If your weight loss – or lack thereof – is driving you to eat 14 doughnuts a day, then you might wonder if there's any hope for you. Speaking for myself, as soon as diet plans appear in my life, I'm hit with an uncontrolled urge to eat, eat, eat! The problem is that all the so-called 'easy ways to lose weight' are too restrictive. It seems that almost every food I love is forbidden. If that you, too? If so, you might be interested – like I am – in Cheat Your Way Thin.
Cheat Your Way Thin was discovered by a man named Joel Marion who was as happy as we are about a strict diet. His diet was:
Vegetables …
Fruits …
Lean meat …
Surprise, huh? Isn't that what most diets are (although not mine since I'm a vegan and avoid fruit because of the high sugar).
Joel Marion Gorges On Pizza – And Loses Weight!
We are not alone in truly despising a rigid diet. Joel Marion (looks great, doesn't he?) had taken an oath to himself that he was going to reform his life and develop a fabulous body. The problem was that he got tired of all the foods that would make him thin. And besides that, his results were less than exciting. In other words, nothing much was happening even though he was following the diet.
And then – you guessed it – he crashed. In one week, he ate out at an Italian restaurant and then a few days later decided what-the-hell, he'd already blown his diet and why not eat all the pizza he wanted?
Stepping on the scale a few days later he was astonished to discover that he had lost 3 pounds! Realizing that this is not the way weight loss is supposed to work, he decided to figure out what it happened. That was the origination of the Cheat Your Way Thin diet.
Now before you start screaming with joy, let's be real: you know you can't stuff yourself with pizza every day and still lose weight. But that's the biggest advantage of the cheat your way and die at: you can, well, cheat. The hardest part of any diet, at least for me, it's feeling like I'm in prison. If I know I can take a break and have some food that I really like, it's easier to stick to the tough days.
The first part of the Cheat Your Way Thin diet book is about two subjects:
The Glycemic Index (GI)
The Glycemic Load (GL)
If you're unfamiliar with these two subjects, all you need to know right now is that they are about your blood sugar and how food affects it. With the increasingly widespread epidemic of diabetes and hypoglycemia, these are critically important subjects. The effects of food on your blood sugar are the core of the Cheat Your Way Thin diet.
So What Can You Eat & Still Lose Weight?
The Cheat Your Way Thin diet Has three separate and distinct phases:
The Priming Phase
The Core Phase
The Maintenance Phase
You will not be the least bit shocked to learn that the first phase, the Priming Phase, is the strictest. It can last for up to three weeks and the only cheat days are one at the beginning and one at the end. Booooooooooo …
The Core Phase is easier to live with because you get one, hold, glorious, wonderful cheat day per week. If you want to lose weight on this diet, you stay in the Core Phase until you reach your goal weight.
The good news about the Core Phase is that there are five different plans and most likely one of them will suit you.
When you have reached your goal weight you enter the Maintenance Phase. According to Marion your metabolism at this point is "healed" And therefore you don't need to be nearly as careful. As we all know, this is the downfall of most dieters … lose the weight — gain it back — lose the weight — gain it back — etc., etc., etc.
Quick Ways To Lose Weight With Interval Exercise
If you want to lose weight faster, you can use an exercise program that is similar to the one my son followed. You alternate a "steady" cardio workout with times of very intense activity. This is called "mixed interval training" and I know this works because I saw it with my own eyes. My son decided to follow a similar exercise program and the weight just fell off.
I WAS JEALOUS! :-)
It's important to know however, that this exercise is not necessary. You will still lose weight on the Cheat Your Way Thin diet – it just won't be as quick.
What I Like About The Cheat Your Way Thin Diet
Obviously, the best part about this diet is the fact that we get to cheat. The cheating days have rules, but they're not bad ones. For example here are two of my favorites:
+ No matter what you eat you are not allowed to feel guilty. Cool, huh?
+ A second rule is that you're not allowed to plan your cheat day. For example if ice cream is your favorite food don't race to the grocery store and buy it in anticipation of your cheat day. Marion feels, and he's probably right, that if we have our ice cream in the freezer in anticipation of cheat day, we're more likely to cheat on a day when we're supposed to be following the diet strenuously.
There is a lot of flexibility, more than in most diets, because we can choose one of two ways to diet: we can count calories or we can simply pay attention to our portion sizes. Choice gives us power and makes it easier to follow the rules of any diet.
There is more flexibility than just counting calories or controlling portions. On some days we will eat a low G.I. diet, on some days we will eat a high G.I. diet and on other days we will eat a low carb diet.
Like many diets these days, the Cheat Your Way Thin diet allows us to eat up to five times a day. The theory is that eating more frequently keeps our metabolism more active, because it's repeatedly called upon to digest food. Many dietitians and doctors believe that we will store more fat if we don't eat as frequently as five times a day.
Since we will be alternating tougher diet days with cheat days, our bodies will not be able to get use to anyone regimen and therefore will have to stay active. This is the theory behind the Cheat Your Way Thin diet And it's probably correct as my son proved with his exercise program
And — no surprise — we can have all the "free veggies" we want. Personally, I love and adore veggies but I recognize that most people aren't nearly as crazy about them as I am. Nevertheless, it's nice to know that if you get really hungry there is something you can chew on to feel better.
What I Don't Like About The Cheat Your Way Thin Diet
There is only one thing that I don't like about this diet and that's probably pretty obvious: it's impossible for someone like me. Some days are low carb and high protein and on these days I would have to eat either cottage cheese or eggs [or both]. Some vegetarians eat these foods and would have no problem with this diet. However I am a vegan which means no animal products at all and therefore I couldn't succeed on those days.
CONCLUSION: The Cheat Your Way Thin Diet
Unless you're a vegan, this is a sane and sensible diet. The author has numerous pictures of people who followed his plan bands who look great – like Annette, on the left. Even on "non-cheat" days, there are a lot of foods that most of us enjoy. In other words this is not an overly strict diet. No, you can't eat pizza and Italian food every day — but you know you shouldn't really do that anyway. (Too bad, isn't it?) If you concentrate on your reasons for losing weight, your weight loss with the Cheat Your Way Thin diet should be fairly smooth.
GRADE: A
If you HATE dieting, check out the 'Cheat Your Way Thin' diet!
GFSI Audit Steritech says
14 doughnuts a days sounds very unhealthy. But this diet guide sounds very intriguing. I wonder what is the secret here. I think it is the time and the combination of foods. Who knows?
BlissPlan says
14 doughnuts a day definitely is a wee bit excessive. :-)