Oz-Approved 7-Day Crash Diet

Oz-Approved 7-Day Crash Diet

By feasting on nutrient-dense foods, you can lose weight faster and more efficiently. The goal of this crash diet is to dive right in, making the habits you learn and the recipes you make in the next 7 days part of a healthy and sustainable lifestyle.

Weight-loss guru Dr. Joel Fuhrman claims he can get you on the fast track to dropping the pounds in just one week. The secret? It's not a starvation diet, but the exact opposite. His plan allows you to eat all you want and still lose weight. The key is in feasting on nutrient-dense foods – rich in vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidants – that are low in calories. Many of the superfoods you are familiar with fall under the nutrient-dense category. According to Dr. Fuhrman, the more of these kinds of foods you eat, the faster you will lose weight.

Why does Dr. Fuhrman’s plan work? Every meal you eat according to his specifications also helps you stave off hunger. Hunger is one of the major roadblocks most dieters face when attempting to lose weight. Dr. Fuhrman’s findings suggest that eating a diet of nutrient-dense foods results in a sustainable eating pattern that can lead to weight loss and improved health – even if you are consuming fewer calories. It’s the nutrients that satiate you for longer and make the periods of hunger between meals more tolerable, so you won’t feel desperate to reach for an unhealthy snack or comfort food. His plan focuses on healthy, whole foods – but makes no room for anything processed, including fake diet foods.

Dr. Fuhrman’s Crash Diet is only extreme in that you dive right in. The idea is that the new habits you learn in the next 7 days will become part of your lifestyle. It will no longer feel like a diet, but your default method of eating. Here are the 3 simple steps for everyone who wants to slim down in a week:

Step 1: Follow the 90/10 Rule Every Day
For the next 7 days, you’ll eat 90% nutrient-dense foods – veggies, fruits, seeds and nuts, beans and whole grains. For the remaining 10%, you can have healthy oils, meat and dairy.

A typical day on the Crash Diet would look like this:

Light and Lean Breakfast
While eating protein, like eggs, is often touted as the right way to start your day, the same rules don’t apply here. Many people eat too much protein, resulting in an overconsumption of calories and weight gain. Think of only light and lean foods, like fruit, oats and flax. You may be asking yourself, what about the yogurt? None here. If you are concerned about calcium, consider this: Natural unprocessed foods like fruits and vegetables have calcium. For example, an orange has 60 mg of calcium.

Belly-Blasting Bean Lunch
Ignite your body’s fat-blasting furnace by eating beans. Beans are a dieter’s best friend. They keep you full, and are high in resistant starch, meaning that half the calories consumed can not be absorbed. They also reduce blood sugar, and create the fatty acid butyrate, which may burn fat faster. Studies show that butyrate improves mitochondrial function in your cells, leading to a decrease in fat. If you’re worried about gas, fret not. The more beans you eat, the more your body will build up the good bacteria you need to digest them. You can enjoy beans in a burger patty, in chili or as a dip.

Step 2: Use Secret Weapons
Dr. Fuhrman recommends eating “BOM’s” to really kick your body’s fat-burning mechanisms into high gear. BOM’s are Berries, Onions and Mushrooms. These foods are anti-angiogenic. Why is this important? Because anti-angiogenic foods can starve fat cells by cutting off the blood supply to your fat. How? The growth of new capillary blood vessels is called angiogenesis. Research shows that cancer cells, for example, are known to hijack angiogenesis and keep it permanently switched on to ensure that it has a dedicated, uninterrupted blood supply so it can grow. But, by eating foods that can block the process of angiogenesis, you can starve these cancer cells. Dr. Fuhrman maintains you can also block the blood supply to fat cells by eating anti-angiogenic foods. The more of these foods you eat, the more weight you lose.

Step 3: Detox With Skinny Shakes
To flush fat from your body, you’ll need to release the toxins that are keeping you swollen with fat and fluid. To repair cellular damage from processed foods, make a Skinny Shake of pomegranate juice, strawberries and lemon. Pomegranates are anti-angiogenic and can reduce inflammation. Strawberries are anti-angiogenic and protect against oxidative stress. And lemon juice has vitamin C, natural antibacterial properties, can aid digestion, and helps reduce stress.

Skinny Shake

Ingredients
1 cup of ice
4 oz of pomegranate juice
1 cup frozen strawberries
Squeeze of lemon
 
Directions
Add all ingredients to a blender and enjoy. Add water to reach your desired consistency.