About the diet
SHRED combines a low GI diet, meal spacing, and meal replacements. Those who follow SHRED will constantly be eating — four meals or meal replacements (soups, smoothies, shakes) and three snacks a day, over a six-week program.
SHRED also includes the concept of “Diet Confusion.” Diet Confusion, like muscle confusion, tricks the body and revs up its performance. In the same way you vary your workout to see results, switch up your food intake to boost your metabolism.
Another diet?
If that’s your first question upon hearing about “SHRED: The Revolutionary Diet” by Dr. Ian Smith, consider yourself in good company. And then, take another look.
Smith, a Harvard and Columbia grad, is the New York Times bestselling author of “The Fat Smash Diet,” “Happy” and “Eat.” He was appointed in 2010 to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition, and is a medical contributor and diet expert for The Rachael Ray Show and VH1’s Celebrity Fit Club.
He’s also the founder of two major national health initiatives — the 50 Million Pound Challenge and The Makeover Mile — that have helped millions of people lose weight and improve their health.
“I told my wife that this book was going to become a movement,” he told The Dayton Daily News while in town on April 29. “I believe that most people fail on diets not because they don’t know what to do, but because they have motivational obstacles somewhere in the process and they trip over them.
“My whole plan is to tap into the sentiments of people and encourage them, not just give them a plan and say ‘Follow it, lose weight.’”
In other words, he’s not so much about changing what people eat as how people eat, both as individuals and a culture.
SHRED does, however, start with a specific plan. The book is a detailed but flexible, highly forgiving guide to dropping – and keeping off – anywhere from 200 pounds to those final stubborn love handles. It involves six individual week-long cycles with detailed food and workout guidelines for each day’s meals, snacking and exercising. The approach is built around timing and developing healthy habits.
“I think a lot of diets are either deprivation diets that cut out a lot of things that people enjoy, or they’re extreme diets, very expensive or difficult,” Smith said. “SHRED is a program that says you are a person, you have real tastes and real fallacies. You don’t have to be perfect.”
Shredders, as Smith calls his diet’s practitioners, can learn to prepare what they have in their home already in ways that provide health benefits. People with diet restrictions — vegetarians, diabetics, those with food allergies — can make smart substitutions to the SHRED recommendations and still lose weight.
And if someone stumbles, needs an exercise partner or wants to share ideas for food substitutions, they can join a Shredder Facebook group. Dayton’s has more than 150 members.
“I want them to focus on two or three victories every day: to only drink one cup of coffee instead of three, or to remember to eat breakfast,” Smith said. “You’re not always going to make the best choices, but you know you’re going to make a better choice than you would have in the past.”
After completing the initial six-week program, Shredders are encouraged to choose the week-long cycle that works best for them as they work toward a goal or maintain their healthy weight.
Smith, who’s been on tour with the book since January, will be featured on Katy Couric’s show June 14. He said he’s seen tremendous response so far, including 1,000 workers from the City of Atlanta signing up to follow the six-week program together, and the City of Philadelphia preparing to do so as well.
“The amount of weight people have lost has surprised me,” he said. “There’s a lot of people who’ve lost 30 pounds in six weeks. That’s a lot of weight.”
About the Author