The Fat Flush diet is essentially a two in one: it’s a diet and a detox program. It is comprised of three phases: an initial, an intermediate and a maintenance phase. Because it is a cleansing diet, it has an extremely restrictive initial phase. After the diet is completed an individual will have definitely lost weight, and will also feel healthier thanks to the detox aspect of this diet.
The idea behind the Fat Flush Diet, invented by Ann Louise Gittleman (a well-known nutritionist), is to boost metabolism, decrease water retention and promote fat loss.
The components of the diet include:
- Approximately 200g of protein per day (lean meat, fish, eggs)
- Fruits and vegetables
- Omega-3-rich fats
- Specific spices to speed up metabolism (ginger, cayenne, cinnamon, mustard)
- A food supplement in the form of pills: Gamma linolenic acid (GLA). The creator of this diet says these promote an even better fat loss
- ‘Long Life’ cocktail: consists of one tablespoon psyllium husks mixed with one part sugar-free cranberry juice and four parts water.
In the first phase of the diet, which lasts two weeks, the dieter is allowed to consume between 1,000 and 1,200 calories per day. Many types of food are cut out: the dieter is prohibited from eating carbohydrates, starchy vegetables, dairy, and even most oils, herbs and fats. Dieters are not allowed to consume any alcohol during the first phase.
Phase two of the diet allows the dieter to consume more calories, up to 1,500 per day. The same rules and restrictions as in phase one still apply. Dieters may call this the “ongoing” phase, in which they stay until they have lost all the weight they want to.
The third and final phase is the maintenance phase. Here the calories consumed per day are not increased by too much, however some grains, starchy vegetables and dairy products are re-introduced.
While this diet has received good results by ist testers, there has also been negative feedback. Health experts are concerned with the restrictive first phase of the diet, saying the calories are too low for some people, in particular men, and that while it is essentially a healthy diet thanks to the detox, it is far too restrictive.
Find out more about the Fat Flush diet.
Other effective diets include the South Beach diet, Sugar Busters, the Raw Food diet and the Mediterranean diet.
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Tags: diet nutrition weight loss