Fitness and diet guru Richard Simmons has created several diet plans for consumers during his career. His most popular diet is an improved version of his original Deal-A-Meal calorie trading diet plan. Simmons updated that program and now markets it as the Food Mover program, a diet that lets you exchange foods without counting calories. Get advice from a health professional before you adopt this diet strategy.
Diet Features
Simmons' Food Mover diet plan is a flexible calorie trading system that lets you select a daily calorie intake, based on your weight-loss or maintenance goals. The 2011 cost for the Food Mover package is $20. It includes an exchange guide, a meal plan for the Blast Off rapid weight loss diet and a simplified calorie-trading calculator with food selection cards. The calorie-trading cards allow you to plan meals and snacks by selecting and combining food cards that fit recommended personalized daily calorie intake. The food exchanges for the meal plans on the cards fit the American Dietetic Association's food exchange recommendation and conform to the USDA Food Pyramid and nutritional standards.
Diet Tools
The accompanying booklets help you master food portion control, plan meals and select foods from the appropriate food groups for your daily calorie level. With the Food Mover system, instead of counting calories, you choose controlled portions from food pictures that fit a predetermined total daily calorie target. Dieters combine foods in the Food Mover's windows to create meals and snacks from specific food groups. After selecting the components of any meal, you track your daily calorie intake by closing the tabs on each Food Mover window already used. Open tabs represent remaining meal options for each day. The diet program also contains serving size and calorie information for a selection of international foods, often hard to find.
The Food Mover is the diet's main tool. It helps you select appropriate foods to fit a preset daily calorie intake goal. This simplifies daily meal planning for people who don't want to count calories. A registered dietitian designed the program's exchanges and menu plans. The program also has daily exercise and water intake reminders. Consumers who buy the package get access to an online database of fast food restaurant meal selections that help to keep their diets on track.
Online Elements
Consumers who need additional diet support can register as members of Simmons' Clubhouse, a community that features motivation and encouragement from Simmons and other dieters. A basic membership for 12 weeks cost $30 in 2011. Simmons offers a special introductory Clubhouse membership fee at $20 occasionally. Members pay a reoccurring monthly fee of $10 after the initial three-month membership expires. His Gold and Platinum memberships cover six months or 12 months, respectively, at rates that reduce your overall annual cost.
Simmons' website also offers a variety of exercise products to encourage you to develop the habit of daily exercise. The website has a selection of recipes that dieters can use to prepare healthy, low-calorie meals that fit the Simmons diet strategy. These recipes and an online version of the Food Mover are included in the Clubhouse membership.
Considerations
This diet is not highly structured, which might make it more difficult for some people to follow. The meal plans require moderate to severe calorie restrictions that depend on your initial weight. Any diet for women that restricts calories to less than 1,200 daily requires medical supervision. For men, 1,500 calories daily is the minimum, according to Harvard University. At these calorie levels, it is difficult to get all the nutrients required daily.
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