The Chrono Diet - Does It Work?

If you're like us here at True Citrus, breakfast is your favorite meal of the day. Nothing beats hot, delicious food waiting for you after hauling yourself out of your cozy bed!

Apparently we aren't the only ones who love breakfast time. We recently heard about the Chrono-Nutrition Diet proposed by a French doctor who believes that it's WHEN we eat, as much as WHAT we eat that makes us either chubby or slim.

According to Dr. Delabos, there are certain times of day when our body naturally secrets hormones and enzymes that burn the nutrients in various food groups for energy instead of storing them as fat.

Not only are you supposed to lose weight while NEVER feeling hungry with the Chrono diet, but your fat is supposed to re-arrange itself and your cellulite is expected to disappear.

We are big fans of French eating styles anyway - the pastries, the chocolates, the cheeses, oh la la! So we are giving Chrono-Nutrition a try. 

How to Do the Chrono Diet: 

Breakfast: eat animal fats and whole-grain carbs. According to Delabos, our bodies secrete plenty of the enzymes that handle fats and protein when we wake up, so breakfast can be a rich, greasy meal with bread, butter, eggs, ham, sausage and cheeses. This meal fills you up so that you're less hungry during the day. A baguette smeared with cheese, or scrambled eggs with ham? So worth getting up for!

Lunch: mostly protein (animal or other) along with about 8 tablespoons worth of starchy carbs like rice, pasta, potatoes, or beans. No vegetables! Save them for dinner. According to le doctor, the mineral salts in vegetables eaten during the day cause weight gain and cellulite. Wow, first time we've heard a doctor not recommending veggies!

Afternoon Snack: eat a small bit of vegetable fats: avocado, olives, nuts, peanut butter, honey or 30 grams of dark chocolate - a little over two tablespoons worth. Or fruit.

Dinner: this is the lightest meal of the day, with fish, shellfish, lean meats, and eight tablespoons of green vegetables. Or if you're still full from the other meals, just skip it!

Every day, you can have a glass or two of red wine or champagne (other wines are too sugary). Other than that, keep drinking water (you can have all the 0-calorie all-natural True Lemon, True Lime, True Orange, or True Grapefruit you want in your water, too!)

Each week, you can have anything you want for two meals. Maybe that's where cakes, cookies, and pastries come in?

Basically, the idea is to eat breakfast like a king,
lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.

For us, it's too early to tell if this system works. Supposedly it can take 6 to 8 weeks for the fat to go away or rearrange itself. 

Research does seem to confirm that a hearty protein and carb breakfast plan helps keep more weight off than a low-carb, low-calorie diet. In a Virginia Commonwealth University study, women who ate their largest meal at breakfast were still losing weight eight months later, compared to women on a low-fat, low-carb breakfast plan (who had started gaining back weight by then).

The University researcher's theory about this weight loss is a lot simpler than Dr. Delabos. They just figure that a big breakfast kept the women feeling fuller for longer, so they ate less later!

Don't forget to keep drinking plenty of water throughout the day for optimal health and weight loss. Make it easy and delicious with the help of True Citrus products!