Every woman knows the feeling of being judged and shamed for her appearance. Our society is obsessed with looks, and it's so easy for us to tie our self-esteem up in how others perceive us. It's hard to look your best all the time, and it's even harder if you feel ugly and unwanted.
The Cinderella Solution is a weight loss plan that claims to be similar to waving a magic wand. Like Cinderella going from ragged servant to beautiful princess in the blink of an eye, this plan is designed to help you lose weight fast without negative side effects, drugs, or extreme exercise.
I've seen a lot of "miracle cures" in my day, so I was a little skeptical. And I should note that the Cinderella Solution isn't a perfect solution to all of your problems. But it is a little bit of fairy dust that might just give you the courage to go after the prince yourself.
Features
A Program for Everyday Women
The Cinderella Solution is the natural answer to a world that's saturated with diet advice, weight loss supplements, and constant criticism of our eating: Enough!
It's made for every woman who's ever tried to eat salads and count calories and weather hunger and ended up just as heavy and way more depressed. It's also for those who successfully lost weight during their rabbit food stints but gained it back as soon as they stopped depriving themselves of joy.
It's made for women who are sick and tired of needing to count every calorie and plan every meal and chart nutritional content like they're taking rocket scientist notes. Meal plans shouldn't be overwhelming, and you shouldn't need to follow them with cultlike devotion to see results!
Humans aren't meant to live with that level of strict regulation and self-denial. Not only is it not natural, it's not even healthy. Either you'll get frustrated by the strict diet and quit, or the strict diet will get in your head, and you'll find yourself crying over an extra spoonful of chick peas.
The Cinderella Solution is based in the idea that we're more likely to have unhealthy relationships with our bodies if we're obsessively counting calories. The author examined food cultures in places like Japan and Spain, where obsessive dieting is rare, but people tend to be slimmer.
Rather than being a strict diet to use temporarily, the Cinderella Solution functions as a lifestyle change that paves a path to real weight loss. As such, it doesn't have the same negative health effects and potential for regaining the weight later.
The Cinderella Solution Explained
The Cinderella Solution is a weight loss system designed by women, for women. Rather than requiring you to count calories, the system uses a unique method of flavor pairing to help you create the balanced meals you need to regulate your metabolism. All women can benefit from the plan, whether they're in their 20's or well past the age of 60.
The solution is available online as a digital program, so all of the information is available immediately after purchase. In addition to eBook manuals, you also get video tutorials that walk you step-by-step through the process of using this lifestyle change.
There are also exercise plans included, but they're for the everyday woman as well. The exercises are manageable regardless of your fitness level, rather than being workouts that only a fitness guru can manage. The combination of nutrition and exercise helps to regulate metabolic rates by stabilizing your estrogen, cortisol, and insulin levels.
Flavor Pairing for Metabolic Balancing
The inspiration for the Cinderella Solution came from the Shokuiku nutritional program, a Japanese system designed to use flavor pairing to help people with long-term weight loss and maintenance.
The combination of different food types and flavors have been tested and proven to burn fat. They boost your overall metabolic rate, which causes your body to use more energy than before even when you're sitting down. And since there's no calorie counting, you don't have to feel guilty or anxious about your meals.
If traditional diets don't work for your lifestyle or brain, and you're looking for a way to make healthy eating fun, this program will appeal. It can be repeated cyclically, and you can adapt the information in it to create long-lasting lifestyle changes.
The Solution's Inspiration Explained
Carly Donovan, the original creator of the Cinderella Solution, observed that certain countries seem to have much lower rates of obesity despite having culturally rich and decadent food. These populations haven't cut out wine and starchy foods, so what makes them thin?
She was particularly interested in the cultures in Japan and Spain. The people in these countries don't tend to partake in restrictive dieting. They don't cut out food groups, count calories, or try to calculate an algorithm for weight loss. Instead, they eat a combination of different foods during their meals until they feel sated.
For many Americans, this is a revolutionary concept. But more and more research is backing it up. Eating the foods that your body instinctively craves is a better means of regulating your vitamin levels and metabolism than going hungry and denying yourself food.
But because so many Americans have spent so long repressing any intuitive eating urges, it can be overwhelming to try to figure out where to start. The flavor pairing strategy in the Cinderella System is a space to begin.
Combining different flavors lets you experience more satisfying mealtimes. Over time, you'll redevelop that instinctive sense of understanding what you want to eat. Until then, the meal plans can help reset your mental "clock" so that your body stops craving the high-in-preservatives unhealthy food in the snack aisle at the grocery store.
A Two-Phase Approach
The Cinderella Solution isn't just a list of flavors and lifestyle choices. It doesn't have the same stringent rules as other diets, but it does have enough structure for you to track your progress. The entire diet lasts 28 days, with two phases broken into 14 days each.
The 28-day setup doesn't mean that you'll have reached your goal weight in 28 days. But you can repeat the journey as many times as you want.
During the Ignite phase, you eat three meals per day. In the Launch phase, you upgrade to four. That might not sound like any diet you've ever heard of! It surprised me - who ever heard of a diet that's not based around starving? But the fact that you aren't starving is what makes this an effective long-term solution.
Each of the phases comes with fourteen meal plans plotted out for every single day. If you are a fan of the super planned diets, you'll appreciate the lack of guesswork. It's an easy set of rules to follow since the meals are easy to prepare. Bonus recipes are also included for if you get bored.
If you're not a huge fan of following someone else's pre-plotted meal plans, though, you can still follow the basic principles outlined in the diet with the food of your choice. It's worth noting that the meal plans do include lactose free, ovo-vegetarian, vegetarian, vegan, and pescatarian options for those with dietary restrictions.
Like the strict meal plans, the workouts are also optional. But they are a relaxed way to help your body feel better, especially if you've been living a sedentary lifestyle. Each of the workouts lasts from eight to twenty minutes and involves gentle movement designed to boost your metabolism. The only gear necessary is a pair of light dumbbells.
Pros
Cons
Final Verdict
The Cinderella Solution is a diet plan created by women for women who are sick of diet plans. Whether you want strict daily planning or a relaxed set of guidelines, this approach has what you're looking for. Just pick up a copy, check out the contents, and take and leave whatever you like or don't.
