Idiot Proof Diet Reviews: Easy, Cheap, and Fast

The fatloss4idiots a.k.a. 'the idiot proof diet' is still unquestionably one of the worlds most popular diets in the past 5 years.

Why?

It's easy, cheap, it promises fast results...and it's WORKED for millions including my self (an 20# athletic but overweight mother of 2 in her late 30's). The icing on the cake was the exercise regiment which is an optional 'brisk walk'! Love it!

My motivation: I needed to get rid of 20 pounds before I put on my swim suit for the summer.

In the end I gave this 'idiot proof diet' a try simply because of a friends referral and because it was cheap. (BTW this link as of 3/13/2011 gives you a 50% discount...70-3394001. I noticed other links I tried were inactive.)

So, I lost 11 pounds in the first 13 days. And honestly most of that was water initially. But overall I was faithful to their "online diet generator". Although, I admit I fell into a 1 hour oreo binge at least twice. Oops. Once I got back on track I recovered quickly, met my overall goal (15 pounds) in about 5 weeks. Is it an easy 'idiot proof' diet? I would say yes. And I'm comparing it to diets like Adkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers, E-diets, etc.

The presentation of it is makes a lot of sense. Simply pick what foods you like from a long list of foods you already eat. Then push a button..

Instantly your meal plans are laid out in front of you. In that respect it's a turn key diet.

But I would also say no in that in the beginning you need to have the mental discipline to say, "Ok, this is the meals I'm going to eat this week."

They're easy meals of course but you still need to decide to make sure you stick to the 'calorie shift' method of meals.

It's explained in better detail at their official site:

Idiot Proof Diet

Their communication is really a no-nonsense, "get to the point" and get'r done style that I find motivating.

So on that note let's move on to the idiot proof diet reviews..

Detailed Summary

1. "QUICKLY", as in 10+ pounds in 11 days...
2. "CASUALLY", whereby you follow a collection of 10 Weight Loss Rules and lose weight gradually...
3. "BEYOND CALORIES", as in a serious, (non-starvation) diet plan focused around 5 principles.

1. "QUICKLY"

Each selection turns out to be more than just the 'ole run of the mill, "it's good for ya" type food. More about that later. Out of the 50 you choose you're favorite 14 to 30 foods. The selections aren't extreme or bizarre... I was pleasantly surprised to even see cheese, bacon, sausage, smoothies, and even condiments being offered.

Anyway, once you make your selections the online generator calculates and displays you a custom, printable 4 meal a day / 11 day diet plan. Each meal has a specific arrangement yet leaves you some room for life to happen. You can eat the meals in any order and at any time. The food in isolation were great it was just the combinations were new..

I will say some of the food combos left me scratching my head

According to fatloss4idiots facts the arrangement of each of these meals as well as the rotation or shifting of the carbs and proteins for each meal is absolutely critical to ongoing weight loss.

Each meal manipulates your protein and carb intake to force weight loss. And it does it again and again with each 11 day cycle.Some meals are protein rich while others are carb rich. So you can't isolate a meal or two to make a real evaluation.

Staying within the confines of idiocity means that there's absolutely no counting of calories, carbs, or any label reading at any time. Calories are unrestrained only to the point of stoping just shy of feeling full.

Unfair "Reviews"

I just read a "review" which in reality was merely an opinion. The writer believed the fatloss4idiots diet was unbalanced. She admitted to not having tried the diet. Instead she "reviewed" the plan by merely examining one meal!

I've seen other "reviews" isolate one or two meals from the entire 11 day plan and say, “That's too much protein or carb intake!” True, but look at that same meal in the context of the other 3 meals for that day and then again within all 11 days. Each meal shifts carbs and proteins in a variety of ways to keep your metabolic rate from catching on. Therefore, the fatloss4idiots diet really needs to be evaluated for at least a day or two before actually reviewing it.

Calorie Shifting

Research and body builders have proven for years that shifting or rotating the types of calories you eat each meal dramatically influences weight loss. Fatloss4idiots act as if it's their new found discovery but it's actually been around a while.

I have to hand it to the webmasters. The web based diet generator makes what would normally be a pain very simple. I've spent less... actually no time having to think, sort, or shift the foods around. Once you see the combinations of all the different foods you'll know what I mean.

In the end the reward for me was quick weight loss followed by 3 days to "cheat" where I just ate what I wanted!

After one cycle you can either ramp up again for another 11 days using different food choices or scale down to the prescribed maintenance mode they offer. So it offers a long term solution as well.

"H.S. Foods"

In regards to the 50 pre-selected foods I touched on earlier, each are what they term "H.S. Foods" or High Satiety foods. These are unique yet familiar foods arranged in careful combinations to trigger weight loss. I don't know of another diet using the same strategy.

The foods actually make you feel "full" long before you really are full, and they also act to keep you feeling full for a longer period of time as well.

2. "CASUALLY"

Instead you follow a collection of 10 weight loss rules that over time enable you to drop weight. These rules have been the idiot proof diets claim to fame.

Most will lose weight immediately even if they just followed half of the ten rules

The rules use allow a bit more room to select your carb's and proteins at each meal then the "quick" approach. Nonetheless, the underlying principles still remain consistent with one another. Again they are an easy read, very clean and simple to understand and apply.

10 Rules of Weight Loss A point I'll make right off is that a few of the 10 rules leave room to make a judgment call. So, I guess it's not fully 100% idiot proof.

For example rule #6 advises you to "Know when to stop eating!". On one hand you're encouraged to eat as much as you want BUT stop just before you feel full.

The idea here is to stop just short of full without leaving feeling hungry. But it's up to you to know when that is.

The good thing is that the selected "H.S. Foods" will already encourage you to feel full faster. But I guess a royal idiot could potentially eat 'till he pukes. So you do have to use some measure of judgment in terms of portion control to make progress.

3. "Beyond Calories"

A controversial diet in that it is a 10-day-high speed diet that enables you to “..drop an enormous amount of weight within those 10 days.”

The controversy lies in the fact that the "Beyond Calories" plan is unlike any other diet currently on the market and according to FatLoss4Idiots.com it's also more successful than other diet.

Again like the first 2 diet options Beyond Calories” emphasizes a carefully calculated selection of four food groups for you to choose from. At first glance some of the foods seem inappropriate even "fattening”.

The magic, however, is not in each individual food but the combination of those foods that forces fast weight loss to occur

Again, it’s similar to a confusion technique that body builders use today to prevent the body from adapting. The editors don’t bother explaining this because the idiot proof diet isn’t about going into all the “how it works” details. The emphasis is in the doing

The difference from the first two idiot proof diet reviews options is that “Beyond Calories” uses only“5 dieting principles”that actually have you eating more often

After making your meal selections from the 4 select food groups you're then ready to follow a simple turn-key, ready to go diet schedule. Again, like the first two diets, it’s an idiot proof, let’s get going kind of plan that’s easy to follow.

User & Professional Reviews