Well, this program is aptly named. It has an attention-grabbing website that purports to make the whole fat loss process idiot proof. They have (a) great copywriter(s) who offers dirt simple solutions to very complex topics. Just plop down your $39 and you get access to the handbook and the amazing diet generator software. No thinking required here, on the Idiot Proof Diet.

The “Handbook” is totally on screen. Nothing to download unless you want to print screen shots. You get descriptions of 10 basic rules, followed by another 35 or so pages of short essays on subjects like how much water to drink, is wheat bread or honey or maple syrup really better, the myth of salad, the importance of varying the types of food you eat, and so on. Altogether less than 50 short pages with big print, so you don’t get bogged down in reading.

The diet generator software quizzes you about some of your likes and dislikes, then spits out your diet for the next 11 days. You can print that out. This is not a calorie-limited diet. You can eat however much it takes you to feel satisfied, but not stuffed, of the item allowed for each meal. You eat 4 meals a day, at least 2 1/2 hours apart, except for day 6, which has three meals, all fruits and veggies. Most of the meals are “monomeals,” at which you only eat one thing. A lot of soy chicken in my case. On most days, one of the four meals has two things, like maybe yams and soy chicken. The proportions of protein to carbohydrates to fats changes from day to day and is apparently one of the driving forces of this diet.

I think this is not a plan that you can or should stay on for an extended period of time. The emphasis is on plain and there doesn’t seem to be enough variety allowed to give you all the nutrients you would need for your body or your psyche. At the very least, you’ll be needing good vitamin and mineral supplements, not to mention your omega three fat supplement. There really is no attempt to teach you how to design a really good diet for yourself and your family. You just eat what the software tells you for 11 days, then go back to whatever bad habits got you to the place where you needed to lose weight for 3 days, then ask the computer to give you a new diet for the next 11 days and so on forever.

The exercise component of this program is, ideally, two 30 minute walks a day or one 45 minute walk. As discussed elsewhere on this blog, walking is a great way to get started moving, but eventually your body will need some change if it is going to continue to burn fat.

Do you have questions about the program? Want to call or send an email to the author? Actually, I couldn’t find any way to do that. If it is not covered on the website, including the Frequently Asked Questions, then that’s just too bad. No contact info anywhere, except an address to which you could send snail mail, except there’s no name anywhere to address it to. No idea who is responsible for this.

Can you lose weight on this diet? Possibly. Your intrepid and endlessly curious experimenter and blogger will give it a try and update this blog with the results. The last time I tried it, I lost interest several days into it when faced with a can of cashews for dinner. In the meantime, if you’re dying to give it a try yourself, here’s the link: Fat Loss 4 Idiots

Be well!! –Di

Update after one complete round of this diet:  

After the 11 days of eating what the computer told me to, no more and no less, I had lost exactly five pounds and had neither lost nor gained in fat percentage. I did the recommended 2×35 minutes of walking (about 4.5 miles for me) every weekday and about 50 minutes on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

At that point, I was bored out of my mind with the very limited selections, got hungry between meals, and had that deep down “ghost hunger” that comes when you stay on a restrictive diet plan too many days in a row. I craved everything, even things I hadn’t even thought about for years. Perhaps I was missing some essential nutrient(s) or maybe my body was just trying to find that 5 pounds I had “lost.”

The second part of this diet is three days of “normal” eating after the 11-day computer-generated menu. During that period I made sure I didn’t binge on anything, although I did eat some low carb bread products and had a good-sized piece of cake with ice cream at a family birthday party.  Two of the five pounds reappeared, making my net loss for those two weeks three pounds. So this diet does sort of work, but others work as well, are less painful to go through, teach you how to make healthful and yummy menus, have built-in mechanisms for elevating the metabolismand give you a plan you can live with very well for the rest of your life .

Final score: two stars for ease of use and at least some effectiveness.

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