The Body Reset Diet | A Fad Diet To Be Very Cautious Of
The body reset diet is a 15-day elimination and reentry diet created by celebrity fitness trainer and nutritionist Harley Pasternak. His graduate work focused on the areas of exercise physiology, nutritional sciences, and kinesiology.
In his book, The Body Reset Diet, Pasternak writes, “The plan I’ve devised is so simple yet so effective that you will immediately lose weight regardless of any reasons you may have failed in the past.”
The book is a result of Pasternak’s desire to create a diet that delivered immediate and dramatic results, without compromising participants’ health or leading to a disastrous yo-yo effect associated with many other trend diets. Pasternak claims that the Body Reset Diet steps in when all other diets have failed.
However, there is no scientific data to support his claim. Plus, 8fit believes in incremental habit changes that are lasting and realistic. We encourage progress over perfection, aspiring to show that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to fitness or nutrition. That’s why our app offers meal plans tailored for users' busy lifestyles, covering nutrition in addition to workouts for every experience level.
With that in mind, we definitely don’t recommend you follow this diet unless recommended by your doctor or a dietary professional who is also guiding you through the weeks after the 15-day period ends. Below, we break down exactly why it doesn’t live up to our standards and why you should be wary if this fad continues to gain steam.
What is the Body Reset Diet?
The goal of the Body Reset Diet is to educate and help you reframe the way you think about dieting. It’s about finding a balance and creating a system that sets you up for continued success. The program promotes moving consistently versus spending hours on grueling exercises.
On the diet, you eat a high volume of food and nutrients five times per day at regular intervals. Pasternak believes that using this method of feeding will help you feel satiated as well as help you find success using his plan. Pasternak relies on the scientific data that favors grazing (eating smaller meals more often) over gorging to stabilize your metabolism and increase your body’s fat-burning capabilities.
The first five days of the diet are the most challenging because most of your nutrients come from the consumption of smoothies. Pasternak asserts that within the first five days of the diet, you will experience rapid weight loss and inches lost resulting from your boosted metabolism.
Our research of the Body Reset Diet did not reveal scientific data to support his claims.
It’s important to note that with any elimination diet, especially of this nature, the potential is there for rapid weight loss. However, sustaining the weight loss may prove to be much more challenging than the first five days of the diet.
What you can expect on the Body Reset Diet
The Body Reset Diet is a three-phase program. The diet’s instructions and guidelines call for regularly feeding your body with essential and balanced macronutrients. This is primarily done through the consumption of plant-based smoothies over a period of 15 days.
When you begin the program, you’re asked to let go of everything you’ve learned about weight loss to make way to bring the joy back into eating again. The Body Reset Diet offers to teach you how to:
make the right nutritional decisions
create structure within your day
become a more efficient eater
How does the Body Reset Diet work?
The Body Reset Diet is segmented into three distinct 5-day phases lasting 15 days. Over the 15-day period, you alternate between nutrient-dense smoothies, snacks, and meals. All food prep can be accomplished in a maximum of five minutes. Essentially, this is what the program looks like at a glance.
Eat five times a day to rev up your metabolism
Follow specific nutritional criteria for each meal
Build each meal around the same categories of ingredients
Prepare each meal in five mutes or less
Phase I (Days 1-5)
This by far will be the greatest adjustment for your body and brain. This is the reset phase of the diet. The smoothies you eat are high volume meals that will make you feel like you are consuming large amounts of food throughout the duration of the plan.
Drink three smoothies a day
Eat two snacks per day
Walk a minimum of 10,000 steps per day
Phase II (Days 6-10)
In this phase, you’ll continue to eat five times a day to provide your body with a consistent supply of fuel. The changes in this phase include decreasing your smoothie consumption, introducing solid meals, and adding an exercise routine.
Drink two smoothies a day
Eat one solid-nonblended meal
Walk a minimum of 10,000 steps per day
Complete a five-minute at-home fitness routine three days a week to tone your changing body. The provided exercises are simple and require no equipment. Pasternak includes modifications to adjust for the different fitness levels.
Phase 3 (Days 11-15)
In the final phase, you decrease smoothie consumption and add an additional meal. You will also increase your exercise and fitness routine.
Drink one smoothie a day
Eat two solid-nonblended meal
Walk a minimum of 10,000 steps per day
Complete a strengthening routine, alternating between two 5-minute circuits of resistance training 5 days a week
The rest of your life
After you complete the Body Reset Diet, you’ll be ready to begin incorporating healthy new habits into your life, according to the methodology. Moving forward, you’ll follow the same principles of five meals per day, but also design a plan that fits your lifestyle. The plan will look like this:
One smoothie per day
Two snacks per day
Two solid meals
Free meals twice per week
Daily a minimum of 10,000 steps per day
Complete 10 minutes of resistance-training circuits
Does the Body Reset Diet work?
The intended benefit of the Body Reset Diet is rapid and sustained weight loss by consuming nutrient-rich meals. Because there is no scientific data that proves this diet will prime your metabolism for sustained weight loss, it’s difficult to definitively determine whether it will work.
Looking at anecdotal information on the web also revealed a less than stellar review of the diet. Most reviews referred to it as a fad diet. The Body Reset Diet ranked 40 in U.S. News' 41 Best Diets Overall. Their experts concluded that the diet is not a viable eating plan. One expert went so far as to call it a “gimmick” and an “unhealthy weight loss diet”.
If you can stick to the restrictive guidelines in the Body Reset Diet, the chances are you may be able to lose weight. However, if you resume old eating habits, you will likely regain the weight, or perhaps gain even more weight.
Generally, the diet does emphasize drinking nutrient-rich smoothies, eating well-balanced meals, and regularly exercising. While those are the components of a healthy meal plan, there’s no reason to believe you need this specific diet to achieve your goals.
Restrictive diets are not sustainable and often times lead to increased weight gain. For a sustainable option, download the 8fit app where you can get a customized meal plan suited to your goals and needs.
