About Cereal Diets

Eating cereal for breakfast and then again either at lunch or dinner can start you on your way to healthy weight loss, but the cereals must be low in sugar and calories for this to work. Whole grains and high-fiber cereals like Grape-Nuts and Bran Flakes are especially good options, and Kellogg's has built up an entire diet plan around Special K.

Expert Insight

• There's nothing magic about cereal. The reason this diet works is that such a meal has only 400 or 500 calories, much less than what people typically eat. With the average American regularly consuming over 2,500 or more calories a day, it's easy to see why this diet can be successful as long as a person is reasonable about the caloric intake of the third daily meal.

  A study of 100 overweight men and women conducted by Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana, found that those who ate one cereal serving with two-thirds cup of skim milk and a piece of fruit for breakfast and another meal lost significantly more weight than those who did not.

Potential

• The diet is not a quick fix--it should result in weight loss of about a pound or two a week. You'll have to really like cereal to stick to this one since the results are not dramatic, but a slow weight loss is healthier in any case, and the weight is easier to keep off.

Types

• The Kellogg's Special K Challenge is a well-known diet, but it's certainly not the only cereal you can effectively use--and Special K is lower in fiber than several other cereals. Just make sure what you're eating is low in calories, so you can have a decent-sized serving. Low-sugar cereals are obviously healthier since cereal is a high-carbohydrate diet anyway. Bran Flakes, Grape-Nuts, Total, and Shredded Wheat are some commercial cereals that fit the bill nicely. You might not expect it, but Lucky Charms is low in calories as well.

  For more natural and organic brands, check the cereals from Kashi, which offers several low-calorie flavors. Nature's Path and Nature's Promise are also good bets.

  Granola is filling but tends to be high in calories, so plan your serving size accordingly.

Considerations

• Unlimited fruits and vegetables are allowed on cereal diets, so make sure you have a lot of these on hand for snacking. If you run out, you'll be more tempted to grab something that doesn't fit into the diet. It's a great idea to cut up some fresh vegetables ahead of time and keep them in the refrigerator, ready to grab whenever you want.

Benefits

• The cereal diet involves minimal preparation time other than a bit of chopping of fruit and vegetables. There are no extensive recipes to follow, no complicated mix-and-match foods, and no large lists of rules. Just low-calorie cereal with skim milk twice a day.

  When you add fresh fruit, it's especially tough to find another breakfast with this much fiber and nutritional value for so few calories.