Over the last few months there has been a lot of cereal promotion going on. Kelloggs' Special K brand have been promoting their very own Special K Diet Challenge (for a number of years now). Not to be outdone, Kraft have "lose 10 pounds" emblazoned on virtually the entire line of "Post" brand cereals (called Eat 2 Lose 10)
Both cereal "diets" are bold and upfront with their claims: "Lose up to 6 pounds in 2 weeks!" shouts Special K. Is this for real? Is it valid?
The Special K Diet
Eat a serving of Kellogg's® Special K®, Special K® Red Berries, Special K® Vanilla Almond, Special K® Fruit & Yogurt or Special K® Low Carb Lifestyle Protein Plus cereal with 2/3 cup skim milk and fruit for two meals a day.
Eat your third meal as you normally do.
For snacks, choose from fresh fruits and
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According to my reading, the mean weight loss was less than 2 kg (4.4 pounds) in the 2 week period.
A basic low fat diet
So what's the magic? There is no magic. The women in the study ate less than they normally did. According to the study, the women in the Special K group were eating about 2200 kcals per day. When they started substituting the cereal meals they dropped daily intake by about 640 kcals per day. Furthermore, a lot of those calories were from fat (~39 grams or 351 kcals).
Good or What?
Personally I think incorporating some cereals into your diet can be good - but there are some caveats here: Satiety - From experience, I've noticed that wolfing down a bowl of cereal doesn't always curb the hunger pangs. However having a bit more protein in the mix does keep the pangs at bay. Nutrition - The simple truth is - Special K is better than what most people eat, but it still contains such gems as High Fructose Corn Syrup. Serving for serving, it has less potassium and fiber than oats, and more sugar. Compare here and here.
The Claim
"Lose 6 Pounds in 2
If you have tried all of the different kinds of diets and find less than favorable results, this program is for you. This statement is true if you are interested to lose from
The Kashi provides 10g for a 3/4cup serving. If referring to Canada’s Food Guide one would consider this as one grain serving. Having just 1/6-8 grain servings providing ~36% of your daily fibre is a good ratio. The RDA value for protein is 46g for females and 56g for males (age 19-50yrs). Considering that cereal is not in the meat and alternatives section, (typically main source of protein), providing 9g of protein for 52g serving is fairly high. However the 4g/52g serving of the Fiber One, is not a good source of protein. Finally, the iron RDA is 8g for males and 18g for females. Cereal is not a primary source of iron, so we don’t want this value to be obscenely high, as in addition to the other foods consumed throughout the day, one can over consume iron easily. This makes the 90% value in the Fiber One slightly less favourable than the just 10% value of the Kashi
The nutritional information given focuses on calories and fat. For example, the first advertisements states that the cereal contains 0 grams of saturated fat, and the third reads “Fat free, as always”. This appeals to the fat free boom beginning in 1976, wherein Americans vilified fat and sought to avoid it as much as possible (by replacing the fat in products with more sugar). Although much of this marketing is geared towards sports fans, and children in particular, the nutritional information appeals to adults and is geared toward the societal values of the time so that parents will purchase the cereal for their children.
This article is the purest example of nutritional quackery. It provides readers with a third-person story of a woman named Kelly Smith, who lost 195lbs on a specific "special-ingredient" weight loss shake. The brand is mentioned numerous times and offered a 15% off code. Moreover, with the article obviously being an ad for this company, the author uses uncited, fake sources from ambiguous universities. The diet also insists that a person eats less than 1500 calories per day, with two of those meals being the liquid shakes that contain an appetite suppressant. This way of losing weight may be easy, but in no way, is it healthy. The article, "Kelly Lost 195lbs Using Special-Ingredient Shakes That Work Like Gastric Bypass!" by Woman's World, is an obvious example of nutritional quackery, and any advice from this article should be ignored or further consulted by a
If you choose Special K cereal for your breakfast or as part of the Special K Diet, you may want to think again.
The 3 Week Diet is a new diet promising quick weight loss. It’s creator, Brian Flatt, claims that you can lose between 12 and 23 pounds of fat in just 21 days. It seems a lot, so do his claims stand up? Does the 3 week diet really work? The 3 week diet is basically a combination of different diets which are chained together into different phases. The diet starts with a detox phase, then an optional fasting phase followed by two different low carb
Fad Diets are targeting overweight and obese people. Fad Diets are to make you lose enormous weight in a short time. Desperate overweight people try to use these products so they can experience what it is like to be thin. Most overweight people have been obese since their childhood lives and would give anything a try. They don’t realize it is a scam. It is a hoax. Fad diets prey on overweight people.
Along with the South Beach diet, there are literally hundreds of other diet programs on the market that supposedly offer a healthy weight-loss solution to the dieter. However, most of these, including the South Beach diet, are considered fad diets simply for the fact that most of the people that go on them only stay on them a short period of time. Because of this fact, the legitimacy of these diets must be questioned. In the case of
This is a very low calorie diet of approximately 1200 calories, so that people will lose weight. It is not recommended for people under 18, and it is half of the recommended calories for
Whole grain fiber for breakfast aids in steadying blood sugar levels by slowing down the absorption of sugars so that your body can keep up with processing them.
This is a lifestyle change and so you won’t be returning to your normal eating habits of refined and
In August 2012, Special K cereal ran an advertisement in Brides magazine that featured a glowing bride smiling radiantly whilst holding a bouquet of red roses. At first glance, her wedding gown appears to be a traditional, white, mermaid-style gown; however, if a reader looks at the garment more closely, he or she will notice words discreetly embedded into the fabric of the gown. These words are positive attributes that people may gain if they lose weight. Special K often uses its slogan “What will you gain when you lose?”, and did so in this advertisement. The advertisement is not for only the cereal, but for a customized weight loss plan provided by Special K that will presumably include buying Special K products. By using this wedding gown with positive bonus effects of weight loss written on it in elegant letters, Special K creates an effective weight loss advertisement.
These diet plans are based on calorie restriction and calorie expansion. That alone is not enough. The diets are both macronutrients and micronutrient balanced. With slight variation on which meats you choose, The
Kellogg’s Special K with strawberries is the only competitor in the market currently offering healthy cereal to the consumers.
It worked for me and it will work for you as well, We are all different, how can we eat according to a specific diet? We need to eat what our body craves. I come from Goa so there rice is a staple and I crave rice whenever low on energy, earlier I would not eat it and just feel unsatisfied with my food. Now I do have rice, without the feeling of guilt. I have a chocolate too when I want. And yes am still losing weight. It’s no miracle, it’s just the love you show to your body, and it loves you back. Eating should not be so complicated, it’s so basic; You feel Hungry You Eat, it’s that easy.