The 3 Hour Diet

This is so amazing and I just had to share! I hope this isn't an "advertising" thread, because I'm just showing what I'm going through and that its working. I just started this diet and I'm already feeling the effects. I wish I could read you the whole book I'm reading, but I'll post stuff from the internet.

3-Hour Diet™ : Official site of the 3-Hour Diet

Basically, its an eating pattern that puts your metabolism up and causes you to lose weight! You can use 10 pounds in 2 weeks!

The website talks about a program or whatever, but all you need is the book and it talks about the pattern and stuff. You don't even need to work out or change your diet. You can eat anything you want! Nothing is off limits, no counting carbs, no fat free crap, and no vegetable or meat only. It's all about the eating pattern!

He also talks about how the diets I described above are scientifically proven not to be successful in the long run, because once you get back on your regular eating pattern, the weight comes back. I know, I was on the Atkins diet, and I lost a ton of weight, and it all came back... This diet however is proven to stay forever.

Here is how it works. When you go a long time without eating, your body gets so hungry, it thinks its going through a famine, and the only thing it knows to do is store fat. Then when you finally eat, you binge and you get no nutrients from your food, having once again, storing it as fat. So, with a bad eating pattern, you gain wait.

The key is to time your meals 3 hours apart all day long, and your metabolism stays active all day and you are never hungry or starving. This is why people who are hypoglycemic are really skinny, they eat so much in small portions. My husband has a very high metabolism , and he eats a ton of food, and he's a STICK. Thats why he keeps it off is because his eating patterns kick his metabolism up and it stays up. The best part about this diet is that it triggers your belly fat FIRST, which is my biggest goal!

Of course watching what you eat is important, but getting your body active and burning fat, even when your idle is the key here. Its all about boosting your metabolism.

I have a thyroid disorder, so naturally my metabolism is very weak, even on medication. This diet is helping me so much, I just had to share!

I'll keep everyone updated on anything else that comes up, because so far its working well for me. I have a lot of energy, I don't feel as bloated and chubby, my double chin is gone, etc.

that's really cool. I've known this for a while, it's just a matter of actually DOING what I know i should be doing! especially when it comes to breakfast! breakfast kick-starts your metabolism after a long time of rest. (break-fast)
it's also good to eat more carbs and a bit of protein for breakfast (like oatmeal and a hard bioled egg, not mixed, of course )

one of my old friends went form over 300 lbs to 180 by eating right, and eating frequently. he always has a piece of hard candy just before bed, just to keep his metabolism working

good stuff.
another good book (but a little profanity... ok a lot...) is "How to Eat Like a Hot Chick"
it's funny but good advice, too.

Yeah I was reading another book called Skinny Bit**. Weird title, but it had a lot of good eating advice and work outs and stuff.

Yeah, I just want to lose like 30 or 40 pounds, I'm not terribly over weight, but I know I could be healthier.

I love breakfast. I suffer when I go without it.

my fav breakfast is otameal and an orange
I heard of skinny bi*** and i read an excerpt of it, but they try to make you feel all gross for eating meat and milk and stuff. they act like you've got the plague if you eat meat. I'm not gonna change my eating THAT much. me loves teh meat

Hmm not what I read... but thats not good. This diet lets you have anything! In one of the chapters it says if you get hungry in between the 3 hour block, go ahead, get a snickers bar out of the vending. Eat a cookie, have a slice of cake. I love this!

well if you're hungry, then eat. that's a good strategy. but you still have to be wary of the over all amount of calories you are taking in, becuase once you reach a certain point, the sheer amount of calories will overtake your body's ability to burn that many in a 24 hour period. so if every 3 hours you're eating something fatty and caloric, it's not gonna help...

Here is how it works. When you go a long time without eating, your body gets so hungry, it thinks its going through a famine, and the only thing it knows to do is store fat. Then when you finally eat, you binge and you get no nutrients from your food, having once again, storing it as fat. So, with a bad eating pattern, you gain wait.

That would explain why I can not for the life of me lose weight. I want to drop 3 kg, that's it. And yeah, that's pretty much how I eat.

This seems like a reasonable enough concept.

This sounds unhealthy....







Jk lawl.

Well, I'm a bit distrustful of this website and diet.

1. When starting any diet, the recommended weight loss is around 2 pounds per week, which that website told me I could do. This doesn't detract from it, it just shows you that the diet is nothing groundbreaking.
2. How much money have you spent on this website? If it's more than nothing, you're wasting your money. Besides the community feeling, you really don't get anything special out of this that can't be found for free elsewhere on the diet.
3. If you're overweight, chances are that you're overweight because you have, or at least had, horrible eating habits. So, in most cases you really should change your diet. Your diet should be something that you can live off of forever, and unless you can maintain healthy eating habits, the chances you will slip and mess yourself up on this diet, where you're eating what you want, is just that more increased.
4. You need to work out. That can't be stressed enough, you need to work out if you want to healthily lose weight. Chances are a significant portion of the weight you lose will be muscle and water. Water weight can come back very easily, and muscle is never a good thing to lose. Plus exercise is beneficial for overall health, and it just should be done.
4.5 You said you had a thyroid problem which, unfortunately, makes your metabolism so slow. I really don't know the connection between this problem and how exercise will help, but generally, if you're exercising, your metabolism increases. If you exercise, especially resistance training, by building muscle you will also be increasing your metabolism.
5. Back on topic of what you're eating. Specific nutrients are needed to maintain a healthy body. If you're eating what you want, you might not be getting these nutrients, and you can suffer consequences like lack of sex drive, grogginess, stress, etc. This is the main reason why I don't trust diets that tell you you can eat what you want and lose weight. That's not a diet, that's just shallow weight loss, which brings me to.
6. I highly doubt this is scientifically proven to be more effective than any other diet with a catchy name. At first, as with most diets, you will lose weight. You might get to your target weight with it, some people do, but for a lot more people they peter off somewhere down the line. The reason? Your body is smarter than you. You may initially shock it by changing your eating habits, (and with this you're not changing your eating habits, you're changing the time and perhaps portion of the food), but your body will get accustomed by this. It's like this, you start to lift weights, and you gain muscle, if you don't change your routine, your body will get accustomed to this weight, and you won't be doing it any more benefit besides keeping it where it's at. The same thing could happen with your diet. It initially works, but your body then works with your diet, to keep you where you are. Your body never really wants to lose weight, and it will try hard to keep any fat you have stored, encase for times of famine etc.

I'm not saying this is telling you to do the wrong things, eating smaller meals (around six a day) spread out around 2-3 hours at a time will keep your metabolism going, but can you really do this for the rest of your life? That's the main thing you need to do when you look at a diet. It's not how fast can I lose this weight, it's how can I manage to keep the lifestyle going after I reach my target weight. This is probably why the Atkins failed for you. Well, that and once you started eating carbs again your body soaked them up like a sponge, which is kinda gross to think about. It's also about maintaining overall health, which I don't think you will find in any diet that tells you you don't need to exercise. Good luck, but be wary. Have you gotten your doctor's approval to start this? Since you have an underlying medical condition attached to your want of weight loss, you really should have and I hope you got his okay before starting this. Diets are hard work, so if anything looks overly easy, you really need to watch out.

I think that's all I wanted to say. Good luck, again, diets can be rough, but you gotta keep tough : D

Losing weight is all about Calories In minus Calories Out. I like Coconut Creme pies... but if I eat one every three hours I'm gonna blimp out :0P'' haha

But yes, the best thing is 5 of 6 SMALL meals throughout the day. I generally just settle for ONE LARGE MEAL all day long, hahah.. whiiiich ..is something I'm changing..cuz yes, I've been storing fat, too.

I generally eat about every 3 hours because of my migraines, however I'm still a medium/small build than others yet I weigh more (I'm just big boned xD). Strange though when I was a dancer (not exotic :P ) I would put on more weight than what I am now. Heh, I also remember I lost 1 stone in a week by doing 250 stomach crunches a day. . . Yeah, like THAT lasted :P

Good luck with your diet, but I'm sure you husband would say that you look perfect already :D

There are so many diets that'll make you lose weight and whatnot.
I had quite a belly, tried a couple of diets for quite some time each, didnt work.
Excersise, BAM lost 10kg in 2 months, plus: i feel healthier, better stamina, i've become more muscular which is good for self esteem.

So in short, a diet can probably make you lose weight and whatnot, but no diet is perfect without proper excersise. Try running 2 miles for 3 times a week or so, isnt even that much, and itll help tremendously.

If that's true, then my life will finally have meaning! Thanks, sugarpoultry, you're my new friend!

Originally Posted by Big Bro Davidia

Losing weight is all about Calories In minus Calories Out. I like Coconut Creme pies... but if I eat one every three hours I'm gonna blimp out :0P'' haha

Actually, the more I read this book, the more I'm convinced its not. It says when you go long times without eating, you lose the muscle that burns fat, and thats why you gain weight. So eating every 3 hours boosts your metabolism which in turn keeps that muscle strong which is the fat burning muscle. Even when you are idle you can burn fat.

It says to ignore calories and stuff, but of course, its wise not to eat like a ton.

But yes, the best thing is 5 of 6 SMALL meals throughout the day. I generally just settle for ONE LARGE MEAL all day long, hahah.. whiiiich ..is something I'm changing..cuz yes, I've been storing fat, too.

Agreed. Little meals are way more healthy.


Hastina Fleegin Lish: Yay Go get the book too, I mean, you can still do the diet without it, but its amazing.

Yeah, exercising is so important too, its wise to do it along with it. I will be.

Originally Posted by sugarpoultry

Actually, the more I read this book, the more I'm convinced its not. It says when you go long times without eating, you lose the muscle that burns fat, and thats why you gain weight. So eating every 3 hours boosts your metabolism which in turn keeps that muscle strong which is the fat burning muscle. Even when you are idle you can burn fat.

"Fat burning muscle"? Er, I'm pretty sure that that's not how that works.

Your body stores calories as fat. When it needs energy it can convert that fat back into energy for use by other parts of your body.

It says to ignore calories and stuff, but of course, its wise not to eat like a ton.

Probably not horrible advice, but not outstanding either. MI's post is bang on, well, everything. Calorie-watching diets tend to have you taking in fewer calories than you need to survive. As such your body starts burning quite a bit of fat to make up the difference, and you end up thin.

However, as soon as you drop the diet you go back to consuming more calories then you burn in a day, and so the fat comes back.

So as a general rule-of-thumb avoid diets that focus solely on calorie counts, unless they keep that count at a reasonable number.


However, ignoring calories completely won't help. Your brain determines how full you are based on the volume of food in your stomach, not the number of calories you take in.

So, someone who eats a pound of low-calorie food will feel fuller than a person who eats an ounce of, say, sugar.

But, since calories are the key thing in determining how much fat you have, this doesn't help much.


So, if you ignore calorie counts then you can end up eating what feels like a reasonable amount, but still put on weight.


As such, you should just watch what you eat a bit. Avoid high-sugar stuff especially.

Agreed. Little meals are way more healthy.

It's probably true that they are healthier, but I don't know about way more healthy. In the long term it probably doesn't matter if you eat one meal per day or 20.

I was watching a television show about something similar to this last night. They weren't as specific as to say that you should eat every three hours, but the general idea of eating smaller portions throughout the day was there.

It makes sense to me, because from my understanding, our bodies are more geared toward 'grazing' behaviours, although because our societies are built around working 7, 8, whatever hours a day we have to eat when we have the time.

Originally Posted by GDwarf

It's probably true that they are healthier, but I don't know about way more healthy. In the long term it probably doesn't matter if you eat one meal per day or 20.

I don't think that eating one meal per day would be particularly healthy at all.

It's like Sugarpoultry alluded to in her opening post, if you go for a lengthy period without eating then you're body thinks that it's being deprived and you begin to store up fat. That's one of the reasons why breakfast is so important if you're on a weight regulation programme.

If you were to eat one meal per day, then you are going to have to go on a major binge to try and get all that you need into your body for the day, and then restrict your intake for the rest of the day. To me, that kind of binge-restrict pattern of behaviour sounds an awful like Bulimia Nervosa

I exaggerated a bit, I admit.

Originally Posted by GDwarf

"Fat burning muscle"? Er, I'm pretty sure that that's not how that works.

Your body stores calories as fat. When it needs energy it can convert that fat back into energy for use by other parts of your body.

I talked to a friend in biology, and he says thats correct. There is a muscle that helps burn fat.

Probably not horrible advice, but not outstanding either. MI's post is bang on, well, everything. Calorie-watching diets tend to have you taking in fewer calories than you need to survive. As such your body starts burning quite a bit of fat to make up the difference, and you end up thin.

However, as soon as you drop the diet you go back to consuming more calories then you burn in a day, and so the fat comes back.

So as a general rule-of-thumb avoid diets that focus solely on calorie counts, unless they keep that count at a reasonable number.

Yeah it talks about how all those diets fail in the long run, and I agree, they don't work. I tried them, and sure I lost weight, but it came back once I stopped following the "fad."

LOL! there is not just one magic "fat-burning muscle" !!!

what that sentence means is that all muscles in general use fat for fuel (when your calorie intake is less than the energy you use) when you exercise, your muscles get big/stay toned. but when you dont excercise, your muscles shrink/degenerate... so the more muscle you have, the more fat you'll be burning. more muscles need more fuel overall.
basically:
fat=fuel for muscles
more muscles=more fat-burning potential.

I think it just means that the muscle that keeps the fat from going out of control, but when you don't eat right and your body thinks its going through a famine, it gets rid of that muscle, and without it you gain more fat in the belly area especially.

I'll have to find the exact part in the book, as I can see this part is seriously confusing people.