On one of the first few pages of The 2 Week Diet is a bold claim:
Not only does this diet work, it works fast, and it works every time – without fail.
Okay then! Brian Flatt is obviously confident in his program. But a claim like that seems like a stretch.
Then again, the 2 Week Diet is extremely popular. Maybe there’s a reason so many people like it?
This review will try to get to the bottom of it all.
Of course, a claim like “it works every time” is impossible to prove or disprove.
So we’ll focus on a more simple question: Will the average person have a good chance of losing weight with The 2 Week Diet?
About Brian Flatt
According to his Quora profile, Brian Flatt is a nutritionist, personal trainer, and health coach. He is also the owner of REV Fitness, which is a workout center in California.
So he seems to have the right credentials.
There are reviews online for some of his previous products. They were mostly positive but some of the reviews could be biased.
To Get Started, Visit The 2 Week Diet Website Here
How The 2 Week Diet Works
What’s the problem with most diets?
They don’t work fast enough, according to Brian Flatt.
When people struggle to see results, they give up early. For a diet to work, people need to see fast results so they feel encouraged and keep going. Their progress can snowball from there.
So the 2 Week Diet is based on getting visible results as quickly as possible.
The obvious question here is: How does it achieve rapid weight loss?
His answer? “Eating the right foods in the right quantities at the right time.”
It sounds almost too simple. But weight loss doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Maybe it really does come down to the right foods in the right amounts at the right time.
Meal Timing: A Key To Rapid Weight Loss?
If you’re like me, hearing about “explosive” weight loss results sets off a B.S. detector.
But let’s give a fair look at how the 2 Week Diet goes about it before we judge.
One of the main components of this diet is a process called intermittent fasting.
Rather than continually eating throughout the day, you will go for longer periods without eating. This is meant to make your body dip into its fat stores, burning your excess fat as fuel.
There is evidence that intermittent fasting is an effective weight loss strategy.
A 2017 review published in the Annual Review of Nutrition titled Metabolic Effects of Intermittent Fasting confirmed that intermittent fasting helps lose weight:
It appears that almost any intermittent fasting regimen can result in some weight loss.
However, there is not evidence that intermittent fasting is superior to conventional calorie restriction. It’s also not clear what the best way to approach intermittent fasting is:
Modified fasting regimens appear to promote weight loss and may improve metabolic health. However, there are insufficient data to determine the optimal fasting regimen, including the length of the fasting interval, the number of fasting days per week, the degree of energy restriction needed on fasting days, and recommendations for dietary behavior on nonfasting days.
Make no mistake: research supports intermittent fasting as a potent way to lose weight, and even improve other health markers.
Take this study, for example. Researchers studied effects of intermittent fasting on adult males for 8 weeks. The subjects had to eat all their meals within an 8-hour window during the day.
They found the subjects lost a statistically significant amount of fat mass, while maintaining their muscle mass. More importantly, the subjects doing an intermittent fast lost more fat than subjects who weren’t doing intermittent fasting, even though they ate the same type and amount of food.
So yes, intermittent fasting is an effective way to drop pounds of fat.
But there is still not one “right” way to do intermittent fasting. It’s up to you and what you’re comfortable with.
Fortunately the 2 Week Diet allows you to ease into intermittent fasting.
Calorie Deficits
Creating a calorie deficit is another key to the 2 Week Diet, along with intermittent fasting.
It’s based on simple math: if you burn more calories then you take in, you will lose weight.
Yes, this oversimplifies the weight loss process, but only by a bit. Eating the right calories is obviously important, too.
But all these being equal, a diet that consumes fewer calories than you burn will cause you to lose weight over time. And so the 2 Week Diet aims to restrict your calories just enough to create the optimal calorie deficit, while still making sure you get the right fuel.
Insulin Levels
Brian gives a nice breakdown of insulin’s role in fat storage in the book.
To summarize, insulin is a hormone that causes your body to store excess glucose (the main sugar in carbohydrates). When you consume excess carbs, your insulin level increases, telling your body to store the extra carbohydrates as fat.
Decreasing the amount of carbohydrates in your diet – especially simple carbs – keeps your insulin levels low, providing the right environment for burning fat rather instead of storing it.
Three Phases
The 2 Week Diet is broken down into three separate phases. Your eating plan will be different for each phase.
Phase 1 is the longest. You’ll be eating a calorie-restricted, low-carb diet. Your three meals will all occur within 8 hours of each other.
Phase 2 is the shortest, lasting 24 hours, and is the most calorie restrictive.
Phase 3 continues with the low-carb approach, but increases the amount of healthy fats you eat. It sounds counterintuitive, but consuming healthy saturated fats can actually help with fat loss.
Exercise
The final piece of the puzzle here is exercise.
Just to recap: if you…
- decrease the amount of calories you eat
- short-term fast each day
- eat less carbs
… then you will already have a good chance of losing weight. But adding exercise should help accelerate the process even more.
Exercising when you’re hungry and not eating carbs can be difficult. So this diet recommends only a modest amount of daily exercise, 20-30 minutes.
Doing on a full body workout that utilizes resistance training is what you should aim for. And the ebook provides a description of which exercises you can focus on.
You’ll be working with dumbbells, doing 3 sets of 12 for a few different resistance exercises. There is also some core work, including planks.
Resistance training is especially important in this diet, as it allows you to maintain lean muscle mass while your body is burning off fat thanks to intermittent fasting and calorie deficit.
Maintaining Your New Body
We all know that people often regain the weight they lost after they finish a challenging diet. It could happen with this diet, too, so it’s important to pay attention to the “Preventing Weight Regain” section.
In this section Brian tells you how to ease more foods back into your diet. This includes things like fruits and certain vegetables that were prohibited during the two weeks (or however long it takes you to reach your weight goal).
It goes without saying that you should be careful about eating lots of sugary foods again. But you can still eat these foods again as long as you don’t exceed your daily calorie needs.
What Foods Can You Eat During The Diet?
We told you that the 2 Week Diet calls for calorie restriction and reducing carbs. But you should also know what types of foods you will be eating.
Since it is low carb, you’ll be sticking to foods with a higher protein and fat content. You’ll also be consuming more plant foods, in order to get the fiber and other essential nutrients they provide.
In the first phase, you can eat a variety of common vegetables, and choose from protein sources that include eggs, chicken, beef, and whey protein.
In phase 3 you will be increasing the proportion of healthy fats in your diet, so expect to eat more nuts and other sources of healthy fats.
There’s also a list of “superfoods” that Brian recommends consuming daily, in addition to the macronutrient foods. These are foods that provide health benefits beyond just nutrition and calories.
Diet Flexibility
This diet allows you to choose your own meals on most days, as long as they’re from a list of acceptable foods.
While this diet may be restrictive in some ways, allowing you to customize your meals should help you stay on track.
What We Liked About The 2 Week Diet
This diet has a number of good features. They include:
- Principles are supported by research
- Allows flexible meal planning
- Shorter duration should help you stick with it
- Calorie restriction and intermittent fasting should be especially powerful for obese individuals
- Includes exercise program
- One-time payment, not too expensive
What We Didn’t Like About The 2 Week Diet
There are also some drawbacks to this diet that you should know about:
- Eating less food, less frequently, is going to be mentally challenging
- The discussion of calorie deficits leading to weight loss is a bit oversimplified
- He recommends a commercial “greens” supplement to give you more nourishment, but we think it’s better to eat real health foods
- Not suitable for vegans or vegetarians
Conclusion and Recommendation
There is a lot of hype around the 2 Week Diet. But as this review shows you, it is based on weight loss principles that have been confirmed through research.
Some of the claims about massive fat loss in a short amount of time might be unrealistic. Every body is different, and some individuals will only see a modest amount of weight loss.
That said, if you have a considerable amount of weight to lose, a diet like this can work quickly.
If you don’t have any major health problems, this diet shouldn’t be the least bit dangerous. But as always, you should consult your doctor if you have any concerns about it.
There is also a 60-day guarantee with this program, so you will be able to refund it if it’s not for you.
Still reading? Visit the 2 Week Diet website here to see what it can do for you >>www.2weekdiet.com<<