For those emphasizing weight loss, or for the matter, for those who want to steer clear of cardiovascular sickness, diabetes and other chronic ailments, eating food that follow recommended recipes and staying in the Zone is a must.

Zone Dieting means following recipes with a low-carbohydrate diet plan, where proteins do not dominate the carbohydrates. This allows dieters to get more energy from carbohydrates rather from proteins or fats. The Zone Diet, unlike other diets, insists dieters to keep a close watch on the calorie consumption while eating: a meal not exceeding 500 calories and a snack not exceeding 100 calories is ideal for staying in the Zone.

Diets

Weight loss is not the only reason to be in the Zone. There are numerous additional benefits linked with the the Zone Diet, such as enhanced health, improved energy, improved mental clarity. The number of Americans with Type II diabetes is increasing at an alarming rate. The Zone diet is perfect for someone with Type II diabetes. Being a high protein, low carbohydrate diet program the Zone Diet was implemented to reduce both hunger and compulsion to eat. Most Zone Diet meal procedures are customized to each individual, based on sex, activity level and proportion of body fat. Every meal or snack is calculated around the 40-30-30 ratio so that the body can give optimal performance.

The Zone Diet encourages foods such as fresh vegetables, fruits and nuts, leafy green vegetables, sufficient protein consumption, and eight glasses of water everyday. However, Zone Diet prefers mono-unsaturated fats for saturated fats, says a big no to both processed foods and meals that contain too much salt.

How Zone Diet makes weight loss possible: Consuming too many carbohydrates produces too much insulin, a hormone that tells the body to pile up nutrients. The overload of insulin prompts the body to convert those carbohydrates into fat and store them in your gut, thighs, buttocks or other areas. But protein which has the contradictory effect stirs up the hormone glucagon, which tells the body to let go carbohydrates that are stocked up in the liver. When those carbohydrates are freed, the brain tells the body that its energy supplies are fulfilled and you ought to stop eating. Consequently, limiting the type of carbohydrates you eat and balancing them with 3-4 ounces of low-fat protein at every meal will keep insulin and glucagon balanced, controlling your hunger with smaller number of calories. End result: You’ll experience fat loss and lose weight. This is how the Zone Diet functions.

The objective of this informational resource is to provide visitors with tips on Zone Dieting, weight loss and guide those who seek advice on eating the right food with proper facts and reviews. Please use the menu on the left to select links which will help you seek the appropriate information.

Zone Diet by Barry Sears
The Zone Diet was originally developed by Dr. Barry Sears, PhD. He worked as a researcher at the Boston University School of Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has spent many years studying lipids, and their inflammatory role in the development of chronic disease.

According to some sources, Sears began working on Zone Diet in the early 1970s, shortly after his father’s death of a heart attack.

Back in 1982, the Nobel Price for Medicine was granted to research that proved a relationship between the hormones called “eicosanoids” and the development of certain diseases. These included diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, diseases of the immune system and cancers. Somehow, this moment is also supposed to have turned Dr. Sears’ attention from his own studies of lipids towards a related subject: the relationship between food and hormone production inside the body.

In 1995, Dr. Sears published his first book on the Zone Diet: “Enter The Zone”, The book became a number one worldwide best-seller, selling four million copies. Since then, Dr. Sears has published 10 more books on the same subject.

What Is “The Zone”?
Dr. Sears defines the zone as an ideal state of body and mind, in which we feel fresh and energized, and function to our maximum efficiency. The term is borrowed from the language of athletes. The goal of athletes is to reach their peak performance zone. This lasts a few minutes, or the time it takes to burn a match. Dr. Sears believes he can offer a way to make us “stay in the zone” as long as possible, even for a lifetime. “Enter Zone diet” became key terminology that Sears and acolytes use to encourage people believe this possibility.

Although the Zone Diet claimed to be the answer for staying in the zone, many athletes who follow this diet complained that it didn’t help them improve performance levels. On the contrary, they complained of losing concentration and of worse results.
Inspired by the 1982 Nobel moment, Dr. Sears launched his theory about dietary fat driving from eicosanoids which can lead to certain diseases. According to Dr. Sears, the key for a healthy body is a good hormone level. In order to regulate hormones like insulin, glucagon and eicosanoids, the body uses essential substances from food. As a result, food is considered by Dr. Sears the most powerful drug that our body uses every day.

So where does the problem lie? We feed our body every day, and still get become ill and fat. The problem lies in what we eat, and in what amounts. The modern individual eats “junk food” which does not fulfill the body’s needs. Dr. Sears even criticized the USDA. For decades the USDA had encouraged people to eat a diet rich in carbohydrates and poor in fats and proteins. Up to this point, there is little difference from other dietary theories (e.g. Atkins and South Beach Diet. But Dr. Sears doesn’t connect Zone Diet directly to vitamins, minerals and other important nutrients. He sees food as an instrument to control the blood insulin level.

According to Dr. Sears, while human DNA has not changed much over the last 100,000 years, our eating habits have. In the prehistoric era, the human being ate fruit and meat, a diet rich in proteins and fats, and poor in carbohydrates. Developing this hypothesis, Dr. Sears established the optimum ratio of carbohydrates, protein and fat which any individual has to respect in a daily menu. This is widely known as the 40-30-30 ratio.

… and in Practice
Up to now, although he has published 11 books about this subject, Dr. Sears has not yet provided any scientific proof that Zone diet works as he claims. The opinions of researchers contradict each other on this subject.

Yes, the Zone Diet is good as a diet to lose weight. Many people who followed it the diet agreed they were losing around 1.5 pounds a week. We also have the testimonies of many people who could not lose weight with other diets, but succeeded with Zone.

Zone diet works well for overweight people, but is it really a way of life? Zoners strongly believe that it is. Some food experts approve of the Zone as “a good diet”. After all, it encourages consumption of lean grilled meat, vegetables and fruit.

The Zone is also considered user-friendly, as it is easy to follow. For example, one meal should consist of one slice of lean meat (poultry or fish) the size of your own palm, and the other two-thirds of the plate should be stuffed with fruit and vegetables.

Nevertheless, some nutritionists and experts highlight at least one problem of the Zone diet. It limits the consumption of essential nutrients that our body needs to function properly. The first nominees are carbohydrates, which are transformed into glucose, the body’s favorite source of energy.

Up to now, many questions about the scientific rhetoric of Zone diet still remain unanswered. This is especially true when it comes to its efficiency in preventing cardiovascular diseases, cancer or type II diabetes. But thousands of people (including many celebrities) claim it has worked for them. They say they have no intention of feeding themselves in another manner until the end of their lives.

The In The Zone Delivery Diet
The In The Zone Delivery Diet is based on a 40%:30%:30% ration of daily calories obtained from carbohydrates, proteins, and favorable fats, respectively. Once these levels are reached and maintained, the body enters a hormonal balance which produces many positive effects, such as stable insulin and glucagon levels, increased energy, and weight loss.
Unlike other diets, which restrict the intake of many types of food, the In The Zone Delivery Diet allows you to eat your favorite foods as long as they are prepared with the 40:30:30 ratio.

Unlike other Diets, In The Zone Delivery allows you complete customization of your meals. Our chefs use the ingredients YOU want and prepare YOUR favorite dishes with the nutritional balance required to help you reach your goals.

A nne, an old friend of mine, walked up to Barry Sears at the Tom Landry Sports Medicine and Research Center in Dallas.

She complained that the program outlined in his book, Enter The Zone — more lean meat, egg whites, poultry and fish, while limiting many grains, vegetables, and fruits — just didn’t work for her. She didn’t feel good, and her performance level (swimming) had declined. Anne was now back on her vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.

“Stay with what works best,” he said, “but you know, Anne, it’s not the fat and protein that’s so important. It’s the effect of carbohydrates upon hormones and insulin levels.”

Though this was contrary to everything I had told her about nutrition, the book’s message was loud and clear: “All those trendy high-carbohydrate diets,” he had written, “may be increasing your risk of developing heart disease.”

Excessive complex carbohydrates, according to Sears, also causes obesity by increasing insulin output and fat storage. This is the process, he insists, that creates bad eicosanoids leading to heart disease and cancer.

“To complete a ‘Zone-favorable’ meal,” he advises, “always add fat, the building blocks for eicosanoids.” While it’s true that eicosanoids are hormones involved in many metabolic processes, the relation of “bad” eicosanoids to obesity and disease is at best a scientifically unproven gimmick. Unfortunately, however, it has captured the unquestioning reader’s imagination.

Every few years since the early 1950′s, someone has based a book on carbohydrate bashing. First, there were the Dr. Stillman’s Diet and Dr. Atkins’ Diet followed by The Scarsdale Diet, and finally, Enter The Zone. Now there are others: Michael and Mary Dan Eases’s Protein Power and Rachael and Richard Heller’s Health For Life.

And once again Dr. Atkins New Diet Revolution is back on the bestseller lists. According to Bonnie Liebman, at the Center For Science in the Public Interest, it’s nothing new. “Miracle diets come and go like hemlines, hair-dos, and celebrity romances.” Furthermore, they don’t work; and all of them have the potential of raising low density lipoprotein (LDL) levels. And finally, what do these diets do for the authors themselves? Both Dr. Atkins and Barry Sears have exceeded the upper limits of weight recommended by federal guidelines.

A vegetarian diet, according to Sears, is as far as you can get from The Zone. He ignores the fact that individuals who eat vegetarian diets have far less heart disease and cancer, and tend to be leaner, not fatter. Moreover, most clinical studies conducted during the last half century, clearly show that a high-protein, high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet leads to higher rates of heart disease, stroke, hypertension, adult onset diabetes, and many types of cancer.

The relationship of animal fat to cancer is stronger than ever before. According to new studies released by the Environmental Protection Agency, potent carcinogens from industrial wastes, such as dioxin and other chlorinated compounds, are known to be concentrated in the animal fat of meat, fish, and dairy products. On the other hand, vegetables, fruits, and grains contain only small amounts of these compounds.

So why is the Zone diet so popular? It’s followers defend it vehemently, largely because they find the rapid weight loss irresistible. Like most low carbohydrate diets, however, a great deal of the weight loss is dehydration. Ordinarily, three grams of water are stored with every gram of carbohydrates in the form of glycogen in the liver and skeletal muscles. When this is sharply limited, the desperate “zonies” think they are losing up to a pound of fat a day. It’s also low in calories (about 1,700), causing the unhealthy depletion of lean body mass along with the minimal fat loss.

Also, without careful monitoring, this type of diet may lead to “ketosis” (an unnatural form of acidosis), which often causes some degree of anorexia and even euphoria. Sears denies that this happens with the amount of carbohydrates he allows.However, Dr. Atkins, another proponent of high protein, high fat, low carbohydrate consumption, considers ketosis to be a useful and necessary state. If ketosis sounds familiar, it’s also the result when insulin-dependent diabetics can’t metabolize carbohydrates without their insulin injections — a state leading up to diabetic coma.

The Sears diet recommends that one get 30 percent of calories from fat, 30 percent from protein, and 40 percent from carbohydrates. Here, it should be obvious that these are approximately the proportions already consumed in most Western countries, including the United States, where heart disease and cancer are rampant. Furthermore, with such low intakes of complex carbohydrates, it appears that Sears’ recommended diet would be deficient in vegetables, fruits, and whole grains — and would contain inadequate fiber. Adding insult to injury, this level of protein consumption may promote calcium loss and osteoporosis.

Sears has very little to say about cholesterol levels in his book. He writes, “if cholesterol is such a villain, why does the body make so much of it?” The real heart disease risk, he says, is “hyperinsulinemia and bad ecosinoids.” He is either unaware that practically all published reports indicate just the opposite, or he hasn’t thoroughly read his own book — written with the help of professional magazine writer, Bill Lawren. It’s riddled with such comments as, “eating fat doesn’t make you fat.” It cautions that such foods as potatoes, brown rice, bread, corn, carrots, pasta, bananas, dry breakfast cereals, apple juice and orange juice may be harmful to your health. None of the references quoted, backing these conclusions, have ever been published, and the book does not contain a reference section or a bibliography.

So in summary, a half century of scientific research, first from Ansel Keyes’ population studies in the 1950′s to T.Colin Campbell’s ongoing Cornell-Oxford-China Nutrition project today, has given us a wealth of data supporting the health benefits of carbohydrates. “The Zone” would be a giant step backward. A little weight loss, which is quickly regained when the diet is no longer tolerated, isn’t worth the inevitable long-term health risk.

Robb says that by eating specific foods dieters can remove toxins and flush away extra pounds in just three days. He claims that the key to maintaining health and long-term weight loss is to eat a balanced healthy diet with periodic cleanses with fresh raw fruit.

This is a 48-page book that gives instructions for a 3-day cleansing diet based on protein powder and fruit.

Diet Basics
Fruit forms the basis of this diet and it’s high content of water, fiber, antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and low glycemic index carbohydrates are said to help dissolve toxins, improve liver function and increase energy levels.

The first day involves protein drinks that are taken five times a day at two hourly intervals. Dinner is a large raw vegetable salad with lean protein and olive oil or avocado.

Days two and three involve a serving of fresh fruit in place of the protein drinks and dinner is a large raw vegetable salad with olive oil or avocado and a protein drink.

Recommended Foods
Whey protein
Fresh fruits of choice
Raw salad vegetables (variety is important)
Avocado (if used as a salad topping)
Olive oil (for salad dressing)
Lemons or limes
Pure water
Chicken, fish, turkey, lean beef or egg whites

Sample Diet Plan
Day 1
8 am – Protein drink
10 am – Protein drink
12 pm – Protein drink
2 pm – Protein drink
4 pm – Protein drink
6 pm- 3 to 6 cups raw vegetable salad, 3-6 oz lean chicken and 1 tablespoon olive oil
Days 2 and 3
8 am – 2 cups cantaloupe
10 am – 2 cups strawberries
12 pm – 1 medium banana
2 pm – 2 medium apples
4 pm – 1 large mango
6 pm- 3 to 6 cups raw vegetable salad, ½ avocado and a protein drink

Exercise Recommendations
Robb advises dieters to avoid cardio and weight training exercises for the duration of the plan.

Costs and Expenses
The book costs $5 and is available in both hard copy and e-book format.

It is also necessary to purchase whey protein powder and a large amount of fruit.

Pros
■Can increase motivation to stay with a longer-term weight loss plan.
■Good to neutralize the effects of overindulgence prior to commencement of a healthy lifestyle eating program.
■Can help reset the appetite in favor of healthier foods.
■Most people enjoy eating fruit.
Cons
■May be difficult for those with hypoglycemia and blood glucose imbalances to follow.
■Hunger and fatigue may be a problem for many dieters.
■May interfere with ability to carry out normal daily activities.
■Promises quick results that may not reflect a true weight loss.
Conclusions
While diets that overemphasize one food group to the exclusion of others are usually not recommended as a healthy approach to dieting, Robb avoids most of these problems by advising that the diet is only continued for 3 days and by including adequate amounts of protein and healthy fats in his plan.

His claims that dieters can lose 9 pounds in 3 days may be seen as misleading as it is not physically possible to lose this amount of fat in such a short time, so it is important to bear in mind that most of the weight lost on this plan is likely to be water.

Nonetheless this plan will be safer than many other detox plans for the majority of dieters, and will likely give a boost to motivation and energy that can kick start a lifestyle healthy weight loss program.

Fruit Flush Diet

The Fruit Flush Diet created by clinical nutritionist Jay Robb promises to help break addictions to food. In addition, by following Mr. Robb’s three day detox diet plan you can achieve weight loss of up to nine pounds.

Fruit Flush Diet to Elimate Body Toxins
The key ingredient of this three day detoxification diet plan is fruit. According to Jay Robb, a person’s body can be cleansed of toxins by eating the proper combination of natural foods. The body’s toxins are actually flushed out along with excess pounds.

It is important to follow Mr. Robb’s specific combination of fruits and other natural foods during the three days. You are not permitted to add anything extra to the list provided. This allows the body to be cleansed by foods naturally high in water, fiber and natural plant-based medicines. These specific foods also release their sugars slowly into the body.

The nutrients found in fruit have many positive and healthy effects on the body. According to Jay Robb these include:

•Dissolving toxins
•Boosting energy levels
•Removing poisonous toxins from the liver which build up from eating red meat, dairy products and foods that contain chemical additives
•Cleansing the entire body system including the intestines, liver and kidneys
The Three Day Diet Plan
The Fruit Flush Plan is easy to follow and consists of a pre-flush day, followed by two days of fruit flushing. In addition to fruit you are allowed protein shakes, water, vegetable, and a small portion of lean protein on the first day.

Pre-Flush Day
In the morning of your first day of following this plan, mix 32 ounces of water with 1 1/4 cup of egg white or whey protein powder. According to Mr. Robb it is very important to purchase a protein powder that is free of any sugars, artificial sugars, or artificial flavorings or colors. Protein powders can be purchased at health and nutrition stores, supermarkets and big box stores such as Target or Walmart. Protein powder can also be ordered online at health and nutrition websites including Jay Robb Enterprise.

Starting at 8:00 a.m. and ending at 4:00 p.m., drink a 6-ounce glass of the protein shake every two hours. This is followed by a large salad topped with 3 – 6 ounces of lean chicken, fish or turkey at 6:00 p.m.. The salad can be made of any vegetables of your choice, but it must include plenty of green leafy ones. You can have up to 6 cups of salad topped with the juice from ½ lemon and 1 – 2 tablespoons of olive or flaxseed oil.

One hour after each protein shake and your salad, drink an 8 – 12 ounce glass of water. You can have more water if you are thirsty throughout the day.

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Fruit Flushing Days
On the second and third day of the diet plan, eat a serving of fresh fruit every two hours starting at 8:00 a.m. and ending at 4:00 p.m. This is followed by a large mixed vegetable salad at 6:00 p.m. The only additions allowed to the salad, besides your choice of vegetables, are 1 – 2 tablespoons of olive or flaxseed oil or ½ avocado and the juice of ½ lemon or lime.

With your salad, drink a protein shake made from 12 ounces of water and 5 tablespoons of egg white or whey protein powder. Also drink an 8 – 12 ounce glass of water one hour after each fruit serving and one hour after your salad.

Fruit Flush Diet

If you’re looking to lose weight, but you don’t want to take potentially harmful herbs or diet supplements, the fruit flush diet may work for your needs. The fruit flush diet was designed to be done after the winter holiday season, in order to flush out all of the toxins that accumulated during endless feasts on turkey, stuffing, pies, cakes, and cookies. However, the fruit flush diet can be done at any time of year in order to provide a boost to your metabolism and help you get a jump start on your weight loss.

Fruit Flush Diet Pre-Flush
The fruit flush diet starts with one day of pre-flush activities. On the first day of the diet, you drink protein mix once every two hours. Your meals consist of three to six cups of raw vegetables and three to six ounces of lean meat at 6:00 p.m. You should drink a glass of water one hour after every protein drink or meal you ingest.

Fruit Flush Diet Detox
The second and third days of the fruit flush diet are intended to detoxify your body. On this diet, you would eat a serving of fruit every two hours throughout the day. At 6:00 in the evening, you should also eat one serving of raw vegetables and drink a protein mix.

Fruit Flush Diet Premise
The fruit flush diet was designed around the detoxifying and healing properties of fresh fruits and vegetables. By eating many servings of fruit during the detoxification period, you are taking in a lot of fiber and antioxidants without ingesting a lot of sodium or fat. If you’re on a renal diet, the fruit flush diet is ideal because it is also low in potassium. The fruit flush diet does not rely on supplements or laxatives to help you lose weight, so it is safer than most diet plans available.

Fruit Flush Diet Choices
There are many fruits that you can eat as a part of the fruit flush diet. Each of them has a lot of nutritional benefits and can help you to lose weight. Apples are an excellent source of fiber, which can help you to feel full and cut back on snacking between meals. Citrus fruits such as oranges are excellent sources of vitamin C, which can help strengthen your immune system and recover more quickly from an illness like the common cold. Watermelon is very filling because it is packed with water, so eating this fruit as a part of the fruit flush diet can help you to feel full longer. Other fruits to try include bananas, peaches, pears, grapes, plums, strawberries, and blueberries.

Fruit Flush Diet Benefits
There are many benefits to using the fruit flush diet in your life. One of the major benefits of this diet is that you will be ingesting excellent sources of vitamins and minerals. These vitamins and minerals can give you more energy and help you to fight disease. Fruit is low in calories and has only natural sugars, so using the fruit flush diet can help you to reduce your weight. The creator of the fruit flush diet claims that you can lose up to nine pounds in just three days. Another benefit of using the fruit flush diet is that you don’t have to buy expensive supplements that may be harmful to your health.

Fruit Flush Diet Drawbacks
While the fruit flush diet does have its good points, there are also some drawbacks, just like with any other diet. If you have kidney disease, you need to discuss this diet with your doctor before becoming a participant. Most kidney patients need to restrict the amount of protein they eat or drink, so drinking the protein shakes on the fruit flush diet can be harmful. Since the diet is very low in calories, it is not a diet that can be maintained for several months or years. You may feel hungry while doing the diet since you are severely limiting your caloric intake.

Fruit Flush Three Day Detox

The fruit flush three day detox diet is for the after-festive season cleansing. Jay Robb’s methodology of ridding the body of all the indulgences during the holiday season is quite a rage.

Loosing all those kilos after the hearty meals and drinks during an extended party, a vacation or simply during festivities and regaining the figure and vitality is the mantra of this diet. Besides over indulgence in food and weight problems, the system gets clogged up and requires cleansing, hence the all fruit diet.

The fruit flush is strictly a 3-day diet of just fruits. Fruits help in dissolving stored toxins and the water and fiber in them help to flush out aiding in weight reduction. It also fortifies the body and helps in speeding up the liver’s metabolism of environmental toxins.

1st day: the pre-flush

Between 8 am to 4 pm drink ounces of protein mix (11/4 cup protein powder and 1 quart water) every two hours. Eat 3 to 6 cups of raw vegetable salad and 3 to 6 ounces of lean chicken, beef, fish or turkey at 6 pm. Top it up with 1 to 2 ounces of olive oil or flax seed oil, or half an avocado and the juice of half a lemon. One hour after each protein drink or meal drink an 8-12-ounce glass of water.

2nd and 3rd day: fruit flush three day detox diet

From 8 am to 4 pm eat servings of fresh fruit every 2 hours. At 6 pm, like day one eat 1 serving of raw vegetable salad. Also drink one protein drink comprising of 12 ounces of water and 5 tablespoons of protein powder.

Unlike the 30-day detox or fasts, the fruit flush three day detox diet can be followed for a period of up to 12 weeks with 3-day diet and 4 days off alternatively. The diet is based on natural fruits and vegetables and followed back-to-back aids in considerable weight loss. The program has had very good reviews; dieters say the diet is rich in fiber, vitamins and antioxidants and low in potassium and sodium. This not only aids in detoxifying, losing weight but also improves energy, regular bowel movements and improves skin tone.

The fruit flush diet program does not support any preservatives, laxatives, chemicals or pills; also Robb suggests no exercise regime during the diet; yet there are a few negatives.

It is a very low calorie diet, hence not a balanced one. It is not a long-term solution for weight loss and not ideal if you are on a fat loss program. Also, those who have tried it are not satisfied that you have to use Robb’s protein powder. The positive reviews definitely outweigh these and several dieters use their own handy protein mixtures and still report the desired results of the fruit flush diet program!

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Fruits

Fruit Flush Diet Review

The Three-Day Fruit Flush Detox Diet was created by Jay Robb, a clinical nutritionist with more than thirty years of experience in the field. His personal company began around a line of protein powders and has grown to a number of other products including a line of best-selling books. Robb also has a variety of diet plans that are marketed on his website, online retailers, and stores across the country.

The Three-Day Fruit Flush Detox Diet claims to help dieters lose up to nine pounds in just three days. This is the perfect diet to kick start a new long term program, get ready for a special event, or break a food addiction. The diet can be downloaded as an e-book or a hard copy of the book can be ordered off the website. The 48-page e-book can be ordered for as little as $5 at the time of this review. The one page on Robb’s website that is dedicated to this diet program does include customer testimonials. However, we were unable to find clinical evidence cited that supports the idea that detoxifying the body through a fruit flush will help one lose weight.

List of IngredientsThe Three-Day Fruit Flush Detox Diet consists primarily of consuming fruit, vegetables, and protein to flush out the internal system. The first day, dieters are instructed to drink a series of protein shakes and finish off the day with a large salad. The next two days consist of a piece of fruit every two hours followed by a large salad in the evening. The idea behind this diet is that toxins are flushed out of the body, along with sodium which helps to reduce water retention and drop even more weight.

Product FeaturesWhile there is an argument to be made about the healthy benefits of occasionally “flushing” out the internal system, there is little evidence to support the fact that detox programs are an effective means of long term weight loss. Dieters who use one of these programs over the short term will undoubtedly see a drop in pounds, simply from the calorie reduction that these programs are usually characterized by.

Robb’s website offers a 30-day money back guarantee on all products purchased but with the exception of e-books. Customer service is available during normal business hours to assist customers with downloading e-books and to answer questions.

Advantages
The Fruit Flush Diet may be a healthy way to detoxification.
Encourages the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables.

DisadvantagesThe diet does not address hunger issues.
The diet does not appear to be geared to long term weight loss.
No exercise program is emphasized.
No weight loss supplement is recommended.

Conclusion
Jay Robb’s Fruit Flush Diet may be a healthy way to detoxify the body but it does not appear to be created for long term weight loss. We believe there are more effective supplements and programs available.

Fruit Flush Diet

Introduction: Fruit Flush Diet The Fruit Flush diet is a commercial diet plan that includes a three day detox. Fruit Flush claims that participants will lose up to nine pounds in three days and break their addictions to food. Specifics of the diet plan are available through purchasing and downloading the book, Fruit Flush, by Jay Robb. General Fruit Flush dietary recommendations include eating any fresh fruits except for frozen, dried or canned fruits. Dieters can also have any vegetables they want for their evening salad except for starchy vegetables, such as potatoes. Fruit Flush also suggests buying fresh organic fruits and vegetables, because of a higher enzyme and mineral content than non-organic vegetables, according to Fruit Flush. Fruit Flush also advises drinking of pure bottled or filtered water – 12 glasses or more per day – and avoiding all other beverages, including coffee and tea. Fruit flush also recommends the use of protein powders that do not contain artificial ingredients, such as the protein products sold on the Jay Robb website. The Fruit Flush diet advocates avoiding exercising during the three day detox, because allegedly, those that exercise during the 3 days lose less weight. The diet does however state that light walking for 20 minutes may be okay.

When considering purchasing the Fruit Flush book and using this diet plan, it is important to remember that rapid weight loss is not recommended and that the most effective and safe weight loss diet plans include enough calories to allow dieters to lose about one to two pounds per week. Rapid weight loss is often initially the loss of water, not fat. Diets that severely restrict calories and/or carbohydrates can also lead to rebound weight gain. This is due to the fact that severe calorie restriction results in the body going into “starvation” mode, which leads to a lower metabolism, the body’s way to try to prevent complete starvation. This often leads to gaining even more weight than was lost after the diet plan has been discontinued. This encourages “yo-yo” dieting patterns that are unhealthy and do not result in effective long-term weight control. Severe calorie and nutrient restriction can also lead to low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), low blood pressure, dizziness, and weakness. They can also result in ketoacidosis, a condition in which severe restriction of calories or carbohydrates leads to dangerously high levels of acids called ketones build up in the blood and can poison the body in some people. In addition, there is no proof that any particular diet plan is any better at detoxifying than the body’s own organs.

On the other hand, fruit is a healthy food choice, packed with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants and can be an important part of a well-balanced weight loss program. Fruit is full of fiber which helps dieters to feel full, thereby decreasing appetite. Because of its natural sweetness, fruit may be able to satisfy a “sweet tooth”, but makes a much better choice for dessert than then sweets that are loaded with sugar and saturated fats, such as pies and cakes. In fact, healthy well-balanced, and effective weight loss plans include fruit as well as encourage the consumption of a wide variety of fresh foods from all the foods groups that are low in saturated fats and trans fats and added sugars. These also include vegetables, lean sources of protein, low fat-dairy products, whole grain carbohydrates, and healthy fats, such as olive oil. Good diet plans also advocate for an overall healthy lifestyle, regular exercise, and provides support services to help people stay on track. Any diet may have the potential to be harmful to some people, so consultation with a health care provider before starting any diet plan and exercise program is recommended.

The Fruit Flush Diet

Can you lose weight by eating fruit every two hours? The Fruit Flush Diet, often referred to as simply the Fruit Diet, is getting a lot of attention by promising an astonishing 9-10 pound weight loss in just three days.

“During the 3-Day Fruit Flush, your system is relieved of the digestive burden of eating other foods and can clean out its system while burning fat because fruit is nature’s perfect cleansing food,” says personal trainer and certified clinical nutritionist Jay Robb, author of the Fruit Flush 3 Day Detox

According to Robb’s book, which is available on his web site, nutrients in fruit help dissolve toxic buildup and the water and fiber content of fruit flush it out. He says following the 3 Day Fruit Flush will help flush out toxins that result from a diet of overly processed foods, artificial ingredients, alcohol, junk food, and more.

What makes this quick weight loss plan different from others is that it includes lean protein to spare the body’s muscle and help burn fat, says Robb, who is not a registered dietitian.

“When you eat fresh fruits, vegetables, and lean protein for 36 hours, you go into a fat-burning mode which preserves your muscle mass,” he says.

He acknowledges that about half of the 9-10 pound weight loss you can expect during the 3-Day Fruit Flush will come from water, especially if your diet is very low in sodium. (Some experts think this percentage could be even higher.) But Robb says the fast weight loss is a great motivator for anyone starting a long-term weight loss program.

The Fruit Flush Diet requires only two steps. On the first day, you drink protein shakes. This is followed by two days of eating fresh fruit every two hours, plus a dinner meal of raw vegetables and a small amount of lean protein or a protein shake.

The diet provides about 900-1,000 calories each day, with about 100-125 grams of protein on day one and about 50 grams of protein on the other two days, depending on the type of protein powder you use.

Robb’s 3 Day Fruit Flush diet is different from the diet he calls the Fruit Diet, a 14-day program with slightly more calories and an “accelerated fruit flush plan” consisting of unlimited fresh fruit during the day, plus an evening meal of protein, vegetables, salad, and healthy fats. But in general, whenever fruit is the foundation of a diet plan, it could be called a fruit diet. Some people follow an all-fruit diet for a day a week or three days a month.

The Fruit Flush Diet: What You Can Eat
Beyond fresh fruit, raw vegetables, protein drinks, and lean sources of protein, there is very little you can eat on the Fruit Flush Diet. Dairy, caffeine, coffee, tea, alcohol, diet and regular sodas, starches, cooked vegetables, juices, most fats, and all sweets are prohibited

Dietary supplements are not recommended.

Here’s a sample menu for the Fruit Flush Diet:

Day 1 (Pre-flush)

Every two hours from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Drink a 6-ounce protein drink (void of any sweeteners, artificial colors, or other ingredients listed below), followed by 8-12 ounces of water

Dinner: 3-6 cups of raw vegetable salad, with 1 to 2 tablespoons olive or flaxseed oil or 1/2 avocado, plus half a lemon or lime

3-6 ounces lean protein or egg whites

Days 2 and 3

Every two hours from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.: Eat one serving (approximately 100 calories’ worth) of fresh fruit and drink 8-12 ounces water

Dinner: 3-6 cups of raw vegetable salad with 1 to 2 tablespoons olive or flaxseed oil or 1/2 avocado, plus half a lemon or lime

1 protein drink

Protein powders should NOT include:

Casein
Calcium caseinate
Sodium caseinate
Fructose
Aspartame
Acesulfame-K
Acesulfame potassium
Sucralose
Sugar
Sucrose
Evaporated cane juice
Artificial flavors and/or colors
The Fruit Flush Diet: How It Works
Here’s how Robb explains the theory behind his weight loss plan: “Fruits and vegetables are lively to the system, and, as a result, the body is relieved of the digestive burden of other foods and can clean house by flushing away toxins and going into a fat-melting mode.”

By eating fruit every two hours, you will stabilize blood sugars, he adds.

But the bottom line, some nutrition experts say, is that losing weight is fundamentally about taking in fewer calories than you burn. You will lose weight on the Fruit Flush Diet because it is so low in calories — not because any toxins are flushed out by fruit, nutrition experts say. There is little evidence to support the notion that any detox diets are effective for long-term weight loss.

American Dietetic Association spokesperson Elisa Zied, MS, RD, says that if you don’t have diabetes, it is fine to eat fruit alone. But a better option, she says, is to eat some protein along with the fruit.

“When you combine protein with fruit, the fiber and protein work in tandem to stabilize blood sugar and make you feel more satisfied than eating fruit alone,” says Zied, author of Feed Your Family Right!

Including a minimum amount of protein on days 2 and 3 and a more than adequate amount on day one should help preserve muscle mass while dieters are on the Fruit Flush Diet.

Robb recommends doing the Fruit Flush once weekly for 12 weeks or 1-2 times per month, forever, or whenever you need a tune-up. After completing the Fruit Flush Diet, Robb suggests following a balanced diet that focuses on natural foods with ample calories to meet daily nutritional and energy needs.

Exercise is not recommended during the 3 Day Fruit Flush because of the very low calorie intake, but is encouraged afterward, when dieters move to a higher-calorie diet, Robb says.

The Flush Fruit Diet: What the Experts Say
The very low-calorie Fruit Flush Diet is deficient in essential fatty acids, vitamin D, B12, riboflavin, and calcium, says Joan Salge Blake, MS, RD, clinical associate nutrition professor at Boston University.

Registered dietitians are in favor of diets that include plenty of fruits and vegetables and adequate lean protein. But they recommend diet plans that are also nutritionally complete and include a wide variety of foods.

“Fruits, vegetables, and lean protein are waist-friendly because they are loaded with nutrients, low in calories, and can fill you up before they fill you out, but man cannot live on these foods alone,” Blake says.

She is concerned that diets like the Fruit Flush are like punishment for weight gain, and set up a negative connotation about fruit.

“Being overweight and trying to lose it safely is hard enough without setting up an unhealthy relationship with foods like fruits and vegetables, that are so fabulous and natural, by aligning [them] with a punitive ‘flush,’” she says. “Forget jump-starting a weight loss diet with this one- dimensional diet, and start eating healthy so you will have better success long term and start making healthy eating a habit.”

Blake adds that fruits and vegetables in all forms – not just raw – are nutritious.

As for the idea that foods other than fruits and vegetables are a digestive burden for the body, Zied says that as long as you don’t have a digestive disorder, your body is designed to digest a wide variety of foods.

Experts say there is no need to “detox” or flush out waste, because the liver, kidneys, and colon are designed to handle that task.

Further, there is no medical evidence that fruits have ingredients capable of dissolving so-called toxins, Zied says.

“Instead of worrying about toxins, eat healthy foods that will help your body naturally protect against disease and provide nourishment for energy,” she says.

The Fruit Flush Diet: Food for Thought
Following any kind of diet for a few days should not create serious problems for most healthy people. (It’s a similar situation to having the flu and not being able to eat a balanced diet for a few days.)

Because it includes adequate protein and a little healthy fat, this plan is probably safer than other “detox” plans. But why bother with a short-term solution to a long-term problem, especially when you also risk nutritional deficiencies this way?

If you want to try the 3 Day Fruit Flush, add a daily multivitamin, make sure you get at least 50 grams of protein per day, and check with your health care provider first to be sure it’s safe for you.

Dr. David Katz, director of the Yale prevention research center, created The Flavor Point Diet. It is based on medical and behavioral research that suggests that limiting the variety of different flavors in a meal reduces the tendency towards overeating.

Each type of food is thought to stimulate different appetite centers in the brain. Once a specific appetite center is stimulated it will then remain active until the point of satisfaction of that particular flavor is reached. In this way too much food variety can lead to overeating because there are many appetite centers that are demanding to be satisfied at the same time.

Experience has shown that dieters reach the point of satisfaction earlier when meals are less complicated. By utilizing the concept of simple meals with single food groups the Flavor Point diet promises that dieters will be able to lose 9-16 pounds in 6 weeks.

Diet Basics
There are three phases to the Flavor point diet:

Phase 1

This phase is followed for the first four weeks. It is designed to reduce cravings caused by over stimulated appetite centers in the brain by using a specific flavor theme each day. Examples of flavor themes include lemon, cranberry, peach, thyme and mint. By combining and limiting foods based on their flavors it is possible to trick the centers in the brain that regulate appetite.

Phase 2

This phase is followed for weeks 5 and 6 and allows for an increased variety of flavors with fewer rules. Phase 2 involves a flavor theme for each meal rather than for the entire day. Dieters are advised to remember not to combine sweet and savory flavors in the one meal.

Phase 3

This is the maintenance phase of the diet where dieters may design their own meals based on the basic principles of the plan.

For dieters who would like to maximize weight loss the meal plans have a ‘weight loss express’ option that allows for a reduction of calories by eating less at each meal and skipping dessert.

Recommended Foods
Fresh and whole foods are recommended and dieters are advised that commercial foods have hidden flavors that can over stimulate the appetite and lead to overeating. These foods should be avoided completely.

Dieters are also advised to always start dinner with a green salad and to have a hot beverage after lunch and dinner to help promote the feeling of fullness.

The Flavor Point Diet Weight-Loss Plan

“Good Morning America” medical contributor Dr. David Katz has come up with a diet that promises to let people eat all their favorite foods and still lose weight.

After conducting extensive research at the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, Katz found that by following flavor themes each week, dieters could reach the flavor point at which they’d feel completely satisfied and full.

Combining his medical knowledge with his wife’s expertise — she is a neuroscientist as well as a gourmet cook — Katz has created a diet that he says will result in people eating less not because they are starving themselves but because they feel full.

An excerpt of the book is below.

Introduction
Tapping into the Flavor Point will revolutionize the way you think about eating.

At some point during every eating experience, we all begin to feel full and fulfilled. When you reach that point of fulfillment — what I call the Flavor Point — you stop eating. If you reach the Flavor Point early enough, you will feel full and fulfilled on fewer calories. If you reach the Flavor Point too late, you overeat.

How do you reach the Flavor Point more quickly and fill up on fewer calories?

That’s what the Flavor Point Diet is all about. This revolutionary diet taps into this little-known but scientifically proven fact: Flavor variety stimulates the appetite center in your brain, while flavor repetition soothes it. You can eat a variety of flavors over time, but eating too many flavors at any one time puts your brain’s appetite center into overdrive. Let that sink in for a minute. It’s every bit as profound, powerful, and life changing as it is simple. To safely and permanently lose weight without being hungry, you need only organize the flavors in your meals and snacks. Don’t misunderstand me, though. You don’t need to give up flavors. You don’t need to give up specific foods or entire categories of foods. You don’t need to give up the joy of eating delicious food, and you certainly don’t need to give up the convenience of easy-to-prepare foods.

The Power of Flavor Organization

From breakfast cereals to snack foods to fast foods, our culinary landscape has become crowded with an overabundance of conflicting flavors that overstimulate important appetite-controlling cells in our brains, making us need more and more food to reach the Flavor Point. For example, many sweet breakfast cereals contain as much salt as potato chips. Yes, salt! Conversely, salty snack foods often include lots of sugar. You don’t always notice all of these flavors when you eat, but your brain registers their presence, triggering hunger and overeating.

When you taste too many flavors at once — whether from too many different foods or too many flavors processed into one food — you overeat before feeling full. On the other hand, when you organize flavors in your diet, you feel full and satisfied on fewer calories and lose weight without feeling hungry! Quite simply, you will want to eat less!

The Flavor Point Diet subdues appetite on two levels. First, it uses the powerful benefits of flavor themes to subtly organize your eating. These themes infuse your meals with a specific flavor, such as orange or chocolate or pineapple. When you taste this flavor repeatedly throughout your day, you more quickly satisfy your brain’s appetite center so you’re able to fill up on fewer calories. Second, you’ll shift to a new way of eating — to the Flavor Point way of eating. You’ll learn how to choose and cook delicious meals using relatively simple, wholesome, minimally processed foods that don’t contain an overabundance of extraneous flavors.

Over the next 6 weeks and beyond, the Flavor Point Diet will change your appetite, your weight, your appearance, your health, your relationship with food, and your life — for good! The plan comprises three phases.

Phase 1. During the first 4 weeks of the meal plan, you’ll drape a delicate flavor theme over your meals for an entire day, with every meal and snack sharing a common ingredient. On Cranberry Day, for example, you’ll eat delicious cranberry-banana muffins for breakfast, a salad with cranberries for lunch, cranberry and onion turkey cutlets for dinner, and Cranberry-Vanilla Soft Ice Cream for dessert. On Pineapple Day, you’ll have a pineapple smoothie for breakfast, Pineapple-Walnut Chicken Salad for lunch, and Pineapple Shrimp for dinner. On Lemon Day, you’ll have lemon-poppy muffins for breakfast, Lemon Tabbouleh Salad for lunch, and lemon-flavored tilapia for dinner.

This subtle yet repeated exposure to the same flavors will subdue your appetite center in a delicious and powerful way. But you won’t eat enough of the flavor of the day for it to feel monotonous. Instead, your appetite center will merely register the flavor and, as a result, feel soothed and contented.

Phase 2. As you get into the habit of choosing and preparing foods according to Flavor Point principles, you won’t need to depend on the daily flavor themes as much to control your appetite. In other words, as your mastery increases, you’ll need fewer rules. This is why, during weeks 5 and 6, the meal plan includes a greater variety of daily flavors. In this phase, each meal or snack has a theme, but there’s no single theme throughout the day. Thus, the flavor theme for your breakfast will not be the same as the one for your lunch, and each of those will differ from dinner. For instance, breakfast might have a lemon theme, lunch a basil theme, and dinner a tomato theme. In each meal, the flavors are subtle but effective, harmonizing the food — and your appetite!

Phase 3. The Flavor Point Meal Plan guides you through 6 weeks of weight loss by using flavor themes for each day during the first 4 weeks and then for each meal during weeks 5 and 6. After that, you’ll be ready for phase 3 — the beginning of the rest of your life! Phase 3 is permanent, using flavor management at the level of individual foods. We provide examples to get you launched, but then, with the habits you’ve acquired, the knowledge you’ve gained, and the principles you’ve mastered, you’ll be ready for lifelong Flavor Point success. During phase 3, you’ll continue to lose weight until you reach your goal, and then you’ll keep it off.

In Chapter 6, you’ll find dozens of tips to help you convert your old family recipes into meals that are just as delicious but conform to Flavor Point principles. In the appendix, you’ll find lots of Flavor Point Diet approved brands of simply flavored, delicious, and convenient foods sold at your local supermarket.

From the first day to the last on the meal plan, you will consume a perfectly balanced, healthful diet. You could stay on any phase of the meal plan forever — it’s that good for you. As a physician, preventive medicine specialist, and parent, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I am not a “diet doctor”; I am a doctor who happens to be an expert on diet and nutrition. No matter how important weight loss may be to you, your overall health — and that of your family — is what matters most to me.

Weight-Loss

Does This Really Work?

As I was putting the finishing touches on this book, many people asked me, somewhat skeptically, “Can flavor themes really subdue appetite?” Am I proposing something radical? Inventing a theory? Going out on a limb? Defying my academic colleagues? Not at all.

Under the scientific-sounding name sensory-specific satiety, the Flavor Point’s main concept has been appearing in the scientific literature for nearly 3 decades. It has been percolating near the surface of dietary guidance, but its full potential for weight control simply wasn’t recognized — until now. Although this meal plan is unique, the science is tried and true. In Chapter 1, you’ll learn how millions of years of evolution have hardwired this trait into the appetite center of the brain of every human on the planet. If you’ve ever overeaten, however, you may already understand how it works. Have you ever enjoyed a delicious holiday feast and eaten until you felt stuffed? Did each bite taste slightly less delicious than the bite before, especially as you became more and more full? Did the main course eventually completely lose its appeal? At some point, did you put your hand on your stomach and groan, “I’m so full I couldn’t eat another bite!” And in the next breath ask, “What’s for dessert?”

Yep, you found room for dessert, didn’t you? Me, too! It wasn’t because of that hollow leg or extra stomach that some wisecracking relative referred to. It was because of sensory-specific satiety! You had filled up on the savory flavors provided by the main dishes but not on the sweet flavor of dessert.

As you’ll soon learn, each flavor we eat stimulates a different set of cells in the brain. Sweet flavors stimulate one area of the brain’s appetite center, salty another, and sour yet another. Once you turn on an area of the appetite center, you must eat until those cells register fullness. If you turn on many areas at once, you must eat much more food before you feel full. Turn on just one or two areas, and you’ll eat less but feel just as satisfied.

I owe a lot to the scientists who have studied sensory-specific satiety during the past several decades. As soon as I learned about it, the power of it was immediately obvious, and I began applying it to my diet and those of my patients. Although many scientists have documented this phenomenon over the years, the Flavor Point Diet is the first to use sensory-specific satiety to enable long-term weight control without hunger.

In my work at Yale as well as in my private practice, I’ve now counseled hundreds of patients who desperately wanted to lose weight. When they came to me, most of them knew what they needed to do to shed pounds. They knew they should eat less and exercise more, but they couldn’t figure out how to do it. Each time they went on a diet, they lost some weight. Eventually, though, their cravings and hunger would win out, they’d break the diet, and they’d gain the weight back — and usually more.

When I taught these patients about sensory-specific satiety and how to use Flavor Point principles to subdue appetite, weight management without hunger suddenly became feasible for them. They would tell me that for the first time in their lives, they had no difficulty holding themselves to reasonable portions. They finally were able to enjoy eating without guilt. It changed their lives and those of their families. I observed this over and over, using each experience to refine the Flavor Point plan — and here you have the culmination of that work.

Recently, I asked 20 men and women to test the meal plan you’ll find in this book. Some wanted to lose just a few pounds; others wanted to lose many more. They came from all walks of life and included stay-at-home moms, working mothers and fathers, and singles. Most shared one trait: They were busy and didn’t have time for complicated meal preparation. Their results, after 12 weeks on the plan, just blew me away. On average, they lost over 16 pounds. (One gentleman lost 31 pounds!) Their blood cholesterol levels dropped an average of 14 points. Blood pressure, blood sugar, and other health indicators also improved. They lost an average of 3 1/2 inches off their waists! Not only did their clothes fit better but they also felt more energetic, slept better at night, and experienced fewer cravings. Most important, they loved the food — and so did their spouses and children, who in many cases also lost weight and improved their health. Officially, they weren’t even on the diet!

The study participants told me that their cravings for certain foods shifted. After 12 weeks, even the most hard-core junk-food junkies among them preferred this new way of eating. Take a look at some of their comments.

“I’m full and definitely satisfied on this program. I had a little bit of dessert the other night — and that’s all I wanted. It actually tasted too sweet!”

“Not only are the foods delicious, but I don’t have heartburn anymore!”

“I actually look forward to eating dinner every night. The food is excellent. I love this program, and I think I could eat like this forever.”

Those study participants followed an extended 12-week version of the Flavor Point plan. I’ve streamlined it for you. In this book, you’ll find 6 weeks’ worth of mouthwatering, simple, convenient, appetite-subduing meals. These meals have helped me, my family, my friends, and my patients fill up on fewer calories — enjoying food as well as the satisfaction of lasting weight control. Now they will do the same for you!

Delicious and effective

In this diet, the pleasures of eating food that’s good and food that’s good for you can — and do — come together. The joys of food and of lasting weight control and good health are not mutually exclusive! When you commit to the Flavor Point Diet, you commit to a diet that:

Delivers lasting weight loss. Based on the results of the people who tested the Flavor Point Diet before this book went to press, you can expect to lose 9 to 16 pounds in 6 weeks and continue losing weight until you reach your goal. The Flavor Point Diet isn’t one that you go on and off of. Rather, it provides a simple and easy transition to a new way of choosing and organizing foods — forever.

Not only helps you shed fat but also improves your health. Every step of the way, the pattern of foods and nutrients you will consume is as good or better than the recommendations of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Institute of Medicine, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, and the American Dietetic Association.

Liberates you from the bondage of shunning certain so-called fattening foods. At no point does this diet restrict any foods. At no point does it place a whole nutrient category off-limits. Because the Flavor Point Diet is not based on food exclusions — that’s right, there are none — each phase of the plan is balanced, sane, delicious, healthful, and in step with the very best of modern nutrition science.

Allows you and your entire family to lose weight together. Unlike so many diets out there, the Flavor Point Diet is safe for your whole family. Yes, your kids can follow it with you. Yes, it’s safe during pregnancy. Yes, it’s fine while breastfeeding. Yes, it’s appropriate if you have diabetes. Yes, anyone can follow this diet at any time! It is safe for life. Makes healthful eating quick and easy. The Flavor Point Diet replaces the convenient processed and fast foods that trigger overeating with foods that trigger fullness and are just as convenient and delicious. Many breakfasts and lunches in the Flavor Point Meal Plan take 5 minutes or less to prepare! Many dinners take 15 minutes or less.

Puts the joy back into eating. The Flavor Point Meal Plan includes incredibly delicious meals, snacks, and desserts. In fact, you can eat dessert every night if you are so inclined!

Flavor management makes all this possible. You’re about to embark on an exciting journey to a slimmer, healthier you. In Chapters 1 and 2, you’ll discover the science behind the meal plan. In Chapter 3, you’ll find out how the meal plan works. Chapters 4 and 5 bring you the Flavor Point Meal Plan and corresponding recipes. Finally, in Chapter 6, you’ll find out how to move on to phase 3 and maintain the Flavor Point way of eating for life.

Since the food is delicious and the nutrition stellar every step of the way, why would you ever go off this plan? If, after 6 weeks, you find that you have lost a lot of weight (you will), are feeling great (you’ll see), and are loving the food (just wait!)–why on Earth would you ever look back? You won’t. The next 6 weeks and beyond will change your whole relationship with food, and your body, forever.

Sensory-specific satiety: The tendency to feel full and stop eating when flavors are limited and to stay hungry and keep eating when flavors are diverse.

Results from the Flavor Point

Our group of testers, 20 in all, tried the Flavor Point Diet for 12 weeks, and their results were amazing. Not only did they lose pounds and inches, feel more energetic, and experience fewer cravings, several key measures of their health improved dramatically. Check out some stats from the Flavor Point.

Pounds lost: Average: 16.7; Most Changed: 31

Change in BMI: Average: -2.7; Most Changed: -4.2

Inches off of waist: Average : 3.53; Most Changed: 7

Percent body fat lost: Average: 4.82; Most Changed: 8

Blood pressure points dropped: Average: 11.4; Most Changed: 28

Reduction in resting heart rate (beats per minute): Average : 4.86; Most Changed: 12

Total points cholesterol lowered: Average: 14.2 ; Most Changed: 72

Fasting blood glucose (mg/Dl): Average: -1.13; Most Changed: -15

Satisfaction at the Flavor Point

“I gained weight slowly and steadily over the years. It eventually crept up to about 200 pounds. I knew I needed to make a lifestyle change, so when I heard a few women discussing Dr. Katz’s new program, I was intrigued and decided to go for it. I was thrilled when I heard I’d been chosen.

“My husband has been doing the program with me, and he actually lost more weight than I did in the first 12 weeks — 24 pounds! More important, he’s been able to cut his blood pressure medication dosage in half.

“Health improvements aside, we’re eating good, healthful foods–and they taste great! I’m discovering many new seasonings, like curry, that I really enjoy. Also, many of the vinegars and oils the plan recommends add wonderful flavor to the recipes. I don’t feel hungry on this program, and my cravings are gone. When I first heard about the flavor themes, I thought, “We’re going to eat apples for a whole day? Eww!” Eventually, I realized the other foods mixed in with the theme of the day, like nuts and chicken, keep you from getting sick of it. The concept really works.

“Both my husband and I love the recipes. I have actually served some of the dishes to guests because they’re so tasty. On my days off, I make the French toast, muffins, or multigrain pancakes with honey yogurt sauce for breakfast. The Pumpkin and Chocolate Grilled Panini is one of my favorite lunch recipes, as well as the peanut butter and peach jam sandwich. I had the sandwich on Easter Sunday — I made it and took it to work, and I couldn’t wait to go to lunch to have that sandwich!

“For dinner, the pastas are great, and my daughter loves the chicken in Dijon ‘creamy’ mushroom sauce. My husband and I aren’t big fish eaters, but we like the tilapia, so we substitute that for tuna and salmon, and it works just fine.

“For a snack, the fruit smoothies are both refreshing and filling. I also like the granola. We went hiking with another couple the other day, and I made individual baggies of granola with nuts and apricots. It was plenty to get us all through the hike.

“The main dishes and snacks are satisfying enough, but there are also a bunch of good desserts on the program. We love Baked Bananas with Rum-Pecan Topping, amaretto strawberry salad, brownies, and Peach Flat Cake. And who ever heard of indulgence days on a diet? I’ve done the chocolate day twice, and I plan to try the coconut day in the future. “I’ve also learned some handy tricks I’ll take with me forever. I now use olive oil on veggies instead of butter or cheese. Instead of spreading mayonnaise on a sandwich, I use hummus. I also carry a container of powdered milk in my purse wherever I go to use in my coffee.

“It feels wonderful to have so many people tell me I look good and that my face looks thinner. My clothes fit better, I have much more energy, and it’s a little weird, but I’ve also noticed that my fingernails are stronger. Both my husband and I love Dr. Katz’s program and are going to stick with it indefinitely.”

The Flavor Facts

Name: Debbie Vashlishan

Age: 50

Hometown: Oxford, Connecticut

Family status: Married with two children, ages 24 and 25

Occupation: Registered nurse

Starting weight: 201

Pounds lost: 17 in 12 weeks

Health stats: Blood pressure dropped 16 points; resting heart rate improved; waist measurement shrank 3 1/2 inches; 5 percent decline in body fat

What is Flavor Point Diet

The Flavor Point Diet takes a new approach to weight loss. Many diet books are disguised under eye-catching headlines but when it comes down to it, most eliminate foods or food groups, are low in calories, and are packaged to help sell books. Rarely does a new diet theory emerge based on science, and from a well-respected authority.

Yale University nutrition expert and author, David Katz, MD, with his wife Catherine Katz, offer up the Flavor Point Diet, a novel plan based on appetite control and “sensory specific satiety” research. The diet promises delicious food and a breakthrough plan to turn off your hunger and help you lose weight for good.

The Flavor Point Diet is the first weight loss program based on the science of flavors and their impact on appetite. According to the authors, when you eat a meal with multiple flavor categories such as sweet, salty, or savory, the competing flavors stimulate the appetite center of your brain, causing overeating. Limiting the flavor categories in a meal or snack makes it easier for your brain and stomach to reach the “flavor point” where you are satisfied and stop eating.

While Katz admits the Flavor Point Diet may sound a bit gimmicky, its focus on whole foods may suit the dieter who wants to learn about nutritious, healthy eating, and delve into the science of flavor themes, too.

The Flavor Point Diet: What You Can Eat
In order to gain an understanding of flavor point satiety, the Flavor Point Diet includes phases of discipline to help you adapt to a new way of thinking about selecting food.

“The first two phases are educational and necessary to learn how to unjumble and organize flavors,” explains Katz. In the first phase, lasting four weeks, dieters eat according to a daily flavor theme.

Week 1: raisin/currant, pineapple, cranberry, lemon, peach, orange, apple
Week 2: tomato, carrot, mushroom, onion, pumpkin, spinach, bell pepper
Week 3: apple, tomato, almond, thyme, walnut, sesame, basil
Week 4: spinach, orange, mint, lemon, pecan, dill, cranberry
A detailed menu accompanies each flavor-themed day along with recipes and nutrient analysis. For example, on spinach day the menu suggests:

* Breakfast

Spinach and feta breakfast omelet with whole-grain toast

* Snack

Crackers and spinach-yogurt dip, or baby carrots

* Lunch

Spinach and turkey salad

* Dinner

Pasta with spinach marinara sauce

Side green salad

Mixed berries

Alternatives are included if you prefer a substitute for a meal or snack, and dieters are given the option to choose between a menu averaging 1,500 calories, or the 1,300 calorie “weight loss express.”

Three weeks into the Flavor Point Diet, dieters are rewarded with the option of a weekly indulgence day of coconut or chocolate. These menus are themed with chocolate or coconut and kept under 1,500 calories for the day.

The second phase of the Flavor Point Diet lasts for two weeks and includes a greater variety of daily flavors but each meal or snack still has a flavor theme. For instance, breakfast could be a peach theme, lunch a spinach theme, and dinner a curry theme. “There is a great deal of variety included within the menus, however not too much variety at one time,” says Katz.

The final phase, and what Dr. Katz hopes will be the way you eat forever, employs flavor management in all of your daily food choices. Dieters are encouraged to carefully read labels, and to choose whole, unprocessed foods, avoiding those with high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, and/or a long list of ingredients.

Six weeks of menu plans and more than 100 recipes developed by co-author Catherine Katz are included to help dieters learn how to eat healthfully while controlling flavors. Over the course of a week, daily menus provide approximately 1,000 mg calcium, 2,000 mg sodium, 30 g fiber, 25% calories from fats with an emphasis on good and omega-3 fats, 20% calories from protein, 55% carbohydrates, mostly whole grain.

The Flavor Point Diet: How It Works
The principle of the Flavor Point Diet is simple: Limit the number of flavor themes within a meal, and you can turn off your appetite. Too many flavors stimulate the appetite, whereas flavor repetition appeases it. By limiting flavors, you can enjoy a variety of nutritious foods that help fill you up faster on fewer calories.

For example: “If you had a bowl of raw almonds, you would eat a handful and stop, but if those almonds were salted and sweetened, mixing sweet and salty flavors, you might empty the bowl,” Katz maintains.

With this plan, you can still enjoy a variety of foods, as long as they fall into the same flavor themes. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme are examples of savory flavors that can be used with other savory flavors. Flavor themes are not limited to single foods but groups of harmonious food flavors found in the world’s greatest cuisines. Tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil, for example, are the prominent ingredients and a savory flavor theme of Italian food, explains Katz.

Follow the Flavor Point plan for six weeks, and you may lose up to 16 pounds say the authors. Katz put 20 of his patients who had been struggling with weight loss on the program for 12 weeks, and anecdotally, they all lost weight.

The Flavor Point Diet: What the Experts Say
The Flavor Point Diet includes lots of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean meats, fish, and low-fat dairy, along with sensible portions, reasonable calories, and regular physical activity

“Regardless of how you feel about the flavor specific satiety, it is a nutritionally sound plan, balanced in nutrients, high in fiber, and should help dieters eat a variety of nutritious foods, feel full, and lose weight,” says American Dietetic Association spokesperson, Jeannie Moloo, who agrees that 1,300-1,500 calories per day of nutritious, high-fiber foods will help people feel full and lose weight.

The recipes in the Flavor Point Diet book do require a time commitment at the market and in the kitchen. And “some families may have a tough time getting picky eaters to eat the foods featured in the book,” says Moloo, a registered dietitian. Katz suggests parents be role models and set good examples to help kids enjoy the taste of eating right.

Will a diet based on flavor themes help you lose weight? Moloo wants more research. “Each person lost more than 16 pounds, which is encouraging, but I also think it would be nice to see more rigorous studies on weight loss and flavor point satiety.”

The Flavor Point Diet: Food for Thought
Anyone who has been struggling with weight loss and wants to eat healthier and consume more wholesome foods should give the Flavor Point Diet a try. The book is easy to follow and offers an interesting new twist to weight loss diets.

Diets work best if the entire family can eat the same meals together. “If you are health conscious and want to eat absolutely delicious foods, this diet is for you and everyone aged 2-82,” proclaims Katz. Stocking your pantry and refrigerator with healthy foods free of lots of preservatives and additives will help the family eat healthier.

Most people who follow the Flavor Point Diet will lose weight, as they would on any low-fat 1,300-1,500 calorie plan. But in addition, they will be introduced to a new concept on how flavor affects appetite, while enjoying an abundance of healthy, good-for-you foods.

Rules 1-8
So you think you know the drill on getting a good body. But we’re not after good; we’re after great.

Rule #1: Be an early bird to get the workout.
Lace up first thing and you’ll increase your odds of exercising today threefold. A study of 500 people at the Mollen Clinic, a preventive medicine and wellness center in Scottsdale, Arizona, found that 75 percent of those who worked out in the morning did so regularly, compared with just half the afternoon exercisers and a quarter of the post-work crowd. “At the beginning of the day, you have the fewest excuses for skipping exercise,” says clinic founder Arthur Mollen, DO. Not waking up early enough, of course, is the main one. “Limit using the snooze button to only five minutes so that you don’t fall into a deep sleep again,” Dr. Mollen advises. Bonus! You’ll go to work feeling focused: A recent study at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that 20 minutes of moderate aerobic exercise improved concentration, reading comprehension, and cognitive function.

Rule #2: Hit the metal before the pedal.
Instead of going from zero to 60 to sweat off the calories, consider this: Doing a quick sculpting routine pre-cardio could increase the amount of fat you melt. Exercisers in a study at the University of Tokyo who biked within 20 minutes of lifting weights tapped more of their fat stores than those who rested longer or didn’t tone at all.

The firm-then-burn order is also good for your heart: Arteries stiffen during resistance training, increasing blood pressure, but a cardio chaser such as a 20-minute run counteracts these effects and expedites your arteries’ return to normal, explains Rohit Arora, MD, chairman of cardiology at the Chicago Medical School. Plus, strength training “takes coordination and good technique, so you get more out of it if you come to it fresh,” says Kent Adams, PhD, director of the Exercise Physiology Lab at California State University, Monterey Bay. “Meanwhile, cardio is a rhythmic, low-skill activity that’s the easier of the two to do in a fatigued state,” Adams says.

Rule #3: Push your pace, rev your metabolism.
Finished toning and ready to get sweaty? Gun it a bit for a bigger afterburn. “High-intensity exercise increases the release of growth hormones, which mobilize fat to be used as fuel, plus it causes your metabolism to stay elevated about 10 to 15 percent above its baseline, so you’re burning more fat for several hours post-workout,” says Arthur Weltman, PhD, director of the Exercise Physiology Laboratory at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. In other words, if you worked off 300 calories during your session, you’ll get a bonus burn of about 45 calories even after you’ve toweled off.

To net the effect, stick to a speed you consider challenging: In a 16-week study that Weltman conducted with obese women, those who worked out at what they felt was high intensity (a brisk walk or jog in most cases) three days a week and at low intensity for two whittled an inch and a half more from their waists than the low-intensity-only group. Or try alternating between sprinting (racewalking, pedaling fast, swimming at top speed) for one minute and slowing down enough to recover for the next minute.

Diets

Rule #4: Give up your seat to trim your bottom line.
Even regular exercisers could benefit from extra toning of their tush, the largest muscle group in the body, which dozes all day at your desk job. “When you’re walking or running, it’s your hamstrings, hip flexors, and calf muscles that get the most work,” says FITNESS advisory board member Vonda Wright, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “Unless you’re going uphill, your glutes don’t play a major role.” The good news? If you bailed on doing those butt-firming squats during your workout, you can easily sneak them in when your cube mate isn’t looking. Stand up from your chair, feet shoulder-width apart. Lower your bottom to the seat as though you’re going to sit, touch down, and then spring up, squeezing your glutes as you straighten. Do three sets of 10 to 15 reps two or even three times throughout the day.

Rule #5: Take a power walk to beat a midday slump.
Call it the 20-20 rule: As little as 20 minutes of low-intensity aerobic activity such as walking can give you a 20 percent surge in energy, research at the University of Georgia in Athens finds. “It’s paradoxical: Many people assume that they’ll get tired from exercise. But the opposite actually happens,” says study author Patrick O’Connor, PhD, a professor of kinesiology. “We’re not certain what the biological mechanism is,” he says, “but indirect evidence suggests that brain chemicals such as dopamine and serotonin are altered and cause the improved energy.” Besides, that quick recharge just burned about 75 calories. Sure beats adding 250 spike-then-slump calories’ worth of Skittles.

Rule #6: Do the two-step.
When you opt for the stairs, go at them two at a time — as long as you’re not wearing heels. The quick bursts of power activate your legs’ fast-twitch muscle fibers, which burn more calories than slow-twitch fibers. Plus, you’ll be using a part of your muscles that commonly doesn’t get enough action. “Fast muscle cells are designed so you can jump far, kick hard, punch fast — moves that you call on less and less in modern society,” says Scott Mazzetti, PhD, a professor of exercise science at Salisbury University in Maryland. “But unfortunately it’s a use-them-or-lose-them situation, so it’s good to activate them regularly.”

Rule #7: Go like Gumby.
Consistent stretching significantly decreases muscle soreness, according to a study at the Norwegian Knowledge Centre for Health Services in Oslo. Skipped your stretches postexercise? Wind down with this 17-minute allover loosener from Jennifer Huberty, PhD, an exercise physiologist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

•Warm up first with 5 minutes of brisk high-knee marching.
•Toe-reach stretch (targets hamstrings, which remain shortened all day as you’re seated): Sit on the floor with your left leg straight in front of you, knee slightly bent, right leg bent out to the side and resting on the floor. Reach for your toes without bouncing and hold for 30 seconds; relax. Do 3 stretches, then switch legs and repeat.
•Hip-flexor stretch (targets hips, which also are tight in desk jockeys): Lie faceup on the floor with your left leg bent, left foot flat, and bend your right knee out to the side so your right ankle is crossed over and resting on the lower left thigh. Grasp your left thigh with both hands and pull it toward you until you feel a comfortable stretch in your right hip, glutes, and outer thigh. Hold for 30 seconds; switch legs and repeat. Do 3 stretches per side.
•Side stretch (targets upper back and waistline): Stand with feet shoulder-width apart. Raise arms overhead and interlock fingers with palms facing up. Keeping your middle centered, hinge at the waist to the right; hold for 30 seconds. Return to center and reach up; hold for 30 seconds.
•Switch sides; repeat. Do 3 stretches on each side.

Rule #8: Set out your sneakers.
A recent FITNESS poll found that sneakers — with sports bras being a close second — are the piece of gear that is forgotten most often, foiling women’s workout plans. Clear that obstacle by, well, making them an obstacle in front of the door you exit in the a.m., suggests Diane Klein, PhD, chair of exercise and sports sciences at Tennessee Wesleyan College in Athens. “Seeing them will remind you that you planned to exercise,” Klein says. For motivation to move, kicks are worth a thousand words.

Caroline Hwang -Originally published in FITNESS magazine, November/December 2009

Unlike other books that are full of scientific-sounding theories and explanations without clinical studies to back them up, Ornish’s explanations are simple and well supported. His main point is that eating a high-fiber, low-fat vegetarian diet will not only help you stay healthy, or get you there, but also will help you lose weight

This is accomplished, according to Ornish, by a combination of diet and exercise that allows the body’s fat-burning mechanism to work most effectively.

Eat More, Weigh Less: What You Can Eat
Ornish counsels that we will find success not by restricting calories, but by watching the ones we eat. He breaks this down into foods that should be eaten all of the time, some of the time, and none of the time.

The following foods can be eaten whenever you are hungry, until you are full:

Beans and legumes
Fruits — anything from apples to watermelon, from raspberries to pineapples
Grains
Vegetables
These foods should be eaten in moderation:

Nonfat dairy products — skim milk, nonfat yogurt, nonfat cheeses, nonfat sour cream, and egg whites
Nonfat or very low-fat commercially available products –from Life Choice frozen dinners to Haagen-Dazs frozen yogurt bars and Entenmann’s fat-free desserts (but if sugar is among the first few ingredients listed, put it back on the shelf)
These foods should be avoided:

Weigh Less

Meat of all kinds — red and white, fish and fowl (if we can’t give up meat, we should at least eat as little as possible)
Oils and oil-containing products, such as margarine and most salad dressings
Avocados
Olives
Nuts and seeds
Dairy products (other than the nonfat ones above)
Sugar and simple sugar derivatives — honey, molasses, corn syrup, and high-fructose syrup
Alcohol
Anything commercially prepared that has more than two grams of fat per serving
That’s it. If you stick to this plan, you will meet Ornish’s recommendation of less than 10% of your calories from fat, without the need to count fat grams or calories. Ornish suggests eating a lot of little meals because this diet makes you feel hungry more often. You will feel full faster, and you’ll eat more food without increasing the number of calories.

Ornish’s regimen is more than mere diet, he claims. He is a stickler about incorporating at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day, or an hour three times a week, and using some kind of stress-management technique, which might include meditation, massage, psychotherapy, or yoga.

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Ornish suggests that our metabolism was set back in Fred Flintstone’s era, when we didn’t know where our next meal was coming from and there were times when little food was available. The body naturally wanted to hang onto all the energy it could and would try to store any extra energy as fat. Nowadays, most of us have almost continuous access to food, but our bodies haven’t adapted to this new way of living.

Because the rate at which you are burning calories can decrease when you consume fewer calories, you may hit a plateau soon after you began a new, lower-calorie diet. For most of us, the pounds seem to melt away for a delightful week or two, but then that scale doesn’t budge. Our weight stays the same, sometimes for a week, sometimes much longer.

But Ornish argues that with this eat-all-you-want, eat-as-often-as-you-are-hungry routine, your metabolism stays the same, or better yet, even increases. The high-fiber content also slows down the absorption of food into the digestive system, so you feel full longer with small portions than you would eating calorie-restricted small portions. The complex carbohydrates don’t cause your blood sugar, the level of glucose in the blood, to yo-yo. It remains more stable, and so do you.

Ornish gives more than a passing nod to physical activity, encouraging long, slow exercise that uses body fat as fuel. Moderate exercise done on a regular basis revs up your resting metabolism, while some have suggested that short periods of intense exercise decrease metabolism.

Although he doesn’t claim that meditation will make the pounds dissolve, his regimen incorporates it as a way of quieting your mind, increasing self-awareness, and coping with stress. He calls it food for the soul. “When your soul is fed, you have less need to overeat,” he writes in Eat More, Weigh Less. “When you directly experience the fullness of life, then you have less need to fill the void with food.”

Eat More, Weigh Less: What the Experts Say
Mostly, the Ornish diet gets kudos from the medical community for his highly restricted diet and healthy lifestyle routine. His documented studies showing a reversal of coronary blockage are indeed impressive. Neal Barnard, MD, president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, says: “His diet is one of the only popular diet plans that is firmly rooted in science. It not only brings weight loss without counting calories, but it also brings good overall health. It reverses heart disease, cuts the risk of cancer, makes diabetes and hypertension more manageable, and sometimes even makes them go away.”

The drawback is that the plan requires learning completely new eating habits, which many consider drastic. Barnard, the author of Food for Life and several other books on health, adds, “But after the first week or two, the plan becomes self-rewarding, because the weight loss is virtually automatic. People have better energy and they just want to stick to it.”

On the other hand, Robert H. Eckel, MD, chair of the nutrition committee of the American Heart Association and a professor at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, is doubtful. He suggests that only the most committed will stick to Ornish’s routine: “Because it is so rigid and doesn’t allow a lot of food choices for those used to the Western diet, not many people will stay on it for the long term. Many people get tired of eating food with such a low fat content.”

Frank Hu, MD, PhD, assistant professor of medicine at the Harvard School of Public Health, is critical of how severely fat is limited on the diet. “The data from numerous studies show that it is the type of fat, rather than the total amount, which is related to cardiovascular health,” he says. “Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated oils actually protect against cardiovascular incidents, but Ornish doesn’t distinguish the good fats from the bad fats — such as trans fats, which come from margarine sticks and cookies and crackers, and animal fats.” For example, Hu says, Ornish advocates limiting the consumption of fish and nuts, and Hu adds, “There is strong evidence that the fat in them is protective against coronary heart disease in both epidemiological studies and clinical trials.”

Eat More, Weigh Less: Food For Thought
Vegetarians, or those willing to become so for the long term, may be the only dieters who will find success with this plan. The recommendation to eat smaller, more frequent meals requires that dieters change their eating schedules, which could be difficult for some. Other than that, this plan has what it takes to lose weight and keep it off, and receives high marks from nutrition experts.

Eat More, Weigh Less Review

Authored by Dr. Dean Ornish. Eat no more than ten percent of your daily calories in the form of fat and eat lots of high-fiber and fresh vegetables. It is basically a vegetarian diet, which will lower your cholesterol, blood pressure and risk of heart disease.

Eat More, Weigh Less is basically healthy and far superior to low-carb diets, but many would argue that perhaps a more balanced diet with more good fat would be better. The real issue that lumps this diet in with all the others that fail so miserably in the long-term is sustainability. One must always ask themselves: can I follow this diet regimen for the rest of my life?

In my opinion, Eat More, Weigh Less is far too restrictive for the average person to follow. It is difficult enough to make small changes in your diet, but a comprehensive and fundamental shift in what you consume? Basic nutrition (Food Guide Pyramid), recommended by most registered dietitians, along with addition of daily exercise to your life is really the only thing that works in the long-term. I am a much bigger fan of lifestyle exercise activities such as tennis, hiking, walking, cycling, dancing, climbing, etcetera… These are the types of activities that you don’t think of as exercise and sustain themselves in the long-term. Add a basic food program or one of the simple and inexpensive online programs for structure and support, and you have the best possible option for success.

Eat More, Weigh Less

One of the most basic tenets of weight loss is to burn more calories than you consume. It’s not terribly complicated, but it can easily lead to one of the most common weight-loss misconceptions: The less you eat, the more you lose.

This truth does apply to a certain extent — if you eat more calories than your body needs to maintain your weight, you will gain weight. However, if you suddenly drop your caloric intake too low, your body will think you’re starving and go into survival mode. If you don’t eat enough, you will sabotage your weight-loss efforts.

A healthy diet generally won’t drop your caloric intake below 1,200 calories, but you will need to find your “magic number” for optimum weight loss. Research suggests that women who consume less than the optimal amount see their resting metabolic rate plummet by as much as 45 percent.

“Don’t be surprised if you need to adjust your calories several times throughout your weight-loss journey, especially if you have a lot of weight to lose,” says registered dietitian Nicole Bengtson, LD/N. “Your calories will need to be adjusted to account for your changing weight, activity level and metabolism.”

The best way to lose weight is to keep your metabolism firing on all cylinders by eating enough calories, which can be accomplished by following these simple steps:

Always eat breakfast. I know, I know, there’s no time for breakfast, you’re not hungry and you can save some calories by skipping it, right? Wrong! While you’re asleep, your metabolism slows down, and it doesn’t pick back up until you eat something. Eating breakfast is crucial for boosting your metabolism first thing in the morning and burning more calories all day long. It doesn’t need to be a hot-cooked breakfast that takes long to prepare, either.

“Even if you just grab a piece of fruit and a string cheese on your way out the door, you need to at least eat something to get your system going in the morning,” Bengtson says.

Eat more often. That’s right, eating every two to three hours will not only keep you from gorging at meals because you’re starving, but it also keeps your metabolic rate higher because it takes more energy to digest food. Shoot for eating smaller meals and snacks — yes, you can snack! Aim for 200 to 400 calorie mini-meals every few hours and keep your metabolism stoked.

Plan your meals. It does take a little work to learn to plan ahead, but once you get into the groove, it’s a piece of cake. You’ll find that by knowing what and when you’re going to eat, you have more energy throughout the day and you’ll have a steadier stream of nutrients supplied to your body. The other key is to make sure you have proper snack foods on hand, like whole grains, fruits, vegetables and nuts — anything that’s high in fiber is helpful, too.

Once you get your body used to a regular healthy routine, you’ll be on your way to serious weight loss without the starvation associated with it.

lorida diet doctor Sanford Siegal is author of the 2001 book “Is Your Thyroid Making Your Fat?” — which suggested going on an 800-calorie a day diet to test and see if you had a thyroid problem. After 21 days on a ultra low 800 calories a day, a low level of weight loss or failure to lose are both considered evidence of a likely thyroid slowdown, according to Siegal. You’ve read about Siegal in the past here at the healthlifes.org Thyroid site. Siegal, who has treated many thyroid patients at his weight loss clinic, shared his thoughts in 2001 on the Synthroid contoversy.

And back in 2002, Dr. Sanford Siegal and I were together featured in a Woman’s World magazine article, titled “The Thyroid Cure.” That magazine included a recipe for “thyroid-boosting diet cookies.” The Woman’s World recipe was loaded with sugar, eggs, oats, Chex cereal, and other high-fat, high starch, high-sugar ingredients, and according to Dr. Siegal, had nothing to do with his actual cookie recipe. (Read what Dr. Siegel has to say about the Woman’s World “thyroid-boosting diet cookie” recipe and whether these cookies would actually help you lose weight.)

Now, Siegal is back in the news again, this time with a repackaging of the famous “cookies” and a major marketing push to promote what is now being called the “Cookie Diet,” on which Siegal claims patients lose 15 pounds per month.

How Does the Cookie Diet Work?

Siegal’s plan is actually a very low-calorie diet, in which six of the special Siegal cookies are eaten when hungry during the day, along with eight glasses of liquid, and only one meal is eaten, dinner, consisting of 6 ounces of lean protein (chicken, turkey, fish or seafood only), plus one cup of vegetables.

The total calorie count of the diet comes out to approximately 800 calories per day, and total carbohydrate intake is about 70 grams per day, making Siegal’s program an extremely low-calorie, low carbohydrate diet.

What is not as frequently mentioned is that reportedly, as many as 60 percent of patients on the Cookie Diet are also prescribed appetite suppressant drugs, and another 25 percent are prescribed thyroid hormones.

The cookies, which Siegal claims have amino acids with appetite suppressant properties, are available in chocolate, raisin or coconut flavors, but even Siegal admits that they don’t taste very good. Don’t look for them on your local store shelves anytime soon, however. Siegal’s cookies are available only to patients at his weight loss clinics (five are in Florida, and one is in Montreal), as part of his estimated $400 a month weight loss treatment program.

Is the Diet Effective?

Some weight loss experts say that any diet that provides only 800 calories a day is bound to work, but at what price? Critics say that the diet provides far too few calories to maintain health and energy, and is seriously lacking in fruits and vegetables. (1 cup a day of vegetables doesn’t make a dent in the recommendation that we eat 5-9 servings a day of vegetables and fruit). Others have alleged that the Cookie Diet doesn’t provide sufficient vitamins, minerals, and fiber. Even Siegal admits that the Cookie Diet is not meant to be used for long periods of time. Many diet experts say that once people resume normal eating habits, they will regain the weight lost on drastic diets like this one.

What Can You Safely Do to Lose Weight?

In the meantime, put down that box of Oreos, and start thinking about what you CAN you do to safely lose weight!

First…get your thyroid tested. Experts now estimate that as many as 59 million Americans have a thyroid problem, with the vast majority undiagnosed. Since thyroid problems can cause weight gain — or make it impossible to lose weight — even with proper diet and exercise, this should be an important first step. Are you wondering if your thyroid might be contributing to your weight problem? Here are three steps to take to find out.

Dr. Sasson Moulavi, M.D. started working in an emergency room soon after graduating from Medical School. He was amazed by the amount of illness he saw coming from overweight and obese people of all ages. Many times he treated young men dying from heart attacks.
Dr. Sass, as he is known, was also overweight. He started trying weight loss programs, taking into consideration only the good parts from the many different diet programs. He then put the good traits from all the diet programs and put them together to form the Smart for Life Cookie Diet. Over the past 7 years, Dr. Sass has helped thousands of clients lose millions of pounds and these pounds off with this famous Smart for Life cookie diet.
In addition to the health benefits of losing weight on the Smart for Life Cookie Diet, Dr. Sass is dedicated to making the cookie + diet products as healthy as possible. Health is why the company makes a concerted effort to make the Smart Diet Cookies with over 60% of all ingredients being organic and without any preservatives or other toxic chemicals.
These Smart Diet Cookies are designed to be eaten as a small meal so your blood sugar will stay constant and not spike. The controlling of the blood sugars occurs thanks to the unique mix of amino acid chains within the smart cookie + diet products providing you with natural and powerful appetite suppression. The shakes, soups muffins, crunch and Smart bagels also have these amino acid chains in order to suppress hunger. People who try these cookie + diet products are amazed by the great taste and how the diet products satisfactorily control their hunger. When you join the Smart for Life Cookie Diet Program their professional staff enhances your personal motivation to keep you moving smoothly towards your goal. The Smart for Life Cookie Diet physicians are committed to every client and are available through every step of your customized weight loss program.
Smart for Life Cookie Diet clients lose, on the average of 12 to 15 pounds during the first month. Of course, there are exceptions that have amazed everyone! In a few months, many clients have lost over 100 pounds – so losing 30 pounds on the Smart for Life Cookie Diet is a cinch. The record weight loss for the first month is apparently 37 pounds.
The uniqueness about the Smart for Life Cookie Diet is not only that they succeed in getting clients to lose weight but actually improve their health in many ways. For example, within the cookie & diet food products there are many healthy ingredients like Omega-3 fatty acids that improve cardiovascular health. Inulin, a prebiotic that helps with digestion and calcium absorption, is included in some puddings and soups. FortiFiber, a revolutionary super fiber that reduces cholesterol, triglycerides and stabilizes insulin levels, is also added to many products.
Recently Omega-9 oils were added to their delicious salad dressing spritzer. The amazing thing is that the Smart for Life Cookie Diet never compromises taste.
In a recent interview we saw Dr. Sass stated, “If healthy products don’t taste as good as junk food, we will never win this war. That’s why at Smart For Life Cookie Diet, we try to keep the taste excellent. Smart For Life Cookie Diet products are made with triple filtered water and we do not use municipal city water like other so called ” Cookie Diet (s) ” do. I have many cookie + diet products in our lab that are very healthy but we have not made available to the public because we need to get them to taste amazing!”
Finally the variety of products the Smart for Life Cookie Diet offers is impressive in order to keep the client excited about new tastes and products. They have muffins in 3 flavors with a 4th on the way, cookies in 7 flavors, shakes, soups, pudding, coffee creamer, dressings, marinades and many more products. The variety certainly helps clients to stay motivated.
After reviewing the Smart for Life Cookie Diet, I would recommend this to everybody I know because they really care about the consumer and the products are made with very health-conscious ingredients. Smart for Life Cookie Diet is a safe, healthy way to change your eating habits which will help you lose the weight you need and keep it off – long term. Smart for Life Cookie Diet Program offers a full array of supplements to keep you strong and on track with your weight loss goals. The Smart Cookie Diet squares keep you feeling good and not hungry while training you to not stuff yourself. We also found that an independent survey of competitive programs showed the Smart for Life Cookie Diet had the lowest weekly cost while still providing more valuable benefits!

The Cookie Diet: What It Is

Being hungry and craving sweets are two of the main reasons people fall off their diets. But what if eating cookies and not being hungry was part of your diet plan? The Cookie Diet uses cookies to entice dieters into easy weight loss. After all, what could be more appealing than losing weight while indulging in one of our favorite treats?

But these are not your grandmother’s cookies. Instead they’re designed to be meal replacements — made with fiber, protein, and other ingredients intended to keep you full. They’re not nearly as sweet as Grandma’s, though they’re certainly palatable. They contain no drugs or secret ingredients, other than amino acids (the building blocks of protein) and fiber that act to suppress hunger.

Several cookie diet plans exist; the most popular are the Hollywood Cookie Diet, the Smart for Life diet, and Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet. Sanford Siegal, MD, a Miami obesity physician who developed a cookie formula in 1975 to help his patients lose weight, is considered the originator of the cookie diet concept.

Cokie Diets

Some of the cookie diets are designed for people to follow on their own with some online guidance; others are done under medical supervision.

The Cookie Diet: How it Works
On the Cookie Diet, there are no decisions about what to eat except which flavor cookie to eat, and what to have for dinner. It’s a relatively mindless diet strategy that has reportedly helped half a million of Siegal’s patients lose weight.

The cookies contain select amino acids thought to suppress hunger, fiber, and other ingredients that digest slowly to help keep you feeling full. Eating 4-6 of the cookies a day will give you somewhere around 500 calories.

Dinners are simple: Lean protein and veggies, or a light frozen dinner and a salad. The dinners range from a low of 300 to a high of about 1,000 calories each, meaning the diet has a grand total of 800-1,500 calories per day.

Anyone following an 800-calorie per day plan is sure to lose weight, but medical supervision is recommended for people following very low-calorie diets (less than 1,200 per day), as they are likely to be deficient in nutrients. Most of the very low-calorie cookie diet plans recommend a daily multivitamin to fill in the nutritional gaps. (The self-administered cookie diet plans found online recommend higher levels, of 1,400 or more calories per day).

Siegal says his patients have no problems sticking to the 800-calorie limit, and usually drop about 15 pounds per month.

“One of the greatest motivators to sticking to a diet is when you manage hunger, decrease cravings, and watch the weight come off, and virtually everyone will lose weight at 800 calories,” he says.

Kaiser Permanente physician Evan Bass has been following the Smart for Life cookie diet for more than a year, and has lost (and kept off) 45 pounds.

“The first two weeks were the hardest,” he says. “I was tired with no energy for exercise but once I got used to it, I felt great and could be more physically active while eating cookies daily for breakfast and lunch.”

He says he loves the chocolate chip cookies, especially when they’re warmed in the microwave, and has not grown tired of eating 6-8 cookies a day.

As a result of being on the diet and checking in regularly at the Smart for Life clinic, Bass says he has seen his health improve, along with his food choices and his commitment to being physically active.

“To maintain my weight loss, I still eat cookies during the week and allow some indulgences on the weekend,” he says. “But I keep a close watch on my weight and when it goes up 5 pounds, that is my signal to be more vigilant about what I eat and my activity.”

The Cookie Diet: What You Can Eat
The cookies that replace breakfast, lunch, and snacks range from 90-150 calories each. They come in a variety of flavors, including chocolate, banana, blueberry, oatmeal, and coconut. The cookies are convenient, portable, and don’t need refrigeration.

On Siegal’s medically supervised cookie diet, you have one meal for dinner, consisting of 4-6 ounces of lean protein with steamed veggies or raw veggies. The meal contributes about 300 calories. Eight daily glasses of no-calorie coffee, tea, water, or other beverages are allowed, but no alcohol, sweets, fruits, dairy, or other foods are recommended.

Dieters using the online cookie diet plans without medical supervision are directed to eat about 500 calories worth of cookies each day, plus a dinner made up of “sensible foods.” This approach controls daytime calories, but dinner could be a calorie disaster unless it is chosen wisely.

The Cookie Diet: What the Experts Say
American Dietetic Association spokeswoman Dee Sandquist, MS, RD, says the Cookie Diet is another version of the meal replacement plan, known to be an effective option for some.

“For lots of people, decisions about meals are tough, whether at home or eating out, and when you can drink a shake [or, eat a cookie or a bar instead of a meal, it simplifies it and helps some dieters stay in control,” she says.

She emphasizes the importance of making wise food choices when following the Cookie Diet, and recommends that dieters include lean protein, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy fats, and low-fat dairy in the dinner meal, even it if ends up being more than 300 calories.

She also suggests checking the nutrition facts panel to see how many grams of fiber, carbs, protein, and other nutrients are in each cookie, as these numbers vary from plan to plan.

As for the very low-calorie monitored Cookie Diet plans, critics say 800 calories is below the recommended level for safe and effective weight loss. They say the 800-calorie cookie diet is lacking in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and fiber, all of which should be a part of any healthy weight loss plan.

Sandquist suggests consulting a registered dietitian before you embark on any weight loss plan, especially one that calls for eating less than 1,200 calories a day.

But Siegal says his clinical experience over the last 30 years has shown that fast weight loss is safe under a doctor’s care, and that any nutrients lacking in the plan are made up for by the daily multivitamin.

“We monitor our patients weekly for any complications and they do fine,” he says.” My patients are delighted to lose 2-3 pounds a week, which motivates them to stick to the plan.”

Another weakness in the Cookie Diet, experts say, is the lack of an exercise plan. Experts recommend that physical activity be a regular part of everyone’s life.

“Physical activity is essential to build and maintain lean muscle, and is an integral part of an overall healthy lifestyle that needs to be part of the Cookie Diet or any other weight loss plan,” Sandquist says.

The Cookie Diet: Food for Thought
For people on the go or those who have trouble controlling what they eat, meal replacement cookies can be an excellent way to control calories and lose weight.

Although the idea of a cookie for a meal sounds like a childhood dream, the truth is that it could get monotonous eating cookies every day. And without regular physical activity and guidance to help you make long-term lifestyle changes, lost weight may creep back.

While you’ll most likely lose quickly weight on an 800-calorie-a-day plan, the cookie diets lack a transitional plan to help dieters get back to eating more normally and to maintain the lost weight.

Dietitians recommend that, once you reach your goal weight, you should increase your intake of healthy foods — especially fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, and low fat-dairy — for at least two meals a day, and rely on meal replacements for one meal a day.

The Cheater’s Diet by Dr. Paul Rivas and A. E. Tremblay is a refreshing weight loss book that alleviates the boredom of dieting while boosting your metabolism.

The Cheater’s Diet is a realistic weight loss plan for people who crave “forbidden” foods while on restrictive diets. With the Cheater’s Diet you are actually encouraged to eat what you want. You can have pizza, cake, chocolate, or whatever it is that you have been craving. What’s more is that eating these foods, as specified in the Cheater’s Diet, will actually speed up your metabolism and keep your body from going into starvation mode (which is often the cause of plateaus.)

How Does the Cheater’s Diet Work?

The Cheater’s Diet is basically an 80/20 rule. You eat healthy and sensible foods 5 days a week and take the weekend off from the restrictive diet. By doing so you are tricking your body again and again and not allowing it to adjust to the same amount of calories everyday. Your body has to work harder and the result is increased metabolism and better weight loss. It makes your body more efficient at burning calories and losing weight.

The bonus is that boredom is alleviated on the Cheater’s Diet. You can look forward to treating yourself to ice cream, cinnamon rolls, beer and more on the weekend after a week of being “good” on the healthy diet. It is psychologically helpful to know that you don’t have to wait a long time to eat cheat food again. Anyone can make it through 5 days of healthful eating to get their cheat food on the weekend. It becomes something you can look forward to and use as motivation during the week.
The Cheater’s Diet Isn’t Restrictive

Many diets advise you to avoid one food group or another. And while their rationale may make sense, it is not healthful to avoid food groups over long periods of time. Your body needs a wide variety of foods for optimal health.

“The fact is, you can’t live completely without either carbohydrates or fat because your body needs them in order to function,” Rivas states. “They are not your enemies, and trying to eliminate either from your diet completely will leave you with an incredibly monotonous menu plan.” (53)

The Meal Plan for Weekdays
•Avoid sugar, bread (unless whole wheat), saturated fat and alcohol.
•Include protein, fish, nuts, yogurt, fruits and vegetables, good fats (like olive oil) and dairy.
The Four-F Plan
The Cheater’s Diet includes a special section for anyone who wants to lose weight quickly. This plan is recommended for short periods of time, but will produce faster weight loss results.

1.Frequently eat small meals.
2.Fluids should include 8 cups of water per day plus a cup for every 3.5 point over 25 on the BMI chart.
3.Fish is encouraged for meals.
4.Fiber will help keep you full and lower your cholesterol levels.
The Cheater’s Diet is full of weight loss secrets and shortcuts that the lazy dieter in all of us can appreciate.

Tips from the Cheater’s Diet:
•Don’t give up food groups.
•Cheat to alleviate bordeom without feeling guilty.
•Take the misery out of restictive dieting.
•Use supplements proven to aid weight loss.
•Incorporate N.E.A.T activities (nonexercise activity plan) throughout your day.
•Tahe the weekends off and eat whatever you want.
•Don’t allow yourself to binge.

The copyright of the article Cheater’s Diet Alleviates Boredom in Diet Trends is owned by Tracy Rose. Permission to republish Cheater’s Diet Alleviates Boredom in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

The Cheater’s Diet

Most people think cheating is a bad thing, but in the Cheater’s Diet: Lose Weight by Taking the Weekends Off, it’s the secret sauce to successful weight loss. The idea is that all dieters cheat on their diets at some time, but what really matters is not whether you cheat, but how often you do it.

Author and weight loss physician Paul Rivas, MD, thinks if you are physically active, eat healthy meals the majority of the time, and cheat only on weekends, you will lose weight permanently.

The Cheater’s Diet allows dieters to have their cake and eat it too — but only for 36 hours of sanctioned cheating time from 9 am Saturday to 9 pm Sunday. From Monday through Friday, dieters are expected to eat healthfully and get as much physical activity as possible.

If you like the idea of regular exercise, a little “cheating” on the weekends, and following a Mediterranean-style eating plan, the Cheater’s Diet could be the plan for you.

The Cheater’s Diet: What You Can Eat
On the Cheater’s Diet, you’re encouraged to eat a Mediterranean-style diet that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, low fat dairy (especially yogurt), peanuts, and unsaturated fats.

You enjoy three meals and two snacks each day using the plate method; fill half the plate with fruits or vegetables, 1/4 with lean protein, and the remaining 1/4 with whole grains. Two weeks of weekday menus, along with recipes, are included in the book to help dieters understand the composition of a healthy weight loss plan.

To help dieters keep portions in check, Rivas provides visual associations, such as a portion of lean meat being equal in size to a deck of cards. In addition, the plan encourages dieters to include snacks twice daily from an approved list that includes fruit, nuts, low fat yogurt or pudding, protein bars, low calorie frozen treats, and more. During the week, sugar, bread, saturated fats, and alcohol are not permitted.

Cheating is not optional but required on the Cheater’s Diet, and Rivas suggests foods like:

Pizza
Wine
Chocolate
Peanut butter
Cinnamon buns
Ice cream
Strawberry shortcake
Cheese
Bread
Meat
Nuts
You can choose other cheat foods if you like; the only foods off limits during the cheating phase are “any foods that can trigger a binge,” says Rivas.

Breakfast

Two eggs, any style (cook with PAM cooking spray)
One medium orange or one half grapefruit
Coffee or tea with artificial sweetener and nonfat milk
Lunch

Four ounces tuna packed in water on a whole grain pita or tortilla. Mix with
olive oil or fat-free mayo, or mustard, or lemon with salt and pepper
Tomato and lettuce
A serving of any vegetable
Diet iced tea or water with lemon and artificial sweetener
Snack

One handful of peanuts (fresh, dry-roasted, no salt or oil added)
Dinner

Grilled sliced chicken breast strips
Steamed broccoli and peppers
Wild rice
Snack

One cup hot cocoa, sweetened with artificial sweetener

The Cheater’s Diet: How It Works
In the Cheater’s Diet, the prescription is for a healthy, reduced-calorie diet, along with plenty of physical activity during the week. The real bonus is the opportunity to break free on weekends, when most people tend to splurge and eat those otherwise forbidden foods.

According to Rivas, eating a healthy diet, consisting of three meals and two small snacks during the week, prevents the metabolic slow-down that typically occurs on most restrictive and fad-type diets. Cheating on the weekends is essential to “stoke your metabolism” for weight loss, so that when you go back to your regular weekday eating program, you’re burning optimal calories.

“When you chronically under eat, your metabolism drops,” Rivas says, “but if you keep your calories constant during the week and only overeat on weekends, the metabolic rate increases to handle the extra calories and continues to burn calories at a higher rate throughout the week.” This way, dieters never go through the yo-yo dieting cycle that lowers metabolism and reduces calories needed to keep the body alive.

By allowing controlled cheating (as in eat a piece of cake, not the whole cake), dieters can look forward to enjoying their favorite decadent food or drinks without guilt. Rivas’ theory suggests that being allowed any food during the controlled cheating time strengthens the dieter’s commitment to eating healthfully throughout the week

Rivas recommends a list of unusual dietary supplements (Yerba Mate, L-tyrosine 5 HTP, green tea extract, and Mucana Pruriens) to augment the weight loss process, but adds that “you can also successfully lose weight on the Cheater’s Diet without supplements.”

The Cheater’s Diet: What the Experts Say

The Cheater’s Diet’s overall approach to nutrition is healthful, emphasizing fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, healthy fats, enjoying pleasurable foods, and physical activity.

“The plan is likely between 1,600 and 1,800 calories, which of course, may be too many calories for a very petite female, or far too few for a muscular male (especially at the level of activity recommended),” says American Dietetic Association spokesman Cynthia Sass, MA, RD, co-author of Your Diet Is Driving Me Crazy, who would like the nutrition information for the recipes and menus included, along with suggestions on how to individualize the plan from its one-size-fits all approach.

My biggest concern with the Cheater’s Diet is that there are no references or research provided to back up the author’s claims, even though he frequently refers to research in the book,” Sass says.

Sass’ apprehension is that no studies have been carried out to test Rivas’ weight loss theory that cheating on weekends boosts metabolic rates. “Studies on people who have successfully lost and kept weight off in the National Weight Control Registry find these individuals do not cheat on weekends, but rather indulge in treats in moderation throughout the week,” reports Sass.

Sass also dislikes the supplement recommendations because, once again, there are no references to document the effectiveness of the supplements in weight loss. “Some of the recommendations are potentially unsafe, with adverse effects for certain individuals, according to the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database (NMCD), and they defy up-to-date science-based references,” adds Sass.

Sass also found it to be a stretch that the cinnamon in a high fat, high sugar food like cinnamon buns would help improve blood sugar and lower LDL cholesterol.

The Cheater’s Diet: Food for Thought
Sass suggests saving your money on the Cheater’s Diet, and instead log onto mypyramid.gov for a much more logical approach to successful weight loss. Her tip: Follow the 2005 Dietary Guideline’s recommendations for small daily splurges (called discretionary calories).

“The general public likes the idea that a diet must include sacrifice, and they mistakenly believe that is what it takes to be successful,” Rivas says. He maintains that the Cheater’s Diet proves that cheater’s win, and the plan will result in weight loss.

If you like this plan’s recommendation of regular exercise, splurging a bit on the weekends, and enjoying a Mediterranean-style diet (minus those unnecessary supplements), you may have found a diet you can stick with for life.

The Cheater’s Diet

The Cheater’s Diet is written by Dr. Paul Rivas, an obesity specialist who has helped over 15000 people to lose weight. He claims that his program addresses the main factors that are important if dieters are to be successful at losing weight: keeping the metabolism high and avoiding dietary boredom.

Rivas says it doesn’t matter whether you cheat on your diet or not, but, how often you do.

Diet Basics
The Cheater’s Diet involves a low calorie diet with a high level of physical activity during the week. Dieters can have the weekends free to indulge in their favorite high calorie snacks and treats.

During the week dieters consume three small meals and two snacks, which has the effect of boosting metabolism. Rivas recommends that dieters adhere to a Mediterranean style of eating and monitor portion sizes carefully.

Diets

Rivas states that increasing calorie intake over the weekends serves the purpose of further stoking the metabolism, avoiding the reduced fat burning that typically occurs on low calorie diets. The body doesn’t go into starvation mode, which ensures that weight loss continues even when dieting for long stretches at a time.

Essential to the success of this plan is the concept of ‘controlled cheating’ where dieters may indulge in their favorite treats but still with some restraint. For example a piece of chocolate cake is fine, but not the whole cake.

This allows dieters to enjoy these foods without feeling guilty and can make it easier to stick with reduced calorie diet during the week.

Many supplements are recommended, however, Rivas states that they are not essential in order to experience success on the program.

Recommended Foods
Lean meats, whole grains, seafood, salads, berries, olive oil, nuts, low fat yogurt, and protein bars.

Sample Diet Plan
Breakfast

Scrambled eggs
Half grapefruit
Coffee with artificial sweetener and nonfat milk

Lunch

Tuna with fat free mayo
Tomato and lettuce
Whole grain tortilla
1 cup asparagus
Diet iced tea

Afternoon Snack

One handful roasted peanuts

Dinner

Grilled chicken breast
Steamed broccoli and red peppers
Brown rice

Evening Snack

Hot chocolate with artificial sweetener

The Cheater’s Diet What It Is

Most people think cheating is a bad thing, but in the Cheater’s Diet: Lose Weight by Taking the Weekends Off, it’s the secret sauce to successful weight loss. The idea is that all dieters cheat on their diets at some time, but what really matters is not whether you cheat, but how often you do it.

Author and weight loss physician Paul Rivas, MD, thinks if you are physically active, eat healthy meals the majority of the time, and cheat only on weekends, you will lose weight permanently.

The Cheater’s Diet allows dieters to have their cake and eat it too — but only for 36 hours of sanctioned cheating time from 9:00 am Saturday to 9:00 pm Sunday. From Monday through Friday, dieters are expected to eat healthfully and get as much physical activity as possible.

If you like the idea of regular exercise, a little “cheating” on the weekends, and following a Mediterranean-style eating plan, the Cheater’s Diet could be the plan for you.

What You Can Eat
On the Cheater’s Diet, you’re encouraged to eat a Mediterranean-style diet that includes plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, low fat dairy (especially yogurt), peanuts, and unsaturated fats.

You enjoy three meals and two snacks each day using the plate method; fill half the plate with fruits or vegetables, 1/4 with lean protein, and the remaining 1/4 with whole grains. Two weeks of weekday menus, along with recipes, are included in the book to help dieters understand the composition of a healthy weight loss plan.

To help dieters keep portions in check, Rivas provides visual associations, such as a portion of lean meat being equal in size to a deck of cards. In addition, the plan encourages dieters to include snacks twice daily from an approved list that includes fruit, nuts, low fat yogurt or pudding, protein bars, low calorie frozen treats, and more. During the week, sugar, bread, saturated fats, and alcohol are not permitted.

Cheating is not optional but required on the Cheater’s Diet, and Rivas suggests foods like:

•Pizza
•Wine
•Chocolate
•Peanut butter
•Cinnamon buns
•Ice cream
•Strawberry shortcake
•Cheese
•Bread
•Meat
•Nuts
You can choose other cheat foods if you like; the only foods off limits during the cheating phase are “any foods that can trigger a binge,” says Rivas.

Sample Weekday Menu
* Breakfast

Two eggs, any style (cook with PAM cooking spray)

One medium orange or one half grapefruit

Coffee or tea with artificial sweetener and nonfat milk

* Lunch

Four ounces tuna packed in water on a whole grain pita or tortilla. Mix with

olive oil or fat-free mayo, or mustard, or lemon with salt and pepper

Tomato and lettuce

A serving of any vegetable

Diet iced tea or water with lemon and artificial sweetener

* Snack

One handful of peanuts (fresh, dry-roasted, no salt or oil added)

* Dinner

Grilled sliced chicken breast strips

Steamed broccoli and peppers

Wild rice

*Snack

One cup hot cocoa, sweetened with artificial sweetener

How It Works
In the Cheater’s Diet, the prescription is for a healthy, reduced-calorie diet, along with plenty of physical activity during the week. The real bonus is the opportunity to break free on weekends, when most people tend to splurge and eat those otherwise forbidden foods.

According to Rivas, eating a healthy diet, consisting of three meals and two small snacks during the week, prevents the metabolic slow-down that typically occurs on most restrictive and fad-type diets. Cheating on the weekends is essential to “stoke your metabolism” for weight loss, so that when you go back to your regular weekday eating program, you’re burning optimal calories.

“When you chronically under eat, your metabolism drops,” Rivas says, “but if you keep your calories constant during the week and only overeat on weekends, the metabolic rate increases to handle the extra calories and continues to burn calories at a higher rate throughout the week.” This way, dieters never go through the yo-yo dieting cycle that lowers metabolism and reduces calories needed to keep the body alive.

By allowing controlled cheating (as in eat a piece of cake, not the whole cake), dieters can look forward to enjoying their favorite decadent food or drinks without guilt. Rivas’ theory suggests that being allowed any food during the controlled cheating time strengthens the dieter’s commitment to eating healthfully throughout the week

Rivas recommends a list of unusual dietary supplements (Yerba Mate, L-tyrosine 5 HTP, green tea extract, and Mucana Pruriens) to augment the weight loss process, but adds that “you can also successfully lose weight on the Cheater’s Diet without supplements.”

What the Experts Say
The Cheater’s Diet’s overall approach to nutrition is healthful, emphasizing fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, healthy fats, enjoying pleasurable foods, and physical activity.

“The plan is likely between 1,600 and 1,800 calories, which of course, may be too many calories for a very petite female, or far too few for a muscular male (especially at the level of activity recommended),” says American Dietetic Association spokesman Cynthia Sass, who would like the nutrition information for the recipes and menus included, along with suggestions on how to individualize the plan from its one-size-fits all approach.

“My biggest concern with the Cheater’s Diet is that there are no references or research provided to back up the author’s claims, even though he frequently refers to research in the book,” Sass says.

Sass’ apprehension is that no studies have been carried out to test Rivas’ weight loss theory that cheating on weekends boosts metabolic rates. “Studies on people who have successfully lost and kept weight off in the National Weight Control Registry find these individuals do not cheat on weekends, but rather indulge in treats in moderation throughout the week,” reports Sass.

Sass also dislikes the supplement recommendations because, once again, there are no references to document the effectiveness of the supplements in weight loss. “Some of the recommendations are potentially unsafe, with adverse effects for certain individuals, according to the Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database (NMCD), and they defy up-to-date science-based references,” adds Sass.

Sass also found it to be a stretch that the cinnamon in a high fat, high sugar food like cinnamon buns would help improve blood sugar and lower LDL cholesterol.

Food for Thought
Sass suggests saving your money on the Cheater’s Diet, and instead log onto mypyramid.gov for a much more logical approach to successful weight loss. Her tip: Follow the 2005 Dietary Guideline’s recommendations for small daily splurges (called discretionary calories).

“The general public likes the idea that a diet must include sacrifice, and they mistakenly believe that is what it takes to be successful,” Rivas says. He maintains that the Cheater’s Diet proves that cheater’s win, and the plan will result in weight loss.

If you like this plan’s recommendation of regular exercise, splurging a bit on the weekends, and enjoying a Mediterranean-style diet (minus those unnecessary supplements), you may have found a diet you can stick with for life.

Okay, are you ready? Here we go:

1 head cabbage, shredded or chopped
2 large onions, chopped
16-28 ounces canned tomatoes, chopped
2 green peppers
4 stalks celery
1-2 packages Lipton onion soup mix, or any dry onion soup mix (optional)
black pepper
any fresh herb(s) of your choice, chopped
6 carrots, sliced
1/2 pound green beans, sliced on diagonal
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar (optional)
Put all vegetables in a big pot and cover with water. Bring to a boil, stir in the soup mix (if desired), and boil gently for 10 minutes. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer until all the vegetables are soft. Stir in the black pepper and chopped herbs (saving some for garnish).
Eat as much of the soup as you like, as often as you like. Drink as much water as you like and non-caloric drinks including coffee, tea, and herbal teas.

Here’s what else you can eat, and when:

DAY 1: All fruits except bananas.

DAY 2: All vegetables, raw or cooked. This includes baked potato with a LITTLE butter.

DAY 3: Fruits and vegetables, but no potatoes or bananas.

DAY 4: Bananas and skim milk–eat as many as 8 bananas and drink as many as 8 glasses of skim milk.

DAY 5: Beef, skinless chicken, and/or fish–as much as 20 ounces, total. You can also eat 6 tomatoes. And you must drink 8 glasses of water. Don’t forget at least one bowl of soup.

DAY 6: Beef, skinless chicken, or fish and vegetables. Drink 8 glasses of water and eat at least one bowl of soup.

DAY 7: Brown rice, vegetables, and unsweetened fruit juice.

TESTIMONY! If you’re interested in going gourmet AND losing weight, try the following suggestions, recommended by Bobbi B. from California: “To make the soup not so…so…impossible to eat three times a day; try making the first batch with red onions, red cabbage and red bell peppers, leave it chunky like a minestrone. The second batch make with yellow onions, green cabbage & green bells (I left out the tomatoes in second batch) and pureé it. The taste and texture change makes it so much more palatable. Also, on the skim milk day; add non fat plain yogurt to the soup as one of glasses of milk…tastes wonderful!!! Hey! I lost 10 lbs. in 7 days, I feel great! I can’t imagine it not being healthy for you, keep the foods fresh and be creative when you cook.”
Or how about chef Karen Larkin who makes soups from scratch every morning at her McKinleyville, California, café: “I love this diet! It really works! I add a few different herbs and spices to each batch to give it an international twist. For example, I add chopped cilantro, a little chili powder, and cumin to give it a Southwestern flavor; some oregano, basil, and fresh garlic for an Italian taste; a little curry powder mixed into the cooking soup and chopped fresh mint leaves for garnish on top when serving to give it a unique Moroccan flavor; shrimp or fish boullion, a little soy sauce, and some fresh bean sprouts, minus the tomatoes for an exotic Oriental sensation; chanterelle mushrooms and a pinch of thyme and rosemary minus the tomatoes for a wonderful French taste. All very yummy!”

Jane B. from High Point, North Carolina, says “The version of this that I got had no carrots, green beans, herbs or vinegar. It did have boullion added and the daily instructions were the same. It was called the American Heart Association diet. I was told if you lost less than 17 lbs. in one week you could stay on it. Lost 10 lbs the first week, 7 lbs the second. I’ve been following it casually since then and have lost a total of 35 lbs so far and feel great – all within about a month and a half time frame.”

Natalie from Nixa, Missouri, says: I haved used this soup many times, and lose about 10 pounds each week! My family likes it too, so I add ground beef or diced Chicken to it and we have a meal! It is a great way to clean out your system and make you feel great, if followed correctly! I use it for a week, off a week, on a week, and off a week, and usually can keep the weight off for a year or 2, if I am careful! Just be sure to take your vitamins, and eat all the stuff it calls for…

Alister Moffit says: Everyone told me I would be listless and low on energy, when in actual fact I felt like all the toxins were being washed out of my system and I was full of energy and alert, I kept riding my bike to work and back every day for 25 km round trip while on the diet and lost 3 kg. I also kept taking Lecithin to clear out cholestrol.

Or how about Sherrie Blount’s variation from Oakland, California: “Use the original cabbage soup diet recipe for all three meals. Add brown rice,one fry egg to your soup. (EAT IT LIKE IT IS STEW) Do not add any other foods etc. Drink 8 glasses of water, no tea or juice. This really works.”

Laurie W. from Berks, UK, says: “You cannot fail to lose weight on this diet (as long as you don’t cheat!). I lost 8lbs the first time, then on my second go 5 weeks later, I lost another 7lbs! Providing you don’t stuff yourself silly on the first day off the diet, then eat sensibly, there is no reason why you should put the weight back on! Good luck.”

Lenia Kallis from Nicosia, Cyprus, says: “You may omit the peppers mushrooms also-you may use them otherwise-and use fewer onions to make a lighter soup. Also cutting the cabbage into big chunks makes you feel fuller as you are eating something solid. Also you may add one tablespoon of non fat grinded hard cheese on top of every plateful just before consumption, for variation. And yes it tastes great and you still lose the weight.I also agree that yogurt makes it much better in taste. On the fruit day I make a nice big fruit salad with a little orange juice and consume it the whole day. On the vegetable day I saute the vegetables in a non stick pan and add a little soya sauce to fool myself I am eating chinese. I use light margarine for the baked potato.On the banana and milk day I make nice banana milk shakes in a shaker and add a little sweetener if the bananas are not sweet enough.On the beef day I eat a little mustard with the steaks or make a sauce with mustard and mushrooms too since I do not use them in the soup. Yes I too lost 9 pounds on it. And it is not that difficult either with the above recommendations. It is imperative that you have one multivitamin a day , plus one water soluble vitamin C whenever you feel light headed.It really helps the energy levels. All the above make the diet easier to follow and the results are drastic. It motivates me also to go on a better and more nutritional diet the week after. I feel that it is good for me as I do not consume any meats for the first 4 days of the diet. Good luck to all.”

Cabbage Soup Diet 7 Days Plan – Lose Weight Fast and Easy

The Soup Diet is based on a fat-burning soup that contains negligible calories. The more soup you eat the more weight you should lose. It allows people to eat as much Cabbage Soup as they want each day, which should sound appealing to dieters. After all, dieters love to hear that they can eat unlimited amounts of food and still lose weight fast.

The Diet relies on eating strange and bizarre combinations of food that nearly force you to starve each day. Dieters are allowed all the water and cabbage soup they want, plus a very restricted set of other foods.

A running myth suggests that this diet originated at any number of hospitals, but thus far, no medical facilities have claimed it as their own. Consensus is that the diet is effective for temporarily losing a few pounds. However, this is not a very nutritionally sound plan and certainly not one to live on.

The 7 Days Cabbage Soup Diet Plan
Eat as much soup as you desire for seven days and you can lose 10 to 15 pounds. The recipe varies slightly, but includes a variety of low-calorie vegetables such as cabbage, onions, and tomatoes, flavored with bouillon, onion soup mix, and tomato juice. Each day of the seven-day program has specific foods that must be eaten, including potatoes, fruit juice, many vegetables, and on one day, beef.

Day One:
Eat only fruit, all the fruit you want except banana.
Drink unsweetened tea, black coffee, cranberry juice, and water.
Eat as much soup as you like.
Day Two:
All you want – fresh, raw, or cooked vegetables of your choice. Stay away from dry beans, peas, and sweet corn. Reward yourself with a big baked potato with butter for dinner. Eat as much soup as you like but no fruit for today.

Day Three:
Combine days one and two, eat as much fruit, vegetables, and soup, as you like but no baked potato.

Day Four:
Eat as many as eight bananas and drink as many glasses of skim milk as you would like on this day, along with your soup. This day is supposed to lessen your desire for sweets.

Diets

Day Five:
You may have 10-20 ounces of beef (300-500g) and a large tin or up to six fresh tomatoes. Drink at least 6 to 8 glasses of water this day to wash the uric acid from your body. Eat your soup at least once today. You may eat broiled or baked chicken (skinless) instead of beef. If you prefer, you can substitute broiled fish for the beef.

Day Six:
Eat beef and vegetables today. You can even have two or three steaks if you like, with fresh vegetables or salad. NO BAKED POTATO. Eat your soup at least once.

Day Seven:
Eat all you want of brown rice, unsweetened fruit juices, and vegetables. Be sure to eat your soup at least once to day. No bread, alcohol, or carbonated beverages, not even diet soda.

The Cabbage Soup Diet: ReportBasically a very low calorie diet; the Cabbage Soup Diet works, temporarily, by cutting daily calories to near-starvation levels

What is the Cabbage Soup Diet?

Interestingly, no person or organization seems to want to claim responsibility for inventing the cabbage soup diet! So there isn’t an “official” version, but various cabbage diet plans based around eating copious quantities of cabbage soup, and very little else.

Claims made for the cabbage soup diet range from the ludicrous, ie. the cabbage soup itself has fat burning properties to the dubious, ie. you can lose 10lbs in a week. The diet is often put forward as a quick way to drop pounds for a special event and most proponents advise that it only be followed for a week.

What’s Involved?
The Cabbage Soup Diet plan is very strict. The idea is to eat as much cabbage soup as you like every day – enough to keep you full up, so you don’t cheat! Plus specific additional foods on each day of the seven day diet. No alcohol is allowed and other drinks are limited to water, and unsweetened fruit juice on days when fruit is allowed.

•Day 1 – Cabbage soup plus as much fruit as you like, excluding bananas

•Day 2 – Cabbage soup plus vegetables including 1 jacket potato with a little butter

•Day 3 – Cabbage soup plus fruit and vegetables excluding potatoes and bananas

•Day 4 – Cabbage soup plus up to eight bananas and as much skimmed milk as you like

•Day 5 – Cabbage soup plus up to 20 ounces of beef and up to six tomatoes

•Day 6 – Cabbage soup plus as much beef and vegetables (excluding potatoes) as you like

•Day 7 – Cabbage soup plus brown rice, vegetables (excluding potatoes) and unsweetened fruit juice
Recipes for the cabbage soup vary, but all are based on cabbage, onions, tinned tomatoes, green peppers, celery, carrots, mushrooms and onion soup mix.

Does the Cabbage Soup Diet Work?
In the short term most people would lose weight very quickly. However, the loss of weight will come from loss of water and muscle tissue not from fat reserves. The combination of foods “allowed” would force most people to nearly starve each day. This could actually be counter-productive, forcing the body into starvation mode will slow metabolism and encourage the body to hang on to fat reserves!

This diet regime requires a lot of planning and frequent shopping trips for the supply of vegetables and fruit. For many people it will involve cooking and eating separately from other family members not following this eating regime.

So Why Do It?
Many are attracted to this short-term “quick fix” diet to lose weight quickly. It is not a solution to a healthy, long term eating plan.

Is the Cabbage Soup Diet Healthy?
The ingredients of the cabbage soup, in themselves, are mostly healthy – though if stock is used as well as soup mix the finished soup could be quite high in salt. Overall the cabbage diet is deficient in protein, carbohydrate and essential fats. Since the diet is only supposed to be followed for seven days, this shouldn’t cause people in good health any long-term problems, but people who have special dietary needs, including diabetics, should definitely consult a doctor before starting the cabbage soup diet. No one should follow the diet for more than seven days.

Dietitian Says:
“A balanced, healthy diet combined with exercise is still the most effective and safe long-term way to lose weight. However the results are gradual and require perseverance.”

What’s more, The Biggest Loser Diet is high in lean protein. Protein has a hunger-controlling effect on the body–which is why higher-protein diets are so effective for weight loss and fat-burning.

While on The Biggest Loser Diet, you have the freedom to eat a wide variety of foods, as long as you stick to mostly whole, natural foods.

“Whole foods” are those that have not been modified from their natural state, or have been modified only a little bit, for example, through cooking. Foods that have been substantially modified are classified as processed foods. Blueberries are a whole food. Blueberry toaster pastries are not..

The Biggest Loser Diet PlanBased upon the plan used on NBC’s popular reality TV show The Biggest Loser (where contestants compete to lose the most weight), The Biggest Loser Diet plan focuses on lowering fat, calories, and refined carbohydrates like sugar. The simple theory behind the diet is that weight loss will result if you eat fewer calories than you burn. Some of the rules for this diet are to eat three meals and one to three snacks a day, to use the “4-3-2-1 Biggest

Chocolate diets

Loser Pyramid” as a guide for what to eat, and to keep track of your daily calories.
What makes the Biggest Loser Diet plan different?This is a low calorie diet, where you must do some calorie counting. Luckily a great online resource was designed to make calorie counting easy and efficient. The food pyramid used to create The Biggest Loser Diet plan is different from the standard USDA’s (United States Department of Agriculture) My Pyramid. The focus here is to eat more fruits and vegetables, and a moderate amount of whole grains, to increase the consumption of protein and to eliminate sugar and refined grains, like white bread, pasta and even potatoes.
What is the Biggest Loser Diet plan?The Biggest Loser Diet plan works by lowering your intake of fat, calories, and refined carbohydrates. Tracking your calories is a must, and purchasing food scales and measuring cups will help you learn exact portions until you can eyeball these on your own.
Although a book has been published with calorie guidelines based on a specific body weight, the online arena of The Biggest Loser Diet  is easier to use and does the math for you. All you need is your starting weight and a weight loss goal, and then meal plans are automatically planned for you, along with recipes and shopping lists. Animated fitness demos, an online journal, and a progress tracker are also provided as is a customized program for those allergic to specific foods and vegetarians.
If you don’t want to spend $5.00 per week for the website, you will need to learn the “4-3-2-1 Biggest Loser Pyramid,” which sets out the number of servings you can eat daily. This consists of four serving of fruits and veggies, three servings of protein foods (such as dairy, meat, and beans), two servings of whole grains, and an extra 200 calories from the diet’s list of selected foods, including various foods from the three categories mentioned above, as well as additional foods such as oils, salad dressings, olives, avocadoes, and sugar free fudgsicles. Depending on your calorie needs, you have to adjust the type of protein you eat and your portions sizes. The book provides sample meal plans, menus and recipes that follow the “4-3-2-1 Biggest Loser Pyramid” for different calorie levels (including 1200, 1500, and 1800).
The Biggest Loser Diet plan encourages eating four to six meals a day (three meals and one to three snacks), weighing yourself weekly, and avoiding certain “appetite-stimulating foods,” like white bread, white pasta, potato chips, and other junky and refined foods. The diet also suggests many substitutes so that you won’t miss your favorite foods. For example, get ready to experience spaghetti squash, instead of your everyday pasta.
As for a maintenance plan, The Biggest Loser Diet plan provides advice from past contestants on The Biggest Loser on how they kept their weight off. This includes keeping a food journal, sticking with the principles of the diet, only cheating every once in a while, and staying active. Many of the past contestants continue to exercise three to six times a week for an hour or an hour and a half.
The plan is also peppered with advice from prior The Biggest Loser contestants to help motivate you and the online community provides forums and message boards with thousands of posts by other members and past contestants. One unique idea suggests setting up your own Biggest Loser competition. The plan provides directions on how to set-up the competition and provides an official rules list. This is a creative way to get fit and create social support.
What are the weight loss expectations?
The Biggest Loser Diet Plan does not give any specific expectations and says that different people will lose weight at different rates. The plan mentions that two pounds a week is a safe and normal weight loss rate.
Is exercise promoted?
Exercise in the form of cardio, strength and resistance training are all important parts of The Biggest Loser Diet. For cardio, your goal is to build up to 200-300 minutes per week. The diet offers an online program called Base Training, which is encouraged as a starting point, It instructs you on building up to a minimum of 30 minutes of cardio exercise three to six times per week. This exercise can take many forms, from swimming to trampoline jumping, from cycling to wrestling, etc. Other online cardio programs are available, including Tempo Training and Interval Training, both of which allow you to choose the level that is appropriate for your fitness level. The Biggest Loser Diet plan does encourage you to speak with your doctor before starting any of the exercise programs.
The Bigger Loser Diet Plan also offers strength workouts online, including the Basic Stabilization Workout, the Strength and Stabilization Workout, and the Higher Volume Workout. As with cardio, you choose the activity level that is right for you. A basic tutorial is available for both the cardio and strength/resistance training so that you can feel more comfortable before beginning your exercise regimen. You can also track your activity online and view a demo of the exercise.

The Biggest Loser Diet, Analyzed

Although I’ve only seen part of one episode of the TV show “The Biggest Loser”, I’ve been curious about the Biggest Loser Diet I’ve been hearing about. I was sure it is low in calories, but how were the calories distributed? In particular, did contestants cut down their carb intake? To aid me in my research, I took the description of the Biggest Loser Diet in Prevention magazine, and created menus for three different days of the diet. I tried to choose menus that I thought would be typical when following the guidelines, and deliberately avoided making choices that were the highest or lowest in carbs in each category. Here’s what I found out about the Biggest Loser Diet:

1) Calories: The diet has about 1100 calories per day – all three days came to within 35 calories of this in either direction.

2) Carbohydrate: The menus I chose were between 88 and 120 grams of carbohydrate per day, which was between 42% and 53% of the calories. The diet does not allow any added sugar, refined grains, or potatoes, so most people would be eating a diet that is somewhat lower in carbs, and much less glycemic than the way most people eat.

3) Protein: The diet is relatively high in protein. The menus I chose were between 100 and 120 grams of protein per day, which was between 35% and 46% of the calories.

4) Fat: The diet is very low in fat. The highest fat day was the one where salmon was included; that one had 20 grams of fat at 16% of calories. Other days were around 12% fat.

Thoughts on the Biggest Loser Diet:The whole point of the Biggest Loser TV Show (and the part I object to, which is why I will not watch it) is to lose large amounts of weight as fast as possible. Of course, this makes great TV, but outside the confines of the strictly-regulated regieme of the contestants (and probably not even there), it’s really not a good idea.

For most people, this diet would not be sustainable, as after awhile hunger will assert itself forcefully into the equation. Small, relatively inactive women might be able to sustain it for longer periods, but part of the idea of getting healthy is to become active. For this reason, I’m not a fan of low-calorie diets, as I think they tend to set people up for failure in the long run. At the very least, the number of calories should be customized to the individual.

I am also not thrilled with diets which are very low in fat, as our bodies need fat to run well. In this diet, the fat is mostly replaced with protein, rather than carbohydrate, which is an improvement over the usual low-fat diet. Still, I can’t imagine many people living with this for more than a few months, and most of them would drop out long before.

The diet is said to be “carbohydrate modified” in that all refined carbs are eliminated, and other high-carb foods are limited to moderate amounts. This is a good thing, and this amount of carbohydrate restriction works for many people (though some people require a lower-carb diet).

Conclusion: The Biggest Loser Diet could be the basis for a workable diet. I suggest that anyone who tries it and has difficulty add sources of healthy fat if they get hungry. For example, add avocado, nuts, olive oil, coconut oil, flax seeds, etc. (Saturated fats are probably also fine, at least in the context of a low-carb diet.) If they continue to have trouble, they can try cutting out some of the grain servings.

Phase 1 – minimum 4 weeks
Objective: More activity, establishing meal patterns.

Following an initial weigh-in, the diet program stipulates 3 meals (including breakfast) plus at least 1 snack daily, and no eating during minimum 2 hours before bedtime. Plenty of water but no alcohol, and daily supplements. Increase physical activity.

Weigh-in after 4 weeks, and move on if ready – that is, if all the daily objectives are being met consistently, and the overall weight loss has been more than a pound or thereabouts per week. If not, stay on phase 1 for 2 or 3 weeks longer.

Phase 2 – minimum 4 weeks
Objective: Significant and consistent weight loss through control of hunger and dietary changes.

Weigh in at start, and then every week. Develop understanding of the physical and emotional reasons for your hunger, and use the hunger scale. Eat reasonable food portions, and remove 6 foods from your diet that are ‘empty’ or are problem foods. Physical activity may be increased.

Check weight-loss after 4 weeks and move on if ready. If you’re within 20 pounds of achieving your weight goal, and the weight-loss has stopped, move to Phase 3. Otherwise, stay with Phase 2 until your regular weekly weigh-in says you can progress.

Phase 3 – lifetime lifestyle
Objective: Continue to improve quality of diet for good health and weight maintenance.

Weigh in at least each month, but no more often than once a week. Introduce other foods according to the calories advice given, and balance your diet using the guidelines, removing more unhealthy foods and adding wholesome ones. Physical activity may be increased.

This is your healthy lifestyle from here on in.

Exercise physiologist Bob Greene’s TheBest Life Diet is an easy-to-follow, no-gimmicks approach to a healthy diet and lifestyle. It’s a dietitian’s dream diet — and one that apparently changed talk show host Oprah Winfrey’s life. Winfrey describes in the foreword how, after years of struggling with diets, she found success with The Best Life Diet.

There is nothing groundbreaking about The Best Life Diet. Greene’s “diet” is synonymous with the phrase “lifestyle change.” There’s no going on and off this diet, because it’s not a “diet.” It’s a lifestyle of healthy eating, with an emphasis on regular physical activity.

The Best Life Diet is a safe, effective way to lose weight and improve fitness. But it is not quick or temporary. You’re encouraged to make gradual changes, one step at a time. The aim is to transform your old eating and exercise habits into healthier new ones that will last a lifetime.

Depending on your gender and activity level, TheBest Life Diet guidelines suggests calorie levels ranging from 1,500-2,500 and a recommended number of servings from the various food groups. The basic premise is that the more active you are, the more calories you can eat.

Greene’s fitness insights and easygoing style makes weight loss easy to understand. Lots of great tips, recipes, menus, and useful tools are included to help dieters get and stay motivated. The Best Life Diet is easily tailored to a wide array of personal lifestyles, activity levels, and food preferences. The program can be followed online for a fee, or by the book.

What You Can Eat on The Best Life Diet

There is no calorie-counting on the Best Life Diet, only a mindful approach to making wise food choices and monitoring portion sizes. Splurges are worked into the program during the third phase with an allotment of “anything goes” calories.

It appears very simple. You can enjoy a wide variety of healthy foods while slowly ridding your diet of unhealthier choices such as fried foods, foods containing trans fats, white bread, sugary soft drinks, regular pasta, and high-fat dairy. These foods are phased out and replaced with healthier foods such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy, and more. Weekly eating plans provide suggested meals.

Greene has placed his Best Life Diet seal of approval logo on a variety of food products he recommends as healthy. Dieters are asked to make their healthier choices from a recommended list of foods from companies involved in corporate sponsorship.

How The Best Life Diet
Greene’s Best Life premise is to promote a non- dieting mind-set so you can focus on improving your life and gaining control over your struggles with eating and weight. While strict diet plans usually set you up for disappointment and ultimate failure, Greene sets dieters up for success, one small step at a time.

Some programs start with a very strict first phase with a long list of prohibited foods. Greene takes a different approach by starting with a more liberal first phase:

Phase One, a maximum of four weeks, focuses on slowly increasing activity levels and changing old eating habits. Recommendations include no eating two hours before bed, eating three meals and one snack daily, eliminating alcohol (temporarily), staying hydrated, and taking a daily multivitamin/mineral, omega-3 fatty acid, and calcium (if needed). The meal and snack suggestions make healthy eating sound delicious.
Phase Two, a minimum of four weeks, promotes a more aggressive approach to losing weight through healthier eating and increased physical activity. This phase builds upon the changes made in Phase One, with an emphasis on controlling physical and emotional hunger, removing six problem foods from your diet, weekly weigh-ins, and portion control.
Phase Three is maintenance, or the phase for the rest of your life. It focuses on eliminating more unhealthy foods and adding more wholesome foods, and introduces “anything goes” calories. Greene’s “anything goes” calories are similar to the “discretionary calories” found in the U.S. government’s 2005 Dietary Guidelines, which allow you to enjoy your favorite treats in small portions. Greene gives the green light for more “anything goes” calories when you are most active.
Greene also tackles issues that lead to overeating, such as hunger and emotional eating. Using his hunger tool helps dieters stop overeating by learning how to gauge real hunger. He tackles emotional eating head-on by asking dieters to answer some tough questions before beginning the program:

Why are you overweight?
Why do you want to lose weight?
Why have you been unable to lose weight in the past?
Answering these questions honestly can help dieters identify the things that need to be changed so they can start to address problem issues.

Diets

What the Experts Say About The Best Life Diet
The Best Life Diet is based on science — it supports the U.S. government’s 2005 U.S. Dietary Guidelines with very doable and easy suggestions. And most registered dietitians and fitness trainers agree that true weight loss success comes from making lifestyle changes.

Greene’s flexible approach helps dieters stick with the plan. But obesity expert Cathy Nonas, RD, wonders if his realistic, gradual approach will appeal to overweight people who want the quick fix.

“Once a person decides to lose weight, they want it gone immediately,” says Nonas, a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. “And unfortunately, they choose fad diets [and] lose weight quickly only to regain it back instead of choosing a program like Best Life Diet that tackles changing eating behaviors.”

Nonas says she likes the slow and gradual first phase followed by the more intense second and third phases.

“Anyone who gets through the first phase, regardless [of] if they lose weight, will improve their dietary picture,” says Nonas. If you’re not successful at losing weight during the first or second phase, “stick with the phase longer before moving onto maintenance,” suggests Nonas.

Counting calories is too difficult and inaccurate. But if you cut out the sodas, fried foods, and giant white bagels, the calorie savings will add up.

“For people like me who already avoid the six perilous foods, it won’t make much of a difference,” says Nonas. “But for anyone who eats or drinks the high-calorie foods, it should help them lose weight.”

Nonas also points out that some “forbidden” foods can be enjoyed in moderate portions.

“There is nothing wrong with high-fat dairy if you make modifications elsewhere in your diet, and likewise if you enjoy white pasta or white bread as long as you get enough fiber in your diet,” she says

The bottom line, Nonas says, is that Greene’s recommendations are sound for the most part. She suggests that dieters buy the book but ignore the branded merchandising.

“What is really important is not the brand of yogurt, but reading labels to choose a low-fat yogurt,” she says.

Food for Thought
If you’re tired of gimmicks and strict food lists and are looking for a program that can help you change your life once and for all, this book is for you.

The plan’s goals are attainable, and, more important, sustainable. Tools, tips, recipes and a wealth of helpful resources, including the online Best Life Diet message board, provide great support.

Diet review: The Best Life Diet

Sure, you may not have Oprah’s billions or her retinue of personal chefs. But for a retail price of $26, you can pick up a copy of Bob Greene’s The Best Life Diet (Simon & Schuster, 2006) and get sensible, sensitive fitness and diet advice from the popular TV talk-show host’s longtime personal trainer — the man who, she writes in the book’s foreword, “changed my life.”

Consumer Reports magazine recently ranked Best Life as No. 1 in its June 2007 review of seven new weight-loss books. Neither a fad diet nor a restrictive plan, Best Life combines a motivational voice with generous calorie counts and detailed fitness guidelines. The book is a weight-loss tool kit, filled with user-friendly aids such as 75 recipes, a weekly meal plan and food-buying guides.

With its reassuring “let’s-take-this-slow” tone, Best Life allows you to wade, rather than plunge, into dietary waters. Greene believes that most weight-loss plans fail because they include only diet and fitness advice. People who are overweight are generally emotional eaters, according to Greene. And without understanding why you’re turning to food to deal with, say, stress, loneliness, anxiety, guilt or shame, even the most well-designed diet is, at best, only a short-term fix.

The Best Life plan begins with a very Oprah-esque examination of the reasons you want to lose weight, why you’ve been unable to maintain weight loss in the past and the psychological reasons you experience hunger despite third helpings at the buffet line.

Only after this self-reflection do you ease into phase 1. There’s no calorie cutting here; the focus is on developing healthy habits — drinking lots of water, eating three meals and at least one snack a day, avoiding food two hours before bedtime, taking a multivitamin and bumping up your activity level.

After a month, if you’ve been dropping a pound or two a week, Greene suggests you stick with phase 1 for several more weeks. Otherwise, you move on to phase 2, where the calorie crunching begins. Now you eliminate six problem foods — such as soda, fried food, white bread and regular pasta — from your diet, replacing them with more healthful alternatives. Physical activity is increased to three calorie-burning sessions of 30 minutes or more. The goal in this phase is to lose a steady pound or two a week.

After four weeks, if you’re within 20 pounds of your goal weight, you move on to phase 3 and establish practices that you’ll follow throughout your life. While you keep swapping high-fat, high-calorie foods for leaner options, you’re able to reintroduce small amounts of banished foods in the form of “anything goes” calories.

Dietary recommendations: These vary by activity level. If you’re doing 30 minutes of aerobic exercise at least three times a week, Greene suggests five servings of whole grains and starchy vegetables, six of nonstarchy veggies and fruits, two of non- or low-fat dairy, seven servings of lean protein-rich foods and five servings of healthy fats.

Caloric guidelines: Men and women who maintain a moderate level of physical activity are allowed 1,700 calories a day.

Number of meals per day: Three, with an emphasis on a nutritious breakfast and snacks

What you eat: Whole grains; nonfat dairy products; healthy fats such as olive oil, nuts and seeds; beans; a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, both fresh and frozen; and lean proteins, including white meat turkey and chicken, lean ground beef, flank steak, Alaskan salmon, eggs, tofu.

Foods that are prohibited: After phase 1, no foods are banned entirely, but Greene allows only very minimal quantities of “anything goes” foods such as full-fat dairy, fried food, refined grains and sweets with more than 8 grams of sugar.

Vegetarian-friendly? Absolutely. Greene urges making vegetables a mainstay of your diet, suggests trying a new vegetable each week (including less familiar veggies like jicama, hearts of palm and celery root), and offers recipes for vegetarian soups, entrées, salads and wraps.

Eating out? Yes. It’s OK to do so if you follow the portion guidelines that Greene provides, along with his tips on how to scan a menu for healthful food choices and hone your “hunger scale” to know when to ask for a doggie bag.

Exercise component? Greene is an exercise physiologist and certified personal trainer who specializes in fitness, metabolism and weight loss. He emphasizes that boosting physical activity is as important as cutting calories in losing weight and maintaining weight loss. He has built a fitness-incentive system into his plan; you can earn additional “anything goes” calories by increasing cardio and strength training sessions.

What the nutritionist says: “I like that Bob Greene takes a multipronged approach, focusing on fitness, nutrition and improving the composition of your diet, as well as on the emotional component of eating,” says Elisa Zied, a registered dietitian and co-author of Feed Your Family Right! How to Make Smart Food and Fitness Choices for a Healthy Lifestyle (Wiley, 2007). “What he’s offering is really a weight-loss journey, a reasonable, gradual and flexible way to make lifestyle changes. Allowing discretionary calories for things like dark chocolate is great. But while I’m certainly an advocate of whole grains, his admonition not to eat refined pasta is a bit harsh. I think life without pasta — regular pasta — is not a life worth living, and you can make white pasta the basis of a very healthy dinner by being mindful of portion control and piling on lycopene-rich tomatoes and other vegetables, along with a small amount of cheese.”

Drawbacks/negative health implications: Greene is (reasonably enough) concerned about mercury levels and other contaminants in seafood. But he takes a somewhat alarmist view, acknowledging that he has cut back to a single serving of fish a week rather than following the American Heart Association’s recommendation of eating at least two servings a week of fatty fish such as mackerel, sardines and salmon — which are rich sources of heart-protective omega-3 fatty acids. Instead, Greene recommends an omega-3 supplement. It won’t hurt, but most experts agree that fish provides more heart-healthy benefits than supplements.