Bread for Life Diet Review

Bread For Life Diet Review - Author Olga Raz’s The Bread For Life plan says that women should be eating a dozen servings of whole –grain bread each day (16 for men) to nix those pesky cravings that cause us to overeat.  

The Bread for Life diet is centered on the theory that when you raise serotonin (accomplished by all that bread) you are able to decrease hunger pangs and avoid cravings.  It doesn't hurt that serotonin is the hormone responsible for good moods and high energy.

Raz believes his diet will help you shed up to 20 pounds in just eight weeks.  The diet works in two stages.  One promotes fast weight loss and helps break some of our bad habits that result in overeating and overweight.  However, any diet that limits food variety has a low threshold for lasting success.  For this reason Stage One should be no longer than 2 weeks, at a time. 

It is, however, a plan you can go back to whenever you feel the diet has hot a plateau or you notice that you are beginning to gain a few pounds. Stage one is also designed to help get your insulin and serotonin levels under control.   The book claims that during Stage One, your sugar and insulin levels will start to improve, your serotonin level will stabilize, and you will begin to experience a sense of enjoyment ‑ a wonderful feeling that will encourage you to continue with the diet. 

Stage Two is meant to be the basis of an eating lifestyle.  Stage Two has so much variety, freedom, and choice that making it a way of life really isn't difficult.  If your discipline becomes a bit lax, you can always return to Stage One for 3 to 10 days to speed up your weight loss, and then return to Stage Two.   Breads and fruits are limited, vegetable are unlimited, and forbidden foods included processed foods, high-fat red meat, fats, and sweets).  Bread should be light (between 35-45 calories), one can enjoy a sandwich on stage two with a slice of turkey, tuna with fat free mayo.

What we like about this plan.  A carbohydrate lover’s dream diet!  The diet is simple and easy to follow, even for the busiest person, without even the need t count calories. The diet doe not promote processed foods and insists eating whole grain breads that list refined wheat white flour or corn syrup at or near the top of the list.  These are all ingredients that spike insulin.   There is a list of items in the book that you can add to your sandwiches including turkey, eggplant, smoked salmon or sugar free jelly. These items along with the price of the book make this diet extremely low cost.  The diet also encourages you to have a piece of fruit daily, 3-4 eggs in a week, up to three tablespoons each day of olive oil and drink plenty of water. This diet also includes coffee, which many diets do not.

What we dislike about this plan. The portions are very limited. It might be a matter of time before you start eating non-grain breads and eat white breads, which will stifle the plan. The restriction of protein might be hard for even the greatest bread lover. Dieters eventually get sick of the site of the bread basket! A concrete correlation between increased serotonin levels and whole grain breads has yet to be proven.

How Healthy Is this plan?  Not unhealthy, but it certainly not a balanced diet.  Although the Bread for Life Diet does encourage whole grains, veggies, fruits and lean meats, there is a lack of variety, which means that you may not get all your needed nutrients from food. Oddly enough, the diet claims to have a wide variety and flexibility with regards to food choices. 

Protein is also lacking on this plan and many people may not be completely satisfied with the food selection.  Just because you are eating every few hours does not mean you will feel satisfied. In fact, a complaint about eating a high carbohydrate diet is that one always feels hungry.  The pro-argument seems to center around the idea that eating carbohydrate foods increase serotonin  levels, when in fact there are other foods you can consume that do the same.  Any diet that recommends up to 16 servings of bread a day does not seem very balanced.

Here’s The Bottom Line:  Even though this is a very popular diet in the author’s native  Israel, and it’s a 360 from America’s low carbohydrate craze, I would look for a better plan. In addition, even though the book suggested it is safe for non-insulin diabetics, one must remember that every person breaks their sugar differently, and this might not be ideal for diabetics.  This is also true for the 30% of the population that is gluten sensitive.

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