Hi all,
I wanted to build a Wiki document discussing solutions for losing weight and working out in a more privacy-respecting manner. These are some solutions that worked for me. This is not medical advice.
I hope others are able to read this and pitch in with solutions they were able to use as well.
Total Daily Energy Expenditure
One of the key items in weight loss is understanding how many calories you should be eating in a day. The term I came across online a lot was “TDEE” which stood for “total daily energy expenditure”. There are sources for calculating all of this yourself: 3.3 Estimating Energy Expenditure – Nutrition and Physical Fitness, however I would recommend using a VPN/TOR to visit an online calculator to do it for you (if you would like to refrain from the math). One example of this is TDEE Calculator. However, I have not found a local hosted version of something similar to this. You can find more solutions by searching “TDE calculator” in your favorite search engine. If you have a local LLM (large-language model), you could potentially ask it to calculate this for your based on your characteristics.
The main questions asked in TDE calculation are: age, gender, height, weight, and activity style. Due to this, I recommend a VPN and/or TOR in a privacy-respecting browser to make sure this doesn’t get tied directly to you.
The Deficit
After calculating a TDEE, you will know how many calories you need in a day to survive based on your current lifestyle. The next item is to select your goal or the amount of calories you should be eating to lose weight. My recommendation would be a 250 calorie deficit. A 500-calorie deficit is done to lose about a pound a week. However, this actually is a bit harder to maintain longer term. 250 is way more doable and doesn’t hit you as hard.
A 250-calorie deficit would look like the following: (your TDEE) - 250 calories = daily goal of calories.
Tracking
Tracking your goal and tracking what you eat is a tedious job. However, as the days go on and you end up eating the same things, the tracking becomes easier. One app I use on GrapheneOS via F-Droid is Waistline | F-Droid - Free and Open Source Android App Repository (GitHub: GitHub - davidhealey/waistline: Libre calorie counter app for Android. Built with Cordova. · GitHub). I don’t use the search feature in it for items (as it felt inaccurate), but I use it to track my current weight and calories of items I eat in a day. If you are on GrapheneOS and don’t plan on using the search feature, you can just block the network traffic for this app.
You can also track on a sheet-style application like OnlyOffice or LibreOffice to track what you eat. This can even be done on a notepad as well. The main purpose is to track what you eat and making sure you are able to stick to the deficit that works for your body.
Tracking calories is one thing and tracking weight is another. I would recommend tracking your weight each week at a single set time (ex. after you wake up on Sunday). This will allow you to get an accurate reading as time goes on as a daily weight check would go up and down due to digestion and other variables.
Eating Clean
Once you start tracking calories, you will quickly see how most items you might be eating take away a good amount of calories. The solution to this is eating a healthier diet by replacing the items you eat with healthier equivalents. Sweets can be replaced with fruits as an alternative. With eating cleaner, you don’t have to give up everything. You just have to see what alternatives can work for you to be able to get more out of the calorie limit you have.
Workouts
In order to lose weight, you do not need to work out. You will lose weight simply by following the aforementioned methods. Working out can allow you to maintain muscle a bit while losing weight. I always recommend calisthenics to individuals. You do not need a gym membership for this, and setting aside 15-20 minutes every 2-3 days a week will keep you in a better shape.
My go-to workout comes from Darebee - programs (use a VPN/TOR when accessing for privacy). The website has free info-graphics that make understanding the movements easier. According to uBlock Origin, only a Google Tag manager is currently running on the site. This is what I use to maintain a more healthier lifestyle.
Conclusion
Losing weight and working out are like threat models: it is different for everybody based on their circumstances.
I was able to use this workflow for myself, and still do today. I just wanted to share a more privacy-respecting approach to this. To reiterate: this is not medical advice. I hope this was helpful!
Editor’s Note:
No AI was used to create any content in this post. However, an LLM (olmo-3 on ollama) was used to check for any grammar or syntax issues in this document.
Last edited by @Harisfromcyber 2026-04-25T23:24:59Z