The Sirtfood diet has been around for a long time, previously known primarily as the Cabbage Soup Diet. However, recently it has become more popular due to celebrity Adele’s significant weight loss to which she has lost almost 100 lbs.
So what is sirtfood, you ask?
Sirtfood is a food high in sirtuin activators, which is a type of protein that protect the cells in our bodies from inflammation. Some research has shown that they can help regulate your metabolism, increase muscle, and in doing so, burn fat.
The main attention that has come with this diet is that Adele prompted that you can eat chocolates and drink red wine while on a diet. This is true as both dark chocolate and merlot contain the sirtuin activators; however, both contain other ingredients that may counter weight loss, so use sparingly.
According to the website sirtfooddiet.net, the following are the top 20 sirtfoods:
- Bird’s-eye chili
- Buckwheat
- Capers
- Celery
- Cocoa
- Coffee
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Green tea
- Kale
- Lovage
- Medjool dates
- Parsley
- Red chicory
- Red onion
- Red wine
- Rocket
- Soy
- Strawberries
- Tumeric
- Walnuts
According to the website eating these top 20 Sirtfoods you can mimic the effects of fasting and exercise and achieve a healthier body.
So what are the cons of this amazing diet that promotes itself as “activate a skinny gene”?
The Cons of Sirtfood Diet
The research behind this diet is, at best controversial on whether the benefits of sirtfood is as claimed. There is nothing wrong with having sirtfood in your diet as the items are by and large healthy foods, but the science at this time don’t back the claims for the diet, only the tons of research for eating a healthy diet does.
The real qualifier of the diet is that it is restrictive. The diet requires an intake of 1,000 to 1,500 calories per day. That is nearly a 1000 calories less than needed for the average person of average height. So essentially, with that much restriction, you could eat a pizza and ice cream diet and stay below that calorie count and lose weight.
Last, this diet’s only focus is on weight loss, not muscle, or overall health. Food is fuel, simple as that. If you are restricting fuel to your body, there is always a chance of breaking your health.
Overall, this diet is not recommended. It’s another fad diet, and if your goal is to be healthy, then there is no substitute for eating healthy and controlling your caloric intake. From what we see, there is nothing wrong with the list of Sirtfoods; in fact, we recommend they be in your diet due to the anti-inflammatory properties. Just be smarter about your intake restrictions.