The 17 Day Diet,,,My Take

I had never heard of The 17 Day Diet until I recently saw a co-worker that I had not seen for a few months.  I was astonished!  She had lost about 50 pounds!  I asked what her 'secret' was, and it turns out that it was no secret at all. She has been following the 17 day diet.  Although I had never heard of it, it has been around since 2010.

This book is written by Dr. Mike Moreno.  I had never heard of him either before now.  But I'm sure he is a nice guy and a great physician.  My first thought when I heard the name of the diet, (also the title of the book) is that it sounded like another weird diet fad.  But there stood my co-worker, 50+ pounds lighter.  I could not ignore the evidence that this obviously worked for her!  So I thought it might be worth taking a look at and I purchased the e-book and began to read.

Some of the things I have gleaned so far are:

• The diet is quite healthy in it's composition.
• The calories initially amount to about 1200 per day.
• It is a reduced fat and reduced sugar and carbohydrate diet.
• It promotes clean water intake  of at least 64 ounces per day.
• It promotes lots of lean protein and cleansing veggies.
• It suggests limited healthy fruits.
• It encourages probiotics twice daily.  (Think yogurt).

This list is just what I have gleaned thus far.  It turns out that the diet is really 3 cycles of 17 days each.  So far I have only read the parts concerning the first cycle.  I will read about cycle 2 when I have nearly completed cycle 1.  Why wait?  Because I don't want to press through the cycles with only the thought of reaching  the next level so I can have more to eat.  I am hoping this diet will become more than that for me.  I hope that it will help me to develop the healthy eating habits that will finally lead to weight loss and improved health.

Dr. Moreno has not neglected the activity factor in all this.  He recommends 17 minutes of exercise a day in addition to the eating plan.  I had to roll my eyes a bit on this one simply because it seems a bit cheesy.  However, since I haven't completed the entire book yet, I will concede that there may be some hidden merit in this.  I totally agree that daily, or almost daily exercise is essential to total fitness.  But 17 minutes?  I think he might have picked that number just to coincide with his book title.  And I'm still wondering what makes 17 days a magic number,  Why not 14 days or 21?  But I am not the expert here, so I will go with the flow on this and see what happens in my particular case.

So here I am on day 2 of my first 15 day cycle, starting the day off with a cup of hot water with 1/2 of a lemon squeezed into it.  (I also added a bit of sweetener).  This is supposed to stimulate my digestion if I understand correctly.  Now I'm off to the treadmill for my exercise.  Will it be 17 minutes or 30 or somewhere in between?  I'll decide when I get there.

Have a great day.
Blessings!
Reny