Special K Diet Review

We thought a Special K Diet review may be necessary after a strange thing happened the other day at work.

I popped into the kitchen to make a cup of tea and opened the cupboard. Blocking my path to the tea bags was a box of Special K breakfast cereal.

I moved it to one side and…there was another one!

I opened the cupboard next door to get a cup and there was a box of Special K red berries.

I turned around and neatly lined up on top of another run of cupboards were three more boxes!

Either they’re breeding or someone’s been watching too many cereal commercials on TV!

Apparently, half the office – a slight exaggeration – were doing the Special K diet!

Certainly a triumph of slick marketing by those clever people at Kellogs.

So what is the Special K Diet?

Special K Diet Review for Weight Loss

Very simple really.

You eat two bowls of Special K with milk instead of two meals, eat one hopefully healthy meal and snack on fruit and veg in between.

Keep it up for two weeks and if the packaging is to be believed you can lose an inch and up to 6lbs.

It’s a “kickstart” diet designed to help you drop a few pounds quickly.

The cereal with milk comes in at around 160 calories, add in the fruit and main meal and you’re looking at a low calorie diet of under 1,000 calories – unless you eat a really big meal!

You also drink plenty of water although the instruction to “consume beverages as you normally do” is a little vague. What if you drink 10 gallons of Coke a day?

Ok, that’s all easy enough to follow…but does it work?

Special K Diet Review – Does it Work…?

Firstly, eat less than 1,000 calories for two weeks and you’ll lose weight, maybe even the 6lbs claimed on the box.

However, much of it will be water and will go straight back on when you start eating normally again.

One of our clients actually lost 9lbs on the Special K Diet and was understandably delighted.

Within a couple of days though, she’d put 8lbs back on again…was 1lb of weight loss worth eating 28 bowls of cereal for two weeks?

Ok, enough of the anecdotes, read the box and there’s a claim that the diet is scientifically proven to work.

On the UK packaging the study referred to was carried out at Loughborough University in Leicestershire.

The US box we think refers to a study carried out at Purdue University. Anyway, we did some digging on the Loughborough study.

Participants ate either Special K or Kellogs Crunchy Nut Corn Flakes and followed the diet for the recommended two weeks.

The study found that participants lost over 3/4 of an inch and 38% dropped a trouser size.

Another study carried out at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh found that over 20% of participants lost more than 6lbs with an average weight loss of 4.3lbs.

Sounds encouraging. However, don’t get too excited as the studies don’t report any follow up to guage whether the weight stayed off and if so, for how long!

Special K Diet Review – The Bottom Line…

Chances are you will lose weight following this diet. But you’re only recommended to stay on it for two weeks. It’s not a recipe for long term weight loss.

There’s no evidence to show that the weight and inches you do lose will stay off.

You’re also going to feel very hungry. Without one exception, everyone I spoke to at work that was following the diet was starving.

What’s the number one reason most diets fail? Hunger. None of them stuck it for the full two weeks.

You’ll also be eating a lot of sugar. In common with most breakfast cereals, Special K is high in sugar – disguised as fructose corn syrup.

Furthermore, there’s not a lot of protein in most breakfast cereals and protein curbs hunger, spares muscle tissue that could be lost during a diet and can promote weight loss.

You should try and eat a little more protein, not less whilst dieting!

A positive from our Special K Diet review is that by eating one of the healthier breakfast cereals like this one, you can increase your fiber intake. The fruit you should eat will also do you some good.

However, this diet will not change your eating habits in the longer term. Meal replacements like a bowl of breakfast cereal are no substitute for a varied, balanced diet.

It’s also going to get pretty boring – 28 bowls of Special K over the two weeks? You’ll be sick of the sight of the stuff!

Our Special K Diet review verdict? A triumph of slick marketing that has done wonders for sales but give it a miss if long term weight loss is your goal!

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