WASHINGTON – How is it that prisoners on the diet can gain weight while we lose weight?
Each day the diet serves up 2,500 to 2,700 calories. This is appropriate for the young men who comprise the bulk of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Women, especially women trying to lose weight, need fewer calories per day, probably only about two-thirds of that, and that total declines with age.
Eating the protein, vegetables, two starches, canned fruit and the dairy requirement served to the men at Gitmo each day is just too much for us. The syrup in which the canned fruit is stored adds too much sugar and calories for our taste. That's one of the items that most frequently goes uneaten each day, along with the quarter of a loaf of bread and the entire 16 oz serving of milk.
Click in the video box to hear Sharon and Shana discuss the Gitmo diet.
The Gitmo diet is clearly in line with the U.S. Food Guide Pyramid that was recently revised. The eight servings of grains, including bread, pasta, rice and cereal, the two helpings of fruit, three servings of vegetables, 6.5 ounces of protein all match the pyramid's daily guidelines for a 2,600-calorie diet.
Notably, when following the food pyramid, it doesn't really matter what category of calories you eat. The servings are proportioned so that you get a healthy mix. That must be the thinking of the prison dietitians. It certainly is working for us. With an appropriate number of calories for our gender, mixed up in the right ratios, we're both losing weight and feeling great.
Click here to read the menu for the two-week diet.
Shana Pearlman is a producer for FOX News Radio's Tony Snow Show and can be reached at shana.pearlman@foxnews.com. Sharon Kehnemui Liss is the politics editor for FOXNews.com and can be reached at sharon.liss@foxnews.com.
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