The Beyond Diet – A Review

Isabel De Los Rios

The Beyond Diet is a new diet plan that was created by Isabel De Los Rios, who also created the Diet Solution Program. The key elements of the Beyond Diet approach is to focus on combining sensible eating with living a healthier lifestyle. The diet is also a Gluten Free diet, which means that all wheat products are eliminated or eaten in moderation. This is really how people used to stay slim before the world was introduced to processed meals and fast food.

The only way to really effectively do the “Beyond Diet” is to use the official website, BeyondDiet.com. Through the website you will be taught more about the diet approach and also have access to the support community, meal plans, recipes and an online journal to help track your progress. Here we provide some of the main parts of the diet:

Stop Eating Bread

Isabel calls our obsession with bread as bread-sanity! While bread is undoubtedly a vital staple food and has helped society to move from a state of subsistence farming and hunting / gathering, it is no longer required in the volumes that the average family consume it in. Bread is very high in calories. One thin slice of white bread contains around 100 Calories.

“I whole-heartedly believe that the high consumption of bread is one of the leading contributors to America’s increased incidence of heart disease and type 2 diabetes.” - Isabel De Los Rios.

White bread is also high-GI, which means that your body converts the carbohydrate into sugar faster, and this sugar is often stored as fat. The relationship of bread and obesity is certainly not new. Even in the post-war period people were advised to not fill up on bread at each meal. Doing so means poor nutrition and excess energy.

The main suggestion is to eat “breadless sandwiches“, which really means eat salads! Just about any sandwich filling can make a healthy salad, just mix your usual cheese, ham, chicken, egg or tuna with some salad leaves and vegetables and you have a tasty and nutritious meal.

Not all bread is bad though. Breads made from sprouted whole grain (SWG) are low GI, which means they do not cause spikes in blood glucose levels, so help you control hunger and weight better.

Good Fats

Gone are the days that nutritionists advise us to eat less fat. Now the advice is to eat healthier fat. Saturated fat is still unhealthy (although some primal dieters will say otherwise) as it leads to elevated bad cholesterol levels. However, omega 3 and omega 6 fats are very healthy and actually help to keep the internal organs healthy and arteries clear. These fats are found in nuts, seeds, green leafy vegetables and deep-sea fish such as salmon, mackerel and sardines.

Oils can also be healthy. Sunflower, vegetable and olive oils, along with coconut oils, all make healthy replacements for saturated oils from animals, which again raise cholesterol levels. Olive oil also makes the perfect salad dressing.

As well as being better for your internal health and helping to control appetite, the good fats are vital for the healthy functioning of the nervous system, which includes improved brain function and muscle responses. Fish is good for both brain and brawn!

Organic Eating

Beyond Diet also favors organic eating. While this is not actually essential to weight, going organic does reduce your exposure to agricultural chemicals, and this may help to improve health.

“Organic foods should not be optional; they should be mandatory and should grace every table” - Isabel De Los Rios.

It is interesting that Dr. Robert Atkins was also saying this about 40 years ago. His main reason for going organic, particularly with meat, was to reduce intake of nitrogen in the form of nitrates and nitrites.

Best Foods To Aid Weight Loss

It always seems a little contradictory to talk about food to aid weight loss, but healthy foods (instead of unhealthy foods – not in addition too) can help you to lose weight. Our bodies need food, so fad starvation diets really will never work.

Some of the foods that Beyond Diet recommends above others are spinach, lettuce, asparagus, strawberries, apples, mango, almonds, peanut butter, organic eggs, raw milk, wild fish, shrimp, grass-fed beef, free-range chicken, Ezekiel bread, quinoa, wild rice, oatmeal, buckwheat, lentils, avocado, raw organic butter, coconut oil, extra-virgin olive oil, unsweetened cocoa, erythritol, stevia, organic red wine. This is just an example of some healthy food options.

Sample Meal Plan

• Breakfast – Greek yogurt with fresh berries and sliced almonds
• Lunch – Fast and Easy Tuna Salad Sandwich
• Afternoon Snack – Homemade humus with raw vegetables
• Dinner – Beef, snap pea, asparagus and mushroom stir-fry
• Dessert – Pumpkin in Coconut Milk

Nitrates and Nitrites

Nitrates and nitrites can cause decreased functioning of the thyroid gland, increased cancer risk and a reduction in the oxygen capacity of the blood – which will affect your fitness, and ability to get fitter.

MotleyHealth’s Take On Beyond Diet

To follow the Beyond Diet program fully you need to become a member, which costs around $47.00. While this is certainly pretty good value, as you receive great support from the website community, a large selection of recipes and meal plans, you can follow a similar diet without investing such a large sum.

Really the Beyond Diet is very similar in its approach to a low GI Diet plan. This mostly involves eating carbohydrates which are unprocessed, i.e. fresh fruits and vegetables, and avoiding all processed foods and alcohol. Re-educating yourself about food is the key. This plan will certainly do that, but then so will a book on healthy eating from your local library.

If you are the type of person who prefers to have your weight loss plan set out for you, and wish to have the additional peace of mind of being able to ask Isabel (or her team of advisers and the community) for additional help and advice, then this plan will suit you. If you are confident in reading and self-teaching, then you can live without the plan.

As with Isabel’s other product, the Diet Solution Program, the emphasis here is on the food. You also must remember to start exercising on a regular basis to speed up and help maintain weight loss. While exercise is not essential, it makes the process much easier.

Official Resources

• Web: www.beyonddiet.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/beyonddiet

References and Research

“Consumption of drinking water with high nitrate levels causes hypertrophy of the thyroid” by Johannes M.S. van Maanen (and others). Toxicology Letters Volume 72, Issues 1–3, June 1994, Pages 365–374

“A vegan diet free of gluten improves the signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis: the effects on arthritis correlate with a reduction in antibodies to food antigens” by Hafström, B. Ringertz  (and others). Rheumatology (2001) 40 (10): 1175-1179.