95 Diets: The F-Plan Diet

And so continues my 95-part series outlining different diet/nutrition plans...

Presenting... The F-Plan Diet: Eat fiber and lose weight faster than you can say "Low Glycemic Index"!

The F-Plan Diet, created in the early 1980's by Audrey Eyton, is a nutrition plan calling for eating only foods with high fiber contents: fruits, certain vegetables (broccoli, artichoke, carrots, potatoes, onions), nuts/seeds, legumes, whole grains, and cereals. The diet comes with a caloric restriction of less than 1,500 calories per day.

The idea behind the F-Plan Diet is three-fold. First, eating foods that are high in fiber make you feel fuller faster, and keep you fuller longer. This helps stop people from overeating.

Second, a majority of the foods out there that are high in fiber are ranked low on the Gylcemic Index, meaning that it will take your body much longer to process these low GI foods, and as a result your insulin levels will be remain relatively stable (its these spikes in insulin that cause us to overeat, and to store the high GI carbs as body fat).

Third, a majority of the energy you eat will come from carbohydrates, meaning that your body will have energy to function on while on the diet. Plus, most people would have a tough time shoving 1,500 calories worth of dietary fiber into their mouths each day, since most foods high in dietary fiber are difficult to digest while still also being relatively low in calories.

So does this nutrition plan pass the WiscFit bull*** test? I'd say that, overall, its got about 1/3 of it right. This F-Plan theory is rooted in good, sound science, but is way off the mark in its application.

What to keep: Eating fruits and vegetables (nutrient-rich foods that are high in fiber), and nuts/seeds. These low GI foods will help keep your pancreas from insulin spiking you. The caloric restriction will also happen relatively secondary to the types/quality of foods that you eat, which is a plus (I'll explain why the weight loss industry's emphasis on caloric restriction being the holy grail of losing weight is bunk in a future post).

The Bull****: While I absolutely love the fruits and veggies, and the nuts/seeds, the F-Plan Diet has absolutely NO PRESCRIPTION FOR PROTEIN, outside of what I'd imagine you could pull from the soy beans/legumes you'd be eating on this diet. Any diet plan that doesn't have you eating some sort of lean animal-based protein is probably a scam (this of course is excluding those diets out there that abstain from animal meat/products for religious or moral reasons).

Thinking about the F-Plan Diet? I'd hold off and put your nutritional effort elsewhere, because there are obviously much better options out there...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

For the record, if it looks like I'm coming at most of these diets from a Paleo paradigm, you would be both observant and correct. For the reasons I outlined in my first 95 Diets post (about the Paleo Diet), I believe that the Paleo prescription is the way that everybody should eat. Don't agree? Let me know and tell me why.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

WOD 100103 Sunday

Rest Day

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

^ ^ ^ BURPEE CHALLENGE ^ ^ ^
Day #3