Put Your Life On a Diet: Lessons Learned from Living in 140 Square Feet

by Gregory Johnson

Put Your Life on a Lessons Learned Living in 140 Square Feet is the ultimate resource for living a simpler life as well as leaving behind a smaller environmental footprint and living a healthier life for you and the planet. In this book author Gregory Paul Johnson guides us in five significant areas-housing, food, technology, utilities, and transportation-teaching us how to create a simpler life, reducing stress in our own lives and harm to the environment. Due to the pressures and complexity of life today, the search for simplicity is being sought after like never before. Put Your Life on a Lessons Learned Living in 140 Square Feet offers the tools to escape the "cookie-cutter" existence so many are living today and find peace in a simpler lifestyle.
Author Gregory Paul Johnson is the founder and Director of Resources for Life, an outreach and public interest organization based in Iowa City, Iowa. His study of Urban and Regional Planning with the Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA) included travel to several South American countries including Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Today, as a technology consultant, Gregory works for the University of Iowa as well as clients served by his consulting firm, the Technology Services Resource Group.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir

144 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2008

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book. And I love the idea behind it. But I was expecting it to talk more about how to fit living a regular life into a much smaller compact, minimal space, and instead learned that the author uses facilities at a gym that he belongs to, eats out at restaurants, and basically just sleeps in his tiny house. A fine idea, but not what I came here for. Bummer.

[J.K. Riki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably 3.5 stars, I found this book to be worth reading. While the extreme living conditions of the author won't be for everyone, or even most people, the wisdom inside is excellent and provides a lot of thought-provoking opportunities. The author does a good job at realizing not everyone will make the leap he did, which is not always the case for people who move off-grid and then tell everyone they should too. As a result he provides a range of ideas to consider, from simple changes to your current lifestyle to making big changes.

All in all, this book is a fantastic reminder that modern life is often severely over complicated, and we just might be able to live more peacefully and joyfully with less stuff and more focus.

[Susan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just a tiny little book. I am interested in tiny house living, but was disappointed with this account. The author built a tiny house, but it has no shower or toilet, no heating or cooling and no refrigerator. He added a small stove for cooking at a later point.
He showers at the gym, uses other facilities "a short bike ride away" for bathroom usage, and eats at restaurants daily. He also rents a storage space for his belongings.
I want to know more about how people manage their lives in a tiny home, doing most of their living there.
So, this book was not for me.

[Natasha | natashainyourphone · Rating 5 out of 5]

While the author is extreme in his minimalistic life, he gives great advice and tips for putting your life on a diet. Even though the book was written in 2008, almost all of the advice is still relevant.

[Sonja · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but I should have checked the publication date because some of the hints are outdated. Good concepts about small space living, even if you don't physically downsize.

[Margaret · Rating 1 out of 5]

Put Your Life On a Diet is a very small book with 144 pages. Only about half of the content is specifically about living in a small house with the remainder being about how to reduce your impact on the planet, as the title implies. There aren't even photographs of the house. My overall impression is that this book was designed as a workbook for a seminar on the author's lifestyle philosophy and that the lessons were learned and then implemented by living in a small house rather than vice versa.

Ironically, this tiny book about living efficiently is very inefficient itself. It's a very quick read because in the 144 pages there is a lot of empty space and filler: double-page chapter titles, a couple of lined pages for notes at the end of each chapter, lots of quotes pulled from the text and blown up to fill an entire page as well as a lot of regular pull-quotes. I estimated (page-by-page) that the entire book would only fill 80 pages without all the fluff: an efficiency of approximately 55%! No, this is not a joke!

The author is fond of the fairy-tale cottage fantasy rather than a modern look like the Micro Compact Home or even a retro-modern feel like an Airstream trailer. The titular 140 square foot house that he lived in is the hippie equivalent of a wooden, stick-built small Airstream except without plumbing and with customized storage. He even estimates the present cost of construction to be in the same price range and an Airstream is likely much more suitable for most people as a place to live.

It would be unkind but not untruthful to call his house a fancy version of the jerry-rigged, blue tarp houses of the uncounted millions who live in urban slums in South America, Africa, and Asia, but on wheels. He even hauls in his own water! Yet he's not a hypocrite and he admits that because he relies on shared services, his living space is really about 2,000 square feet.

While there are bits of interesting information, there is nothing new here in the context of the simplicity theme that has flowered with the new millennium. This book definitely does not merit a permanent place in your library. You could get the same lessons in a more forceful and graphic form from Material World: A Global Family Portrait. A more similar book that would be MUCH more useful for people who don't want to live in a toolshed is Put Your House on a Diet: De-Clutter Your Home and Reclaim Your Life.

Unfortunately the immature and spiteful author of the book has attacked reviewers in comments and also asked his blog readers to both write reviews (which merely revealed that they obviously had not read the book) as well as attack reviews that were not to his liking so beware.

[Eve Lyons · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up this book because I would like to simplify my life. His premise, which many of the reviewers here seem to have missed completely, is that if you are active in your community, you can simplify what you own. You don't NEED to own a washing machine, a kitchen, a living room, a car, a garden, etc if you are willing to live in and be involved in a community that has a a park, a laundromat, restaurants, mass transit, etc.

Now, given that premise, you can decide yourself where you fall on the continuum, and the author is quite understanding of the fact that many people would not choose his radically simplified lifestyle. And also quite empathic to the obvious ways having a family means you can't simplify in the same ways he can as a single person. But most American families *CAN* simplify more than they think they can, and most Americans need a lot less stuff and space than they think they do...and THAT is the point of the book.

[Trevan Hetzel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I Randomly found this book at the Dollar General for $3. "Living in 140 square feet" caught my eye and I can never skip past a great book deal. I've always found tiny houses intriguing, and usually find that the occupants of such homes have their own intriguing personalities. I've never wanted to live in a tiny house, but I figured "lessons learned" from someone who's lived in one would paint an interesting picture as to how they manage without the normal appliances, "stuff" and general way of life for most Americans living in a normal house.

However, this book was more about the author's preference to live economically and not so much about "living in 140 square feet". The writing wasn't spectacularly intriguing and content was pretty bland. I often found myself thinking "duh" and wanting to skip past the common sense parts.

So my final take on this book is that it's very boring, and not recommended.

On the plus side, the author is from Iowa so that's cool :)

[Eddie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read it hoping for some solid ides on simplying your life. Unfortunately, it's mostly a bunch of common sense ideas for getting rid of your stuff. Yes, life is more simple if you don't own much, but I was complete uninspired with any new ideas. I could have come up with just as many ideas in each of the areas.

I did like that the author wasn't pushy with his views. Often those with "green" ideas have a tendency to be pushy and blaming towards others, the author never came across as pushy or condesending in any way. I don't think I would ever want to live without a bathroom in my house, but the author never tried make me feel guilty for wanting one (but never did tell us what he does when he wakes up in the middle of the night needing to go to the bathroom)...

Save your time and money, and skip it.

[Lissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading this book, but I left feeling disappointed. The book is pretty short - I read the Kindle version (which was littered with errors), so I don't know how many pages it has, but I breezed through it pretty quickly. And there were few real "lessons" learned; instead, the author offered advice on how to green up your life a little. And since most of these could have probably been found during a google search, I didn't feel like I was learning anything new. Conserve water by taking a shorter shower! You'll have more money if you buy fewer things, especially things you don't need! You'll have more time to devote to other things if you work less! Isn't that all just common sense?

[Gina · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are some interesting ideas in this book, as well as action items and discussion points for anyone interested in "downsizing" their life. I can't imagine going to the extreme that the author did, but he points out that this is his choice for now, and that his choices would need to change when/if he's involved in a live-in relationship.

If nothing else, this book has helped me look at what I own with new eyes. I'm also thinking about the ways in which I could use public transportation in spite of living somewhere that values driving over mass transit.

[Mitzi · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a single person looking to begin a life change and move towards being more environmentally conscious this is a great book for you! However, as a Momma of two kiddos many of the suggestions in this book are not possible for my family. That being said, there are many things you can take away as ideas and customize them to your own life. If you are looking for a book with life altering ideas, then you will be disappointed. If however you are just beginning the journey of downsizing and living in a simpler manor this is a good book to get you started.

[Lisa Cannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tend to want to smack myself in the forehead anytime I actually purchase a book on the topic of simplifying/decluttering my life. Still, it happens from time to time. This book looked intriguing, and while I have no practical intention of moving off the grid or living in a mere 140 square foot area (our <1000 sq. foot house seems small enough for the four of us as it is!), I hope to glean at least some viable ideas for simplifying from this book. We'll see.

[Molly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book if you had never read or seen a blog. It was written to much like an online journal for me to really be able to get into it.

Tons of good suggestions and from reading this one, I discovered that I don't want to live as simply as I thought I did, so that, for me, is a good thing!

If you thik you would like to live in a really small house off the grid, this is the book for you.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tiny book written by a man who lives in 140 square feet. It's full of good tips about how to reduce your footprint. My favorite: when downsizing, rather than agonizing about getting rid of things, just put everything in storage first, and take only the basic things you will need. After a year or two, you will not be as attached to many of the items and can easily give them away. The ones that still mean something to you are worth keeping. The book also includes a lot of resources.

[Relyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

The tagline of this book explains a lot: Lessons Learned from Living in 140 Square Feet. What? Of course I had to read a book like that. I'm not sorry I did. It was interesting. Nothing like how I would choose to live, but interesting.

[Haley · Rating 2 out of 5]

an interesting idea - divesting your life of all but the basics - but not a very engaging, in-depth presentation. a better option would be to just go to the blog the author maintains since the book struck me as being pulled straight from it anyway.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Challenging lifestyle. I think most of us would revolt at the ideas presented, but I enjoyed the premise and would not be opposed at giving it a try - with some slight adjustments for family living

[Lisa Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extreme, but some good info.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring quick read about how to downsize your life for the sake of the environment and your mental, physical and financial health. Great.

[Del · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this in one night. I was hoping for more of a blow by blow on trading in a normal house for a tiny house, but it was mostly a mediocre self-help book.

[Kacper · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm grateful to this book for finding out about Tumbleweed Houses, the cutest houses ever!!!

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Based on the title of this book, I thought I would love it. Unfortunately, this book is more about living a compact yet complicated life rather than simple living.

[Deborah Davis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I used this in my classroom when I was teaching AP Environmental Science. The extreme example prompted my students to incorporate scaled back aspects into their lives.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yes, there was some inspiration. Very little substance-nothing new. A library-pick.