The cheater's diet

If you adore your food, want to lose weight but can't bear the straitjacket of dieting and the prospect of unsatisfying eating for weeks on end, there is a new diet in town that might just be for you.

I live to eat. I have a voracious appetite and am always thinking of the next meal. As a teenager, I made numerous vain attempts at slimming. But my beloved nonna had me sussed when she told me that I loved my food too much to waste energy on dieting.

For 20-odd years I resisted the temptation to tackle my waistline. But many pounds and two pregnancies later a friend persuaded me to try The Cheater's Diet, a new US import.

Fast forward four weeks and I had lost nearly 11 lbs, and as I am writing, two months on, I have not tired of it yet and am still happily losing weight.

The great thing about this diet is that it 'requires' you to cheat on weekends with things like pizza, ice cream, chocolate, red wine, beer and even peanut butter!

The doctor who dreamed up the diet, Dr Paul Rivas, a weight-loss specialist who has based it on more than 15,000 patients, says weekend cheating serves two purposes: it keeps you motivated and revs up your metabolism to burn extra calories. 'Taking Saturday and Sunday off to relax and gather your resources actually makes you better at your job when you return on Monday," says Dr Rivas. "Losing weight is no different. If you take a couple of days off every week, you'll find that when you return to your diet, you'll burn off pounds at an amazing rate.'

Dr Rivas is not advocating binging, however: you are allowed an extra ten calories for every pound you weigh. So, for example, if you weigh 140 lbs (10st) you can consume an additional 1,400 calories over the weekend. Cheating should start at 9am Saturday and end 9pm Sunday and you can't indulge on any food that takes your fancy.

Pizza is great, for example, because the tomato sauce contains lycopene, an antioxidant which is believed to help reduce the risk of breast and cervix cancer while the fat in the cheese helps absorb it. Dark chocolate - best to go for 70 per cent cocoa content – is also high on antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. Red wine, especially pinot noir and cabernet, is rich in antioxidants as estrogens, which help fight against high blood pressure and heart disease. And believe it or not, in small quantities, peanut butter can reduce the risk of heart disease too.

As for weekdays, they are not bad either, although we are talking diet here with bread, sugar, saturated fats and alcohol out of bounds. Meals and snacks should be based on protein, such as fresh eggs, white lean meat, pulses, peanuts and yoghurt; fruit and vegetables - you can have up to seven servings a day, but leave grapes, pineapples, bananas, cantaloupes and corn for the weekend because of their high sugar content; and 'good fats' such as tuna, salmon, sardines, all of which are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, plus extra-virgin olive oil.

If you crave for carbohydrates, it's best to go for pasta, whole grain rice, sweet potatoes and yams. But you should watch your portions, so a serving or rice or pasta should fill no more than one quarter of your plate.

You should make sure you do regular daily exercise, such as around half an hour of gardening, fast dancing or walking. This 200-page practical book has also two workweek menus and 28 pages of recipes as well as a chapter on cheating for special occasions, for example when going out to a restaurant.

As Dr Rivas puts it: 'Cheaters always win, and winners always cheat. So read on, have fun and bon appétit!'

The Cheater's Diet: Lose Weight by Taking Weekends Off, £11.46 at Amazon.

 

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