Exploring the Cambridge Diet Phases
The Cambridge Diet is a popular weight loss plan that is used fairly consistently in the United Kingdom for treating the morbidly obese. It isn’t as popular in the United States, in large part because it is much harder to find the necessary support system to see the diet through until the end. This is a very low calorie diet, and in the UK it is a phased diet that requires support from a Cambridge Diet coach who checks up on the dieter at least once, if not twice, a week and monitors their progress, watches health, and also determines when the patient should move to the next Cambridge Diet phase.
This support is especially important because the Cambridge Diet starts out as a pretty extreme very low calorie diet (VLCD) in phase one, where eating only CD supplements like soup, porridge, and shakes, the dieter only takes in 450 to 550 calories a day on the first week. As the dieter progresses, they move to the next phase. Each phase is based on a certain amount of calories only coming from the Cambridge Diet foods and supplements, while a few hundred more calories of very specific food can be added each week.
So while phase one is only CD supplements, phase 2 could be 810 calories, with the extra 200 coming from steamed veggies or skim milk. After a week or two of that, phase 3 moves to 1000 calories and adds a light salad for lunch and dinner. Eventually as the weight loss progresses the diet keeps moving from a very low calorie phase to a more reasonable “maintenance” phase of 1,500 calories a day.
While that is called the maintenance phase on the Cambridge Diet weight loss plan, for many people 1,500 calories will still result in slow and gradual weight loss of up to one pound a week. This eating plan is not one to take on lightly, and because of the low number of calories, it can be dangerous to “improv,” so if you’re going to even consider it, follow the plan as it’s laid out.
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