This blog is officially on hiatus for the time being while I work on some other projects. I will come back to it eventually when I have the time. If this is your first time here, feel free to check out the archives to see what this is all about and I will see you in a few months.

Hugs and kisses,

Andy

You can only eat paper, but you can eat all the paper you want.

That was in last weeks episode of 30 Rock. Do you watch that show? You should, it’s excellent. What else do you have to watch, Ugly Betty? Please.

Have you ever heard of Kimkins? I hadn’t until recently, but it’s quite possibly the greatest story every told (sorry bible). Read about it hereand follow the links. It’s pretty fascinating. The moral of the story is that you might not want to spend money on a diet from someone who only posts semi-anonymously on-line and won’t meet people in real life but claims to have had dramatic weight loss.  “But don’t you post semi-anonymously on-line and not post pictures?” you ask.  Yes, but I’m not selling anything. The day I come out with my line of Revival of The Faddist brand Energy Shakes and Slenderwear (body-compressing long-underwear), is the day I post exactly who I am. As of now I haven’t posted pictures but that’s just because I dig my privacy. I’ve been taking progress pics and I’ll post them at the end, but for now it’s not a priority. Although I’d be happy to meet up with anyone living in or traveling through NYC. We can have a big laugh about how I’m 680 pounds and bed-ridden.

I like trying to come up with new diets. This is my improvement on the Idiot-Proof Diet. I call it an improvement because it’s free and it has just as much science behind it as the Idiot-Proof Diet has (very little). You get all the structure of that diet and you get to pick the foods you like as well.

First get 81 index cards, post-its or small slips of paper. You also need a calorie-guide book or website like Calorie King.

Now think of the foods you like that fall into these three categories - 1. primarily protein 2. primarily healthy carbs (fruits, vegetables, whole grains) and 3. A mixture of the two.

You are now going to write a meal (or single food) you like on each index card, but you are going to do it so each card falls into a particular category. The first thing we need to do is come up with 8 meals that are primarily protein and have 200 or less calories in them, and put one meal on each card. So, on the first card you might write, Two Scrambled Eggs. On the next card you might write Grilled Italian Sausage. And you would continue this until you had 8 different cards each with a 200-calorie protein meal on it.  Then you would fill out 8 other cards in 8 other categories as well. The complete list of categories, with an example meal for each, is below.

Cards:
( 200-calorie protein meals (ex: 3 oz. salmon sauteed)
( 300-calorie protein meals (ex: hamburger patty with slice of cheese)
( 400-calorie protein meals (ex: 2-egg omelet with cheese and 3 slices of bacon)
( 200-calorie carbohydrate meals (ex: carrots and celery with low-cal dip)
( 300-calorie carbohydrate meals (ex: wholegrain pasta with tomato sauce)
( 400-calorie carbohydrate meals (ex: large fruit smoothie)
( 200-calorie protein and carb meals (ex: green-salad with grilled shrimp and low-cal dressing)
( 300-calorie protein and carb meals (ex: wholegrain english-muffin pizzas)
( 400-calorie protein and carb meals (ex: large steak with sweet-potato fries)

That gives us 8 cards in 9 different categories, each of which has a different food on it. I know it’s a lot of work and you might think that coming up with all these different meals will be difficult, but as you flip through your calorie guide ideas will come to you. It might take you an evening to come up with the ideas, but then you’re all set. Feel free to repeat foods if necessary, but try to come up with enough  variations to fill the cards. You can have a number of different meals based on eggs, or chicken or anything else that fall in these categories. Some people find counting calories to be confusing. If you are one of these people I suggest you go back to school because there’s a high probability that you’re dumb. Losing weight is not your biggest problem if you can’t figure out addition. If you’re not sure if something is more protein or carb than a mix of the two, just throw it in whichever category you want, as long as the calories are correct, it’s no big deal.

We now have 72 cards filled out. On 8 of the remaining 9 cards, put a large X. On the last card put a large O. Now fold each card into quarters and mix them all up in a bag or a box.

Here’s how the diet works. It lasts for 21 days (then you can start it up over again).

When you wake up in the morning reach into the bag and pull out four slips. Whatever is on these slips is what you’re going to eat for the day. Once you’ve noted what they are, you can put these slips in a separate bag or box for ones that have already been used. These four meals should be spaced at least a couple hours apart. You can eat them in any order. And you’re not allowed to drink anything other than water or other no-calorie beverages.

A slip with an X on it means you get to eat whatever you want for that meal. These are essentially your cheat meals, and you get 8 of them over the course of 3 weeks. The only rule is that you have to limit yourself to four things at that meal. For example: 2 slices of pizza, a can of soda, and a candy bar = 4 things. A cheeseburger, fries, beer, and an ice-cream cone = 4 things. 4 brownies = 4 things. Sometimes you will have to make a judgement call. How many buffalo wings are there in 1 “thing”? I’d say there are 10 max. So you could have 20 wings, a Coke, and a slice of cake = 4 things.  Just use your head. If there’s any question in your mind just ask, “How many of these would a healthy person conceivably eat at a sitting?” However many that is, that’s one “thing.” So one piece of pie is one thing, but 4 Oreos is probably one thing to.

If the slip with the big O on it is one of the four slips you picked, then you should put the other three slips back in the bag because that O means that today you will be fasting. Yes, fasting, for one day. No food, just water. People do it all the time. It won’t kill you.

Now what happens is that some days you may have a couple cheat meals and a couple 400 calorie meals, those days will be really easy. On other days you may just end up with four 200-calorie meals. It’s all up to luck, or god, or fate. That’s how the Fate Diet works. You see, by constantly shifting the amount and type of calories you consume you will confuse your metabolism, this means your body will never enter starvation mode and your internal fat-burning furnace will kick in.

(Everything in red in that last sentence is bogus diet talk. Every diet has some and people seem willing to believe it, so I threw it in for good measure.)

If anyone ends up trying The Fate Diet, let me know.

I should have written more these past few days, but honestly I found this whole diet depressing. I can’t go on anymore diets that last for more than a few days. I can only subjugate my own better judgments for a few days at a time before I become miserable. For the first few days it was kind of fun to be told exactly what to eat. Peanuts and milk? Sounds good! In the short-term it’s nice to not have to make those choices. I think I felt about this diet the same way I would feel if I was to join the Army. The first couple of days I would enjoy the novelty of it, having your day broken down into a very structured order, having everything planned out for you. But after a few days of that I’d be like “F this shit” and I’d lock myself in the bathroom trying to cut off my toe with a butter knife to get discharged.

[At this point in the post I went into a long ramble about throwing away your diet and self-help books. It's not related to this diet so I've edited it out and I'll post it soon.]

When we last left the idiot-proof diet it was day 8. That meant three more days of following their goofy eating scheme and then three days of eating whatever I wanted. Days 9, 10, and 11 on the idiot proof diet follow the same general formula. Some meals are all protein, some are all carb, and some are a mixture of the two. For a final example, here is the menu for day 11.

DAY #11

Meal #1:
Roast Beef Slices
Low Fat Milk
Bowl of Green Beans

Meal #2:
Chicken
Turkey Slices

Meal #3:
Fresh Apples
Fresh Pears

Meal #4:
Sausage Links
Scrambled Eggs

Occasionally you’ll get a meal like #4 above, sausage and eggs, that looks like a sentient being actually put the menu together, but that was just good luck. The menus are obviously thrown together randomly by a computer from the protein and carbohydrate foods you select.

Now, after the 11 days are up, you are supposed to eat “whatever you want to” for three days. You’re just not supposed to ever let yourself get full. Unfortunately I don’t really have much of a barometer to know when I’m about to feel full. I just tend to eat and then at some point I say, “Oh crap, I’m full.” So I didn’t even enjoy my meals of eating whatever I wanted because I was too paranoid that I was going to overindulge and screw up the rules of the diet. It would be a blow to my ego if I screwed up something that was labelled as “idiot-proof.”

And here’s how it all worked out. After 11 days I had lost 11 pounds. One pound per day (yeah, that’s right, I did the math). Then after my three “cheat days” I gained back 4 pounds for a net loss of 7 pounds. That’s still a pretty good loss for two weeks, but I lost similar amounts in half the time in many of the other diets I tried. You might say, “But Andy, if you didn’t do the cheat days you would have been down 11 pounds, that’s pretty good.” That’s true, but according to the diet… “You MUST take 3 days off… the ‘cheat period’ is necessary to force more fat burning to happen during the next 11 days.” That sounds suspiciously like bullshit to me. In fact, the whole “calorie shifting” idea that the diet is based on sounds like bull. I would guess that I lost weight on this diet because with the awful menus it shoots out, I didn’t end up eating that much. It’s true I lost 11 pounds in 11 days, but on the Special K diet I lost 7 pounds in 7 days, on the Apple and Nut diet I lost 5 pounds in 3 days, on the McDonalds and Coca Cola diet I lost 10 pounds in 7 days. None of those diets involved “shifting” calories. I’m not saying the idiot-proof diet is worthless, I just don’t think it works in the way they claim it does. I’m guessing that’s why they don’t bother putting any scientific evidence for calorie-shifting on their site — because none exists.

In a way, the diet isn’t just “idiot-proof,” it’s idiot-centric. It’s really designed for people who like to have everything planned out for them. I can understand that desire because sometimes I feel that way too. But I just don’t think it’s worth $40 to have someone tell you what to eat unless there’s some magical properties to the combination of foods they’re giving and I don’t believe there is with the Idiot-Proof diet.

If you like the idea of having all the food decisions left up to someone else, then perhaps you’ll like enjoy the dieting idea I’m going to post soon. I call it the Dipshit-Proof Diet. Seriously. I’ll write it up tomorrow.
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I don’t have any time to write, but in order to give people an understanding of the different types of eating patterns that make up the “calorie-shifting” on the Idiot-Proof Diet, I wanted to mention what day 8 consisted of. Here is the description from the diet itself:

Today is a day of VEGETABLES AND SALAD ONLY.
This means that all 4 meals for this day must consist of only VEGETABLES or SALAD and nothing else.

You’ll be eating 4 meals (just like other days), but you must choose foods from the below list only:
# Lettuce
# Tomatoes
# Cucumbers
# Green Beans
# Onions
# Celery
# Carrots
# Pinto Beans
# Sprouts
# Spinach
# Broccoli
# Zucchini
# Squash
# Peppers

You may top each meal with only ONE of the following 2 items (but not both):

1 ounce of Grated Cheese (or)
3 tablespoons of Low-Calorie Salad Dressing

I’ve had three meals of broccoli today because I’m too lazy to make multiple vegetable dishes. I don’t know how much I buy into the “calorie shifting” theory of weight loss, but I can guarantee you that all this broccoli has got me shifting a bunch of calories through my rectum. Oh lordy, lordy.

Well I’m about half-way through the Idiot-Proof Diet, at this point the novelty has worn off a bit, but I’m still going strong.

Here’s todays menu:

DAY #6

Meal #1:
Regular Cheese Slices
Delicious Shrimp

Meal #2:
Frozen Yogurt Dessert
Fresh Pears

Meal #3:
Turkey Slices
Roast Beef Slices

Meal #4:
Peanuts
Low Fat Milk

What do you think? I think it looks like the ingredients for one good meal spread out across four. None of these meals seem particularly appetizing to me and that’s a shame. I’m pretty good at enjoying life’s simple pleasures. So I’ve always been able to count on having 2 or 3 times during the day where — regardless of what else was going on in my life — I could rely on taking pleasure from a good meal. Unfortunately there isn’t much pleasure to be gained from sitting down to a meal of unadorned turkey and roast beef slices or peanuts and milk. That’s why even if this diet works, and I’m sure it will work pretty well, I’ll have a hard time recommending it.

The Idiot-Proof Diet rolls on.  Day 2 was an all-fruit day. It wasn’t all that bad except it takes me 45 minutes to find an apple I like. I have very high standards when it comes to fruit. If there is a slight blemish I toss it out. Come to think of it, I’m that way with women too. I really need to change my attitude or I’m going to end up old and alone with no fruit. Day 3 was a primarily all-protein day. And now on Day 4 I’m having three protein meals and one protein/carb meal (baked beans). I’m not bored yet. I like being told exactly what to eat, although sometimes the food combinations they come up with aren’t so hot. One of the meals the other day was “scrambled eggs and chicken” which is just an unholy combination. I should also point out that I’ve instituted my own calorie limits on my meals as well even though the diet doesn’t call for it. I realize that doesn’t provide for a strictly scientific examination of this diet, but so be it. The only diet I’ve tried so far that I put no calorie restriction on was Atkins and that was a waste of my time. My calorie limit is 600 calories per meal, but unless the meal contains peanuts I don’t get anywhere near that figure.

Here’s the premise of the Idiot-Proof Diet. Low-fat, low-carb, and low-calorie diets don’t work, they say. In regards to low-calorie diets they say, “You can never get slim by starving yourself.” That’s right, when people are starving they don’t lose weight. You’ve seen those people who were adrift at sea in a lifeboat for three months, they always come back plump and happy. This is just further proof of how well the the Germans treated the Jews in WWII. How else could they have gotten so skinny unless they were eating 5 or 6 times a day, right? (Sorry, I’ve been watching Ken Burns’ The War all week and have WWII on the brain.)

So the Idiot-Proof Diet claims not to be a low-fat, low-carb or low-calorie diet, instead it uses what it calls “calorie-shifting” to fool your stupid body into burning more calories than it normally would. In their words…

“Your metabolism doesn’t know how much food you’ll eat tomorrow or the next day because those days have not happened yet. 

Therefore, your metabolism always burns calories based on your eating habits during the past few days — because it assumes that you’ll continue to eat in the same general way.  

Guess what?  You’re about to shock your metabolism by doing something you’ve never tried before — you’re going to do the OPPOSITE of what it expects you to do.   You’re going to NOT continue eating the same types of calories and meals for more than a couple days at a time, and you’re going to lose a lot of weight by doing this.

To make this work you need to SHIFT the types of calories eaten as shown in our diet on the next page, and if you do this then your metabolism will burn all of the calories eaten.  Then, when it finishes burning those calories it will find the nearest available fat tissueon your body and burn that too… “

Get ready metabolism! I’m about to shock the fuck out of you!

It sounds good, doesn’t it? It’s seems so easy. It’s a compelling idea to think that your body gets used to a certain type of eating pattern so you’re going to fool it into burning more calories by mixing up what you eat. The problem is that they don’t really tell you why shifting around your calories would cause you to burn more calories. They just figure you’ll buy into it. And in our heads we tend to anthropomorphize things and we think of our metabolism like it was a person. So we think, “Yeah, if I was doing the same thing every day I’d get lazy and relaxed. But if I never knew what to expect I’d be on my heels and ready for action at all times.” So it feels right that metabolism might work the same way. Of course, I doubt that’s the case and I have no real reason to believe that’s the case. The people behind the Idiot-Proof Diet (and I have no idea who those people are because there is no name or group attached to the diet at all — 1st sketchy sign) don’t provide any scientific evidence whatsoever to support their claim (2nd sketchy sign).

Okay, so how do we go about shifting our calories effectively to screw with our metabolism? It’s easy, you just use their Diet Generator. Here, from a list of 23 proteins (ex: shrimp, deli ham, scrambled eggs) and 23 carbohydrates (ex: apples, baked beans, salad) you choose 14-30 different foods you like (7-15 from each group). Then, in an instant, the program shoots out 11 days worth of menus for you. For example, here is my menu for day 1.

Meal #1:
Peanuts
Garden Salad
Delicious Shrimp [ed: I have no idea why shrimp is the only food with an adjective attached to it. Why not delicious peanuts?]

Meal #2:
Regular Cheese Slices
Low Fat Milk

Meal #3:
Ham Slices
Bacon Strips
Bowl of Oatmeal

Meal #4:
Hard Boiled Eggs
Sausage Links
Bowl of Mixed Vegetables

There are no limits on portions. You can eat the meals in any order. And you don’t need to eat each of the things listed at each meal, you only need to eat at least one

As you can see the first day is very protein heavy, but not all days are the same. In fact, on the second day you eat only fruit and on the eighth day you eat only vegetables. Your diet would look different based on the foods you pick, but ultimately you’d end up with days that are very protein heavy and days that mix the proteins with some added fruits and vegetables. As much as they go out of their way to say that low-carb and low-protein diets don’t work, this diet is essentially low-carb/low-calorie plan. Even though there are no calorie restrictions set in place, the meals don’t lend themselves to huge calorie indulgences. How many hard-boiled eggs is anyone really going to eat in one sitting? The clever thing about the diet is that it makes you feel like you’re making the choices of what foods you want to eat. But in reality you’re just narrowing down an already narrow list. There’s no pasta, bread, french-fries, rice, fried food, pizza, ranch dressing, chips, sweets, butter or anything along those lines in the choices of food you’re given. So a lot of the foods that people love and got fat on are not any part of this diet.

With that said, I’m sure I’ll lose weight on this diet, I may even lose their touted 9 pounds in 11 days. However, when you break it down to its basics, I’m not convinced there’s anything revolutionary going on here.

I spend a bit of time every week looking for new diets to try. I prefer ones that are obviously dumb, especially if there’s some gimmick to them. Sure, I could go on Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig or something, but there’s no real punch to those companies. They’re ultimately just a more structured way of getting you to eat healthy and normally. I have no real desire to eat healthy, at least not particularly. People usually write as if eating healthy and eating to lose weight are synonymous, and while they frequently are, they don’t have to be. My Coca-Cola and McDonald’s diet may have been the most successful one I’ve tried on this site so far, but it certainly wasn’t particularly healthy. So I spend a good amount of time on Google just thinking of a food I like and putting it in quotes with the word diet at the end to see what comes up. So I might search for “hamburger diet” or “potato chip diet” or “Cheetos and Kool-Aid diet” and see if there’s anything out there like it. 

If you do any diet searches on Google, it won’t be long before you see an add for the Fat Loss 4 Idiots, also known as the Idiot-Proof Diet.   When I saw this diet I thought, “Hey, this might be good, I’m an idiot. In fact sometimes I’m downright retarded.” And then I went through the checklist in my head to see if I truly was an idiot:

• Have I lost a game of checkers to a dog? [Check!]
• Have I called 911 because I was “trapped in my bath-towel”? [Check!]
• Have I eaten 2/3rds of a piano-bench before I realized when the the hostess said the hors d’oeuvres were “over there” she was pointing to the dish of deviled eggs on top of the piano? [Check!]

Yes! I’m one of the world’s great morons. This is the diet for me. As further evidence of how dumb I am, I shelled out $39 for this diet.

So this is what I will be going on for the next 14 days (the cycle of the diet is 11 days on, 3 days off, so I will be doing one full cycle). They say you can lose 9 pounds every 11 days, they don’t mention how much of it you gain back in the three days you’re supposed to take off at the end. We’ll see.

If you were reading when I was doing the Subway Diet then you know I have an unbridled and unfounded hatred for Jared, the Subway guy. I just think he’s an oafish boob, and he bothers me with all his lurching around and stiff, charmless commercials. I just recently uncovered more evidence that Jared is, in fact, a huge creep. It’s a little gross, but you can read it here.