Melissa Hershberg, MD, a practitioner of preventative medicine at The Toronto Clinic, created The Hershberg Diet. She created this diet to help people to lose weight quickly as well as being easily able to maintain their weight for life. Hershberg claims that you will notice the results after just one week on her plan. The book itself is one of the smaller ones I have come across - only 205 pages.
This program claims it is not another fad diet but is a weight loss system based on hard science concerning macronutrients and thermogentics. Normal diet components like protein, carbs and fat fall under three macronutrients that are recognized by you, me and most health professionals. She has identified a 4th macronutrient. Her findings change the way we look at food and eating and how we interpet nutrition labels. Apparently by eating foods high in the fourth macronutrient dieters can eat as much as they like and still lose weight without experiencing hunger or deprivation. The book explains how you can determine which foods are highest in the fourth macronutrient so that you can lose weight quickly and easily.
The fourth macronutrient is WATER. I was't going to lead you on through this write up without just getting it out there.
The diet has four phases with the first being the most restrictive so that dieters are able to see fast results. This phase of the diet is moderately low in carbohydrates and emphasizes lean proteins and non-starchy vegetables, but high in water content.
Water as bottled water or from your faucet, is not what this diet is about. Water in the foods we eat are what will make us fuller and lose weight faster. One example in the book is if you took a bag of raw spinach put it in a pot. The pot would be filled with spinach - but start cooking that spinach (not adding water) and the spinach reduces to just aobut covering the bottom of the pot - majority of the water absorbed.
Another facet of this diet is eating "Hotty Foods" - foods that encourage the body to heat up and burn calories. The book claims that some of these "Hotty Foods" can even activate fat-melting hormones. This is where the thermogentics come in. "Hotty Foods" are foods that are harder to digest and metabolize and as a result burn calories. Calorie burning "Hotty Foods" count protein as #1, then complex carbs then low-fiber simple carbs then fat.
This diet allows alcohol (maybe I can have that Marguerita on Cinco De Mayo!?!)
The Four Phases:
Phase 1: Initiation Phase
Phase 2 : A Wider Selection
Phase 3: Congratulations
Phase 4: Maintenance
The Initiation Phase is a two week plan that is suppose to jump start your weight loss, you will notice a significant change in your body, high sugar cravings will be reduced and your body will begin to look and feel better as fat is lost and water retention reduces.
All plans have meal plans that are laid out for use exactly as listed or you can make adjustments and just use as a guideline. Phase 1 & 2 each have 14 Day Meal Plans, Phase 3 has a 7 Day Meal Plan. There are also several recipes that are included that can be incorporated into the different Phases. I have listed three days of diets as listed in book as examples of the meal plan for the Induction Phase.
Day 1
Breakfast: Coffee with skim milk, Basic Egg White Omelette with asparagus & Mushrooms
Snack: Green Tea, Nectarine
Lunch: Fat-Free sliced deli turkey (3oz), slad greens with veggies of choice, low fat Italian dressing
Snack: Carrot and celery sticks, low fat ranch dip
Dinner: Small green salad, low fat dressing, Tilapia pockets, green tea
Snack: Yogurt
Day 2
Breakfast: Coffee with skim milk, Basic Smoothie
Snack: Hard boiled egg whites, tomatoes
Lunch:Basic tuna salad,salad greens with, low fat Italian dressing, apple, green tea
Snack: Breakthrough mushroom soup
Dinner: Asian style Cucumber "Hotty" :amb Chops, steamed veggies
Snack: Diet Jello
Day 3
Breakfast: Coffee with skim milk, Fat Free cottage cheese, berries with Splenda
Snack: 2 tangerines
Lunch: Cobb Salad, green tea
Snack: Basic Smoothie
Dinner: Basic fish with grilled veggies, cherry tomatoes with chopped green peppers & cucumbers,Basic Balsamic dressing
Snack: Grapefruit with Splenda & Cinnamon
The foods suggested for the Induction Phase as high in water content and the best for weight loss. There is no counting or tracking required, meals should be of reasonable size. enough to take care of te hunger but not to over stuff you. As with any diet being prepared by stiocking your fridge with foods needed so that you do not stray off die is recommended.
In the Induction Phase, the book breaks down all the foods allowed but takes it one step further by pointing out the foods that have more water content (the fourth macronutrient), which if concentrating on using these foods they will asssit more in weightloss and "Hotty Foods" (the thermogenics):
VEGGIES: Asparagus, bok choy, broccoili, brussel sprouts, burdock, celery, collard greens, cucumber, endive, green beans, green onions, hearts of pal (canned), kale, leeks, lettuce, pickles(not sweet varieties), scallions, vegetable broth, zucchini, all herbs.
FRUITS: Lemon, Lime, berries, grapefruit
ANIMAL PROTEIN: Egg whites (or low fat egg substitutes), beef or chicken broth
VEGETABLE PROTEIN: Vegetable broth, miso soup
DAIRY: None
DRINKS: Water, green tea, black tea
FATS: Fat Free or buttered flavored cooking spray
Looking at the list above and at the sample meal plan, the diet seems EXTREMELY RESTRICTIVE, but looking at the meal plan it seems okay. FOr the most part the meal plan includes the water based foods but also the other allowable food.
The book overs many tips - I will include during the week and is an easy read and easy to understand book (with the exception of the understanding/reading nutrition labels)- which I have just taken a photo of page and will let the outline provided explain what too look for on the label.
What the label is telling you is the the serving size does not count water content.
As with all diets....
***PLEASE CHECK WITH YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE STARTING ANY DIET ***
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