What is the Sirtfood Diet?

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Hosting, Research, Writing & Post-Production by Lara Hyde, PhD
Music & Video Production by Robbie Hyde

The information in this video is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. All content, including text, graphics, images and information, contained on or available through this video is for general information purposes only.

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The Sirtfood Diet has been generating buzz through its rumored use to drive Adele’s weight loss. Best part - the diet encourages red wine and chocolate. The Sirtfood Diet was created by Glen Matten and Aidan Goggins. They studied Nutrition Medicine at the University of Surrey where they learned about the sirtuin proteins - sirt for short. Activated sirt proteins burn fat and preserve muscle by triggering a metabolic switch. Animals with activated sirt proteins live longer and healthier. How can you activate sirt proteins? Extreme calorie restriction or extreme exercise. Suggesting to eat a 40% calorie restricted diet isn’t going to make you as popular as suggesting to eat chocolate and red wine. Certain nutrients can activate sirt proteins, mimicking the effects of calorie restriction. I learned about these nutrients in grad school too - one nutrient in particular called resveratrol, which is found in red wine. A family of nutrients called polyphenols contain a whole bunch of sirt-activating nutrients. Who’s not going to bite at this offer? Mimic calorie restriction by eating polyphenols? That’s Aidan and Glen’s million dollar idea - create a diet based on foods with sirt-activating nutrients to burn fat and boost health. And thus the Sirtfood diet was born. What are the sirtfoods? The diet staples are arugula, buckwheat, capers, celery, chilies, cocoa, coffee, endive, extra virgin olive oil, garlic, green tea, kale, Medjool dates, onion, parsley, red wine, soy, strawberries, turmeric and walnuts. Nutrients in these foods known to be sirt activating include quercetin, kaempferol, curcumin, apigenin and epigallocatechin gallate. Sirtfood green juice is made up of kale, arugula, parsley, celery, apple, ginger, lemon and matcha green tea powder. Aidan and Glen’s 2016 Sirtfood Diet book cover boldly states “clinically proven to lose 7 pounds in 7 days”[6]. That “clinical proof” comes from a pilot study that they ran with 40 members of a super posh gym in London called KX Life. There were a whole bunch of issues in this study that triggered my science spidey sense. Besides this pilot study, the only other evidence of the Sirtfood Diet is from anecdotes. Dr. Lara Science Law #1 “Anecdote is not evidence!”

[KD-drgy]

My first time watching and I thought this was going to be really cold and clinical but I was pleasantly surprised by the fun bits. You are a joy to watch and your smile really lights up the screen! Thanks for all the great info!

[dimplesd]

Breakfast oatmeal with blueberries and mango, lunch cooked cabbage and grilled fish, dinner roasted asparagus with roasted chicken, snack mandarin orange and almonds. And I didn’t have to join a fancy London gym to loose 80lbs. Great video

[shelysheli]

Sounds like an organized Mediterranean Diet to me! Thanks for explaining this 🙂

[teresaolofson]

arugula, buckwheat, capers, celery, chilies, cocoa, coffee, endive, olive oil, garlic, green tea, kale dates, onion, parsley, red wine, soy, strawberries, turmeric walnuts

[veganmamafourgirls]

Thank you for the straight talk. It is refreshing to see more green foods and plants, in general, as a focus instead of eliminating food groups or just calorie restriction. Your science information was clear and helpful to the non-science crowd making it obvious that this a fad diet.

[michellecasausharris]

This video was so well done . Just the perfect amount of visuals and verbally explained facts and she didn’t bash the diet and wasn’t condescending

[Amira-vdbe]

This video was so well-structured. It definitely deserves more views!

[jennifervoilet]

*here because Adele followed this diet to glow up.*

[haveagoodday]

Well Adele looks incredible so she's living Proof

[Gus-pxhd]

If you limit your intake to 1000 calories a day, you'll lose weight, no matter what you call the diet.

[darlingdear]

With respect to juice vs fiber. It is only 3 days. You can get your fiber for "overall health" after these 3 days. 3 days are not going to make weather in terms of fiber, but they will kick start whatever they need to kick start. And then you load up on that fiber

[christinem]

Super nutritious. Say what you want about the calories, there are a ton of vitamins, minerals and fibre in this diet.

[nadiaelisian]

I am thankful for this video. I am glad you mentioned that your not a fan of juicing because its expensive, wasteful and I wanted to add that it takes forever to clean a juicer. I had a juicer and got rid of it because of the daily 20 minute cleaning that had to happen immediately after juicing. It only works if your juicing for a whole family because keep juice in the fridge makes it all brown and even more disgusting.

[mini-wyus]

I'm all plant based. 3 months down. Eat lots of veggies, rice, potatoes, legume, I've lost 5 kg. I follow high carb Hannah. Kikiplantful. Please give it ago. It's sustainable and healthy x

[karlint]

BTW, I noticed this has 161, 000 views as I watch it. You've got lots of other videos with less than 10, 000 views, but those videos are just as good as this one. The YouTube gods are confused because your content is great. Really.

[johnmckernan]

What do you know? Being in a calorie deficit by eating low calorie dense/high fibre foods would cause fat loss 🤔🙄

[Leftistbreakfist]

This is literally my basic diet and I'm still a chonk. But... I do look like I'm in my 20's when I'm actually 40...

[scottherf]

Just discussed in their book. You would not have to drink wine. Knotweed has like 5000 times more resvertrol per gram. Blending beats juicing. Kale beats coliflor because of the colour/poly phenols in the kale. Think!

[PrincHappy]

Omg this needs more likes, the best video I've ever seen about any diet.

Good job, keep it up! Easy to follow up. I subbed.

[chelsdodge]

I’m new to your channel and I love how you present scientific info while also including a bit of humor!