I Went On An In-N-Out Diet For 3 Months… Here’s What Happened.

6 min readMay 12, 2021

Back in 2014, I had decided that I wanted to stop “clean-eating” and wanted to go into something more flexible.

While eating “clean” was something that was encouraged all over my community, I had developed some problems with an obsession with eating whole foods that impeded my well-being psychologically and socially.

So I learned about IIFYM and started exploring calorie and macronutrient tracking… and I guess I wanted to punish myself or something by going on an In-N-Out diet.

The In-N-Out Diet

Here’s what my diet consisted of:

I dieted for fat loss. The goal was to lose 15–20lbs.
The calorie Goal was ~2300 calories. This is because I used a calorie calculation and subtracted 500 calories from my diet. I weighed around 185lbs at the time.
In-N-Out Every. Single. Day. Double-Doubles… fries… sometimes protein-style. I would stock up on meals because of college.
Protein Shakes. Used to cover the rest of my protein intake, as protein should be higher while dieting.
Weight Lifting 3x per week. These sessions would be a mix of strength and hypertrophy (muscle growth — 6–15 rep ranges) and would last between 1.5–2 hours.
7–8 hours of sleep per night. I would strive to sleep 7–8 hours per night.
Zero cardio. I did not do any cardio — just weights.
Shooting for a pound of weight loss per week. I expected the first few weeks to have significant weight loss due to consuming fewer calories and carbohydrates.

The Results

Month One

For the first month, it was kind of easy to adhere to. As I was eating a lot more than I was burning before I started the diet, I felt like my energy and mood were still

Month Two

In month two, I dropped the calories by 50–75 (~2225–2250) so that I can “accelerate” my fat loss process.

The second month is where I started to feel some of the diet. I felt like I was extremely fatigued during my weight lifting sessions. Now looking back, I see that as a result of the low-carbohydrate and micronutrient intake (more proteins and fats).

A low-ER carb diet like this one *could* probably work with someone who exercised differently (I do a mix of Strength and Hypertrophy training).

During this month, I had times where I was ravenously hungry in the evenings. Throughout the day, I would sometimes experience bouts where I thought my mind was cloudy. There would also be a period of 1–2 hours of sluggishness (usually mid-day) where I lacked focus.

This was bad during college lectures.

Month Three

In month three, I dropped the calories by an additional 25–50 calories (~2200) to dive even deeper into my diet.

I shouldn’t have done this… because I still felt like crap from month two.

My energy levels were a lot worse while in this month. Stress levels were significantly elevated, and I felt moody most of the time. It was a lot harder for me to be able to handle little inconveniences during this time.

After 3 months, I lost a total of 20lbs… but I ended up gaining most of my weight back within the following months. I believe all of this is a result of a variety of factors — from low-calorie consumption to low carb consumption (with respect to the style of exercise I prefer), and lack of nutrients for a long period of time.

Ultimately, I probably wouldn't have stuck with the diet if it weren’t for using myself as a test subject.

Lessons Learned

Here is something I learned from all of this:

Calories In vs. Calories Out (CICO). CICO will always determine the rate of weight gain or weight loss… but that does not mean every calorie is equal (in regards to overall health — physically and mentally).
Vitamins, Minerals, & Fiber are important for overall health. Although you can lose weight by just tracking your calorie intake, that doesn’t mean you’ll be feeling good if all you eat is junk. Get your fruits and vegetables in.
Carbohydrates were important for my circumstances. While carbs are a non-essential macronutrient, most people may perform better with a larger carb intake… looking back now, my most successful diet a few years later (2017) was filled with carbs.
I could have probably eaten more calories and still would’ve lost weight. Although I did gain my weight back, there was a period of time where I actually lost more weight by eating more calories after the diet. Consider this while dieting.
I should have planned high-carb or high-calorie days with my diet. Having planned days with higher calories would’ve been better for my sanity.
In-N-Out 10% of the time. It got boring real quick. But eating it 10% of the time (in my 2017 diet) made me appreciate it a lot more.
There is more to a diet than how I look. Never forget the mental (your sanity and cognition), and just your overall relationship with food. This is important.

As a result of this diet, I realized that I could diet flexibly and still lose weight. This meant that if I tracked calories or macronutrients while dieting, and focused on eating whole foods 90% of the time… you can really enjoy your diet.

Conclusion

As I mentioned in the previous section, my diet in 2017 was the best diet I ever experienced, as I got super ripped by tracking macronutrients and eating whole foods 90% of the time.

I still had my ice cream. I still had my cookies. I just gamified my nutrition and made it fun and enjoyable.

What the In-N-Out diet taught me is that if I eat In-N-Out 10% of the time instead of 100% or (0% of the time), I found myself covering the most important factors of nutrition: Adherence and Accountability.

Adherence in that I was able to stick to my diet in the long term.

Accountability in that there was some form of tracking method that allowed me to indulge whenever I needed to.

To conclude, I do want to say this: life is 1000x better now that Flexible Dieting is the system I use to eat. I enjoy every aspect of nutrition now — physically, mentally, and even spiritually (depending on how you look at it :))

I just wanted to thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you have any questions or comments, throw them below.