Category: Celebrity Diets

You have probably heard a lot about fiber lately, and how important it can be for your health. While we know about many of the overall health benefits that fiber can bring, it is also one of the greatest tools that you can use for weight loss. There are a lot of diets out there that have focused on the benefits that fiber can bring, and among the most popular is the Fiber35 Diet, which was created in 2008.

Since its release, “The Fiber 35 Diet” has been a New York Times bestselling book that outlines how to use fiber to lose weight. There are also the claims that the Fiber35 plan is not a fad diet, and allows you to change your lifestyle. You are also promised the ability to prevent a myriad of diseases and lose weight effortlessly. Are all these claims true (or at least some of them)? Let’s take a look at the Fiber35 Diet to see if it’s the right plan for you.

Behind the Fiber35 Diet

It’s all about fiber these days, as we have seen huge increases in the number of food packages that proudly shout out about how much fiber is inside. That’s because many studies have shown that fiber is largely beneficial for weight loss, as the foods can help clean out your system and are low in calories and high in nutrition. Not only that, but fiber has been shown to prevent diseases such as cancer, diabetes and more.

The Fiber35 plan was designed by Brenda Watson, who was also responsible for the Skinny Gut Diet. Watson specializes in digestive health and has appeared on television countless times talking about the issues of digestive health that most of us are too embarrassed to bring up. She has even earned the nickname, “The Diva of Digestion” thanks to her knowledge and magnetic personality.

Watson teamed up for the Fiber35 Diet with Leonard Smith, M.D., a gastrointestinal surgeon from Florida that has worked in the field for more than 30 years. The duo talks about how important fiber is in your diet, while also providing recipes and foods that you should be eating on a daily basis. Since this diet is about weight loss, as well, there are certain calorie restrictions that you need to follow.

Counting your calories alone will help you lose weight as exerting more than you take in burns fat. However, for better overall health, the focus is to increase your fiber intake. There are three phases of the diet, which will lead to significant weight loss if you follow the plan.

What to Know About the Fiber35 Diet

The biggest basis of the Fiber35 Diet is in the name, as you should be eating 35 grams of dietary fiber each day, no matter how many calories you are supposed to consume. The increased amount of fiber in your system will make you feel full for longer to keep away cravings, as well as boost your metabolism with an increased efficiency in your digestive system.

You are expected to lose quite a bit of weight in your first phase, as you will be eating between just 1,000 and 1,200 calories per day. It can be uncomfortable at first as your body might be used to eating more calories and less fiber, though you will get used to it after a few days. You break down the calories into about five or six very small meals, which should help your blood sugar and metabolism stabilize.

Over the next two phases, you will increase the amount of calories that you consume (though only slightly) after the first seven days have passed. You then change the macros of your diet to consume 25 percent of your calories from protein, 25 percent from fat and the other 50 percent from carbohydrates.

Watson claims that eating 35 grams of fiber per day will boost your metabolism to the point where you are burning nearly 250 extra calories per day. Though that will vary greatly from person to person, your metabolism should see a boost. You will also see some quick weight loss thanks to the lower calorie intake over the first week while the introduction of fiber should clear out your digestive system.

When you are in the second phase of the Fiber35 Diet, you are expected to eat between 1,500 and 1,700 calories per day. While this should allow you to lose weight, Watson says that you can stay on this phase for as long as you wish, as it can also be a maintenance considering the amount of calories if you get to a healthy weight, as long as you can keep up with the 35 grams of fiber.

The final phase isn’t really a phase at all, as you are simply asked to eat the necessary amount of fiber suggested. You don’t have to count calories, so this phase can get a little dangerous as some people will tend to eat more than they need and regain a significant amount of weight. If you are still eating plenty of fiber rich foods, however, you shouldn’t really have cravings for high calorie foods, assuming all things have gone well so far.

What’s on the Menu?

Now that you know what you need to do for the first two phases of the Fiber35 Diet, it’s time to incorporate an eating plan. Let’s take a look at what you can expect from the first couple of days of the initial Fiber35 phase:

Day One

• Breakfast – Two Cups of Raspberries (130 Calories, 16 Grams of Fiber)
• Lunch – Two Cups of Whole Wheat Spaghetti (350 Calories, 12 Grams of Fiber)
• Dinner – Grilled Chicken Breast with Broccoli and Barley (300 Calories, 11 Grams of Fiber)
• Snacks – One Orange (61 Calories, 3 Grams of Fiber), Two Ounces of Almonds (338 Calories, 7 Grams of Fiber)
• Total Calories – 1,179 Calories
• Total Fiber – 49 Grams

Day Two

• Breakfast – Oat Bran Muffin (300 Calories, 6 Grams of Fiber)
• Lunch – One Cup of Split Peas with One Cup of Black Beans (450 Calories, 31 Grams of Fiber)
• Dinner – Six Ounces of Smoked Salmon with Baked Potato (300 Calories, 3 Grams of Fiber)
• Snacks – Three Cups of Air Popped Popcorn (100 Calories, 4 Grams of Fiber)
• Total Calories – 1,150 Calories
• Total Fiber – 43 Grams

Meat is still on the menu, even though there is not much fiber to be found. Still, there are a lot of lean meats that are going to be good for you and low in calories, so you don’t have to go fully vegetarian like some other high fiber diets might want you to do. Some of the other foods that are high in fiber and low in calories that you should be aiming for include pears, bananas, strawberries, oatmeal, bran flakes and baked beans.

There are a lot of substitutions that you can make throughout the day. Eating more beans instead of cheese while having fruit or popcorn instead of chips will add up. Plus, there are a lot of people that love pasta, which is very much part of the Fiber35 Diet. Just make sure to watch how many carbs you’re taking in with a pasta dinner, though.

Summing it Up

We all know that calories make up the biggest part in losing weight, and one of the things about the Fiber35 Diet that you shouldn’t take to gospel is how many calories you’re eating. How much you need to eat to still lose weight at a healthy pace (one or two pounds per week) really depends on a lot of factors. This includes height, current weight, gender, activity level and even more. So don’t stick to the 1,000 to 1,200 calorie range without speaking with a doctor first.

Another big part of a healthy diet is to exercise, which is highly encouraged with the Fiber35 Diet, and that’s always a positive. Watson suggests that you should be getting 30 minutes per day of cardiovascular exercise, three times per week at the minimum. With the high amount of fiber, you should have more energy for workouts and be able to get through them more easily.

There are quite a few things to like about the Fiber35 Diet as it promotes eating healthy food while also adding exercise and taking out sugary or processed foods. Those are automatic signs of a good lifestyle change diet, and the first week is the only one that’s really restrictive. The only negative really is the amount of calories that are suggested, as it varies so much.

Overall, the Fiber35 Diet is a good plan that will help you fight cravings and promote a healthy digestive system. Though it might not be fun for the first few days when you’re slashing calories and heading to the bathroom more often, it’s only temporary. As long as you stick with the plan for the most part, you should be able to lose weight, no matter how much you are trying to lose.

You may not have heard of candida, which is a yeast that causes more fungal infections than any other fungus in the world. Candida is found in your gut, and feeds off of sugars. Since so many of us happen to eat a lot of sugars, candida can grow pretty quickly. There are more factors outside of diet that happen to cause candida growth, but that’s the main property.

Now there is a diet that targets candida problems, which include fatigue, fungal infections, poor memory, digestive issues, yeast infections and much more. It’s called the Candida Diet, and many people are trying it out to help their overall health. Not only that, but the diet has claimed to be a great way to lose weight on top of all the benefits. Are the claims true? Let’s look at the Candida Diet to weigh the pros and cons, seeing if the plan is all it’s cracked up to be.

Behind the Candida Diet

There are many different symptoms for having candida in your body, but the one that we are concerned with the most is the inability to lose weight, and too much retention of water. There are a few treatments for candida, but the best way to tackle the problem is by changing the way you eat. That’s where the Candida Diet steps in, and the most popular plan was developed by Dr. Eric Wood and Lisa Richards.

The plan is a five-step program that lasts for 60 days, eliminating candida and allowing you to lose weight. There is an official book that covers the entire program called “The Ultimate Candida Diet Program”, and it usually retails for $25 to $35. You don’t necessarily have to buy the book to get the basics of the program and know what foods to eat and avoid, though it doesn’t hurt to have a handy guide around.

While there are five steps in the program, there are three main steps to follow during the Candida Diet. The first is the detox stage, which is actually optional. During this time, you will be avoiding most foods while focusing on drinking plenty of water. You can still eat, though the diet is made up mostly of salads and vegetables with plenty of spices and oils. It’s certainly not the most extreme cleanse, especially since it only lasts for a couple of days until you start to feel better.

The next stage of the Candida Diet is attacking your candida problem head-on. You start to add more foods to create a balanced program, most of which will help you fight candida (we’ll get to those foods in just a moment). While some people will be able to get rid of their candida problem after a couple of weeks, the creators of the program warn that it could take up to six months.

After eliminating candida, the final stage is reintroducing different foods to your body. You don’t want to start eating the foods that gave you the candida problem in the first place, so you focus on a low amount of sugar. Most of the sugars that you will eat during this time are natural sugars, coming from fruit, and beans are added back to the diet. The creators of the Candida Diet say that once you have gone through the entire process, you won’t even want to go back to your old way of eating.

What’s on the Menu?

After getting into the second stage of the Candida Diet, there are some foods that you need to target and others to stay away from. Here are some of the foods that you should be eating to help treat your candida.

• Broccoli
• Brussel sprouts
• Celery
• Kale
• Spinach
• Tomatoes
• Avocado
• Lemon
• Buckwheat
• Quinoa
• Turkey
• Eggs
• Chicken
• Salmon
• Yogurt
• Butter
• Sunflower seeds
• Almonds
• Coconut
• Olive oil
• Spices
• Stevia
• Olives

There are actually more foods than what was listed, which actually makes this a somewhat easy diet to follow. Despite having to cut out a lot of foods, there are still plenty to pick from, with chicken, fish and turkey all being nice staples to work around. There are other foods that you can eat once in a great while such as rice, berries, watermelon, peas, potatoes and beef, but try to limit those. As for foods you shouldn’t touch on the diet, here are some examples:

• Bananas
• Grapes
• Rye
• Wheat
• Pork
• Tuna
• Cheese
• Milk
• Peanuts
• Cashews
• Ketchup
• Canola oil
• Margarine
• Sugar
• Soda
• Juice
• Beer
• Syrup
• Agave

There are some surprised on there such as peanuts, bananas and grapes since they are typically pretty healthy, but they don’t fit into the Candida Diet. Now putting it all together, here is a sampling of what you can expect to eat during the first few days of your Anti-Candida phase of the diet.

Day One

Breakfast – Turkey and sage breakfast patties (225 Calories)

Lunch – Green chili chicken stew (350 Calories)

Dinner – Four ounces of steak with avocado and salad (410 Calories)

Snacks – One ounce of almonds (160 Calories)

Daily Total – 1,145 Calories

Day Two

Breakfast – Apple and walnut yogurt parfait (250 Calories)

Lunch – Veggie frittata with peppers (370 Calories)

Dinner – Four ounces of chicken with mushroom sauce (340 Calories)

Snacks – One cup of greek yogurt (130 Calories)

Daily Total – 1,090 Calories

Day Three

Breakfast – Cinnamon coconut crisp cereal (200 Calories)

Lunch – Four ounces of grilled chicken with walnut sauce (300 Calories)

Dinner – Three ounces of salmon with avocado rolls (450 Calories)

Snacks – Deviled eggs (250 Calories)

Daily Total – 1,200 Calories

What to Know About the Candida Diet

As you can see from the menu, there are plenty of good foods to select from, and they are all pretty low in calories. This means that not only will you be able to treat your problems with healthy foods, but those calorie counts will almost surely allow you to lose weight. It’s suggested that you eat at least 1,200 calories per day, though some can eat a lower amount if they are smaller with less weight to lose.

Another thing that you should be doing while on the Candida Diet is taking probiotics. There are plenty of supplements out there that you can take (without buying from the official site) to help you out. The creators of the Candida Diet suggest that you should be taking probiotics that have the maximum amount of bacteria to fight candida.

There have been some critics of the Candida Diet out there, as they say the diet is only a temporary fix for your digestive problems, and they are likely to come back since you are still eating starchy vegetables once in awhile. Others have said that you will also get the same symptoms of candida such as fatigue from cutting out so many carbs, and they don’t like the exclusion of some healthy foods. However, there hasn’t been much evidence to support or completely debunk the Candida Diet thus far.

Summing it Up

Knowing all of the benefits that the Candida Diet could or could not do for your digestive system, the biggest thing you likely want to know about is weight loss. In that regard, the Candida Diet is a good plan to follow since it eliminates a lot of sugar, excess carbs and other junk and processed foods. Many people have found themselves losing weight too quickly on the Candida Diet, so the creators suggest you slow it down as much as possible.

Normally, those that create diets will tell you that it’s good to lose up to a pound per day or that you need to cleanse for weeks on end to bring your weight down. It’s a nice change of pace to see that the Candida Diet promotes a slow and steady weight loss that’s an added bonus to better digestive health. In the event you do find your weight declining too fast, then you can add more foods such as avocados or nuts to add calories.

While the Candida Diet was not created for the sole purpose of losing weight, most that go through with the plan will find themselves dropping weight anyway. Since you are basically cleansing out your digestive system and reducing gas and bloating, you will see a natural drop in water weight. Combine that with the fact that you’ll be taking in fewer calories, and weight should come off rather quickly.

The final piece of the puzzle is exercise, which is another thing the Candida Diet addresses. They say it’s an essential part of the plan to enhance your overall health, and light exercise for 30 to 60 minutes a day is encouraged. No matter what kind of digestive system claims that the Candida Diet makes, it’s hard not to suggest this plan to someone that is looking to lose weight and increase their health overall.

If you have ever been on a diet, you know that a lot of the popular ones claim that they will get you to stop dieting and start living. We’ve seen these promises hundreds of times, and we find another diet that makes the same promise. However, many people have jumped on this bandwagon to find success in what is known as the Beyond Diet. With nearly two million Facebook followers, people have bought into the Beyond system to try and lose weight.

The Beyond Diet was created by Isabel De Los Rios, and she released a book that detailed the diet back in 2013. Since then, it has had a massive online presence with forums and websites dedicated to losing weight through the program. Will this new sensation help you to finally break through your weight loss plateau and help you reach your goals? Let’s dig a little deeper into the Beyond Diet to see if it’s the right weight loss program for you.

Behind the Beyond Diet

Isabel De Los Rios says that she was getting frustrated with typical dieting, wondering how she could lose weight without working out non-stop or giving up the foods that she liked. According to her history, De Los Rios was once overweight and would gain back every pound that she lost while trying other popular diets. 15 years ago, she came up with her own weight loss plan to lose 30 pounds and has kept it off ever since.

It might sound to be a little too good to be true at first, especially since you don’t have to spend too much time in the gym and also get to eat a lot of foods that are normally fattening. Brownies, pizza and just about anything else that you can think of is allowed on the Beyond Diet, it’s just about limiting yourself.

To get started with the Beyond Diet, you head to their website and join the program. The Beyond Diet is not a free one, as the service is a one time payment of $47. While that might sound a bit high, there is no recurring cost, which is certainly a bonus. There are also no prepackaged meals, so be prepared to do a lot of cooking for yourself.

Once you sign up with the website, you will be asked to take an assessment. Once you have found out what type of metabolism and body type you have, you will receive a customized eating and exercise program. We can’t say with extreme confidence how varied these programs are from person to person, so we’ll have to take their word for it.

What’s on the Menu?

Most of us know that most of the weight that you lose comes from the kitchen. Having proper nutrition and controlling your calories is going to ensure that you lose weight, while getting into the gym will accelerate your weight loss. Thankfully, Beyond Diet recipes are readily available for free, so if you just want to follow the program without getting the paid customization, that’s certainly an option.

You might be curious as to what types of foods you will be eating on the Beyond Diet, so let’s take a look at the sample menu for the first few days of your weight loss journey.

Day One

Breakfast – Coconut Pancakes

Lunch – Beef and Vegetables

Dinner – Zucchini Spaghetti and Meatballs

Snacks – Brownies

Day Two

Breakfast – Banana Oatmeal Muffins

Lunch – Spicy Peanut Sauce Shrimp

Dinner – Creole Sausage Stew

Snacks – Peanut Butter Banana Shake

Day Three

Breakfast – Strawberry Banana Cheesecake Smoothie

Lunch – Chicken Stir Fry

Dinner – Italian Eggplant Casserole

Snacks – Trail Mix

Day Four

Breakfast – Eggs Rancheros

Lunch – Salmon Burgers

Dinner – Sweet and Spicy Chicken

Snacks – Spiced Oat Cookies

Day Five

Breakfast – French Toast

Lunch – Turkey and Vegetable Stew

Dinner – Chicken Tandoori

Snacks – Pumpkin Brownie Bites

Looking at this menu, you’re probably wondering how in the world you are going to eat all these types of foods without gaining a lot of weight. While the names of the foods suggest a lot of calories and fat content, it’s all in the preparation. You will notice that there isn’t much red meat at all, and the sugary breakfasts and desserts actually aren’t sugary at all.

It’s a good way of tricking your brain into thinking that you’re eating all of the foods that you were before, but changing the ingredients will allow you to lose weight. Though it might not taste as good as the foods that you are accustomed to, it should still be good enough to satisfy your cravings. The menu is just a small sample of what’s available with the Beyond Diet, as there are hundreds of recipes at your disposal.

What to Know About the Beyond Diet

With that original $47 investment that you’ve made with the Beyond Diet, you are only getting the customization and access to the community forum where you can speak with experts. There are plenty of other resources available through the official website that includes a few extra books. There is also a monthly guide you can subscribe you with new recipes and health news, though it’s not much of a necessary add-on.

Where most diet plans make their money is through the supplements, and that’s another part of the Beyond Diet. You can pick up healthy supplements to promote weight loss at your local drugstore, so there isn’t a need to buy the expensive protein powders or multivitamins through the website. That should be said about any diet, as well, as your options for supplements shouldn’t be limited to a diet website.

Selling supplements is always one thing that makes us wince when it comes to popular diets, and the other is not promoting exercise, which is a healthy way part of an overall plan. Exercise is not included with the plan, though people that want to add that on can pay a little extra. That extra $10 will get you six workout videos that are five minutes long, and show you workouts that you can do around the house.

There are plenty of free videos for at-home workouts if you are that concerned about not going to the gym, and even adding 30 to 60 minutes of walking per day is going to help you out a lot. The videos say that they have a $30 value and are on sale, but that seems to be a little steep judging by what you get out of them.

Another thing you need to know about the Beyond Diet is that there are five foods that you are going to have to give up entirely throughout the program. These foods are whole wheat bread, soy, artificial sweeteners, orange juice and fake butter. There is a logic behind each of these foods, so it’s nothing too crazy. The one that stands out is orange juice, but that’s because of its sugar content. However, freshly squeezed orange juice should be fine if you can find it.

Summing it Up

So what are you really getting when you sign up for the Beyond Diet? That’s the big question. With almost all of the recipes available for free online, it’s really just access to a community and a customized plan that makes up the cost. While this diet isn’t all that much different from other popular diets we’ve seen, the community aspect seems to be the biggest thing that people want to be part of.

There is a way that you can do all of the Beyond Diet for free as long as you don’t mind not getting the customized plan. It seems that there are quite a few nickel and dime procedures that we’re not a fan of, and even a monthly subscription plan for more recipes and coaching for $15 per month. However, the information isn’t going to be anything groundbreaking. If you do want to try and get into the paid program and try it out, there is a 30 day money back guarantee, which is good.

The foundations of the diet are there, with a promotion of organic foods, less red meat, less sugar and boosting your metabolism. We wish there was a little more exercise incorporated into the plan, but this is a diet that is trying to appeal to people that don’t want to go to the gym. You’ll be talking with a lot of people that are trying to go on the same program as you, but again there is another free avenue by following Beyond Diet on social media.

Overall, the Beyond Diet is nowhere near the worst diet out there. There are more effective all-around programs out there, though, and a lot of them are free. If the full information was cheaper (or free), then the Beyond Diet would come with a higher recommendation.

Detox diets have been all the rage for years now, with some people saying that they don’t work while others have sworn by them. No matter which side of the fence you are on, there are always a lot of people willing to give these types of diets a try for quick weight loss. Most of the detox diets around claim that they will help you lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time, though how much of that weight is actually fat varies greatly by person.

Another detox diet that is making these bold claims has picked up a lot of popularity in the past couple of years. It’s known as the Martha’s Vineyard Detox Diet, and the creators says that you will be able to lose 21 pounds in just 21 days. So what makes this detox diet different from all of the others, and will it really help you lose that much weight in such a short amount of time? Let’s take a deep look inside of the Martha’s Vineyard Detox Diet to see what it includes, and what type of results you can realistically expect.

Behind the Martha’s Vineyard Detox Diet

The Martha’s Vineyard Detox Diet was created by Dr. Roni DeLuz, a graduate of Fairfield University that started off in the nursing world. DeLuz started a holistic retreat back in 1996 that she has been in charge of ever since, and the retreat has been a big promoter of detox diets. DeLuz says that she has tried many detox diets herself, and that hers is the one that has had the best results.

Not only that, but DeLuz also says that people come to her because they are tired of trying to exercise and diet to lose weight. After getting some clients from the world of athletics, DeLuz decided to write several books on the topic. In the years since, DeLuz has appeared on all sorts of television programs and radio shows promoting her diet. As for her clinic, there are many different avenues to get into contact with them.

The first program of the Martha’s Vineyard program allows you to stay at home and contact someone at the clinic over the phone every two hours while still getting a detox plan. There is also the program that allows you to walk into the clinic but stay at your own hotel, showing up to meet with coaches daily and participate in light exercise.

There are also more strict detox plans where you stay at the clinic for seven, 14 or 21 days where you get coaching and spa treatments. The one that we want to focus on is the stay-at-home program, since the others can cost up to thousands of dollars. Unless you are dead serious about detox diets or have a ton of money, you’re probably not going to go with those options.

What to Know About the Martha’s Vineyard Detox Diet

Get used to drinking a lot of water while on the Martha’s Vineyard program, as you will be drinking up to 48 ounces per day. Not only that, but you will also consume up to 40 ounces of tea and 16 ounces of soup with 32 ounces of green smoothies as the icing on the cake (that you won’t be eating). There is no processed food, any other soft drinks (including coffee), meat or basically anything that’s not a vegetable.

During the 21 day program, there is a strict schedule to adhere to. DeLuz suggests that you use the Martha’s Vineyard supplements, with the 21-day pack costing around $200. You can technically do this plan without the supplements (we’ll just say supplements in the schedule). As for the vegetables you will be consuming, think of leafy greens for the most part. Outside of that, you can have carrots, eggplant, onions, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and garlic. You can also have berries if the smoothie calls for it.

• 8 AM – Supplements, one ounce of berries mixed with water and one cup of herbal tea.
• 10 AM – An eight ounce glass of water blended with vegetables.
• 12 PM – Eight ounces of juiced vegetables and four supplements.
• 2 PM – An eight ounce glass of water blended with vegetables.
• 4 PM – An eight ounce glass of water blended with vegetables.
• 6 PM – One cup of vegetable soup (pureed), one cup of broth, four supplements and a cup of herbal tea.
• Bed – Three supplements, one ounce of aloe and a warm six ounce glass of water.

For most, that seems like the type of schedule that you would stick to if you were sick, not trying to lose weight. Keep in mind, you have to repeat this every single day for 22 days. Not many people will be able to stick with the plan of drinking vegetables, tea and water without really eating anything. You can’t chew anything as part of this diet, however.

Throughout this time, you are also encouraged to not exercise (likely because of the large calorie deficit that you will be facing). There is also one more little aspect of the Martha’s Vineyard Detox Diet, though you might not be comfortable with it. That’s because the plan calls for a weekly coffee enema. Not only that, but water enemas are also encouraged several times throughout each week.

What’s After the Detox?

Even after you have finished the 21-day program, you are not completely done with the detox. Since your body still needs to time to recover from drinking only blended vegetables and fruit for three weeks, you have to ease back into a normal life. For nine days, you do what is known as the maintenance phase, and it requires you to stick to the same schedule as before, except you will be adding protein powder to your morning drinks. So technically, this is going to be a 31-day program in the end.

DeLuz says that the Martha’s Vineyard plan is “not a starvation diet,” though your stomach is almost certain to shrink after 31 days of not eating solids. While she says that following all of the rules for the diet are good for your metabolism, not eating enough calories will cause your metabolism to grind to a screeching halt for losing weight too fast, which will make regaining weight too easy for most people.

So how much weight could you lose while on the Martha’s Vineyard Detox? Let’s look at this way; if you are not going to be exercising at all, you’re going to be sedentary. If a 5’5” sedentary woman who weighs 180 pounds is going to burn 1,473 calories per day just from being alive and sleeping, that’s 10,311 calories in a week, which translates to around three pounds of fat per week, assuming no calories are eaten.

Throughout the course of the program, you are only going to be consuming around 400 calories per day from the small amount of fruits and vegetables. That means you will be losing around two pounds of fat per week, if one pound is equal to 3,500 calories. So where are the other 15 pounds that you will potentially be losing coming from? Muscle loss is a part of it due to lack of exercise and nutrition, but a lot of it comes from water. Seeing the number on the scale go down might be satisfying, but it comes at a cost.

Summing it Up

Losing six or seven pounds of pure fat in a few weeks can seem very enticing, but you need to have proper balance. It shouldn’t come at the expense of draining your body of water and nutrients while also trading in exercise for enemas and colonics. Overall, Martha’s Vineyard Detox Diet isn’t a very healthy way of losing weight, and claims of losing one pound per day are very dangerous, even if they are true.

Even if you are tempted to rush into this diet, having any pre-existing condition could lead to some very dangerous side effects. The length of this detox plan is perhaps the most glaring, as most of the detox diets that we’ve seen usually last no longer than a week. If you need to take a day and reset your system with water and smoothies, there’s nothing wrong with that, but don’t expect to be able to stick with that for an entire month.

Sticking directly to the plan is also going to be expensive, with some of the detox programs costing into the thousands. Even at the cheapest with all of the supplements and smoothie mixes, it’s still going to be a few hundred dollars. Doctors have also been quick to criticize the diet and the claims, especially as DeLuz is not actually an MD, but a holistic doctor. This might be a plan that attracts some people in the holistic world, but for a better approach to long term and healthy weight loss, plans like the Mediterranean Diet are going to be more beneficial.

Every now and then, we like to review a diet that has been featured in mass media and seems too crazy to work, but still deserves attention because of its popularity. Today, we have that in the form of the Five Biet Diet. When a diet tells you that you can lose 15 pounds in just one week, it automatically grabs your attention. Most of these diets don’t work (at least not in the long term), but a lot of people are still willing to try them if they are desperate to lose weight.

Judging by the title of the Five Bite Diet, you might think that it means that you get to eat five bites of your favorite foods on top of a healthy diet. Well, strap in tight, because that’s not actually what the plan is, and what it is might be surprising to you. Let’s dive deep (but only at least five steps deep) into the Five Bite Diet to see what it’s all about. Will it help you lose the weight you’ve been trying hard to shed? Let’s find out.

Behind the Five Bite Diet

A decade ago, Dr. Alwin Lewis of The Slimming Station came out with a book called “Why Weight Around?’ to help people lose stubborn weight. The biochemistry graduate from Tulane University came up with a radical plan that takes a lot of discipline. Lewis says that the key to losing weight is not eating breakfast at all, instead replacing it with a multivitamin. That sentence alone just made any dietician or doctor reading pull their hair out.

So now that we’ve already put one diet taboo to work, what’s next? Well, this is where the Five Bite Diet lives up to its name because you are only allowed to eat five bites of food for lunch, and then repeat that process for dinner. The kicker is that you can eat anything you want for those meals, even if it isn’t your typical diet food.

According to Lewis’s plan, that should add up to around 800 calories per day, but you must be eating some very high calorie foods and taking massive bites to get that many. It’s suggested that you get at least 1,200 per day, even if you are trying to lose weight, so this will certainly keep you deprived. Depravity is actually addressed, though, as Lewis says being able to eat five bites of whatever you want will allow you to not feel deprived.

The biggest problem with that is, what’s stopping you from just eating the entire meal that’s in front of you? If you get a large value meal from a fast food restaurant, there are going to be plenty of leftovers and you’ll have a huge test of willpower to not polish it off. The other huge problem is, most people aren’t going to be picking healthy foods if they are only getting 10 bites per day, so your nutrition will really be lacking even with the help of a multivitamin.

What to Know About the Five Bite Diet

Lewis says that you should be starting out with three days on the diet before you start to incorporate a more traditional diet. Think of it as a cleanse where you can eat whatever you want, just not much of it. Lewis’s plan got a lot of publicity when it was revealed on “Dr. Oz” back in 2014, and people have been looking to the plan for weight loss guidance ever since, with varying success.

The diet is actually similar to one that a person that has undergone gastric bypass surgery would eat, but not a lot of you reading this have more than 100 pounds to lose. One difference between the Five Bite Diet and one from a gastric bypass surgery patient is how much you can drink. If you’re a diet soda fan, you might have an easier time getting through the Five Bite Diet as you can drink whatever you want, and how much you want, as long as the drinks don’t have any calories. This will leave a lot of people trying to fill up on diet soda, black coffee and water, but that won’t help for more than a few minutes.

Some people are incredibly desperate to lose weight, and adhering to the Five Bite Diet can be downright dangerous if that’s the case. Some people will take five bites out of a fruit or vegetable twice per day, which certainly won’t give you enough calories to get by. In fact, you can expect to have a huge crash if that’s the case with your body not getting enough calories, especially if you are also adding exercise.

Speaking of exercise, that’s another thing that Lewis’s diet does not address, which is another thing that will make a dietician freak out. Incorporating exercise is a big part of an all-around healthy diet, as well as eating enough calories in a day. The Five Bite Diet…unfortunately does not hit either of those marks.

We’ve seen many different forms of fasting or cleansing, but at least something like a green smoothie cleanse is still hitting most of your nutritional needs in terms of protein and vitamins. Taking five bites out of a donut and then another five out of a fried chicken breast isn’t quite doing that for you. You will likely feel very hungry during this plan, though you can at least still chew sugar free gum to satisfy your oral fixation.

What’s on the Menu?

This is usually tell you what type of foods you can expect to be eating over the course of a couple of days, but that doesn’t quite apply here. Since you can eat whatever you want, the options for your menu are unlimited, though you have to avoid eating anything during breakfast time to keep your body in fasting mode until midday. Here’s what most people would probably pick for their three day Five Bite Diet plan:

Day One – Hamburger, French Fries

Day Two – Fried Chicken, Taco

Day Three – Pizza, Pasta

Surprisingly, that is one of the healthier ways you can go about the Five Bite Diet while still being satisfied. Hamburgers and tacos aren’t all that bad for you, while foods like pizza and pasta can still be made healthy while also being filling. As for the fried chicken and french fries, you are at least getting carbs and protein in that department that might make you feel full for a short amount of time.

Summing it Up

So what happens once you have miraculously made it through the three days (at minimum) of the Five Bite Diet? Absolutely nothing. There is no set plan that Lewis has provided for those that have gone through the program. Instead, Lewis says that your stomach should have shrunk after three days of practically starving yourself. This should allow you to not feel as hungry after the plan.

That’s not a healthy way of going about weight loss. You haven’t really taught yourself anything in terms of eating, and depending on your stomach being a little bit smaller isn’t going to last forever. Once you get back to taking more than five bites of the junk food you had been eating before, your stomach will quickly expand again. This will cause you to regain any of the weight that you had lost before.

If you had followed the plan for an entire week like a majority of the people on the diet do, you can expect to lose a maximum of 15 pounds, which is not anywhere close to a suggested pace. Also assuming that you didn’t eat healthy foods, the chances that your portions will be smaller magically afterward are slim. It’s almost a guarantee that you will regain the weight that you had lost on the plan, with many ending up heavier than they were before because of the increase in your body’s food intake.

Even if you were to follow this plan for more than a week, it would still be absolutely panned by critics everywhere. At that point, it becomes an eating disorder on the other end of the spectrum like anorexia, and that’s another dangerous game. There is a good lesson to be learned from the Five Bite Diet, and that’s about limiting yourself when it comes to the unhealthy foods that have caused any weight gain for you in the best.

Other than that, there aren’t really any positives to take out of the Five Bite Diet. It’s a crash diet plan that promises huge weight loss numbers in a short amount of time, but sets you up for failure in the long term. You need a balanced diet and to make sure that you’re getting nutrition and to make sure you’re at a healthy calorie deficit to lose weight. Both of those are thrown out the window for the Five Bite Diet, which is why you should probably look in other directions.

If there’s one thing that’s wrong with us as people, it’s that we want to see results right now. In a fast paced society, we expect things to happen quickly, and that includes weight loss. It has been no secret that people are looking for the quick fix when it comes to diets, which is why you have seen a huge rise in the cleansing community. There are seemingly hundreds of different cleanse diets out there, but the most popular lately has been the 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse.

This form of the diet was created by JJ Smith back in 2014, and even reached the top of the New York Times Bestseller List. The claims made by Smith are pretty bold, promising that you will be able to lose weight fast without setting foot in a gym and living healthy. Do all these promises really live up to the hype, though? Can you really change your body and habits in just 10 days? Let’s take a look into the 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse to see what it’s all about.

Behind the 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse

In just 10 days, Smith says that you will be able to lose up to 15 pounds by following the 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse. That’s a lot of weight in a short amount of time, and the claims also say that you will slash belly fat, reduce your waistline drastically and never crave junk food again! It sounds like drinking green smoothies is the ultimate cure-all that we have been looking for, so why isn’t everyone on this diet, and what makes Smith such an expert?

Most of the diets that we have reviewed come from people that have spent their lives as dieticians or doctors. In the case of Smith, she actually graduated from college with a degree in math. Afterward, she would get certification in the world of sports training and has appeared on countless forms of media to tell the world about her failsafe diet.

In her book that outlines the plan for the 10 day diet, Smith also offers up some recipes and advice on how to keep the weight off once you have lost some from the cleanse. Granted, you will lose weight since you are cutting out a lot of foods (especially from the junk department), but don’t expect all of that weight to be fat. In fact, it would be hard to burn more than a pound or two of fat per week without doing some hardcore exercise.

Each day on the 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse, you will be drinking plenty of smoothies that contain only raw ingredients. Some people drink up to 72 ounces per day while on the program, though you can feel free to lighten the load or add more if you feel that you need more calories. Each smoothie contains only leafy green vegetables with fruit and water, with no yogurt or any type of sugar. Feel free to put whatever type of fruits or green vegetables in the smoothies that you want, but nothing more.

Once you blend it all up, you can add a little bit of protein if you would like, though it’s not required. As for the fruits, try to stick with the standards as they will be cheaper, and don’t use too many as they can be high in natural sugar and calories compared to vegetables. Another key is chew your smoothies. That’s right…chew.

What’s on the Menu?

Now that you know how to make your smoothie (and it’s not cheap since raw fruits and vegetables tend to cost more than processed foods), it’s time to put it all together into a 10 day cleanse. This is the first phase of the plan where you cut out just about any food that you can think of that doesn’t grow directly from the earth. Let’s look at the sample diet plan so you can see which foods you can eat and which ones to avoid.

Day One – 60 ounces of green smoothie, carrot sticks, large apple.

Day Two – 60 ounces of green smoothie, celery with peanut butter, cucumber slices.

Day Three – 60 ounces of green smoothie, hard boiled egg, raw almonds.

Thankfully there is still some snacking that you can do, and even though the foods won’t take up a lot of room in your stomach, they are at least filled with protein and should be somewhat satisfying. However, don’t expect to ever not feel hungry while on the cleanse as gulping down the lumpy smoothie won’t be all that satisfying. You might get some strong cravings, but you are only allowed to drink water outside of the smoothies, and you can’t have any meat, sugar, carbs or processed foods.

Once you have finished the initial 10 days of the cleanse, you can finally start eating regular foods more consistently. However, this doesn’t mean that you are abandoning the smoothies as you continue to drink them throughout the day. Here are what the first couple of days will look like once you have broken the cleanse:

Day One – Three green smoothies, large salad, carrots, celery, two ounces of grilled chicken.

Day Two – Two green smoothies, four ounces of grilled fish, sauteed vegetables.

Day Three – One green smoothie, six ounces of lean meat, cucumbers, salad and almonds.

What to Know About the 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse

Transitioning back to a normal diet is a slow process and you don’t want to overdo it on the foods you had given up. Smith says the reason is because you will feel bloated, but a lot of it has to do with regaining the weight you had lost on the cleanse. You should still be replacing one meal per day with the green smoothies according to the plan, which honestly is not a bad way to start your morning with a lot of nutrients and no sugar.

Many people that swear by the 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse like to repeat the process, but don’t do that right away. Instead, you should be taking a break for a few weeks of otherwise healthy eating before jumping back into a cleanse, while making sure that cleanses don’t last for more than two weeks. Smith says that once you are back to eating normal, you should still avoid pretty much all sugar and limit red meat to a couple of times per week.

The diet for after you finish the cleanse is a good way to lose weight since the focus is away from junk food and more on fruits, vegetables, grains and lean meat like chicken, turkey and fish. So why doesn’t the diet just start up from there? Likely because losing more than two pounds per week would be hard when you’re not depriving yourself from food almost entirely, and that doesn’t look as good in a book review.

It’s not a huge secret that you should be avoiding starchy and high carb foods, high calorie fried foods, sugary drinks and cereals and anything else you would find at the top of the food pyramid. You don’t have to consume nothing but smoothies for two weeks to lose weight, but you’re almost certain to drop weight by doing so. It just isn’t in the best interest of doctors and dieticians. Regaining weight can be quick if you don’t stick to eating leafy greens primarily, though getting back into those old habits might be hard to avoid.

Summing it Up

If you tell your doctor that you want to lose weight by increasing the amount of vegetables that you are eating, they are likely going to commend you for your efforts. If you tell them that you want to lose 15 pounds in just over a week by doing nothing but drinking five pounds of pureed vegetables per day, they will likely have a talk with you.

Cleanse diets say that you will change the way you eat once you get through the process, but that usually doesn’t happen. Instead, people tend to go back to their old ways if they even make it through a cleanse at all, especially one that lasts for 10 whole days at least. The 10 Day Green Smoothie Cleanse does a good job at promoting healthy eating when you “break” the cleanse, so that’s the plan you should be following all along.

However, that part of the plan is “boring” and “unsexy” to most people who want a quick solution to their weight problem. Losing that much weight in that short amount of time isn’t going to be a permanent change, and the entire diet seems like a new way of presenting old plans. In fact, doing a cleanse of this magnitude to start a diet might make things worse.

After depriving yourself of foods completely, it makes you that much more likely to binge eat on the other side of the cleanse and put the weight back on. Replacing breakfast with one of these smoothies is a great way to get started on a weight loss program, but don’t base your entire life’s menu on them, as that would be impossible to sustain.

When you ask someone what the biggest problem area is on their body when it comes to weight, there’s a good chance that the answer is going to be their midsection. For some of us, it seems that no matter how much you diet and exercise, there is always at least a little bit of belly fat while the rest of your body might be tight and toned. A lot of it comes with age, or drinking or other lifestyle choices, while others simply store extra fat in their midsection.

After gaining weight in your midsection, it can feel impossible to get rid of. Even if you are doing sit-up after sit-up, it will only make the muscles in your abdomen bigger, but not necessarily eliminate the fat. To combat the love handles and bulging belly, famous doctor Travis Stork (from the talk show “The Doctors”) has created the new Lose Your Belly Diet.

While many of the diets that we have reviewed have been around for years, if not centuries, the Lose Your Belly Diet has only been around for a couple of months. With many people listening to Stork for health advice, does the Lose Your Belly Diet hit the mark? Let’s look more in depth to the diet and see if it might be the plan that finally eliminates the muffin top over your beltline.

Behind the Lose Your Belly Diet

You might remember Dr. Travis Stork from his time as a reality television star on “The Bachelor” for the eighth season. After appearing on the show, Stork worked once again as a physician before landing another television gig, this time as a host of “The Doctors”. Since then, Stork has been offering up health advice on all fronts, including weight loss.

Stork had already released a pair of books about weight loss with “The Lean Belly Prescription” and “The Doctor’s Diet”. This newest foray into weight loss has already made its way up the charts in dieting books and has gained a lot of popularity. In the book, you will find that one of the reasons that you haven’t been able to flatten your stomach is because of gut health, not just carrying extra fat.

Stork says that the bacteria in your stomach can affect not only the size of your waist, but your overall weight and health. Stork’s diet plan will have you eating plenty of fiber, focusing on foods like raspberries, peas, beans, artichokes and flaxseeds. Stork also says that you won’t really have to eat less than what you’re eating now, but picking the right foods for your gut health that will help you tremendously.

What to Know About the Lose Your Belly Diet

The Lose Your Belly Diet isn’t the first diet to focus on gut bacteria for weight loss, but it has gotten more attention due to Stork’s celebrity status. Having a platform to get people to realize what is happening in their digestive system has been a help, with the shocking revelation that you are carrying on average up to six pounds of bacteria in your stomach alone. If you’re not already large, that can have a large effect on your appearance, making you look bloated or sporting a beer belly.

Stork participated in a study that took people with high fiber diets and low fiber diets. Those that were on the high fiber diet showed very little digestive problems compared to the people on the low fiber diet. With less inflammation, they were able to increase their metabolism and lose more weight while sporting smaller waistlines. All of this while consuming around the same amount of calories.

The first tip that Stork says is to replace much of the meat in your diet with lentils or beans. Even though the calories might be the same, beans contain much more fiber. You should also be eating a lot more berries and replacing condiments like mayonnaise with hummus. The best part is the foods that Stork suggests are actually dense and filling, allowing you to feel more satisfied. That’s huge for people who have been unable to lose weight since they feel hungry so often.

While this isn’t a drastic weight loss plan like many of the diets that we have reviewed, there is an emphasis on simply feeling better. With better gut health, Stork says that you will have more energy to exercise more and not get cravings or crashes throughout the day. Good fats and protein that you find in nuts and seeds will play a big part in increasing your gut health, while also helping you feel full.

You really are lowering your risk for certain diseases when taking more fiber into your diet. With some forms of cancer, diabetes and heart disease all being the biggest targets of better gut health. Taking supplements will help add to this, even if you feel like you can’t eat that much fiber throughout the day, as every little bit will help.

Of the participants that joined into Stork’s study, people were losing an average of 1.5 pounds per week, which is well within the range of you can expect from a healthy and sustained weight loss program. Participants that stuck with the program were able to lose well over 20 pounds within just a few months, so the results were certainly encouraging.

What’s on the Menu?

So now that we know that the emphasis is more on introducing fiber instead of slashing calories and starving yourself, you’re probably interested to know what kind of meals that you’ll be eating. Here is a look at the sample menu for the first few days while you’re on the Lose Your Belly Diet.

Day One

Breakfast – Bowl of Fiber One cereal with raspberries

Lunch – High fiber bread with avocados and sliced deli turkey

Dinner – Beans with asparagus and chow chow

Snacks – Flaxseeds with roasted almonds

Day Two

Breakfast – Greek yogurt parfait with berries and quinoa

Lunch – Veggie bowl with corn, tomatoes, onion and lime juice

Dinner – Sweet potato peanut bisque

Snacks – Berries and pears

Day Three

Breakfast – Oatmeal with pine nuts, figs and light feta cheese

Lunch – Ravioli and vegetable soup

Dinner – Black bean quesadillas with avocado

Snacks – Quinoa and lentils

Getting used to cutting down heavily on meats might be hard at first for the carnivores out there. You might actually feel some discomfort at first as your gut health starts to change. As long as you stick with the program, though, you’ll be able to feel much better after the first week. There are about 20 basic foods that you need to base your meals around, with many of them coming from the vegetable group. You don’t have to completely cut meat from your diet, but it will certainly help you see quicker results.

Summing it Up

There really isn’t much new groundbreaking information that Stork says about gut health that hasn’t already been researched. The good part is, he is able to reach a larger audience to remind of the importance of gut health through his book. Since he is a television personality, you don’t even necessarily have to buy his book (which is under $20 in most book stores) as much of the information is both online in the form of articles and videos from Stork.

One major study has shown that a lack of diversity in gut microbes was a more common problem that was seen in obese people compared to those who were a normal weight. Eating poorly can affect your weight on a cellular level as certain microbes can cause you to gain weight, no matter what type of diet that you are eating. This is important research as we are learning how to eat to help our gut health.

With Stork’s book, you will get a step-by-step guide on all of the good things that you can do for your gut, and there are plenty of recipes that will allow you to diversify your diet. It’s not the easiest diet to stick to, but also not anywhere near the hardest. By following the steps and adding 30 minutes of exercise per week, this will be an effective weight loss plan that allows you to lose up to two pounds per week. Even better, it will help you lose inches around your waist, which is something we all want to see for ourselves.

A lot of experts in the field of weight loss think that they have all of the answers, and that they usually tend to be outside of the box. It can bring a lot of hope when you hear someone say that you’ve been doing dieting wrong this whole time, but that they have the right way to do it. We’ve seen countless claims like this, and we find one that has been among the most popular for more than five years.

One of the best selling weight loss books, “Dr. Gundry’s Diet Evolution” says that your genes are preventing you from losing weight thanks to generations of evolution. So how do you battle your genes and finally get down to your goal weight? Dr. Steven Gundry says that you have been thinking about plants and meat all wrong and that weight loss plateaus are actually a good thing. There are also some other tidbits that have become gospel among dieters, and that the medications you are taking probably aren’t even helping.

How does the Diet Evolution stack up when it comes to helping you lose weight? We look at some of the claims from the plan to see if it really is the right weight loss plan for you.

Behind the Diet Evolution

Dr. Gundry is a surgeon and researcher that has worked with some of the biggest universities in the United States, and has penned hundreds of articles regarding weight loss. Gundry says the reason that so many people have become overweight over generations is the ease of finding food compared to our ancestors. Many years ago, people were forced to run after wild animals and hunt them down, basically only eating for survival.

These days, you can go to the supermarket for food that you can quickly prepare, never having to go above a slow walking pace for a long period of time. Also, our ancestors didn’t have good shelter, and would have to rely on gaining fat over the summer so that they could survive the harsh winters with their extra padding. Because of that, our brain wiring has told us to eat more in the summer, even though we aren’t necessarily preparing for staying outside all winter.

This has caused people to naturally be inclined to gain weight due to evolutionary standards, and have become accustomed to overeating year-round. After years of research into the topic, Gundry created his “Diet Evolution” book that has become one of the most popular. There are certain rules to follow according to Dr. Gundry, in folksy little rhymes. Let’s take a look:

• If It’s beige, you had better behave.
• If you eat dark green, you will become lean.
• If it’s white, keep it out of sight.
• If you eat fake fats, you’ll get heart attacks.
• Weight off slow, you’re good to go.
• Weight off fast won’t last.

It’s easy enough to remember rhymes like that, and it even helped Dr. Gundry. He says that following his diet helped him lose 70 pounds, which he has been able to keep off. Gundry makes no mistake that you will have to be very disciplined while on his weight loss plan.  There are a lot of vegetables while on the Diet Evolution, but it only makes sense that changing the way you eat will finally cause you to lose weight instead of gaining it.

What to Know About Diet Evolution

There are three phases of Dr. Gundry’s program that are meant to last you a lifetime. If you follow these plans, Gundry says that your cravings for processed foods and sugar will finally be curbed and you’ll find yourself craving low calorie and high nutrition vegetables instead. Here are the three phases of the program:

Phase One (Teardown) – For the first six weeks of the diet, you will be asked to cut out a lot of the carbohydrates that you have been eating. Instead, you will focus on eating foods that are high in protein and healthy fats. There is a lot of lean meat and even more vegetables during this phase that is similar to a lot of low-carb diets that you have seen. During this time, you will not be eating any sugar, grains or vegetables high in starch like potatoes. A surprising subtraction is fruit, which contains natural sugars.

Phase Two (Restoration) – The next six weeks should see even more weight loss as your body has adjusted to not craving sugary or high carb foods. During this phase, you will decrease the amount of meats that you are eating while taking in more of the leafy green vegetables. These vegetables are very dense in calories, meaning that you can eat a lot of them while not taking in many calories at all, but still getting a lot of beneficial vitamins.

Phase Three (Longevity) – After completing the first 12 weeks of the diet, you will focus on the third phase for as long as you possibly can. This is really when you get into the caveman-type portion of the diet as you eat animal meat sparingly. There is a focus on eating more raw food, and your habit of eating vegetables should have locked in by this point. You can still eat lean meats every now and then, but certainly not on a daily basis.

It won’t be easy to make it through the first couple of phases on the plan as you will likely be changing everything about the way you eat. If you are accustomed to mowing down on meat and potatoes on a near daily basis, then this can be a shock to your system. It could cause discomfort at first when your body adjusts, but within a couple of weeks you should be feeling energized and healthier for introducing the nutrients from raw vegetables.

Not only does this diet promote weight loss, but it should also help you overall. Not eating red meat will help your heart health and avoid other diseases, and eating more vegetables will give your immune system a huge boost. Also, you will learn to exercise on a daily basis, which comes during the second phase of the program. Dr. Gundry calls for a daily weight-bearing exercise that includes 30 minutes of walking at the very least. In the rare cases that you can indulge on his plan, you must at least have exercised that day.

What’s on the Menu?

While fruits are discouraged for the most part under Dr. Gundry’s diet, you can still have them once in awhile for meals like dessert. There are certain fruits to avoid, so you should be eating tomatoes, avocadoes or berries if you are eating a fruit as a dessert. You can also indulge on chocolate now and then, as long as it is dark chocolate mostly comprised of cocoa. For the first phase of the diet, let’s take a look at what you’ll be eating over the initial three days.

Day One

Breakfast – Low fat yogurt with granola

Lunch – Bunless hamburger patty with lettuce, celery and carrots

Dinner – Grilled flank steak with lettuce and asparagus

Snacks – ½ cup of raw nuts or seeds

Day Two

Breakfast – Two scrambled eggs with light feta cheese

Lunch – Caesar salad with tuna and chicken with no croutons

Dinner – Grilled salmon with lettuce, watercress and broccoli

Snacks – ½ cup of raw nuts or seeds

Day Three

Breakfast – Protein bar (ideally low carb)

Lunch – Ham salad with arugula, pepper and onions

Dinner – Roasted chicken breast with lettuce, mushrooms and cauliflower

Snacks – ½ cup of raw nuts or seeds

Summing it Up

We have heard from a lot of diet experts that artificial sweeteners can be just as bad as sugar as your body reacts in the same way. Obviously, that won’t be part of the diet here, but leaving off fruit for the most part is a bit surprising. Not many people think of fruit as being the reason that they have gained weight, and it was because our ancestors from many, many years ago ate fruit to intentionally gain weight for the winter.

The lack of fruit in this diet is a bit surprising to some experts, but leaving in things such as certain berries and tomatoes make it less extreme. When it comes to people that have tried the diet for themselves, the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive. As of now, the book has nearly 75 percent of reviews giving it five stars, while only eight percent have been below the three star threshold. People have reported losing 20, 40, 60 or even more pounds since starting.

So will this diet work for you? As long as you stick to the plan, you should certainly lose weight as you focus on eating a diet that comprises mainly of vegetables and getting away from processed foods and sugar. Also, adding exercise makes it an all-around solid weight loss plan. It might not be the easiest diet to stick to as you try to get accustomed to the changes, but the long term benefits will certainly be worth giving this a try.

There are certain ways of eating that have been around for hundreds of years, but as we become a more global world, some of these old ways of eating are just recently becoming popular. One of those diets is the Macrobiotic Diet, which started in the late 18th century. Originally, the diet took many of the basic principles of Buddhism, which promotes balance. The way of eating had been around for more than a century before the 1900’s when George Oshawa made it popular with a large amount of people.

Due to people trying to eat more whole foods and avoiding processed foods and meats, the Macrobiotic Diet has become more popular once again. While some have classified it as a fad diet, there are experts out there that say there are a lot of healthy properties of the Macrobiotic Diet. So how can it help you to lose weight and gain health overall? Let’s look inside the Macrobiotic Diet to see if the details will be able to help you reach your goals.

Behind the Macrobiotic Diet

The Macrobiotic Diet actually didn’t get popular at first because of how it promoted weight loss. Instead, it was a focus on treating cancer that caught the public’s attention. The idea was to focus on your overall well being instead of following a standard diet. The biggest basis of the Macrobiotic Diet is to eat foods that are locally grown, with an emphasis on whole grains, vegetables, fruits and legumes.

When eating these meals, you are supposed to balance them out for the ultimate effect of well being. Scientists have said that this way of eating is not going to help you with a cancer diagnosis, but does have some good values. Some of the foods that are left out for the most part in the Macrobiotic Diet include potatoes, spinach, tomatoes and beets. Those are surprising since those foods do have healthy values, but are said to make ailments like cancer or bone disease worse.

There is a fairly standard basis of the Macrobiotic Diet that you can follow, though it can vary from person to person. Foods that don’t appear on the list should make up 10 percent of your daily food intake. Other than that, miso soup, sea vegetables and legumes/beans take up five percent each. Vegetables should be around a quarter of your intake with a majority coming from whole grains like brown rice. There’s a little leeway as you can indulge sensibly a couple of times per week.

So why does that type of eating sound so familiar? That’s because the food list looks a bit similar to the Food Pyramid that we’ve all come to know throughout the years. The difference is the foods that appear at the bottom, and the United States Department of Agriculture has even acknowledged that the Macrobiotic Diet is similar enough to their recommendations that the plan is completely healthy.

There are stricter forms of the Macrobiotic Diet that didn’t bring enough nutritional value, but thankfully it has been adjusted to an all-around healthy plan. Some notable foods that were left off of the Macrobiotic Diet plan completely include meat, sugar, poultry and dairy. Soft drinks and spicy foods are also not on the menu, so there does take a lot of work to follow the plan to the letter.

What’s on the Menu?

Like a lot of the diets that we’ve reviewed, cutting out sugar, soft drinks and processed foods is really going to help you lose weight. Knowing that we have to avoid those types of foods, as well as the other ones that were surprising, we can put together a sample menu. There are many delicious foods on here if you like vegetables, though meat eaters will have a tough time following through. Here’s what you can expect to eat over the course of the first few days.

Day One

Breakfast – Whole grain cereal with steel cut oats and brown rice

Lunch – Miso soup with brussel sprouts

Dinner – Brown rice with a side salad, lentils and broccoli

Snacks – Carrots, celery, sunflower seeds

Day Two

Breakfast – Whole grain porridge with light cinnamon

Lunch – Brown rice with broccoli, beans and tofu

Dinner – Miso soup with brown rice, carrots and couscous

Snacks – Roasted almonds and raisins with carrots

Day Three

Breakfast – Vegetable wakame soup with barley miso and spinach

Lunch – Cucumber sushi with salad and tofu

Dinner – Oatmeal with sourdough bread, tea and apple butter

Snacks – Cantaloupe, broccoli and sunflower seeds

As you can tell, following the diet for an extended period of time isn’t going to be simple as many of the foods tend to repeat themselves. With a huge emphasis on brown rice, you might get sick of it after just a few days. However, many of the foods are very low in calories, especially when it comes to the vegetables and soup. This means that if you stay on the plan, you will be able to lose weight.

What to Know About the Macrobiotic Diet

Many of the popular diets out there don’t have a large online following, but there are plenty of websites, blogs, forums and more that are dedicated to the Macrobiotic Diet. This should be able to help you connect with people and learn new recipes so that you aren’t eating the same things over and over while sticking with the diet.

Another aspect of the Macrobiotic Diet is exercise, since there is a focus on your overall health and well-being. Since the plan was originally designed to battle cancer, focusing on exercise is another great way of doing that. Most of the encouraged exercise is not all that challenging, including hiking and yoga, or other forms of relaxing exercise. The usual suggestion for exercise is 30 minutes per day, and doesn’t involve any intense workout like running or weightlifting.

Losing weight is going to be an added benefit of following the diet, as long as you aren’t taking in too many calories. Most people on the Macrobiotic Diet don’t have to worry about that thanks to the whole foods that are low in calories. They also tend to be high in nutrition, and the idea is that you’ll feel better overall. It’s going to be hard not to feel better about yourself as you see the number on the scale go down.

As for the claims that the Macrobiotic Diet can beat cancer, it’s best just to ignore those claims and focus on your overall health and weight. Studies have shown that while following the diet can help you prevent some forms of cancer, it’s not a suitable treatment option if you have already been diagnosed. It’s also not suggested that children, diabetics or women that are pregnant or nursing participate in this diet unless advised by a physician.

Summing it Up

Overall, the Macrobiotic Diet is a healthy one as long as you are getting enough calories throughout the day. The plan gets high reviews from experts when it comes to helping you lose weight and also managing heart health. However, the lowest scores come from how hard the plan is to follow. With very strict guidelines for what you can or cannot eat, many don’t make it more than a short amount of time on the Macrobiotic Diet.

However, experts have warned that regaining the weight on this diet is a high possibility since people have trouble staying with the guidelines for more than a few months at most. If you are a person that is always on the go and can’t avoid eating out, then the Macrobiotic Diet might be next to impossible to follow unless you happen to live in a place with organic fast food restaurants that specialize in brown rice.

One benefit that you will find with this diet is the cost. It might be a little more for some locally grown vegetables and grains, but it will be cheaper in the long term than diets that require a lot of meat. Local food is highly encouraged, so visiting a local farmer’s market is going to take up a lot of your weekends.

If you want to be successful on the Macrobiotic Diet, switching up your recipes is going to be beneficial. Since there are so many books and websites dedicated to the diet that has been tweaked through the years, it’s not as hard these days as it used to be. Even the elimination of sugar and processed foods while adding a minimum of 30 minutes of exercise will be enough to help you lose weight, even if you don’t want to follow all of the stringent rules of the Macrobiotic Diet.

 

Do you want to lose weight and eat healthier without having to even cook or exercise? Then you might find yourself interested in the Raw Food Diet, which is a popular trend that has taken over the health industry. It might not be the easiest to follow, but people that have turned to this program have found themselves losing weight quickly. While people have been eating raw foods for their entire diet for many years, it has become more popular recently.

The idea is to avoid foods and drinks that have been cooked (yes, drinks can be cooked), focusing only on foods that have been dehydrated, blended, or not touched at all. Many of these types of foods don’t have many calories, which is why so many have been able to lose weight. There are also plenty of benefits to eating raw foods. So how are you able to shed weight and get healthy on this plan? Let’s take a look inside the Raw Food Diet to see how you can benefit from this plan.

Behind the Raw Food Diet

If you’re a fan of processed foods, drive thru windows or sugar, you might want to strap in for the Raw Food Diet as you have to give all of that up. The idea behind the Raw Food Diet is that foods are at their healthiest when they haven’t been touched. This means that foods that have been exposed to chemicals at farms aren’t allowed, but you’ll still be eating plenty of organic fruits and vegetables.

So why raw instead of cooked? When food is cooked, fans of the Raw Food Diet say that many of the vitamins and nutrients are eliminated, meaning that you don’t get benefits out of seemingly healthy foods. One thing that you will have to get used to right away is preparing food in a different way. Blenders, food processors and dehydrators are going to be used quite a bit, so some are turned away from the price alone at the start.

You can warm up some of the raw foods that you are eating, as long as it never gets above 118 degrees, as that is the temperature in which nutrients are cooked away. These are nutrients that are said to help your immune system, making you healthier overall. About 80 percent of the calories that you consume on a daily basis during the diet will be made up from raw foods. Mostly a vegetarian diet, you can still eat meat while on this program. Unfortunately, there isn’t much raw meat that you can consume outside of sushi, but dairy is still allowed.

Like most vegetarian diets, the basis of this plan is to focus instead on fruits and vegetables instead of processed foods. Other large components of the Raw Food Diet include nuts, grains and seeds. If you are already eating a mostly vegetarian diet, you will find it much easier than those that are used to eating mostly meat. If you think that you are ready to give up meat for the most part, it’s still going to be a good idea to take a daily multivitamin or supplement.

What’s on the Menu?

When operating at a calorie deficit, you are going to lose weight. Most diets will ask you to eat a certain number of calories per day, though there is no calorie counting with the Raw Food Diet. While the other diets will be asking you to make sure you’re eating a low amount of calories, you should be making sure you’re actually eating enough calories to get through the day, as many of the foods on the list are very low in calories.

So if you want to lose one pound of fat per week, you should be operating at a 500 calorie deficit on a daily basis. This typically means that you should be eating 1,200 to 1,800 calories per day depending on your size. Let’s take a look at a sample menu from the Raw Food Diet so that you can get an idea of what you’ll be eating. There aren’t many foods to pick from, so this can be pretty hard to follow.

Day One

Breakfast – Green smoothie comprising of bananas, oranges, apple, spinach, water and lemon juice

Lunch – Salad with mock chicken

Dinner – Raw chili

Snacks – Raw granola bar and fruit parfait

Day Two

Breakfast – Raw Granola

Lunch – Veggie Burgers

Dinner – Raw spaghetti

Snacks – Raw oatmeal and banana

Day Three

Breakfast – Bowl of varied fruits

Lunch – Japanese rolls

Dinner – Raw crackers and cheese with side salad

Snacks – Raw fudge and fruit plate

That’s not a lot of calories on a daily basis, with most of the popular raw recipes only making up meals that are around 200 calories. Also, the recipes can be a bit difficult to follow since you will need to dehydrate or process much of your food. You can add more simple foods that you don’t need to prepare like raw fruit, but it’s still going to be a good idea to blend foods together to make the diet more bearable.

What to Know About the Raw Food Diet

So now that you know which foods you should be aiming for while on the Raw Food Diet? What all do you have to avoid? Literally anything that has been cooked, anything that contains sugar or flour, any caffeine and anything pasteurized. Immediately, that cuts out a lot of foods that you can choose from, making this a hard plan to follow. Even though you won’t be cooking any foods, there is still a lot of preparation time that you will have to use on the plan.

You can still create your own versions of foods like potato chips and spaghetti, but it can take hours to prepare. There are plenty of delicious options that will be nutritious, though it’s the cost of kitchen utilities and amount of time that turns people off. However, there are a lot of benefits if you can manage to get your way through the Raw Food Diet.

For starters, people have been able to lose weight on this plan, Studies have shown that the average body mass index and body fat percentage were much lower for those that followed the Raw Food Diet. Another study showed that people that hadn’t already been on the Raw Food Diet lost around 10 percent of their body weight after just three months when eating raw foods 80 percent of the time.

For those that were able to follow the diet for several years, the weight loss actually turned out to be a little much. A quarter of all women in one study showed that they were actually underweight due to the lack of calories from the Raw Food Diet. For that reason, doctors have said that while eating raw foods was beneficial, sticking to a diet of nothing but raw foods was going to be damaging due to the lack of calories.

Still, there are plenty of good benefits to increasing the amount of raw foods that you eat. With the increase of vitamins and nutrients from raw foods, you will see an increase in your immune system health and digestive system. Raw foods have been shown to benefit people that suffer from ailments such as joint pain, cancer, heart disease, hormonal imbalances and much more. What makes the Raw Food Diet slightly easier to follow is the fact that your options are more varied than on the Vegan version, but it can still be difficult.

Summing it Up

How much money is it going to cost you just to get started on the Raw Food Diet? There are cheap food processors that you can find out there, even if some of the highest rated ones for the plan cost hundreds of dollars. The highest rated ones on the internet cost less than $100, but top of the line processors that also act as blenders can cost upwards of $600. Add in a food dehydrator, and that can be an extra $150 or so.

Many swear by the Raw Food Diet and have seen some tremendous benefits, and the diet itself has gotten some high reviews for weight loss. However, many will find it hard to stick to the plan, giving it very low marks in that regard. Those that have spent big money on the plan in hopes of losing weight have found themselves tired of repeating the same meals on a near daily basis. After giving up on the plan, you end up with some expensive paperweights in the kitchen and probably a rebound in your weight.

If you can stick with it, this is a good plan for weight loss and overall health. Just make sure that you aren’t eating 100 percent of your foods raw. There still has to be a little wiggle room, so 70 to 80 percent is the suggested amount. You might be desperate to lose weight, but you have to be extremely dedicated to stick on the Raw Food Diet for an extended time.