The Xtreme Fat Loss Diet is a diet and workout program devised by personal trainer and former Body-for-Life Transformation Challenge winner Joel Marion. The program includes a five day plan that breaks down the amount of calories and macronutrients you eat each day and accompanying workouts for each day. The program can be repeated for 25 days, with Marion promising you can lose 25 pounds of fat in that time. While you will lose weight if you follow this program, the American Dietetic Association advocates losing weight through a moderate calorie deficit, regular physical activity and small dietary indulgences versus full-blown "cheat days."
What is the Xtreme Fat Loss Diet?
The Xtreme Fat Loss Diet is based on the premise that timing when and what you eat, along with exercise, will lead you to lose the maximum amount of fat. Marion theorizes that many diets fail because when you eat too few calories, your leptin levels drop, your body eventually goes into starvation mode and stops losing weight. To counter this, he has incorporated food loading or "cheat days" every five days to replenish your leptin levels and to keep your body in constant calorie-burning mode.
What and When to Eat
The first day of each cycle is the Cheat Day, when you can eat as much food, including pizza and ice cream, as you like. Leptin is a hormone produced by your body fat that regulates fat storage. If you eat normally, your leptin levels remain high and your body burns fat, but when you diet, your leptin levels are depleted so your body begins to store fat. The Cheat Day in this diet is meant to increase your leptin levels in anticipation of the upcoming diet days. Day Two is a Shake Day. On this day, you are only allowed to drink special nutritional shakes and your calorie allotment is fairly low. Day Three is a Fast Day where you do not eat any food. Following this, there is a moderate carb day. On this day, 40 percent of your calories should come from carbs, 30 percent from fats and 30 percent from protein. Your calorie allotment also increases on this day. The fifth and final day of the plan is a protein-only day, meant to deplete your body of extra calories in anticipation of the following cheat day.
Workouts
On Day One or Cheat Day, you do a density workout, which is a specialized high-intensity workout with short rest breaks. This exercise takes advantage of the fact that you are eating so many calories on this day and have energy to spare. Day Two, or Shake Day, includes a less intensive strength training workout to maintain lean muscle mass and allow your body to recover from the previous day's density workout. On Day Three, you return to a high-intensity lactic acid training day where you deplete a high amount of calories. Day Four is also a high intensity, high metabolic workout that is meant to speed up fat loss. The final day returns to a high intensity, lactic acid training day.
Precautions
This diet program is extreme. While the cheat day will help you rebuild your leptin levels, the remainder of the days are fairly low calorie and include fairly intensive workouts. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services warns that very low calorie diets can lead to side effects including fatigue, constipation, nausea or diarrhea. Daily workouts without rest days can also lead to overtraining, with symptoms including decreased performance, elevated resting blood pressure, headaches, disturbed sleep and increased risk of injury.
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