The 5-Factor Diet

The motto of the 5-Factor Diet is: Eat More. Work Out Less. Get into the Best Shape of your Life. Creator and celebrity trainer, Harley Pasternak, created a diet and exercise program that he says he uses on his celebrity clients, including Alicia Keys, Rachel Weisz, Kanye West, Miley Cyrus, Katherine Heigl, Lady Gaga, Robert Pattinson and more. Essentially, Pasternak states that you can do away with measuring your food, skipping carbs and engaging in exhaustive and lengthy exercise routines. How? Well, read on.

The 5-Factor plan is such that you follow these rules: Complete five 25-minute workouts each week and eat five healthy meals per day. The following guidelines were taken off the 5-Factor Plan Website:

Five Week Plan: Designed to give you results in five weeks, it’s so easy and effective that you may naturally turn your five-week plan into a lifestyle (as many of Harley’s personal clients tend to do).

Five Meals a Day: Goodbye hunger and cravings. By eating five 5-Factor meals every day, not only will you start losing weight but you’ll feel less hungry throughout the day!

Five Ingredient Meals: Eating delicious and healthy meals doesn’t have to be hard. Members get hundreds of recipes that use only five ingredients and take only five minutes to prepare.

25-Minute Workouts: Based on Harley’s training experience, the 5-Factor fitness program was created with the belief that working out more often for shorter periods of time is more effective than spending hours at the gym.

Five Cheat Days in Five Weeks: Taking a diet break one day a week can empower you. Plus, Harley believes that controlled cheating can actually help you reach your goals.

There are online tools for dieters to create interactive and customized programs as well.

So, what are the experts saying? Well, they are split on whether this is a good plan to follow. Angela Kurtz, RD, is a nutritionist at NYU Medical Center. She says, “The 5 Factor Diet puts a new spin on what has been the traditional advice of every major nutrition organization for years…It’s a well-balanced eating plan that includes all the food groups, doesn’t leave anything out, and in a very subtle and very clever way also helps us change the eating behaviors that caused us to gain weight in the first place.” However, Abby Aronowitz, PHD, director of SelfHelpDirectives.com says, “I don’t see any real science behind the 5 Factor Diet — no studies to show it works, plus it doesn’t seem to address a major problem linked to obesity, which is emotional overeating.” I think that any diet that promotes healthy eating and a lifestyle that includes exercise is worthy of positive attention. So, I give a big thumbs up to trying the diet plan!