17 Day Diet

If you’re sick of boring diets and expensive diets that aren’t as exciting as you thought, you might look at the 17 Day Diet. The 17 Day Diet keeps your body on its toes with 3 cycles followed by a maintenance phase. And while obviously, the 3 combined phases are only meant to last 17 days, you can repeat the process to lose anywhere from 10 to 100 pounds, according to the website.According to Dr. Michael Moreno MD, the 17 Day Diet makes dieting fun again, helping you to avoid plateaus and revamp your metabolism. I think we can all agree that everybody wants to lose weight fast. But if you haven’t noticed, fast weight loss isn’t always lasting weight loss. Just ask anybody who went on the Atkins Diet when it first came out, or anybody who has ever been on a low carb like the 17 Day Diet before. Some succeed, but most eventually flop. I’m not saying that the17 Day Diet doesn’t work, just that it’s harder than most think. So how does 17 Day Diet work?

The 17 Day Diet Cycle

The first cycle, called “accelerate”, strips your diet down in every way possible. First, you limit yourself to 1200 calories a day. In other words, no burgers. During the first cycle, you should be on a low carb diet. But when I say no burgers, I mean that even a “low carb” burger has 300-500 calories. It doesn’t fit into a 1200 calorie diet as well as you might think. This phase supposedly cleanses and removes carbs for a jumpstart.

The second cycle, called “activate”, increases the calorie limit. So if you are having a good day, you might be able to throw a low carb burger into the mix. According to Moreno, if you switch back and forth between phase 1 and 2, it keeps the metabolism guessing.

The third cycle, called “achieve”, is a sort of transition stage. It is more flexible, and it does not require the strict low carb dieting that the other 2 phases are unfortunately known for. It is a slow process that puts good carbs like fruit back into your diet, which is actually a lot healthier than the first 2 phases. But your weight loss slows down to about 2-3 pounds per week.

Finally, you reach the fourth cycle. Moreno refers to this as “arrive.” This is probably the best cycle, and it would be nice if you could still lose weight on this phase. The idea behind the maintenance phase is that you get to eat more good carbs, AND you can splurge on the weekends. This is where it gets easier. But it’s also where you don’t lose quite as much weight.

The Exercise Plan

This is where I take issue with 17 Day Diet. In the third cycle, 17 Day Diet recommends that you exercise for 30 to 60 minutes a day. But during phase 1 and 2, the 17 Day Diet recommends a “17 minute workout” that of course Dr. Moreno created himself. Unless you run like a cheetah, 17 minutes is not going to cut it. Sorry to disappoint you. But you need to keep going for at least an hour.

Should I Use the 17 Day Diet?

Yes and no. Yes it works, if you do it right. But most people will never get through phase 1 and 2. Yes, it would be nice if we could all skip to phase 4 and still lose weight. But that’s not how it works. Unfortunately, you have to struggle first. 17 Day Diet is healthy. But a low carb diet is always going to be hard. And chances are, you’ve done this before. Why pay to do it again?