You may or may not have heard the buzz going around about the new 5 Bite Diet. It was featured recently on the Morning Show with Mike and Juliet and claims to shed the pounds quickly and easily. So what does this diet plan consist of and who is behind this brainchild?
The 5 Bite Diet is from Dr. Alwin Lewis’s book titled, Why Weight Around. It has to be more of a publicity stunt than an actual recommended diet. This is what the “diet” consists of:
- Take 5 bites of anything you want at lunch
- Take 5 bites of anything for dinner
- Drink as much of anything as you want, so long as it does not contain any calories whatsoever
- Take a daily multi-vitamin
- Get a bit of protein a day “on average”
That is the complete 5 Bite Diet Plan. The good doctor says that once you’ve been on the diet for 3 days you will no longer get those hunger pangs. He says your body will begin feeling full. I guess so, since it is being starved any little bit of food will make it feel full.
He goes on to say that once you’ve dropped all the weight you are wanting to lose, you can begin to eat normally again, like that’s going to keep the weight from ever coming right back on.
I can see so many people shoving down a Whopper in 5 bites at lunch. Is that healthy? Or cramming a burrito down their throat in 4 bites and sticking in a frosted brownie for a 1 bite desert. Funny, but that is the mindset. Yeah, that’s a healthy approach to losing weight…not!
Is this guy for real? This is without a doubt one of the stupidest, if not unhealthy, approaches to losing weight as there is. Will you lose weight on this plan? Absolutely! Anyone who only takes 5 bites of food is going to lose weight. It’s next door to starvation. Will you keep the weight off once you quit the plan? Absolutely NOT!
These kind of fad diets should be blown up. It only destroys people’s will’s to lose weight. They see the hype and believe it will work so they try it. But then they only set themselves up for failure when they stop and not only gain all of the weight back…but usually they gain even more than they started with. They get discouraged and give up altogether.
We could never recommend that anyone try this type of diet. How a “doctor” could recommend such an unhealthy way to lose weight is beyond us.
The bottom line here is that if you have the will power to only eat 5 bites of food at every meal, then you have the will power to lose weight in a healthier way. It’s not about how much you eat at one sitting, it’s all about what you eat.
I’d like to get your thoughts on this diet.
i have tried it for 3days and its not a big hardship and i have lost 4 lbs i will stay with it love it.
I have been on this diet for 5 weeks now. The first week I lost 11 lbs which was fantastic, but each week thereafter, I have only lost 2 lbs per week. When I asked Dr Lewis on his forum for an explanation as to why I was only losing 2 lbs per week instead of the 15lbs per week that he claimed, he basically accused me of lying about what I was eating. I was extremely disappointed in the lack of support (which is what his forum is meant to be for) and noticed that in other instances in the forum when others had low weight losses and didnt fit in with his claims he would say they were lying about what they were eating. He obviously feels quite threatened when people don’t lose alot of weight each and every week. Having said that, there are others who DO indeed lose alot of weight each and every week…perhaps they are heavier than myself…I don’t know.
I think the diet is a good idea because after all it is the same as what you would be eating if you had a gastric by-pass and that is considered the norm these days, so why would you knock something that essentially has people eating a similar amount but without the surgery? Do you consider a gastric by-pass to be unhealthy? Most people don’t. Most people and doctors included in the field call a gastric by-pass life saving certainly not unhealthy as you do.
I have not felt hungry since I started this diet and even though I am only losing 2 lbs a week on this diet, I am going to continue. The average weight loss for a gastric by-pass patient is 10lbs a month, so I’m not that far off from the average gastric by-pass patient.
I’d suggest you do a bit more re-search into your claims before you go spouting off that Dr Lewis’s method is unhealthym infact, why dont you try it yourself?
Where you come up with me saying that that gastric by pass surgery is unhealthy is beyond me, but that is completely irrelevant to this “diet”.
This is yet another example of an unhealthy fad diet that only leaves people in worse shape than they were before they started it.
I’m glad you feel that you found the best way to lose weight, (and I’m happy for your success) but once you stop this diet you will find yourself putting the pounds right back on, unless you make permanent lifestyle changes in how you eat and exercise. And therein lies the number one problem. This diet simply is NOT a long term healthy solution to controling ones weight.
I have been on this diet for over three months. When you stop ANY diet and you haven’t changed you behavior, you will gain it back. Believe me, in the last several decades I’ve tried them all. But I can’t explain the mind-shift I’ve had with this one - wow. I had resigned myself to being matronly, obese and unhealthy for the rest of my life but something has clicked with this and it’s amazingly freeing and I’m not hungry except when it’s time to eat.
And Linda - hang in there. I lost a lot the first week and then have lost about 2-3 pounds a week steadily after that, which is reasonable. Just go on with your life and you’ll turn around and delight yourself with what you’ve accomplished.