The Cinch Diet reviewThe Cinch Diet is a short-term weight loss plan created by registered dietician and acclaimed weight loss expert, Cynthia Sass. This particular diet is low in calories and requires dieters to follow a strict eating plan. Sass promises that if you follow her plan, in one month, you will drop a full dress size.

In her book, “Cinch! Conquer Cravings, Drop Pounds, and Lose Inches”, she provides dieters with all the information they need to partake in her 30-day diet, as well as several useful dieting tips, including how to make smart fast food choices. Although the diet does not heavily focus on counting calories, there are calorie limitations of which followers should be aware. If you plan to follow Cinch, expect to get strict with your diet for a month, but, on the plus side, you’ll still get to eat a bit of dark chocolate every day.

Sass’s diet is divided into two phases and follows three basic rules. Starting with the phases, the first is called the “fast forward” phase and lasts for the first five days. During this phase, you are required to keep you calorie count to a maximum of 1,300 per day. The type of food you can eat is limited and includes small amounts of raspberries, almonds, spinach, eggs, and non-fat plain yogurt.

Not only will most people find this phase of the diet challenging, but it also may not be healthy for certain individuals. The average person requires more than 1,300 calories per day to remain healthy, especially if they are moving around and exercising. Not eating enough will throw your body into starvation mode, which can create a whole mess of problems, among which include slower metabolism, retaining water, and holding on to the fat you actually want to burn and losing the healthy fat you want to keep (ex. muscle and tissue).

The second phase, which is known as the “core plan”, allows dieters to eat more, but each meal is required to contain a certain number of fruits or vegetables, whole grains, lean protein, plant-based fat, and seasonings like chili peppers, vinegar, lemon zest, garlic, and cinnamon. Also, dieters can eat between 50 – 100 calories of dark chocolate containing 70% cocoa, daily.

As for the three rules, they are as follows:

Rule 1: Eat four meals every day at the same time. Meal one should be eaten one hour after waking up and the three remaining meals should be spaced apart by 3 to 5 hours. By consuming meals in this fashion, the idea is that it helps to enhance metabolism and control blood sugar and hunger hormones.

Rule 2: A variety of vegetables and fruits, whole grains, plant-based fats, lean protein, and seasoning should be included in your diet. These foods are believed to help you lose weight and feel full.

Rule 3: When flavoring your food, choose those that do not add calories or salt (sodium) to your food.

In addition, food that is off limit on the Cinch Diet includes alcohol, regular and diet soda, pork, and red meat. Sass also recommends that those who follow her diet consume five vegetarian meals every week and, with the exception of the first phase, should exercise a minimum of 30 minutes daily, 5 days a week.

Although the Cinch Diet isn’t a bad diet overall, it also isn’t an entirely practical weight loss plan for individuals who are seeking to lose weight and keep it off over the long term. There are better diet programs. Talk to your doctor about what type of diet may be right for you and your lifestyle.