17 Day Diet: Dr. Michael Moreno's Plan for Weight Loss in Four Cycles Goes Viral
Plans requires daily 17-minute walks and allows a cookie for breakfast.
April 7, 2011 — -- When Rachel Wilcox, a 38-year-old mother of three, gained weight after having her third child, she tried Dr. Michael Moreno's 17 Day Diet.
In 17 days, she'd lost 13 pounds and said it wasn't hard at all.
"The food choices were easy and with all the weight loss, it motivated me to try another 17 days," she told ABC News' "Good Morning America." "I lost 36 pounds in four months."
Others have similar stories of remarkable weight loss, including Mary Jo Macomber, who lost 51 pounds, and David Horner, who's lost 22 pounds since January.
17 Day Diet: Read the first chapter.
They all lost the weight on Moreno's plan, which has become the latest diet craze. It's creating lots of buzz.
Results Last a Lifetime, Diet's Creator Says
For Macomber, the diet has become a family affair.
"I have six sisters and they all live around the country, and so we're all on the diet ... and totally we've lot 111 pounds," she said.
The diet seems to have gone viral. It's on Facebook and Twitter, and of course, there's a DVD.
Moreno, the diet's creator and author of the book, "The 17 Day Diet," said people who follow his plan will achieve results that will last for a lifetime.
The plan has four cycles. Each cycle consists of 17 days where dieters vary the carbs, proteins, fruits and other kinds of foods they eat in order to stimulate their metabolism and promote weight loss.
Each cycle unfolds in 17 days because that's right before the time when the body starts to recognize the diet as a habit and metabolism starts to slow as a result, Moreno said. Dieters also walk for 17 minutes a day. Moreno himself walks with his patients in San Diego.
While the diet doesn't completely eliminate certain foods, there are some dos and don'ts: Use spices. Use fruit instead of sugar. Use garlic, and cinnamon, and choose mustard rather than mayonnaise. And no fruit or certain types of carbs are allowed after 2 p.m.
Many Other Diets Failed for Wilcox
Greek yogurt is a big component of his plan, and diets get to eat a cookie for breakfast.
"I think this diet is probably the only diet that is for everybody," Moreno said in an interview with "GMA's" special correspondent Cameron Mathison. "And that means whether you want to lose five pounds for your high school reunion coming up, whether you want to lose 150 pounds, or whether you're just comfortable with who you are and how you look and your health and your weight, as it is, this is just a way to not only focus on the scale moving, but it's focusing on good, proper digestive health."
Wilcox -- who logs everything she eats on her iPad -- is hooked. The stay-at-home mom's 17 days have turned into four months.
"I've been on the Atkins [Diet], I've been on the Cookie Diet, I've been on Weight Watchers, [the] South Beach [Diet], Cabbage Soup [diet], tons of diets," she said.
Those other diets failed because she always ends up regaining any weight she has lost, she said.
"And now I've finally found a lifestyle, the 17 Day Diet is ... the program I'm going to follow the rest of my life," she said.