Does the Hibernation Diet Work?

Father and son team Mike and Stuart McInnes, a pharmacist and a nutritionist respectively, introduced the hibernation diet in 2006. Its core focus is eating honey before bedtime.

Features

• The most significant feature of the hibernation diet is the requirement to take two tablespoonfuls of honey before going to bed. The diet also recommends a healthy eating plan and provides suggested meal plans. In addition, the hibernation diet recommends a regime of resistance training.

Claims

• The hibernation diet claims that eating honey before bed reduces blood glucose and regulates your blood sugar levels before sleeping, so recovery hormones can burn fat overnight. It also claims the fructose from honey fuels the brain.

Results

• Other than the addition of eating honey every night, the Hibernation Diet's suggested eating plans and training suggestions are very similar to those of other healthy eating diets, so there is no real way to tell whether it's the honey or the healthy eating and exercise that might cause you to lose weight. While honey is a nutritious food, containing significant amounts of vitamins B1, B3, B5 and B6 as well as high levels of L-tryptofan, eating sugar late at night could be inappropriate for diabetics. There is no scientific proof the hibernation diet works.