From the book

1

Just Give Me 17 Days

I can personally sum up the 17 Day Diet in two words: fast results.

Depending on your weight when you start out and your metabolism, you might expect to lose up to 10 to 12 pounds the first 17 days. Of course, the further you are from your ideal weight, the more you'll lose initially.

Let's not kid each other: When you start a diet, you want to see results right away, in how you look and in how you feel. That's because our society is geared toward to the immediate; we want things and we want them now. The same is true of weight loss. We get impatient when the pounds don't come off fast enough to meet our expectations. It seems much easier to give up than to go on.

This diet is designed to produce quick results, not because it starves you down to size but because its carefully designed balance of food and exercise adjusts your body metabolically so that you burn fat, day in and day out.

Also important: The weight-reduction portion of this diet is limited to just 17 days at a time so that you aren't demoralized by the thought of endless months of dieting.

Nor are you apt to plateau like you often do on other diets. The 17 Day Diet keeps your body and metabolism guessing. I call this "body confusion." With each 17 Day Cycle, you're changing your calorie count and the foods you eat. By varying these things, you prevent your body from adapting. The scale is less likely to get stuck. The added bonus: You'll never get bored. And it's fun watching those pounds melt off. So confusion is good!

At the end of 17 days, you'll go on to a second 17-day Cycle, then a third, and finally enter the weight-stabilization Cycle of the diet in which you get to eat a greater variety of foods, including your favorite foods within reason. (I don't want you to get too chummy with the all-you-can-eat buffets again.)

I already know what you're thinking: Is it possible to shed pounds swiftly yet safely? If done right, without sacrificing good nutrition, the answer is yes.

Despite what many nutritionists have preached for years, rapid weight-loss diets can be healthy if done correctly and can work wonders on reducing pounds and inches in just days. Brand-new research suggests that the faster you take weight off, the longer you keep it off. Now that's a reason for dieters everywhere to rejoice. Plus, if you're too embarrassed by a recent weight spike or have just gained an embarrassing eight pounds after a holiday weekend or an ice cream binge, this diet can get you back on track fast.

The 17 Day Diet thus gives your body the perfect jump-start, the kind of quick drop in weight that gives you a powerful mental boost. My whole focus is to get you thin as soon as I can. When I do, just think: You'll no longer have to move around hauling the equivalent of two 40-pound bags of cement on your body. The button of your jeans will no longer pop out and ping off the wall. You'll no longer have to wear plus-sized clothing with those expandable waistlines. This diet will make you slim, healthy, and curvy, and I won't make you slurp your way to a thinner you, or follow some hardcore exercise regime used by the Navy Seals.

But you do have to accept that this won't be a pleasure diet. You've got to stop eating unhealthy crap. You've got to eat vegetables, fruit and lean meat. I'm not going to ask you to probe your inner eater and uncover hidden emotional reasons for why you're fat. But I am going to ask you to keep your portions down, cut your intake of fatty,...

Author: Dr. Mike Moreno
Bio:   Dr. Mike Moreno is a graduate of the University of California at Irvine and Hahnemann Medical School. Following his residency at Kaiser Permanente in Fontana, California, Dr. Mike moved to San Diego, where he now practices family medicine and serves on the board of the San Diego Chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Narrator: Dr. Mike Moreno
Bio:   Dr. Mike Moreno is a graduate of the University of California at Irvine and Hahnemann Medical School. Following his residency at Kaiser Permanente in Fontana, California, Dr. Mike moved to San Diego, where he now practices family medicine and serves on the board of the San Diego Chapter of the American Academy of Family Physicians.