What Is the Sirtfood Diet? Adele's Reported Weight Loss Plan Revealed
When Grammy-winner Adele lost 100 pounds in just two years, the world sat up and took notice. While some criticized the superstar for losing weight too quickly (or even for losing weight at all), others were impressed with her dramatic health transformation. Media and fans alike clamored to know: How did she do it?
While reports have varied on Adele's diet and fitness routine, it's been widely speculated that the singer followed an eating plan known as the sirtfood diet. And though Adele has since denied that the diet was the key to her extreme weight loss, other well-known celebs across the pond, such as Pippa Middleton and Irish UFC fighter Conor McGregor, have been linked to the diet, as well. With origins in the UK, the sirtfood diet has enjoyed much popularity in Britain—but may be poised for growing fame in the states, too.
Here's a look at what the sirtfood diet entails, and whether it's a healthy, sustainable eating plan for weight loss.
The background
The buzz around the sirtfood diet all started with a book of the same name published in 2016. Penned by British nutritionists Aidan Goggins and Glen Matten, the book claims you can "eat your way to rapid weight loss and enjoy a longer life by triggering the metabolic superpowers" of so-called "sirt" foods.
The theory goes that certain high-antioxidant foods turn on proteins in the body called sirtuins, which activate genes supposedly responsible for reducing inflammation and increasing metabolism. Follow the diet, claim the authors, and you could lose about seven pounds in seven days.
What you can eat on the sirtfood diet
The premise of Goggins' and Matten's diet is quite simple: curate your diet around a short list of antioxidant-rich foods and watch the pounds drop. It's gotten plenty of good press for the fact that red wine, coffee, and chocolate all get the green light. Other foods on the list include kale, soy, strawberries, blueberries, extra virgin olive oil, onions, buckwheat, arugula, and walnuts.
To begin the sirtfood diet, you'll complete an initial three-day juice fast. Days 1–3 prescribe drinking three green juices and eating one meal focused on approved foods; this should total about 1,000 calories. Then, on days 4–7, you can switch to two green juices and two sirtfood meals per day for a total of about 1,500 calories per day.
Following this initial cleanse, you'll move on to a daily plan of three sirtfood-focused meals, one green juice, and two optional snacks, with no calorie restrictions. The book and blogger websites offer recipes to follow to keep approved, high-antioxidant foods at the center of your plate.
Is it a good idea to try the sirtfood diet?
Losing seven pounds in seven days might sound too good to be true—and like most crash diets, it probably is. While the foods on a sirtfood diet are largely very nutritious—and with their antioxidant properties certainly contribute to reducing inflammation—there's very little research confirming whether they actually flip a genetic switch to make the body burn calories faster.
What's more likely is that the sirtfood diet's success comes down to its substantial calorie restriction—but limit your calories to just 1,000 per day by eating just about anything and you'll probably lose weight. And since most quick-fix weight loss plans don't result in long-term weight loss, you're probably better off working toward slower, steadier progress to meet your health goals, no matter what celebrities say.
