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What is the Cambridge Diet?
Controversial and effective in the short term: the Cambridge Diet. The Cambridge Diet promises to make you noticeably slimmer within 3 days by following a strict diet. To achieve this, the diet consists of only 500kcal or 800 kcal per day. An average person needs between 2,000 – 2,500 kcal per day. It’s not surprising that you will lose weight quickly, right? Whether it is healthy and sustainable is what we question.
Table of Contents
- What is the Cambridge Diet
- How does the Cambridge Diet work
- Phases of the Cambridge Diet
- Preparation Phase
- Weight Loss Phase
- Transition Phase
- Maintenance Phase
- Advantages of the Cambridge Diet
- Disadvantages of the Cambridge Diet
- Conclusion
What is the Cambridge Diet
Unlike the Atkins Diet and the South Beach Diet, the Cambridge Diet is a low-calorie diet. The other two mainly focus on eliminating certain macronutrients, carbohydrates, making it a low-carb diet. The Cambridge Diet is less about this because the primary focus of the diet is on reducing your calorie intake. However, reducing carbohydrate intake is also part of this diet. The Cambridge Diet was developed by Dr. Alan Howard in 1970 at the University of Cambridge. That also explains the name of the diet. Dr. Alan Howard was a food scientist in Great Britain at this university of Cambridge. This does not change the nature of the diet, however, because there is nothing scientific about the fact that you will lose weight with 500 kcal per day. In our opinion, the Cambridge Diet is therefore a crash diet.
How does the Cambridge Diet work
When you decide to start the Cambridge Diet, you replace all your daily meals with Cambridge soups, bars, and shakes. These are the meals you are allowed to eat daily, in 3 meals. Each of these meals contains around 150kcal, so you end up with no more than 450 – 500 kcal per day. As we mentioned in the opening, an average person needs daily (depending on weight and body composition and activity level) 2,000 – 2,500 kcal, so when you follow the Cambridge Diet, you will generate an extremely large calorie deficit.
Because the diet offers so few calories, you must also follow this diet through a Cambridge consultant. The consultant will inform and guide you through the process and will also advise you on which meal replacements are best for you. These meal replacements contain a lot of proteins and vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients. This saves you the hassle of weighing and counting your calories and, of course, time in the kitchen. In terms of cost, you will spend about 50 to 100 euros per week on these meals. This is because the Cambridge Diet consists of 2 possible programs: 500 kcal per day or 800 kcal per day.
Phases of the Cambridge Diet
Like many other diets, Cambridge also consists of different phases. These include the preparation phase, weight loss phase, transition phase, and maintenance phase. Let’s go through these step by step.
Preparation Phase
Since you are heading towards a crash diet, it is not advisable to do this ‘cold turkey’. You will be guided in the preparation phase towards eating less, and you will probably start losing weight in this phase. This doesn’t necessarily have to be fat mass, be aware of that.
Weight Loss Phase
The weight loss phase of the Cambridge Diet is the phase in which you start using the meal replacements. You eat no more than 3 meals a day consisting of bars, shakes, and soups. This is also the most challenging phase of the diet. Your body can react strongly to the calorie deficit, and you may feel lethargic, dizzy, and nauseous. By eating the meal replacements, which contain few carbohydrates, your body enters ketosis. In this phase, the body responds to the low carbohydrate intake and looks elsewhere for its energy. Your body gets this from the fat reserves.
Transition Phase
After about three weeks of eating meal replacements, you can start eating normally again. This is allowed in the transition phase. After three weeks, you can insert a week with regular food. This means that you eat the 3 meal replacements per day and add a light dinner to that.
Maintenance Phase
Because you don’t want the weight loss to continue continuously, the final phase of Cambridge is the maintenance phase. You keep the meal replacements and add healthy eating habits to them.
Advantages of the Cambridge Diet
Regardless of the health consequences, the Cambridge Diet has several advantages. In our view, these advantages are also immediately disadvantages. Well, you lose weight incredibly quickly. There are results known
that people lose 10 kilos per month by following this diet. Whether this is healthy, we will leave out of consideration for now. After all, we will soon come to the disadvantages. Furthermore, it is a fairly straightforward diet. You get your 3 meal replacements per day, and with that, you have everything you need. That also means that you can save time in the kitchen because you already have your ready-made meals. Time to exercise, you would think?
Disadvantages of the Cambridge Diet
So, the diet has several advantages. But unfortunately, these advantages have a downside. After all, the weight you lose is not permanent. If you want to maintain this weight for the rest of your life, you will have to eat meal replacements for the rest of your life. It should be noted that in the beginning, weight loss can be very fast, but that your body mainly loses water due to the decrease in glycogen (energy reserves) in the muscles. The diet gives you time to exercise because you no longer have to stand in the kitchen every evening. But with only 500 kcal per day, you will have little energy left to exercise. In addition, exercising during Cambridge can lead to unwanted situations such as lethargy and even fainting. The energy deficits also affect your muscles. Your body breaks down muscle mass to get energy, so you can lose quite a bit of strength. And when you stop, the yo-yo effect awaits you.
Conclusion
The popularity of the Cambridge Diet is due to the fact that it can be effective in the short term for people who have always struggled with losing weight. Not surprising when you look at the amount of calories you are allowed to consume daily. In our view, this is not a healthy and sustainable way to lose weight. The calorie deficits come at the expense of your muscle mass, you have no energy to exercise, and you are at the mercy of daily meal replacements.
