In a perfect world, we’d all be able to lose weight at the drop of a hat, eat whatever we like and remain thin as a rail. Unfortunately, there are only a small percentage of people who are blessed with this type of metabolism. The rest of us must find a way to balance our desire to eat all our favorite fat and sugar laden foods, with the desire to look thin and be healthy.
Certified fitness trainer, Joel Marion, thinks he’s finally found the answer to this age old dilemma. In his smash hit diet book Cheat Your Way Thin, he maintains that you can have the best of both worlds: a healthy diet plan and “no holds barred” cheat days.
Granted, cheat days in diet plans are nothing new, but what is revolutionary about Joel’s plan is the way in which he uses the cheat days to enhance weight loss. Most diet plans use cheat days as a means to give the dieter a break from the strict eating plan. In Cheat Your Way Thin, the cheat day is more than just a minor break – it’s an essential part of why and how you will actually lose weight.
All of this requires a leap of faith on your part. You will have to trust Joel when he tells you to eat whatever you like during your cheat day and don’t feel guilty about it. I know this will be hard for some who are used to feeling guilty for having that contraband slice of pie or bowl of chocolate ice cream. Well, you’re free from all that guilt on this plan.
Joel wants you to eat what you want all day long, and not just for one meal. You’re absolutely free on your cheat day to indulge – as long as you don’t gorge yourself like a stuffed pig.
You’re wondering – how is this possible?
Okay, I’ll spill the beans. The secret is that there is actually physical science backing up this whole concept. It’s not just some fancy, made up gimmick designed to scam you out of your hard earned money. On the bonus Game Changer audio, Joel fully explains the science behind why cheating works so well and why your body adapts to this way of eating. I guarantee you’ll learn something here, so make sure to listen to this before reading the book.
Although informative, portions of this audio and book use diet techno babble that makes my eyes glaze over. This is a minor irritation, though. You’ll be able to understand the basic principles behind the science of this diet plan.
There’s also a Strategies audio that offers some simple tips and motivational ideas that will help you stay on track and obtain success more easily. The suggestions for how to order while eating out on this diet are very helpful.
The book gives you six simple guidelines to follow and talks about portion size.
A portion of any food on your plate should be the size of your fist. That’s easy enough to follow.
The actual diet plan involves four types of eating days: Low Carb, Low GI/GL, Higher GI/GL and Cheat Days. Cheat days are once per week. These eating methods are thoroughly explained and food lists are included.
There are three phases to the diet: The Priming Phase, The Core Phase and the Maintenance Phase. The Priming Phase gets your body ready for this change in your eating habits. You’ll be happy to hear that it starts out with a cheat day and lasts for three weeks – ending with a cheat day.
The Core Phase is where you’ll lose the majority of your weight. You can stay on this phase for as long as you like. Joel is wise in giving you lots of flexibility to choose how you’ll follow this phase. There are literally five options to choose from, although he says that most people do well with option #1. The other options are there for those rare cases where people need to make adjustments in order to get positive results.
The Maintenance Phase is ideally how you’ll be eating for the rest of your life, and yes, you get a cheat day once a week.
The point to the whole diet is that your body won’t feel like it’s being deprived of nutrients it needs to survive, so it won’t go into starvation mode and fight your efforts to lose weight. Cheat days play a major role in this.
The only thing I wasn’t crazy about is the promotion of a specific brand of protein shake that he says you should drink before going to bed. He includes this in the diet plan. While this product may be good and somewhat beneficial, I’m not sure it’s absolutely necessary in order to be successful on this diet. I mean, you could make a smoothie and drink that before bed. However, I think this is a matter of personal choice.
The Deluxe version includes: recipes, meal plans, workouts, a calorie calculator and personal consultation with Joel. If you want to have an all-in-one diet plan that includes everything you’ll need from A to Z, then go with the Deluxe version.
If you hate dieting, but feel you need to diet to gain control over your eating habits in order to lose weight, this is a great plan to follow. You will still get to enjoy eating delicious food in every phase of this diet, plus indulge your food cravings to your hearts desire. This one’s a winner.
