The 20/20 Lifestyles Program puts people on a diet (and by this I do mean a temporary change in eating) for a couple reasons to help them lose weight. This is also similar to the Atkins / South Beach Diet’s induction period.
The diet, roughly, is the following:
- 5 meal-replacement shakes, 12oz cooked lean meat. Shake & slab!
- Add Veggies
- Add Milk & Yogurt
- Add Cheese
- Add Fruit
- Add Beans
- Add (whole wheat) bread
- Add high-glycemic fruits (such as bananas)
Note that after adding something, the meal replacement shakes and some of the meat goes away, so calories are kept the same. The meal replacement shakes are supposed to be some specially formulated shake designed for the 20/20 program. They’re effectively just protein shakes as near as I can see.
The idea behind the diet is that there may be certain foods, or certain types of foods, that cause a given person to feel hungry or gain weight. By trimming down the diet to these shakes and bits of meat and then slowly adding food back in, the idea is to isolate and identify those foods to determine where they fit into normal eating. Personally, I suspect it has a number of other effects:
- By removing all normal meals, it forces the person on the program to recreate the types of meals they eat — ideally in a healthier fashion.
- By creating a radically different diet, the person on it is much more likely to keep to it versus eating normally.
- By radically changing the diet, you don’t give the body a chance to adjust to simply eating less of the same stuff.
The third point is probably the most unsubstantiated, but I think the most important, at least for me. Weight loss is a radical change for the body… and thus lots of eating plus lots of dietary change is necessary for the body to change, versus simply adapt.
Unlike Atkins, the 20/20 diet isn’t zero or low carbs. Veggies are highly encouraged — and it turns out it’s hard to eat that many veggies and gain a lot of weight (although adding fatty salad dressings can add up those calories in a hurry!).
OK, there’s the diet. Next up: water!