The Game On Diet

Nutritional Pros and Cons

The authors' diet plan recommends consuming five small meals a day, spaced between two to four hours. Each meal should include a combination of lean protein, healthy fats, carbohydrates, such as whole grains and fruits and vegetables. You can eat as many green vegetables with each meal as you want. The meals must not contain any of the "F.L.A.B.B." (fat-loading and belly-bloating) foods including all fried foods, high-fat/processed meats, anything made with refined sugar and white flour, butter, margarine, whole-fat cheese, cream, dried fruit and fruit juice. Each day, in addition to the five meals, you may consume up to 100 calories of whatever you want. Between meals you may snack on cucumbers and celery. You are allowed to indulge from the F.L.A.B.B. food list on your day off (one day/week), your meal off (one meal/week) and your 100 calories a day. The portion sizes recommended for the five meals are quite small, which then leads to the reduction in calories and thus the weight loss.

The authors do a good job of making the diet plan as simplistic as possible; however, a few recommendations are not supported by evidence-based science, including buying and consuming organic produce and biological effects of sugar (caloric) and artificial (non-caloric) sweeteners. For example, the authors equate consuming artificial sweeteners to drinking chlorinated water from a pool. There are also some contradictions. For instance, the authors state consuming soda (diet or regular) leaves you malnourished and craving carbohydrates, yet they "allow" it on your meal and day off. If this truly is the case, which it is not, why are the authors allowing this at all? They also advise eliminating caffeine by not consuming regular/diet soda, but they "allow" tea and coffee, which can be higher in caffeine. Also, the plan encourages eating raw fruits and vegetables, including unlimited celery and cucumbers, which may cause gas and bloating for many.