Curves

Curves is another commercial weight-loss program. It is especially designed for women.

Curves Diet: The Premise

The Curves diet is a component of the Curves Weight-Loss and Fitness Program, a franchise of health clubs for women that provides a 30-minute workout including resistance training, aerobics, and stretching. The Curves program includes a meal plan, a workout, and a supplement regimen. Gary Heavin, founder of Curves International, is a health and nutrition counselor specializing in women's fitness. Heavin maintains that following the Curves diet and fitness program will help you slim down and tone your body while resetting your metabolism at a faster calorie-burning rate.

The Rationale

Quick Take
  • Strong emphasis on the exercise component
  • Limits total amount of carbohydrate
  • Claims to reset your metabolism
  • Recommends nutritional supplements
    Other Similar Diets

  • South Beach Diet
  • Dr. Atkins

Many weight-loss programs fail, says Heavin, because they don't consider the effect of dieting on metabolism. According to Heavin, dieting turns on "starvation hormones" that enable the body to survive on less food and burn less energy. This sabotages weight loss. The key, says Heavin, is to increase your metabolism. He advocates a fitness program that includes strength training to build more muscle because the more muscle you have, the more calories your body burns, even at rest. And Heavin contends that the Curves meal plans will also help correct the effects of years of yo-yo dieting. He offers a method for resetting your metabolism so you can maintain your weight loss.

Once you reach your goal weight, you are instructed to increase your calorie intake to 2,500 to 3,000 calories a day. Within a day or two, you will probably gain about 3 to 5 pounds. At this point, you go back to the Phase 1 diet for one to two days to "burn off the fat." When you lose the weight again, you return to Phase 3. This cycle continues for two to three months until you do not gain weight. At this point, your metabolism is supposedly reset at a higher level. Still, Heavin suggests that you may have to return to Phase 1 for one or two days a month to maintain your weight over the long term.

What's for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner?

The Curves diet plans recommend six small meals a day, such as a meal of strawberries and cottage cheese; cooked carrots and a ground beef patty; an ounce of nuts; or sautéed shrimp, cauliflower, and a salad. Both the carbohydrate-sensitive and the calorie-sensitive meal plans are fairly high in protein and both limit carbohydrate, including bread, rice, pasta, and potatoes, as well as sweets. The meal plans are divided into three phases. Phase 1 of both plans lasts one or two weeks and allows no more than 20 grams of carbohydrate a day. During Phase 2, certain fruits and vegetables and some whole grains are allowed. Once you reach your desired weight, you progress to Phase 3 and no longer follow specific meal plans.

The book provides seven weeks of sample meal plans for both diet types, weekly shopping lists, recipes, and charts for tracking progress. The meal plans include a Curves shake or similar protein shake on most days.

Fact or Fiction: What the Experts Say

Phases 1 and 2 of the diet are basically low-calorie, low-carbohydrate eating plans that, when combined with the exercise component, are likely to promote weight loss. The "Phase 3 miracle," a technique Heavin claims will raise your metabolic rate so you can eat a normal amount of food without gaining weight, is complicated and tiresome, and it's likely to turn off dieters. It also has no scientific basis. And the Phase 3 calorie prescription of 2,500 to 3,000 calories a day is quite high. If weight loss occurs on this diet, it's because you are burning more calories than you are taking in, which becomes easier when you have more muscle. Heavin also claims that nutrient deficiencies can sabotage your weight-loss efforts by promoting food cravings. This is false and a fairly transparent tactic to sell the Curves nutritional supplements.

Curves is a diet and fitness component to the commercial diet program.
©2006 Publications International, Ltd.
Curves has an important fitness component.

Gains and Losses/What's the Damage?

The cornerstone of the Curves program is the workout. The program is commended for its strong emphasis on fitness and muscle building. Building more muscle and exercising aerobically will make you stronger and healthier, boosting your weight-loss efforts by burning more calories. Helpful illustrations and instructions for a Curves at-home workout are included in the book. The complicated process of alternating between the different phases based on weight fluctuations is not a realistic, long-term solution for achieving and maintaining a "permanent" healthy weight. The meal plans are also inadequate for meeting daily vitamin and mineral requirements. Keep the workout; consider another diet plan.

Between Jenny Craig, Nutri/System, Weight Watchers, Slim-Fast and Curves, there are a number of different commercial diet programs designed for different needs. Choose the weight-loss program that works best for your diet goals and your lifestyle.

©Publications International, Ltd.

This information is solely for informational purposes. IT IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE MEDICAL ADVICE. Neither the Editors of Consumer Guide (R), Publications International, Ltd., the author nor publisher take responsibility for any possible consequences from any treatment, procedure, exercise, dietary modification, action or application of medication which results from reading or following the information contained in this information. The publication of this information does not constitute the practice of medicine, and this information does not replace the advice of your physician or other health care provider. Before undertaking any course of treatment, the reader must seek the advice of their physician or other health care provider.