Diet

The 3 Hour Diet Review

July 20, 2009
By J White

The 3 Hour Diet was developed by Jorge Cruise, a self-described chubby kid from California. After experiencing health problems early in his life, he proceeded to make a gradual transformation that led him to want to become a weight-loss expert. Since that time he has now become a weight-loss coach with AOL, and has also appeared on many networks shows such as Oprah, CNN, and the Today Show.

Philosophy of the 3 Hour Diet

The main philosophy behind the diet is to eat every 3 hours. Some of the reasons that he gives for eating in this manner are that you are able to maintain more muscle mass, stave off hunger pangs, increase your energy, and that it helps to decrease hormone levels that can lead to increased belly fat.

Also, Cruise states that you can eat any type of food on his diet, including meals from fast food restaurants. He states that by including these foods in your plan, you are less likely to binge, thus sabotaging your success.

In addition, he also says that you do not need to exercise to be successful on his diet plan.

Foods on the Plan

As already stated, Cruise says that you can eat anything on his diet plan. However, he does emphasize that the diet will be more successful if you eat foods that are recognized as being healthy. Some of the foods include whole grains, vegetables, fruits, and lean meats.

In fact he extols the value of eating these foods in such a manner that the reader would be hard press not to believe that you should be eating only healthy foods despite Cruise saying that you are free to eat any food on his diet.

He also likes to stress the fact that you can eat at fast food restaurants. However, don’t expect to be eating Big Macs or Whoppers. The items that he suggests are smaller cheeseburgers, chicken fillets, and chicken with it skin removed. If you deviate from this, you can easily go over the 400 Calories a meal he prescribes for those weighing under 200 pounds.

Exercise

Cruise says that you do not have to exercise to lose weight on his diet plan, which is fine for those who can’t exercise because of physical limitations, or for those who say that they do not have the time.

He does, however, include a 8 minute exercise program in his 3 Hour Diet plan. These exercises are design to help increase your weight loss and to firm and tone your body.

He also suggests doing extra things during the day to burn off extra calories such as walking to deliver a message instead of emailing it. As for a more formal exercises, he also suggest power walking as a means to lose more weight.

Emotions and Eating

To deal with how your mind or how your emotions effect your eating, he includes a visualization exercise in his program. These exercises are design to help you relax, change your attitude, and to motivate you to stick to your diet.

To further deal with emotional eating, he also goes over techniques that offer support in helping you deal with your emotional connection to eating. A few of these things include learning to accept yourself, keeping a journal, and building a support team.

Overall Assessment of the 3 Hour Diet

First and foremost, diets should promote good health. Given that Cruise does strongly suggest that you eat healthy foods, it certainly meets that criteria. Plus it also allows you to choose from a wide variety of food items to include in your meals. This helps to minimize the feeling that you are depriving yourself.

The only part of his eating plan that may cause one to pause is that Cruise says that you can eat anything on the diet. This statement may give some readers the impression that you can design your diet around less than healthy choices. However, his meal plans are clearly designed with proper nutrition in mind, which is of course good.

The reality of the matter is that you will have to restrict certain foods from your diet if you want to not only lose weight but acquire optimum health.

Another part of his diet plan that may raise some eyebrows is that he states that you do not need to exercise to lose weight. While this is true, losing weight is in essence about improving your overall health, which means improving your cardiovascular health as well.

No matter how healthy your meals, dieting alone cannot strengthen your heart muscle or build muscle, each which is an important component for sustaining the most advantageous lifestyle.

This is because the primary reason that your metabolism slows down as you age has to do of the loss of muscle. Even though Cruise stresses that by eating every three hours helps to limit muscle loss, his lack of a more vigorous exercise plan does nothing to help build muscle.

When it comes to dealing with the issue of emotional eating, Cruise provides more resources than most other diet books, which is probably the best part of his diet.

Even though some diet plans are healthier than others, the truth is that no matter whose diet plan you choose to follow, losing weight is easy if you follow through, which is where most diets fail. Many dieters do not succeed because it is too difficult for them to give up the foods they like.

Cruise deals with this by strongly emphasizing the need for support and by including visualization techniques that motivate and help your desires align with your new eating habits.

In short, despite its lack of emphasis on exercising, the 3 Hour Diet can effectively help you to lose weight. To learn more about the diet you can purchase his book or visit his website.

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