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The Cheaters Diet"Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night...wait! That is the curse of the werewolf. Unless you are prone to howl at full moons and get a little behind with the shaving duties, this has nothing to do with you. Dieters however who find their food cravings to be the bane of their existence, (okay, we are done with the werewolf references, I promise) then the Cheaters diet may be the one for you. How can you fail at a diet that says there is no failing from the very start? Too many of our diets say - you can eat this, this and this and nothing else and then try to staple our rather reluctant and pudgy feet to a treadmill and expect us not to rebel. How could you not end up shouting out the window, offering to bribe the neighbor's kid to trot to the store for a mallow mar for you? If you are slogging away on the treadmill and calculating the effort it would take to get the dog's biscuit from him, your diet is too restrictive and doomed. Come to think of it, the dog is in trouble too. Enter the Cheaters Diet: a Little History During the weekdays, you will eat healthy foods and get as much exercise as you can- (simple little tweaks, no pudgy feet are ever stapled to treadmills) And then comes the real big bonus, for 36 hours you get to eat non diet foods - like gooey cheese pizzas and crunchy potato chips. And, unless you have suddenly developed an oddball taste for them, you can keep your mitts off the dog's biscuits and nibbles. The only foods that you are not allowed on your cheat days are those that may trigger a binge. So, if you know that one single taste of brownie is going to set you off on this wild sugar frenzy, don't eat brownies at all. Simple! Cheaters Diet: Pros The food that is encouraged throughout the week is healthy with an emphasis on Mediterranean type food including plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, low fat dairy, (yogurt especially) and peanuts. Another tactic is the plate method- you fill ½ of your plate with the fruit or vegetable of your choice. The remaining ½ is divided equally between lean protein and whole grain. The plan recommends that you use the plate method for the three meals and two snacks that are suggested for each day.
The Cheater's Diet Cons: Experts have some concerns about the concept of cheat eating through the weekend, even when it is "controlled" cheating and the rest of the week is fairly healthy. For some people, it is either all or nothing, so they are either dieting or they are eating like a maniac and there is no control involved. If you are eating three or four times the amount that you should during your cheat days, you can easily negate all of the hard work that you are doing during the week. There is also some debate over the safety of the suggested supplements, although Rivas does say they are purely optional and the diet plan will work fine without them. Links for the Cheaters Diet:
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