#3 Fat Loss 4 Idiots
Diet Rank: #3
Calorie Guide: No
Diet Generator : Yes
Product Quality :
Price: $55.95
Calorie Guide: 60-Day
Reasons:The last thing you want to do is try a diet that is overly complex. The simplicity of Fat Loss 4 Idiots makes it very easy to use and some of the weight loss techniques that they outline are very good.

Fat Loss 4 Idiots is among the most popular of the diet programs available in 2009, and has some good things available in it. However, does it really work? Let’s take a look.

How it works

Fat Loss 4 Idiots works on a 14-day cycle of 11 days on the diet, three days off, whereby you carefully follow the program itself for 11 days, and then get three days to eat whatever you want. After those three days, you start over again, and again follow the program (which is rather strict, but doable) for 11 days, followed by three days off, and so on, until you’ve gotten to your desired weight. Theoretically, you can actually also follow this program forever with some basic modification to maintain weight once you have achieved your goal weight.

Can you really lose 9 pounds in 11 days?

Fat Loss 4 Idiots says that it can help you lose 9 pounds in 11 days. It should be said that that’s probably a lot of water weight to begin with, and you probably won’t lose that much every time. In addition, even though you could possibly lose that much weight in those 11 days, three days of “cheat eating,” as the program says, will probably have you gaining some of that weight back.

Nonetheless, taken over the long haul, the net result is that you do lose weight overall. That is, even though you may regain a little bit in your three days of “cheating,” you’re going to lose enough weight to offset that somewhat in the 11 days on the program, which means that unless you really “pig out” on your three days off the program, you lose more weight on the 11 days of the food plan than you regain on the three days of the “cheat eating.”

When you’re “on” Fat Loss 4 Idiots

Here’s what you do when you’re on the program. You watch what you eat carefully, but you don’t limit how much you eat. You carefully switch between protein and carb intake as directed by the program, you make your meals at home for the most part, you drink lots of water, you severely restrict sweets (mostly, those are saved for the “off” days), and you walk for your exercise.

It should also be said that although this is not really a “low carb” diet because you can eat anything you want in your three days “off” the program, you do extremely restrict starchy carbs like potatoes, pasta, and bread. However, you do get to ingest some carbohydrates even when you’re on the program, so it’s not strictly “low carb” even in that sense. You don’t have any portion or calorie limits, and you eat until satiety, but not until you’re overly full. (And if you’re a vegetarian, you can also follow this plan, since there are vegetarian substitutions for the protein component.)

The bottom line

What’s great about Fat Loss 4 Idiots is that it’s a plan you can literally follow “forever,” if you want to. If you have the self-control to greatly restrict what you eat during the 11 days on the plan, you can pretty much do what you want (within reason) in your three days off the plan, so that makes it a good bet for those of us who are okay with delayed gratification — as long as we get that gratification.

One warning is that if you have an issue with self-control when you eat, you really have to be careful here, since the plan doesn’t limit how much you eat. (Remember, even healthy foods can rack up the calories if you ingest too much of them.) So watch portion sizes even for healthy food, eat slowly, and make sure you eat only to fullness, not beyond. If you stuff yourself, the plan is not going to work.