Well, that probably will happen if you go back to the same way of eating and exercising (or lack thereof) that got you overweight in the first place.

One week after ending the Tim Ferriss diet, I have not gained a single pound.  I am exactly at the same weight that I was on my final weigh in.  In the past week, I have eaten cake, candy, pizza, Indian food, cereal, and all sorts of “normal” foods.

The reason I am not edging back up to the weight I was at the day I finished my thesis is because I am not living the lifestyle my thesis demanded.  That is to say, I do not sit in front of a computer for 20 hours a day in a state of worry and panic while I generate Photoshop renderings and eating at Chipotle, Subway, Mai Island Grill, and the Chuck Box everyday before staggering home at 3 in the morning to get a quick 4 hours of sleep.

Instead, I now only work on my computer for 8 hours a day with no deadlines except for the ones I set for myself.  I can work in relaxing coffee shops instead of under the watchful eye of a self-described “draconian thesis adviser.”  I no longer get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I wonder if my work measures up to my colleague’s work.  I actually get a healthy amount of sleep.  And I eat less food that is “engineered” to be more flavorful and tasty than nutritious.

I honestly believe that I would have gotten to this weight eventually without doing the diet, but it would have taken some time.

The point being this:  Don’t do the diet to lose weight and then get surprised when your waistline starts to expand when you go back to your original birthday cake and onion rings diet.  The diet will undo the damage that poor diet and exercise choices have created, but once you quit you will likely need to change your habits if you want to keep the changes.  The diet is just a sort of shortcut to get you from where you are to where you want to be.

Also, my girlfriend and I have decided to go ahead and create a small e-book about my experiences with the Tim Ferriss diet.  We will be explaining the mechanics and rules of the diet in greater detail.  I will be writing a section on keeping yourself motivated to stick to the diet.  She will be writing a section on recipes you can use on the diet.

This is something I’ve never done before, and I’m not really sure the best way to go about doing this.  I am going to try to contact Tim Ferriss regarding the use of his name.  I’m not sure If I need to, but it seems like the right thing to do.

My goal is to get the e-book done by New Years (to take advantage of “resolution season”), though I suspect it will be done much sooner than that.

I have to confess, though.  I am a bonehead.  I did not count the days right and we actually ended up doing the diet for 33 days.  A bit more than a month.  Well, I never have claimed to be very bright.

On Saturday morning we went to my mom’s house for our final weigh in.

My starting weight – 160

My ending weight – 148

I lost a total of 12 pounds in 33 days with no exercise!  Not bad for my first diet.

My girlfriend lost 9 pounds.

Overall this whole experience has got me thinking about obesity and weight loss in America.  Being a fairly skinny guy myself, I never really thought about it that much.  I just figured that if so many people out there were fat and struggling to lose weight, and if there were so many diets, “ab crunchers,” and “thigh squeezers” out there… well, it must be really hard to lose weight.

Yes, I know some people have glandular problems that make it difficult for them to lose weight, but certainly two-thirds of Americans don’t suffer from hormone imbalances and glandular problems.  Could it be that all these people are just lazy?  Unwilling to put in the work and eat right and/or exercise?  Could these people just be unwilling to give up the Big Mac and put down the tankard of soda?

After spending a few hours poking around the internet, I’ve read a lot of theories.  There are discussions about how overweight people are just “hungrier” than people at a healthy weight.  There are theories about willpower.  There are claims about how the majority of overweight people are workaholics and spend so much time in the office that they don’t have time to hit the gym or eat a salad and that (gasp!) healthy people are actually the lazy ones (after all if they weren’t lazy, they’d working 80 hours a week and they’d be fat like me, damn it!).

After reading all this, I really can’t be too judgmental.  I am not fatuous enough to assume that I know every angle of the debate or that I have all the answers after a few Google searches.  But I do believe that American’s are heavier on average because:

First, I believe that people eat too much.  I don’t really know why people seem to think that they need to eat three massive Applebee’s-sized meals totaling over 1000 calories each, every day.  I’m barely ever hungry and I usually only eat two modestly sized meals a day.  Lesson:  Eat only when you’re hungry and only eat till you are satisfied, not stuffed.

Secondly, I believe that people eat too much crap.  In doing this diet, I have been reading the backs of food packages at the grocery store to make sure that I was following the diet and not accidentally eating dairy or flour or anything else.  Have you ever noticed how for some reason food companies seem to have an obsessive need to add sugar or high fructose corn syrup to just about everything?  Lesson:  Watch what you eat and minimize sugars.

And Lastly, I’ve noticed that lots of people will find various weight loss programs or diets out there that may very well work.  The problem is that instead of following the “proven system,” they succumb to their first craving for KFC and try to rationalize, bend, negotiate, or otherwise twist the rules around so that they can enjoy their guilty pleasures while on the diet.  I am sorry, but you will not lose weight guzzling soda and eating Twinkies.  Lesson:  Stick to the plan.  There are no shortcuts.

The diet was a good experience and I’m glad I did it.  For me it wasn’t about losing weight, it was about testing my willpower.  Though I must admit, I do feel a certain sense of ease knowing that I have the weight loss problem solved (for me) and if I ever find myself overweight, I know how to fix it without navigating an ocean of diet pills, celebrity-endorsed scams, and shady diets.

So, I weighed myself last week before we left for Portland.  I’m keeping the amount of weight I’ve lost under wraps for now so that the few followers I do have on the blog will (hopefully) come back to see the final results next week.  But let me say that I have actually lost more weight than I thought I would.  I’ve burnt away all my “thesis weight” and I am actually below my target weight now.

My clothes are a lot looser too.  I can now fit again into all those clothes I used to wear in high school.  Pretty sweet!

My girlfriend has not weighed herself yet.  She has doubts that she has lost any weight, but I know that she has.  She’s just afraid of getting her hopes up, I think.

Overall, this diet is getting very boring.  Beans, lentils, veggies, some meat for dinner.  That’s about it.  Maybe it’s the fact that I know it works; maybe it’s the fact that I’m nearing the end, but I am really eager to get off this diet.

I am considering writing a short PDF report on this diet that will cover what Tim Ferriss failed to mention on his blog.  Namely how to manage your emotions on this diet and some recipes that will add some variety to the diet.  Maybe I’ll sell it here for a modest price (don’t worry you won’t see any of that overpriced “$97 $47″ marketing hype here).  I’m thinking maybe $5 or $10.  Would any of you be interested in that?

Well, that’s all to say for now.  If you’re doing this diet, keep it up.  It really does work!

I’m definitely losing weight.  I feel very thin and wiry (keep in mind I was never overweight or anything to begin with).  My legs feel thinner, my stomach feels flatter.  This diet definitely works.  My girlfriend is losing weight too.  I apologize that I can’t do weekly weigh-ins, but I do not own a scale.  I will need to stop by my mom’s house this week, so I’ll do a weigh in-at that point.

I really don’t understand why people were complaining so much about this diet on Tim’s blog.  It has become a non-event for me.  I love eating black beans, split pea soup, and meat.  In fact, it can be quite tasty.  Every once in a while, I find myself craving something like rice or pasta, but the craving isn’t very strong.

In fact, I don’t even go that wild on my cheat days.  I just make sure I hit all the food groups that I’m not allowed to eat during the rest of the week:  dairy, fruit, grains.  For awhile my girlfriend was worried about getting scurvy from this diet, but we looked it up and it takes four to eight months of vitamin C deprivation to get scurvy.

I really can’t think of much else to say about this diet.  Basically I’m just following Tim’s guidelines to the T.  Plus, I’m used to it now, so there’s no “emotional struggle” to avoid eating pixie stix and Big Macs.  I thought this week would be our final week, but my girlfriend wants to keep doing this diet through November 6th.  I’ll see if I can do a final weigh-in sometime around then.

I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m not eating any bread or grains, but I feel really dizzy and weak most of the time.  I think it’s some kind of low blood sugar reaction.  I basically feel like a zombie half the time.  It’s like my brain just can’t think.  I’m muddled by a cloud of hunger and spaced out for hours on end.  I’m sure it’s really impacting my productivity in a negative way.

Eating is strange.  Everything I eat seems to disappear as soon as I eat it.  Nothing makes me feel full for more than a few minutes.  I feel like I’m trapped in some strange fairy tale where all the food is enchanted by some kind of spell that makes it vanish as soon as you swallow it.

Overall though, the diet isn’t all that hard for me.  I’m a pretty austere guy.  I think it is only a real challenge for recreational eaters.  By recreational eaters, I mean people that eat to be entertained.  They wash all sorts of flavors across their tongue for the thrill of taste.  If their bored they chomp down on something sweet.

Perhaps that’s why they say us Americans are so fat.  A suburban lifestyle that encourages little physical activity mixed with the elevation of eating into a sport and the end result is overweight people.

I mean if you’re bored, wouldn’t a candy bar be a nice thrill?  I fun, if not temporary, distraction?  It makes me wonder if all these people use food as way of insulating themselves from some kind of suffering?  Maybe the feeling that their pouring their lives down the drain working 9-5 for a quick buck.  Maybe something else entirely.

Thankfully I’ve never been much of a recreational eater.  Yes, I do have my moments, but all in all it’s not that bad.  On my days off the diet I don’t go too crazy.  I just make sure I eat dairy, carbs, and some fruit.  I only really do that to make sure I’m getting at least a bit of each food group.  How much would it suck if you got scurvy from doing this diet and getting some vitamin C on your day off?

So far, I’m definitely losing weight.  I don’t know how much exactly because I don’t have a scale.  But I do feel much trimmer and I feel like a few pockets of “thesis weight” are starting to feel a little tighter.  My girlfriend seems to be losing weight as well.  She is just brushing it off and making up excuses about why it can’t be true, but I can tell she is slimming down.

I’m almost halfway through the diet.  Only three more weeks to go!

PS:  I recently discovered that you should avoid eating more that just a few nuts each day on this diet.  I wish I knew that earlier, but there’s still two more weeks to go…