"Xtreme Fat Loss Diet" by Joel Marion - REVIEW

So you want to lose a lot of body fat--but the problem is, until now you couldn't lose body fat without also losing a lot of muscle.  This isn't a big concern if you just want to get rid of the weight, but if you want to get as lean as possible, the key is to lose as much fat while preserving muscle mass, which gives you a more cut, defined appearance.

Until now, it wasn't possible to lose fat rapidly.  You had to eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly, and if you were lucky, you lost 1 or 2 pounds of fat per week.

Joel Marion, a fitness expert ranked as one of Men's Health Top 50 Personal Trainers, believes he's cracked the code to rapid fat loss.  And the answer isn't in a diet pill, a special way of exercising, or eating a lot of protein.  He believes timing cheat days and deficit days in a precise order is the key to rapid fat loss.  He details this in his book Xtreme Fat Loss Diet.

What is the Xtreme Fat Loss Diet?
The Xtreme Fat Loss Diet is based on the idea that how we're timing our deficit and cheat days, instead of how many calories we eat, is the key to sustaining rapid, permanent fat loss.  While eating in a caloric deficit can help you lose weight, if you eat too few calories, you risk losing muscle as well as fat--there's no way to get around this.  But Marion believes he has devised the perfect solution for getting around this wall, timing cheat and deficits in a 5 day schedule to increase fat loss.

He details this in his book--which also comes with a diet and training manual, a journal, supplementation guide, and even audio files explaining rapid fat loss.

So what can you expect?  Expect a lot of variety, and a diet program that is never boring.  The diet is set up in 5 day blocks, with each day devoted to a certain method that increases the metabolism and enhances fat loss.  These days include:

• The Cheat Day.  Marion says that cheat days increase your metabolism, even if you eat a lot of calories.
• The Shake Day. Like protein shakes?  On this day you consume several shakes--nothing more, nothing less.
• The Fast Day.  Here's where the fat loss reaches its peak.  On this day you eat nothing, creating a huge calorie deficit that accelerates fat loss.
• The Moderate Carb Day.  On this day, you evenly split your intake among the three big macronutrient groups--protein, carbs, and fat.
• The Protein Day. As the name suggests, you'll eat nothing but protein, which prepares your body for the next diet cycle.

Now, if you listen to Marion's advice, you should lose a lot of weight--and fat.  You also need to exercise moderately, which he details in his training manual, which people receive for free once they order the Xtreme Fat Loss Diet book.

Issues With the Xtreme Fat Loss Diet
The idea sounds promising--varying how you eat to keep the metabolism high--and even bodybuilding websites, such as Bodybuilding.com, back some of Marion's ideas, such as using cheat days to increase the metabolism.

But here's the problem.  Marion says he's done a lot of research on the subject of fat loss, but once we look at the actual studies discussing matters such as how cheat days increase the metabolism, we can see that the evidence isn't always convincing.  For instance, the metabolic increase you get from a cheat day is there, but it's actually really weak--your metabolism won't skyrocket so high after a cheat day that it helps you lose fat.  If anything, you'll gain fat from an uncontrolled cheat day, and your metabolism won't get you out of this mess.  There's also no evidence to back up his assertion that varying up the macronutrients every day is productive to fat loss.

Truth be told, very few of his diet techniques have any significant effect on the metabolism--at least that's what the scientific evidence says.

What the Consumers Are Saying
So the Xtreme Fat Loss Diet isn't necessarily scientifically accurate, and even more evidence suggests that varying what you eat everyday isn't productive to fat loss.  But perhaps dieters have something else--perhaps, something positive--to say about this diet?

Not necessarily so.  In fact, there have been several complaints of weight gain from the diet.

One consumer writes: "I bought into it as I had hit a plateau - my first week I dropped 7 inches and 4 lbs and 1% fat, second 5 day cycle I dropped another 3 inches and another 3lbs and .8% fat.  Third cycle I gained an inch and .8 lb?!?"

Not good news.  Another consumer says: "I did 3 rotations.  I didn't lose any fat at all.  The last couple of days I started losing strength and finally, I just didn't want to do it anymore."

Not exactly the glowing reviews Marion probably would have hoped for.

Conclusion
It may be written by a top fitness professional, but the scientific evidence--and complaints from consumers--do draw a lot of questions about this diet.  It's not a dangerous diet by any means, so it's good in that respect, but it seems this diet is actually causing people to gain, not lose weight.  And that's not a good thing.