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Eat Every 13 Minutes Diet: Does it Work?

By Mike Howard

db 13 minute.jpg
Needless to say, this one caught my attention. As an incurable snacker, I just had to see what this one was all about. Does the creator of this diet think this is practical? How big are the "snacks"? what kinds of food are you allowed? Let's delve deeper in to the world of relentless snacking.

The 13 minute diet is a 14 day plan created by Norah Lane. The claim is that by eating frequently (in this case, with blinding frequency) you will lose weight (an average of 7 lbs in 2 weeks). Lane also claims that the diet is specifically helpful for those who suffer from polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Lane's contention is that overweight people don't eat enough food to keep their metabolism going. (Yes, you read that correctly).

Here are some of the particulars of the diet:

For two weeks, you choose one breakfast, lunch and dinner each day (refer to article for the lists - they are pretty low in calories). In between each meal, you snack every 13 minutes or so on regular 'nibbles' and 'burns'. Shoot for about 30 nibbles or burns a day.
Nibbles are tiny pieces of raw vegetables the size of your smallest fingernail. Carrot, celery, pepper, cauliflower, cabbage, asparagus, broccoli or cucumber are examples.
Burns are similar-size pieces of lean protein. Options are chicken, cooked meat, fish, egg, cottage cheese or trimmed bacon. Your burns can also include hard cheese but only up to a maximum of 25g a day. Vegetarians can have Quorn, tofu or quark cheese.
You can vary your nibbles' and 'burns as much as you like. You can even dip them in fat-free salad dressing or balsamic vinegar.
In addition to the menus, have 1/2 a pint of semi-skimmed milk and three pieces of fruit (excluding bananas) a day. You're also allowed up to three level teaspoons of low-fat spread on crispbread and bread
Don't drink any calorie-containing drinks. Stick to water, tea and coffee with milk from your allowance, or diet drinks.

My Thoughts

The "to snack or not to snack" question is a highly contested one - with experts, authors and diet plans on either side of the fence.
The most important factor at play is what you eat and how much you eat. "Snacking" can make or break your diet depending on how you use it.
Studies are mixed as to whether snacking has an impact on overall caloric intake throughout the day.
Snacking does not appear to impart a significant boost in metabolism, but can be helpful for those who tend to eat very large meals.
The overall contribution of the "thermic effect" (the energy cost of eating) is anywhere from 8-13% of total metabolism. Even if snacking did have an appreciable impact on metabolism, it is highly unlikely that eating this often will rev things up any more - given that the portions are so tiny.

I don't think this diet is at all practical. The amount of patience and diligence required to stick with such a plan is daunting to me. I would spend all day staring at a near-microscopic piece of chicken - salivating like a bulldog under a barbeque lined with steaks. Also, what do you do after the 2 weeks are up?

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35 Comments

Methuselah - Pay Now Live Later

Mike - pretty much agree with your assessment. This has all the hallmarks of a gimmick diet. It will certainly give people the sense that they are being pro-active if they manage to organise their days to follow this diet, but I wonder whether there would be any benefits beyond that, for the reasons you outline. Nevertheless, you could argue that aside from any effect on weight loss, correctly following this diet would be a triumph of project management skill in its own right.

The Health Blogger

Are people getting bored or something? This really sounds absurd! Did the words "reality" and "practicality" ever crop into their minds?!

Diet pills man

My point exactly. People are strange creatures when it comes to losing weight at all costs.

Deborama

Funny. There was just a post recently about how silly fad diets were disappearing and then this. Maybe it's the last gasp.

Barry

LOL! I thought the same exact thing.

cereal

Same old snack/timed diet with fancy new thirteen minute packaging. I wouldn't be surprised of course if you actually lost weight on this diet plan ,but who could actually keep up with this without looking crazy around other people.

Rich

Haha - why didn't they just make it every 15 minutes?
This is crazy!

Yuri | EatingforEnergy.ca

Rrright....

How do they come up with this non-sense?

I understand the importance of small snacks but I think is a little too much.

Barry

TOTAL B.S.

Alan Aragon has debunked the entire notion that meal frequency has ANY effect on metabolism.

He reports that all the research done into the subject shows that eating at consistent times rather than frequently is what's important. A haphazard eating schedule is what you want to avoid.

Of course those of us familiar with intermittent fasting know that the idea that not eating frequently enough will harm your metabolism is total and complete B.S. and this woman probably KNOWS it.

Mike H.

Hey Barry,

Yeah, AA has definitely made made think differently about a lot of things I thought I knew... do you subscribe to his research review? I highly recommend it if you don't already.

Thanks for your input.

Barry

7 lbs. in 2 weeks is a joke too. A properly executed protein sparing modified fast can result in far faster weight loss without any negative health effects while also sparing your muscle tissue so your metabolism is truly preserved.

mel

hi Barry,

Can you give me details on this?

She-Pisces

I just wanted to say, Teeee Heee Heeeee @ carrot the size of my baby fingernail!

Ali Hale

I'm with you and the other commenters here, Mike - I heard about the "Eat Every 13 Minutes" diet a while back and thought it sounded very impractical and scientifically rather implausible.

And as I have PCOS, it also bugs me to see this being promoted as helpful for sufferers -- fad diets are no substitute for healthy eating and appropriate medication.

Supplements

Regardless of how effective it is, how convenient could it possibly be?

Katie

What? That's just...nuts. Now I think I'm just going to wait for her to start marketing a set of food cutters, one for each type of food she claims you should be eating. That's just...kind of nuts.

nodietneeded

Brilliant idea, how about 12 minutes of intervals or less. Let's make food more center of our daily life and let's live for food and work anything else around it. Because eating healthy and in moderate portions is waaayyy harder then this.

Blake

I agree with comment above. Healthy eating in moderate portions is a lot better than this. Good info on this though...i hadn't heard of it. It's kinda funnny...

staci

what is the point of snacking at all if the serving size is the size of your pinky-nail? even if i am misunderstanding and you can have more than that one tiny piece at a time... who has time to dice their veggies and proteins before they leave in the morning? might as well advise people to take one-half of a bite of a vegetable or protein every 15 minutes. at least it would save time!!

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