You’ve seen the Isagenix diet pop up on your Instagram and Facebook feeds, promoting weight loss and detoxification, but is it really worth the hype? We consulted Jim White, RD, ACSM Health Fitness Specialist, and owner of Jim White Fitness & Nutrition Studios, to get the lowdown on this trendy plan.
What is the Isagenix diet?
The Isagenix diet features three programs geared toward Weight Wellness, Performance, and Vitality and Well Being, and it’s “essentially a diet regimen comprised of shakes and supplements to aid in weight loss and body cleansing,” White tells us. “The most popular Isagenix diet plan is the ’30-Day System,’ which consists of shake days (when you consume a total of 1,200 to 1,500 calories per day) and cleanse days (only 300 to 500 calories per day). On shake days, dieters replace two meals per day with an IsaLean shake and are encouraged to eat a healthy 400-600 calorie meal for their third meal. Shake days also consist of Isagenix supplements and Isagenix-approved snacks (around 150 calories each). One to two days a week are cleanse days where dieters abstain from meals and consume four servings of an Isagenix cleanse drink and snack.”
Will it help you reach your weight loss goals?
“Yes, the Isagenix diet will help you to lose weight quickly due to the calorie restriction created by replacing meals with shakes. However, it is not an ideal diet plan to promote healthy and sustainable weight loss long-term,” White says. Because the diet plan relies mostly on the branded supplements and shakes, it is not maintainable. Plus, the shakes are predominantly sweetened with fructose—a sugar linked to abdominal obesity (hello, belly fat!) and cardiometabolic risk—while many of the IsaLean bars contain over 15 grams of sugar. That’s more than half of your daily recommended amount of the sweet stuff!
“For sustainable weight loss, it is more efficient to consume a diet rich in whole, unprocessed foods to provide your body with essential nutrients and, subsequently, create lifelong healthy eating habits,” White says. Now that’s a plan we can get behind.
