What is Diet Phasing?
Diet phasing is simply the act of changing the way you eat every four or so weeks. The science behind it is twofold. First, eating seasonally, under feast and famine conditions, was how our ancestors ate. Our bodies were designed to run off of whole, real foods, available seasonally, and not to excess. In fact, periods of fasting were common, allowing people to run some of the year off of ketones (when food was scarce) and glucose (when berries and other plants were abundant).
Reason One: Ancestry
If you’re wondering what our ancestors have to do with us today, we get it! Why should we care what cavemen ate when in this day and age we can fuel up with coffee and muffins all day every day, if we want to? The answer is simple: our bodies haven’t caught up to modern-day foods (and frankenfoods) in order to even recognize many of the chemicals, fillers, artificial sweeteners, thickeners and GMOs wrecking our food chain. Depletion of soil, additives, preservatives, animal farming practices, sugar and fake fats have left us overfed and undernourished. We are sicker and fatter than we’ve ever been. According to Time magazine, rising obesity rates are responsible for 186,000 deaths per year (1).
Reason Two: Fighting Plateaus
The second reason diet phasing helps with weight loss has to do with the body’s desire for homeostasis, or balance. When we eat the same things, do the same exercises, or when our body figures out what we’re up to, it adjusts, making it harder to lose weight doing what previously used to work. Some people go on crash diets, cutting calories to slim down fast. However, diets only work for so long. Eventually, homeostasis sets in, or compliance to the boring (and hangry-inducing) diet becomes impossible.
Instead of slashing calories, which usually only works temporarily, and feeling restricted on traditional diets, diet phasing allows for rich, delicious and nutritious foods, consumed in phases. The phasing time frame is generally four weeks, give or take, and the phases themselves run the gamut. One month (depending on your goals and a 131 Method questionnaire) you might eat a keto-based diet. Another phase might be more of a Mediterranean style, plant-based or high carb. The point is, you get to keep things changing in order to eat all of your favorite foods when you hit that phase.
What is Phase it Up by 131 Method?
Phase it Up is an online nutrition and willpower community to support your weight loss goals. We provide daily text messages with motivation, tips and support to keep you accountable. There is personalized tracking, an amazing community, hundreds of recipes and meal plans designed to help you reach your weight loss goals.
Instead of tracking points or calories, you’ll focus on your nutrients, and identifying the foods that work well for your body (like those that give you energy and reduce inflammation), and those that leave you feeling bloated, tired and craving sugar. Going through the Phase it Up process, and learning different approaches to eating for set periods of time, you’ll also learn about:
- food quality
- macro and micronutrients
- inflammation
- hormones
- sleep
- hydration
- mindset
- and so much more
Those lessons help you WANT to make better food choices. And once you identify the foods that leave you feeling less than optimal, you’ll simply remove those foods, and keep them gone. Because once you know better, you do better. Once you start waking up energized and your wedding ring feels loose, and your clothes feel comfortable instead of tight by the end of the day, you’ll want to keep the streak going! And, if you make the conscious choice to eat, say, popcorn, even though you discovered that it leaves you bloated, that’s okay too! Everything you learn is simply knowledge for making intentional/informed decisions.
How Does Phase it Up Differ from the 131 Method?
Phase it Up is the next chapter from the 131 Method. We took many of the 131’s invaluable lessons on healing your hormones, inflammation, fasting, longevity, food sensitivities and sleep, and brought them over to Phase it Up. We shortened many of the lessons, and several are optional. Your main lessons all involve what you’ll do for each specific phase. So, if you begin with our Ignite phase, you’ll learn all about High Fat, Low Carb eating. The big difference between Phase it Up and other diets is, you won’t be stuck endlessly doing the same thing day in and day out. We are definitely not of the “keto for life” mindset around here (and, we explain why!).
Furthermore, Phase it Up is more like a “choose your own adventure” based on end-of-phase questionnaires. So, unlike the 131 Method, where the phases went: Ignite, Nourish and Renew, with fasting in each and every phase, Phase it Up takes into account where YOU are at the end of each phase, and makes recommendations of where to go next based on your answers. Fasting has been removed from each phase and will become its own lesson/phase. We also have a lot more phases than before! The goal is to keep you phasing, losing weight, reducing inflammation and never feeling like you’re on a diet. Because all the phases involve different types of eating, you’ll never again feel deprived. You’ll wait for a specific phase to have sweet potato wedges, or lean chicken and salad, or juicy salmon with olive tapenade, or whatever your cravings are. It’ll all depend on the phase you end up in. And you’re in control, with guidance from the team based on your needs and goals.
Deets at a Glance
- The two programs are hosted on different sites, so you’ll have a new log in when you start Phase it Up.
- 131 Method was a 12-week program. Phase it up is a Monthly Subscription Program, with regularly updated and new phases to choose from.
- Both are based on the same scientific principles of Dietary Phasing. But with Phase it Up, we’ve added a new layer- one that we know will help you- supporting your ability to improve your WILLPOWER & motivation!
- In Phase it Up you’ll be automatically enrolled into Ignite phase, and then more phases (and NEW phases) will be released soon.
- Phase It Up has personalized tracking, improved community and chat features including the ability to message with one another! How fun!
- It includes more support for motivation and specifically, WILLPOWER!!
- In Phase it Up you’ll receive daily text messages with valuable information! You’ll have a new system to track your progress and make LASTING changes!!
- You’ll also have the ability to personalize your notifications and settings, ability to edit your credit card yourself, and SO many more amazing features we’ve been working hard to bring to you!
We also boosted up our cheerleading! You’ll get daily texts and lots of emails coaching you along the way. Our testers LOVED this aspect of Phase it Up. With us, you’re never alone!
Give Phase it Up by 131 Method a try today! Because there’s a new way, a better way, to lose weight and keep it off!
