It’s now week five of my Tim Ferriss diet and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I’m losing weight but doing so with a method that seems sustainable and not heavy on the self deprivation side of diets. In other words, I think this is a way of eating I can keep up for the rest of my life without feeling like I’m losing out on the good parts of food.
Key Takeaway
The most valuable thing that this item taught me is the psychological worth of the the cheat day. I think I discounted how important it was before, but having that kind of thing to look forward to in the short term really helps in terms of resisting cravings. Honestly, I think this is the most important part of this diet. We all know that losing weight isn’t that hard, it’s just a matter of eating better, but we fail over and over because it’s far too easy to give in to the short term cravings than it is to think of the long term health benefits. Well, the cheat day gives you a concrete and short term thing to look forward to which reinforces the long term health benefits. “I have to give up the deliciousness of the chocolate now for some vague health benefit a long time from now” becomes “I have to give up the deliciousness of the chocolate now in order to consume a whole bunch of chocolate a couple of days from now totally guilt free AND for some vague health benefit a long time from now”. That tradeoff is a lot easier to stomach (sorry for the awful and unintentional pun).
In terms of the diet itself, I really don’t think there’s any magic here. I’m losing weight because this eating regimen has forced me to cut out nearly 40% of my daily calories by removing items like pasta, French fries, chips and candy from my vocabulary, at least during the week. Please note that I am combining this eating plan with exercise but I have not changed my exercise habits during the course of this diet so I doubt that’s influencing the quality of the results.
Three remaining issues:
- I am drinking way too much diet coke – This was actually a habit I had given up a while back. However, I picked it up again as a way to deal with some candy cravings. This is something I will now need to address.
- I am trying to be more environmentally conscious – This is my problem and not everyone is going to care as much, but I do try to minimize my impact on the world around me. Due to the nature of this diet, much of the food I consume tends to be meat, which is not as environmentally friendly as other sources of calories. This can be easily remedied by choosing organic and sustainable meat but this would limit my options when going out and increase my budget when dining in. I can also focus on other options such as legumes but those dishes are not as easily available at restaurants. Not sure quite how to solve this yet but we’ll see. If anyone has suggestions, I’d love to hear them.
- I miss fruit – I love fruit and it’s hard for me to walk by my backyard orange tree without snagging one. I’m going to try and get in touch with Tim to see what his opinion is about the occasional piece of fruit, but until then, this remains my only sore point of the Tim Ferriss diet.
Overall goal is still to get to 180lbs while not losing any of my strength (weight lifting goals) or stamina (running goals). I’m hoping to reach this number by the end of this year.
Starting next week I will be moving on to other topics but I’ll retain this diet, at least until the next experiment. If you have any questions, feel free to post them here or ping me over email.
01.27.2011 Weight – 220lbs