What is the Body for Life Diet and what are it's drawbacks and what are its benefits? The Body for Life diet is the creation of world-renowned trainer and founder of the nutritional company, EAS. The Body for Life plan is an intensive 12 week program of dieting and exercise that is intended to be quick and safe way to lose ample weight.
As far as macronutrients are concerned, the diet asks for about 40-50% of calories to come from protein and carbs as well. This leaves virtually no space for fats which serves a higher calling than people think. Eliminating fats will simply leave one more vulnerable to arthritis, tendonitis and even some types of cancer.
One factor that helps differentiate this approach from the rest of the pack is its aversion to food/caloric restriction. The Body for Life diet requires one to eat 6 small meals a day every few hours or so. Carbohyrdates can come from potatoes, brown rice, fruit and plenty of others and need to be served in a portion no larger than a fist. Even vegetables can be eaten in large quantities since they happen to be low in calories. Protein servings should consist of lean cuts of beef, chicken, pork, or fish and each serving should be proportional to one's own palm. In order to help kick-start the metabolism in the morning, Phillips recommends eating a meal especially rich in carbohydrates.
While some may think this sounds like too much food blended with all the 'wrong' dieting principles, it's actually soundly rooted in science. With smaller meals eaten throughout the day, one will ensure that blood glucose levels are stable as opposed to the common phenomenon that follows a large meal: a spike in insulin. Too many of these spikes can permanently ruin one's metabolism leading one to gain weight much more rapidly than ever before. Secondly, by learning to eat this many meals, one also learns not to let the body dictate when it is time to eat. By allowing the body to become hungry, one is feeding suspicions that the body is retreating into 'starvation mode' and must hoard fat and burn perfectly good muscle tissue instead in order to fuel the body. By eating more, one can actually lose more, as odd as that may sound.
Another concept that helps to separate it from all of the other competing diet fads out there is its requirement for daily exercise. There must be 3 days of weight training allowed, as well as 3 cardio days. The weight training days last 45 minutes while the cardio training days last only 20 minutes. On the seventh day, one can rest and actually eat whatever it is they so desire. Regular exercise with a proper diet will produce results and other than the fact that some more unsaturated fat needs to be included, maybe even in place of some of the protein, Bill Phillip's Body for Life diet is definitely a recommended path to take. |
