Want to lose weight by the weekend? A new diet promises you will in four days – pizza included!
For most of us, dieting attempts go something like this: day one, we’re raring to go. Salad and rice cakes? Let us at ’em. Water instead of alcohol? Fine. But by week two we’re over it. Porridge instead of toast; hot water instead of a latte? No thanks.
It’s with this apathy in mind that Dr Ian K. Smith, one of New York’s highest-profile nutrition experts, created a weightloss plan for those of us with short slimming attention spans.
Smith’s book, The Fat Smash Diet, topped the New York Times Best Seller List and his latest, The 4 Day Diet, has a legion of celebrity followers, including Tyra Banks (who is said to recommend it to the girls on America’s Next Top Model) and Whoopi Goldberg. It sounds promising, but can we really expect to be thinner by Friday?
“Absolutely,” Smith tells Grazia. “My plan of good, healthy foods in realistic portion sizes means you should lose at least two kilos in four days.” And if you want to lose more after that, Smith has devised a mix of subsequent eating plans, each four days long. You can follow the diet for as long as you like, and expect to lose up to six kilos each month. The key, it seems, is in the variety. “The No.1 reason why people fall off diets is because they get bored of eating the same food. I discovered that most people can stick to something for four days before their enthusiasm wanes. It’s a doable amount of time to handle psychologically, no matter how strict the diet is.”
What’s more, mixing up your meals every four days keeps your metabolism on its toes, according to Smith. “The experience of being off-kilter is important because it means your body never gets a chance to grow accustomed to the food, so it is constantly surprised by what you eat. This is the optimal state for weightloss,” he explains.
“The more your body needs to adjust to its environment, the more energy it expends, and the more kilojoules it needs to burn to provide that energy. The more the different dieting modules force adjustments within the body, the longer it takes to reach weightloss plateau,” he says.
Smith has also included a four-day protein phase to work your metabolism even harder. “Because protein is fairly difficult to digest, your body will be working overtime to process it and the kilos will drop off."
This diet is so flexible, you can try it for four days or 40, have a day or two off in between each stage (perfect for big weekends), and even mix up the modules.
“People have busy lives,” says Smith. “If they have a holiday planned, they may want to pick an easier phase, so they can eat burgers or pizza. Then they can go on a challenging phase when they get home.”
Pizza? Days off? This sounds like our kind of diet…
Click here for the Four Day plans
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