If you have been paying attention to recent diet and health news, you might have heard of something called the Sirtfood Diet. This new diet claims that eating chocolate and drinking wine could help you lose weight. Does it really work?
The idea behind this diet is that eating foods rich in compounds known as sirtuin activators helps to prevent obesity and weight gain. These compounds are proteins that protect the body’s cells from inflammation and damage; when activated, they can also increase metabolism. Sirtuin activators, known as sirtfoods, include foods such as apples, fruits, capers, citrus, parsley, green tea, soy, turmeric, strawberries, red onion, olive oil, kale, arugula, coffee, red wine, and dark chocolate.
There is a catch, however.
This diet does not really involve eating a bunch of chocolate and drinking lots of wine every day. It consists of a rather aggressive two-phase approach. The first phase is a one-week period that requires you to eat less than 1,000 calories for three days and then 1,500 calories for the remaining time. During this time, you eat one or two sirtfood-rich meals daily and drink sirtfood juices. The second phase lasts for two weeks and eases you into a long-term plan consisting of three meals rich in sirtfoods and one sirtfood juice every day.
If you love chocolate and red wine, this diet probably appeals to you, but the other sirtfoods are also good for you. Increasing your consumption of foods such as kale, apples, and green tea is always a good idea, but the way in which you start this diet is very similar to a crash diet. Crash diets are not usually effective over the long-term and can be dangerous. In fact, with a crash diet, you might actually end up gaining weight instead of losing it.
One healthy way to adopt a sirtfood-rich diet is to simply eat more sirtfoods rather than following the stringent restrictions of the Sirtfood Diet. You can eat more of these foods, all of which are considered healthy, as you work toward your health and weight loss goals. Simply eating more of these foods will inevitably increase your antioxidant levels, which will ultimately reduce inflammation, increase weight loss, and decrease your risk of developing a number of chronic diseases.
As with any diet, it is always a good idea to discuss your options with your doctor. Never make a drastic change to your diet without getting sound advice!
