Published on : 11 May 20203 min reading time
One of the worst things about dieting is that it can deadly boring. Eating the same things day in day out, eating the same things on the same day every week, no variety, no eating binges. If you’re someone who actually likes food, most diets take the fun out of life.
That’s why the 17 day diet has caused such a sensation since its introduction by Dr Mike Moreno. This diet works on three 17 day cycles and a final permanent eating plan. Apart from the first or Accelerate cycle, there’s variety every day both in what you eat and the amount you eat, so you’ll never get bored with eating the same old foods every day.
This diet is great because you never need to feel hungry on it. Even in the Accelerate phase, when you restrict calories to 1200 a day, you can eat really tasty food, including as much lean meat and non-starchy vegetables as you want. You also eat a little oil and drink plenty of green tea and water every day. This first 17 day phase is like many low-carbohydrate diets and gets you off to a fast start by encouraging fluid loss and fat-burning.
The second phase of the 17 day diet is when it gets really interesting. This is called the Activate phase and it introduces the concept of calorie cycling. This means that the number of calories per day increases for several days and then decreases. This keeps your metabolism guessing about what your calorie intake will be and prevents it from slowing down. The average calorie intake for these 17 days is 1500 and two servings of grains each day are added.
In the Achieve phase of the 17 day diet, you add more grains and fruit and limit the amount of lean meat you eat. This takes you out of low-carbohydrate territory and begins the transition to an eating plan you can follow Eating can be fun on the 17 day dietpermanently. During Achieve, you can also add alcohol and snacks each day.
After these three 17 day phases, you begin the Arrive phase in which you establish your lifelong eating plan. This is a permanent cycling through the first three phases during the week, with a holiday from the diet each weekend when you can eat whatever you want to.
This diet is great, because the fairly strict rules during the first two phases force you to leave fast food and high calorie snacks alone while eating plenty each day so that you don’t feel hungry. The constant changes in what you eat keep your metabolic rate high and prevent you from becoming bored with the diet. And once you’re on the arrive level you have the variety of the first three levels during the week while at the weekend you can go out and eat what you like.
The 17 day diet is a great way to get weight off without boredom and to maintain your new weight long term.
