The famous English singer Adele became the talk of the world after she appeared last year having lost a lot of weight in a short time. Everyone thought she had surgery to lose weight. British newspapers said Adele's weight loss was due to the "Sirtfood Diet." It's one of the diet plans that got popular in recent years, used by many celebrities like Jodie Kidd, Lorraine Pascale, and Pippa Middleton, sister of the Duchess of Cambridge. The papers say Adele hired a nutrition coach who designed this diet with intense workouts that helped her lose about 40 pounds. So what exactly is this promising diet, and is it healthy or not? We'll discuss that with you next.
What is the Sirtfood Diet?
This diet first came out in 2016 when British nutrition experts Aidan Goggins and Glen Matten published their famous book titled Sirtfood Diet.
This diet focuses on increasing sirtuin, a type of protein that protects our cells from death and inflammation when we get sick. It also helps regulate metabolism and fat burning. So the idea is to eat foods rich in these proteins and base the diet on them for weight loss. These proteins naturally exist in our bodies and are found in some plants and fruits like apples, berries, and raw olive oil.
What foods can you eat on the Sirtfood Diet?
As we mentioned before, this diet depends on foods rich in sirtuin while keeping calories at a certain level. One of the book's authors says that This plan can help you lose more than 3 kilograms of your weight in just one week.
Sirtfood diet meals are divided as follows:
- The first three days: 1000 calories per day, split into one big meal and two cups of green juice.
- The remaining four days: 1500 calories per day, split into two meals.
Dark chocolate and red wine are the main ingredients used to prepare sirtfood diet meals. but there are many other options rich in sirtuins like:
- Apples.
- Citrus fruits.
- Buckwheat.
- Walnut.
- Ajwa date.
- Parsley.
- Capers plant.
- Mulberry.
- Green tea.
- Soy.
- Strawberry.
- Turmeric.
- Olive oil.
- Red onion.
- Arugula.
- Cabbage.
And it includes coffee on the list of allowed foods. You don’t have to stop caffeine to follow this diet, and the countries that consume foods rich in serotonin are considered Like: Japan, and Italy Among the healthiest countries.
Is the Sirtfood diet healthy?
Many think the allowed food list in the Sirtfood diet is very limited, lacks variety, and misses many essential nutrients which can cause eating issues. Especially since this diet combines with intermittent fasting and heavily cuts calories, making it quite strict.
Macalzy Caldwell - a women's nutrition expert focused on pregnancy nutrition - says the calorie count recommended by British nutritionists Aidan Goggins and Glen Matten is very low. She says, "1000 calories a day is right for a child aged 2 to 4, not for an adult." She bases this on Mayo Clinic's core guidelines. She adds, "Besides being too few calories to give an adult enough energy for daily tasks, this won't supply the body with the key nutrients it needs. This diet might cause short-term weight loss due to such low calorie intake."
Nutrition experts agree there is little to no evidence supporting this diet as healthy for sustainable weight loss. No proof exists to back claims made by the creators who say the diet is healthy for weight loss, or who tested it on gym members and said it worked well. This study was never published nor reviewed by real scientists or researchers.
The positive thing about these foods beyond those benefits is they provide the body with essential vitamins and minerals. They are healthy and tasty at the same time.
When should you NOT try the Sirtfood diet?
People with diabetes should not try this diet. It's also not recommended for those who do a lot of physical activity because they might feel symptoms like dizziness and headaches. This happens because the calories in this plan are very limited, which isn't enough for heavy exercise. At first, your body tries to adjust to these fewer calories, so these symptoms show up especially in the first three days since those days have fewer calories than the other four days of the week.
Summary:
This diet, like some others such as keto, asks you to completely change the kinds of foods you eat and cuts out some important foods. The foods in the Sirtfood diet do have health benefits that can help protect against diseases like heart and blood vessel problems. But there's nothing magical about it for weight loss. Losing weight mostly comes from eating much fewer calories daily, which isn't healthy if you do it long term. Instead, if you really want to follow this diet, we suggest adding some foods or recipes from it into your meals. Figure out your daily calories based on your weight, age, height, and activity level. Make sure your meals have the main nutrients like carbs, protein, fats, plus vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. If you want to lose weight safely and effectively, contact us through the Fitness Garage Facebook page to get a personal nutrition coach.
