue or tiramisu). In fact, even jams have less calories than cereals.

But there are some desserts to avoid. Nuts are a disaster. So are chocolates. Gums, dates and honey are in the middle – about as good as cereals. Salsa dip seems surprisingly low. Custards seem to hit the sweet spot – cheap, and very low in calories. Same for jellies.

So: custards and jelly. My daughter’s going to be happy.

Comments

Srinivas 2 Jun 2011 2:30 pm: well looking at the graph, the answer is simple. just dont go to Tesco! and seriously , the most important rule of thumb to eat right is, never eat anything that comes in a packet.
Sathya 20 May 2011 8:11 am: Saar what about “arachi vitta kozhlambu”, thovaiyal, medu bonda, Rasa vadai , usili … and items form “Grand Sweets and Snacks” ? Where are these ? these are my staples ;-( jk … Nice one ( some surprises as well ).
Sumit Dhar 20 May 2011 4:34 pm: Anand, I know it sound crazy but increasingly research is showing that not all calories are equal. What that means is that, a calorie from carbs might result in greater fat / weight gain thank a calorie from proteins. (Reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC506782/) Additionally, processed sugar is something you should avoid. Sugar causes insulin spikes that results in greater fat storage. Sames goes for carbs. Even the desserts you mention, should ideally be avoided. (Reference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM) On the other hand, I am consuming quite a bit of nuts on a daily basis: almonds, cashews, peanuts. They are a good source of proteins and vital fatty acids. If you are a veggie, cottage cheese is another good source of proteins (along with fat too). Milk is another source of proteins along with calcium. Why we get Fat by Gary Taubes is a good book to check out. While I am not a big believer in rapid fat loss or fast weight reduction, I have read good things about the Rapid Fat Loss Handbook. It reiterates ideas from Why we get Fat. In short, don’t focus on calories. Focus on grams of carbs consumed per day. Cheers, Sumit
D 26 May 2011 6:03 am: Anand, I would recommend you also consider one major strategy - nutrient timing, which I used to good effect over the last 6 months while consuming the same no. of calories. Also if you really like chocolate, you can try dark chocolate as an alternative - lower calories per gram. Even for vegetarians, protein shakes derived from whey and soy are a great alternative to other foods. I have employed each of these and can vouch for their effectiveness in managing weight
Shankar V 27 May 2011 9:00 pm: I agree with you. Nothing like cutting on food to lose weight. Exercise requires perseverance and focus….I lack both. :) Cutting down on food also has issues…..you reduce intake for a few days, then pop comes a wedding or function where you get ‘ilai potta sappadu’ and all control is lost. You tell yourself, just this once and then very soon you are back to your original eating habits. Best option - must be born with a body that does not put on weight. Period!!! I envy those folks. :)
Saurabh Mittal 15 Jan 2014 12:04 pm: Nice one Anand! I was at 82 kgs a few years back and managed to come down to 72 . This was a result of both exercise (have run two half marathons so far in 2012 and then again in 2013) and change of eating habits (more of proteins and less of carbs). There is a nice book as well by Tim Ferris (The Four Hour Body), but in short definitely look at incorporating more exercise in your routine..Also as Sumit pointed out above - processed sugars and salt are the two major culprits! We don’t even realize how these are found in plenty in most of the foods! Keeping track of weight on a daily basis definitely is a good habit! Cheers Saurabh

My weight line

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:08:21 +0000

Comments

Saiprasad K S 25 Jun 2010 8:21 pm: Hi Anand, Not sure you will recall. This is Saiprasad ( Sai) was your neighbour at " The Presidency", TISL way back in 1996-97. I always knew you were a genius and a man of many talents. I had chanced upon your site sometime ago but while I was trying to get some facts on Ilaiyaraja chanced upon the section of Ilaiyaraja. I didnt pay attention to the name of the author as I approached midway realised this must be the handiwork of Anand and as I cast my eyes upwards found my guess was on the dot. Good work Buddy. May you continue to shine like you always do. I am still with IBM. My contact no is 9886678319. Realise you are in London. I was there too for a couple of years on a sales assignment. Now back to Blore. Shall write again. do write when you can. Take care…. Sai
Eating more for less | s-anand.net 19 May 2011 7:12 pm (pingback): […] for less May 19th, 2011 How I do things Visualisation S Anand A couple of years ago, I managed to lose a fair bit of weight. At the start of 2010, I started putting it back on, and the trajectory continues. I’m at the […]
Weight lines, again | s-anand.net 14 Jan 2014 2:04 pm (pingback): […] few years ago, I ended up losting weight, mostly by dieting. That worked out rather well up to a point: I lost about 20kgs rapidly. But I […]