The Best Life diet gives you what you need to "live your best life," according to the diet's developer, Bob Greene, an exercise physiologist made famous in his role as Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer. Greene claims his diet plan provides the tools and guidelines necessary to live the life you deserve.
The Best Life diet is a life-long plan that focuses on gradual weight loss of 1 to 2 lbs. a week, healthy food choices and regular exercise. Greene attempts to help dieters find the root cause of their weight problems and work on identifying and resolving issues related to emotional eating. The diet involves three phases that introduce healthy lifestyle changes and strategies to deal with challenges. Dieters rate hunger on a 1 to 10 scale based on the stages of fullness to help them identify when to stop eating.
The Three Phases
Phase one lasts four weeks and focuses on establishing healthy habits, such as increased activity, avoidance of alcohol and smoking, starting a vitamin supplement, eating three meals and two snacks each day and increasing fluids. Phase two, which lasts at least four weeks, gets gradual weight loss started with the recommendation of removing six problem foods, such as soda or fried foods, from the diet and also focuses on portion control and managing hunger. Phase two ends when the goal weight is reached, or a dieter is within 20 lbs. of it. Phase three is the maintenance phase, which dieters continue for life. "Anything goes" calories are introduced and more unhealthy foods are removed from the diet. Phase three also focuses on reducing sugar, sodium, saturated fats and trans fats.
Best Life Diet Shopping List
If you're on the Best Life diet, recommended items for your grocery list include salad greens, dark leafy greens and other vegetables, fruit, onions and garlic, steel-cut oats, cereal with at least 3 g of fiber per serving, nuts, brown rice, whole-grain pasta, barley, eggs, skim or 1 percent fat milk, plain yogurt, trans fat-free soft margarine, fish, poultry, lean cuts of meat, olive oil, vinegar, beans, low-sodium soups and nut butters. Dieters are also permitted to choose frozen meals with less than 700 mg of sodium and no trans fats, low-fat frozen desserts, salt-free frozen vegetables and frozen soy burgers.
Sample Menu
A day on the Best Life diet could start with a breakfast of 1/2 a grapefruit, 1 cup fat-free milk and 2 teaspoons slivered almonds on top of a brand-name cereal Greene recommends. Tuna salad made with celery and scallions served on crispbread with tomatoes and lettuce is a suggested lunch. A dinner possibility includes broccoli with olive oil and sesame seeds, spicy roasted potatoes and tandoori-spiced halibut. The diet also includes a snack and 100 "anything goes" calories.
Expert Opinion
The Best Life diet provides sound advice for healthy lifestyle change and weight management, according to Lisa Moore, a registered dietitian with the American Dietetic Association. The plan is based on extensively researched and widely accepted principles, and approaches weight control from many different angles. Moore criticizes Greene's recommendations of name-brand food items and says dieters can get the same benefits from other brands.
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