Siliconsumed
Steve Jobs' Diet Secrets
Brian Caulfield, 07.24.08, 6:00 AM ET
BURLINGAME, CALIF. -
Is Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs sick? Apple calls his health a "private matter."
But is he losing weight? Definitely. And in an industry where so many leaders resemble talking sides of beef, Jobs' trim figure is noticeable.
What's his secret? The skinny, so to speak, on the Apple campus is Jobs' gaunt frame says as much about his diet as his health. Jobs lunches with the troops in the Cupertino, Calif.-based company's cafeteria--a place packed with the likes of fresh sushi and Smart Water.
And while Apple employees eat healthy, Jobs takes it to an extreme, one employee says, eating dark green vegetables such as broccoli and asparagus, grilled or steamed. Jobs has been a vegetarian for years but his enthusiasm for green may have taken on an extra dimension since his brush with cancer. Jobs has surgery in 2004 to treat pancreatic cancer, and, again, earlier this year, according to The New York Times, to address "a problem that was contributing to a loss of weight." The veg-heavy diet, however, likely will not help him pack on any pounds. "No wonder he's cranky all the time," one Apple insider says.
Jobs' diet is only the latest example of a high-profile technologist using mind to master matter. It's one of the reasons technologists so often end up overweight. So many of them simply forget diet and exercise as they crank away on a project. It's an obsessive-streak, however, that some are turning from mastering technology to molding their bodies. Autodesk founder John Walker's "The Hacker's Diet" couples willpower with tools such as spreadsheets to engineer the weight away. Craigslist engineer Jeremy D. Zawodny used a simplified version of the plan to shed 50 pounds in a year.
"Engineers love to quantify things, and calorie counting lends itself to quantifying," says Pressflip.com co-founder Ted Dziuba, who wrote a hilarious riff on weight loss for his personal blog. "There are opportunities for charts, graphs, statistical analyses, and optimizations with what you eat."
Others tap into a hypercompetive streak. Tibco Chief Executive Vivek Ranadivé sets a high bar for himself--he aims to be able to run a six-minute mile, among other benchmarks--but also helps coach his coworkers to better health. His secret weapon? Roger Craig, the former star running back with the San Francisco 49rs, who works as a business development director at the company. "One of our guys lost 81 pounds," Craig says.
"I find extremes," says Ranadivé. "If you went around the Valley, you'll see many founders and chief executives who are very fit. They tend to be extremely competitive and that works its way into their fitness regimens as well. But you still find people who have bad habits."
Using your brain can be the best way to break away from those habits. That's at the heart of software engineer Steve Klassen's weight loss effort. Klassen, who has chronicled his push to 300 pounds from 450 pounds on the GeekFit Podcast, suggests geeky dieters use a timer to remind themselves when they should eat, and keeping a fridge full of healthy food, such as Smart Ones and Lean Cuisine. "If you're a geek and you're getting into your work, spending a lot of time in the zone, you don't get hunger until it's too late--and at that point you're starving," Klassen says.
Techies can also benefit from their taste for complex tools. Zawodny relied heavily on a spreadsheet. Gear such as the geek-a-cycle allows users to peddle away on a recumbent bicycle at their computer. Others have turned to peddling away while wander about the virtual realms of online game "World of Warcraft" to burn off calories. Jason Tucker, co-host at the GeekFit Podcast even recommends the iPhone, which is loaded with applications for tracking calories and exercise.
The culture of technophiles can provide another advantage. California-based technology companies will push food that might cause revolts at companies in other industries. Google offers employees free all-you-can-eat organic fare. Jobs chows down on broccoli, a food that the American Cancer Society describes as a known cancer fighter. Ranadivé is a fan of the healthy effects of blueberries.
Of course, healthy food can be delicious, as well as nutritious. All that organic goat cheese pizza and heirloom tomato salad creates a phenomenon Google employees call the "Google 15." Likewise, the same focus that once led Broadcom founder Henry Nicholas to subsist largely on PowerBars choked down between weight lifting sessions can lead others to pizza-fueled 80-hour-a-week work benders.
All of that, however, can leave you out of shape just when you need a burst of energy most. Ranadivé was in the process of doing due diligence on a company Tibco wanted to acquire and wanted to find out if the other company's chief executive--an avowed runner--was for real.
"So I said, 'My colleague Roger Craig, the three-time Super Bowl champion, is going to take you for a run tomorrow morning," Ranadivé says. When the CEO demurred that he didn't have his running shoes, Ranadivé pulled out a bag with shoes in his size. The executive pulled them out and gamely went out for the run.
"He passed," Craig says. "But he was in a lot of pain."
