The commercials are great. The girl looks slim and beautiful and totally enviable. The box is appealing. And the idea sounds great, too. After all, who doesn’t like a good bowl of cereal? But the real question is, does the Special K diet really work?
The easy answer to that question is yes. The Special K diet can help you lose weight. In a study of women on the Special K diet, calories were reduced enough to lead to about 4.4 pounds of weight loss in two weeks. Women who normally ate 2200 calories daily took in about 1560 on the Special K diet.
How does it work? According to the Kellogg’s website, the Special K diet consists of replacing two meals a day with a bowl of Special K cereal and skim milk. It replaces any snacks during the day with fresh fruit and vegetables or a Special K cereal bar. So, you’d have your bowl of Special K for breakfast, another bowl for lunch, and a normal dinner. Simple, eh?
How Special is the Special K Diet?
Though the easy answer to whether or not the Special K diet works is "yes," the true answer is a little more complicated than that. While the Special K diet can help you lose weight, it’s not really a true diet– there’s nothing in the least bit innovative about it. You don’t lose any more weight than you would with, say, the Slim Fast diet. The Special K diet is simply a low-calorie diet like any other, and may even leave you hungrier and less satisfied than many similar diets. The only thing that sets it apart is that Kellogg’s is a very smart company with very slick advertising. Sorry.
A one-cup bowl of Kellogg’s Special K cereal with half a cup of skim milk runs about 170 calories. Add an apple and you’ve got about 250 calories. This calorie reduction is what helps you to lose weight, and works no differently than any other diet. If you were to eat 170 to 250 calories of any food for two meals a day (with healthy snacks), you would see the same results. A Lean Cuisine or Healthy Choice microwave meal, for example, has about 170-300 calories, depending. Most of the time, a hot bowl of pasta is going to sound better for lunch than a cold bowl of cereal, and the result is the same.
So, if you’re thinking about going on the Special K diet, go right ahead. The calorie intake is healthy if you eat one normal meal and healthy snacks every day, and its low-calorie concept will really help you lose weight if you’re able to stick to it. But it’s also important to note that eating Special K is not the only way to follow this kind of diet. If you eat two low-calorie meals of any kind each day, you’ll see weight loss.
It’s also important to note that, while it’s not too bad, Special K isn’t particularly healthy. It contains high fructose corn syrup, and little fiber. You’d be better off with a bowl of All Bran or muesli. It also gets boring fast, so feel free to switch it out with other low-cal options.