The 17 Day Diet Breakthrough Edition - Softcover

Dr Michael Rafael Moreno, better known as 'Dr Mike', is a graduate of the University of California. Dr Mike practices family medicine in San Diego and sits on the board of the American Academy of Family Physicians. In 2008, he launched 'Walk with Your Doc' - an exercise initiative that began when he offered to walk with a patient to motivate her to exercise and has since grown into a thriving community. Dr Mike takes pride in being viewed not only as a doctor, but also as a friend and confidant.

The 17 Day Diet Breakthrough Edition 1

Just Give Me 17 Days

I can personally sum up the 17 Day Diet in two words: fast results.

And now, with the introduction of The 17 Day Diet Breakthrough Edition, I can say faster results. I’ve tuned up the original diet with some new science, new tips, and new techniques that will help you to lose up to a pound a day in the first 17 days and to keep losing steadily after that.

Since the publication of the The 17 Day Diet, testimonials of rapid, effective, and lasting weight losses have poured into my office and have been posted on blogs and websites. The response has been downright amazing and overwhelming—much of it unsolicited, and from practically every corner of the world. Add these to my own weight-loss patients, and there are now millions of people who have discovered a diet they love and can live with.

Here are just a handful of typical comments that have come to me from my patients and other dieters—some in person, others by e-mail, and still others by Internet posts in chatrooms:

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I lost 70 pounds on the 17 Day Diet—almost half a person. This is the first diet I’ve ever been successful on. I did it with my 17 year-old-son, too; he needed to slim down after football season and he lost 15 pounds. Doing it together was a bonding experience, and I feel like it changed my family’s health.

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I found out through a manager of a clothing store about your diet. She had lost 80 pounds and looked great. And, she is keeping it off! After finding out about the 17 Day Diet and how balanced it is, I immediately ran out and bought the book. My husband and I started on it a week ago. I’ve lost 8 pounds and he has lost 9 pounds—and that is in the first week. We are thrilled and wanted to email you about how well the diet is working.

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I am very short (5 feet), but I weighed too much for my height: 154. I found out about the 17 Day Diet so I picked up a copy of the book. I am a native of Thailand, and I found the diet very easy to follow according to the way we eat here. I now weigh 105, which is perfect for my size. Best of all, I feel so well, with lots of energy and very good health. I changed my entire eating behavior towards more nutritious foods, and I am very happy with my life at this new, slimmer weight. Thank you, Dr. Mike.

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I am currently on Cycle 1. My roommate and I started this diet 8 days ago. I have lost 8 pounds in my first week. I am so excited! And my pants feel a little baggy. I’m still hoping to lose another 17 pounds or so on this diet. Hopefully, the rest of cycle 1 and all of cycle 2 will get me there.

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I followed the diet through each cycle. I lost 11 pounds in the first 17 days and over the remaining course of the diet I lost a total of 27 pounds. I had learned so much from Dr. Moreno’s diet and method. I eat more often, in smaller amounts, and I have kept it off.

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I started the 17 Day Diet in mid-September. I reached my first goal of a 20-pound weight loss by Thanksgiving. After the holiday season, I went back to the first phase and continued to a 37-pound loss by the end of June. I have continued to follow the basics of the diet and have learned to take control of the food I am eating. I feel great! I also dropped 4 sizes. People are constantly asking how I did it, and of course I refer them to the 17 Day Diet.

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This diet has been a life changer for me. I feel great every single day. I have more energy and I feel less bloated. I have lost 12 pounds, and I’m only on Phase 1! I have tried a number of diets before this one and I have never lost this much, this fast.

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I am a woman in her fifties, and I have had weight issues most of my life. I have reduced and regained a few times. Recently I saw Dr. Mike on The Doctors, and I believe it was a life changing moment. I lost 10 pounds in the first three days! Then I was hooked because I felt better, and weight was coming off without counting calories! I dieted when I was in my twenties and it was never this easy! Really. I got so excited that I started telling people about the program. I have now completed the four 17 day cycles and lost 39 pounds.

You’ll hear more testimonials like these later in the book in sections called “I Broke Through!”
Even More Rapid Results

Depending on your weight when you start out and your metabolism, you might lose up to 10 to 12 pounds in the first 17 days. Of course, the further you are from your ideal weight, the more you’ll initially lose. And, with this new, revised version of the diet, I’ve got some tricks up my white-coat sleeves to help you lose even faster.

Let’s not kid each other: When you start a diet, you want to see results right away, in how you look and in how you feel. That’s because our society is geared toward the immediate; we want things and we want them now. The same is true of weight loss. We get impatient when the pounds don’t come off fast enough. It seems much easier to give up than to go on.

This diet is designed to produce quick results, not because it starves you down to size, but because its carefully designed balance of food and exercise adjusts your body metabolically, so that you burn fat, day in and day out.

Also important: The weight-reduction portion of this diet is limited to just 17 days at a time, so you aren’t demoralized by the thought of endless months of dieting.

Nor are you apt to plateau as you might do on other diets. The 17 Day Diet keeps your body and metabolism guessing. I call this body confusion. With each 17 Day Cycle, and my new Transitional Day Fast between cycles, you’re changing your calorie count and the foods you eat. By varying these things, you prevent your body from adapting. The scale is less likely to get stuck. The added bonus: You’ll never get bored; it’s fun watching those pounds melt off. So, confusion is good!

At the end of 17 days, you’ll go on to a second 17 Day Cycle, then a third, and finally enter the weight-stabilization cycle of the diet, in which you get to eat a greater variety of foods, including your favorite foods within reason. (I don’t want you to get too chummy with the all-you-can-eat buffet again.)

I already know what you’re thinking: Is it possible to shed pounds swiftly yet safely? If done right, without sacrificing good nutrition, the answer is yes.

Despite what many nutritionists have preached for years, rapid weight-loss diets can be healthy if done correctly, and can work wonders, reducing pounds and inches in just days. Research published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine suggests that the faster you take weight off, the longer you keep it off. That’s a reason for dieters everywhere to rejoice. Plus, if you’re too embarrassed by a recent weight spike or have just gained an embarrassing eight pounds after a holiday weekend or an ice-cream binge, this diet can get you back on track fast.

The 17 Day Diet thus gives your body the perfect jump start, the kind of quick drop in weight that gives you a powerful mental boost. My whole focus is to get you thin as soon as I can. When I do, just think: You’ll no longer have to move around hauling the equivalent of two 40-pound bags of cement. The button on your jeans will no longer pop out and ping off the wall. You’ll no longer have to wear plus-sized clothing with expandable waistlines. This diet will make you slim, healthy, and curvy, and I won’t make you chomp on celery sticks, or follow some hardcore exercise regimen used by the Navy Seals.

However, you do have to accept that this won’t be a pleasure diet. You’ve got to stop eating unhealthy crap. You’ve got to eat vegetables, fruit, and lean meat. I’m not going to ask you to probe your inner eater and uncover emotional reasons that you’re fat. I am going to ask you to keep your portions down, cut your intake of fatty, sugary, salty foods, and move your butt. You won’t be faint with hunger or found in the kitchen at midnight, feeding on Froot Loops and tubes of cookie dough. You can do this, because anyone can do anything for 17 days.

MISTER M.D., CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME

But Won’t a Lot of the Weight I Lose Be Water Weight?

Yes! And that’s awesome, because water is weight, too. Never dismiss those extra pounds as only water weight; this is a self-defeating attitude. Cosmetically, water weight can hide fat loss and be particularly frustrating. Healthwise, fluid retention can put a strain on your heart. When your body holds water, this means there’s more water in your blood. Your heart has to work harder to pump all that extra volume. Once all that excess fluid has disappeared, so will your bloat and puffiness. You’ll start looking visibly thinner in three or four days. And, chances are, you’ll feel much lighter and be more motivated to watch what you eat.

The beauty of this program is that you won’t be discouraged or bored by the prospect of staying on a diet for what seems like forever. It can yield results that will stand the test of time just as well as those long-term diets that emphasize depressingly slow incremental drops in weight. You’ll love the fact that in 7, 10, or 17 days, you’ll be slimmer. And chances are, you’ll feel a lot lighter and have an absurd amount of energy.

The 17 Day Diet is doable and easy—unlike so many other diets, which are slightly less complicated than the checklist for a shuttle launch.

SCIENCE SAYS: Slow Isn’t Necessarily Better

Conventional wisdom says that rapid weight loss leads to rapid weight regain. A new generation of science, however, shows that slow isn’t necessarily better.

Shape Up the Fast Way. A 2010 study from the University of Florida suggests that the key to long-term weight loss and maintenance is to lose weight quickly, not gradually. Among 262 obese middle-aged women, fast weight losers were those who shed more than 2 pounds a week. Compared to more gradual losers, fast weight losers lost more weight overall, maintained their weight loss longer and were less likely to put weight back on. The findings were published in the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine.

Trim Belly Fat. We pack on two forms of belly fat. One type collects around internal organs, known as visceral fat. This type of fat raises blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and increases the risk of diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and even some cancers. Visceral fat is far more sinister than fat elsewhere in the body.

The other type sits just under the skin and is known as subcutaneous abdominal fat. It causes a hard-to-get-rid-of belly pouch. In a Finnish study published in the International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders, a rapid weight loss diet followed for 6 weeks trimmed visceral abdominal fat by 25 percent and abdominal subcutaneous fat by 16 percent. The 17 Day Diet now emphasizes specific Contour Foods that target belly fat, so say goodbye to that spare tire and hello to flat abs.

So, can you give me just 17 days?

If you can, congratulations! You won’t be disappointed.
What Lies Ahead?

So, what is The 17 Day Diet Breakthrough Edition? I’ll go into depth in the next few chapters, but, in a very quick summary, it is a fun, fantastic way of eating designed to take off weight quickly. It’s based on some very simple principles, one of which is eating foods that favor fat burning, help change your body contours, and are friendly to your digestive system.

I want to emphasize that excess weight is always a sign of nutritional and metabolic imbalance. Contrary to popular assumption, it’s not strictly a question of how much exercise you do or how much food you eat. Rather, it’s also a question of what types of foods are eaten, and how they are digested, assimilated, and metabolized. If any of these components of good nutrition are compromised, then the body will not be adequately nourished at the cellular level, metabolic function will be impaired, and toxins will accumulate. Thus, to lose weight fast we need to optimize digestion and metabolism. That’s what the 17 Day Diet does.

Trust me, you’ll love the rapid loss of a few pounds so much that you’ll decide to keep on going. After the first 17 days, there are another 17 days, and another: 3 total cycles and a maintenance cycle, during which you get to eat whatever the heck you want, mainly on weekends. Here’s an overview:

Quick and Easy Overview of the 17 Day Diet

Cycles

Purpose

Cycle 1: Accelerate (17 days)

To promote rapid weight loss by improving digestive health. It helps clear sugar from the blood to boost fat-burning and discourage fat storage.

Cycle 2: Activate (17 days)

To reset your metabolism through a strategy that involves increasing and decreasing your caloric consumption to stimulate fat burning and to help prevent plateaus.

Cycle 3: Achieve (17 days)

To develop good eating habits through the reintroduction of additional foods and move you closer to your goal weight.

Cycle 4: Arrive (ongoing)

To keep you at your goal weight through a program of eating that lets you enjoy your favorite foods on weekends, while eating healthfully during the week.

Transitional Day Fast between cycles

To coax your body into additional fat-burning between cycles in order to maintain your fast results. This tool is completely optional.

Once we’re through with all the basics, I’m going to talk to you about how to follow the diet. I can’t wait to show you all its wonderful components and start you on your way to looking fit and fabulous. Take it one step at a time, so that you don’t feel overwhelmed.
Your Appointment with Me

I might as well take a moment here to introduce myself. I’m a family practice doctor. Under America’s health-insurance system, most people go first to a doctor like me for all complaints, from infections to chronic illnesses. I love the diversity of family practice. One moment, I’m treating an 18-year-old guy with the flu; the next, a 90-year-old woman with joint pain.

I became a doctor for the reasons most people do—because I wanted to save lives, pure and simple. In my heart of hearts, I believe a doctor is so much more than a person who dispenses medication or marks off symptoms like a checklist at a sushi bar. He or she should treat the whole person. I make it a point to get to know each patient as a person before I put a stethoscope to his or her chest.

I run my office a little differently than most. Nowadays, you spend more time waiting in the examining room than you do in the waiting room. In fact, you spend more time in the examining room than the person who decorated it. It’s almost like going to a restaurant and being told that, even though you have a reservation, you have to sit at the bar for a while. The only difference is that in the doctor’s office, no one offers you a cocktail, and you have to wear a boxy blue paper exam gown that opens in the front.

The next time you have to wait in the examining room, do some fun things to pass the time. Glue the tongue depressors together into coasters and sell them to other patients. Or peel off all the wallpaper without disturbing any of the diplomas.

In my office, my patients don’t wait forever. My patients often don’t even sit on the examining table when I talk to them. I sit on the examining table and they get the comfortable chair. The butcher paper uphols...