Flexitarian Diet Review

In The Flexitarian Diet, author Dawn Jackson Blatner RD, says being a "flexitarian" gives you the benefits of a vegetarian diet without having to forgo the enjoyment of meat. Blatner estimates the average person could shed up to 30 pounds by sticking to the flexitarian diet for 6-12 months, and, as a bonus, eating less meat is both environmentally and economically smart.

The main goal of The Flexitarian Diet is to make it easier for people to transition to eating less meat. The diet promotes fresh, natural, and seasonal foods and has lots of tips and tricks to keep yourself on the straight and narrow, eating healthy.

So what specifically do you eat?

Each day, the Flexitarian Diet provides 1,500 calories, divided into three meals and two snacks. Breakfast is 300 calories, lunch is 400, dinner is 500, and each snack is 150. Dieters are allowed to lower their caloric intake to 1,200 per day by eliminating snacks, or increase their intake to 1,800 calories by doubling the breakfast portion. 50 grams of meat protein are allowed daily.

This diet is all about flexibility, among its three options: beginner, advanced or expert. Beginners start out with two meat-less days per week and a limit of 26 ounces of meat or poultry. Advanced flexitarians have three or four meat-less days per week and limit meat or poultry to 18 ounces. Expert flexitarian eats meat-less five days of the week and gets only 9 ounces of meat or poultry . Meat is never really meant to be a manin dish, but a side item.

As you consume less refined sugar, additives and preservatives, your cravings for processed junk foods will be tamed, according Blatner.

The Flexitarian Diet includes five "flex fitness factors" to help you include more physical activities into your day.

There's a mountain of evidence and studies that show mostly-vegetarian diets extend lifespan and overall health, but the problem is sustainability. Whomever came up with the theory that decreasing refined sugar leads to less cravings is living a totally different existence than I am. Humans have evolved to covet and crave that which the body is most efficient at producing energy, simple carbohydrates. The Flexitarian Diet is a great concept in theory and many facets of it should be followed by people who want to be healthy, but turning red-blooded, meat eating overweight people into dedicated "flexitarians" is highly unlikely. But for sure, take Blatner's advice, cut back on the high fat meat, add more fresh food to your diet and add physical activity to your daily life at every turn.