The Half Day Diet by Nate Miyaki is a diet plan that promises to help you lose fat without compromising your carbs intake. Unlike the no carbs diets like the Keto, Atkins, and South Beach diets, this program allows you to eat carbs in a strategic way, that is in the evening, allowing for all macronutrients to have their place.
However, during the day, calorie intake is reduced and limited in order to satisfy the golden rule of any realistic diet plan: calorie deficit.
This feeding pattern is a kind of soft, daily intermittent fasting that mimics the daily fluctuations in nutrient availability of our ancestors who were hunting for or gathering food during the day and eating mostly in the evening.
Since our physiology hasn’t changed much from those times, the author reasons, our bodies stand only to benefit from such a nutritional approach and we should blame the extra weight and obesity of our times on the refrigerators and technology for the ready availability of foods these “advancements” offer, any time, any place.
This is not a fancy theory born out of personal beliefs though, as the author provides a backup a rich catalog of scientific references and studies as well his own qualifications and long-running experience and success in the weight loss industry and fitness in general.
In this review, you’ll find out how this program works and whether it is sustainable or worth your buck.
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Who Is The Half Day Diet For?
This program is not just for anyone who wants to lose weight, but only for those who do NOT like to take shortcuts or extreme diets just before a beach holiday in a doomed attempt to lose weight fast.
Such endeavors can only lead to failure and rebounds as they are not sustainable in the long run.
The Half Day Diet looks like a well set up plan designed for long term goals and sustainability. Like all long term plans, it requires some degree of discipline, albeit a moderate one.
It is therefore indicated for those who want a safe, sustainable, and rel-life plan for progressive fat loss and weight loss management.
It is even more suitable for those who attempted rapid weight loss plans or extreme and unpractical diet fads before without lasting success.
As you’ll find out below, this plan is well structured with a solid scientific background and easy to follow and stick to, with plenty of testimonials to show for.
How Does It Work?
The Half Day Diet works by reducing carbs only for a few specific hours of the day so as to get your body responding as if it was on a 24/h low carbs diet, while in fact, it is not.
The author claims to have spent more than 15 years researching the topic and to have found scientific backups to his claims, which you will see more about down below.
Basically, this diet plan is against drastic reductions of carbs intake, as these are essential for good body functioning, a more realistic approach to weight loss than no carbs diets.
Carbs privation has been proven to be unsustainable in the long run and only 2% of people who tried no carbs diets before have been successful. This is because they are so difficult to stick to when your body is constantly craving carbs.
After initial, brief success, things start to go downhill, low energy sets in, and bingeing starts. As a result, the weight loss process comes to a halt.
The Carb Loop
The author claims that these cravings are caused by a phenomenon called LH-VTA loop, which stands for lateral hypothalamic (LH) projection to the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a big mouthful that he simply calls Carb-Loop for all of us who are not scientists.
In simple terms, this means is that the LH-VTA pathway is responsible for compulsive carbs seeking and that by eating carbs at the wrong times of the day, you get stuck into this carb-loop that manifests itself with cravings, thus leading to bodyweight rebounds.
The solution: reset your carb eating times for the day, eating carbs in the evening instead that during the day, and voila’, the carb-loop and the cravings are gone.
That does not mean that you can stay away from carbs all day only to gorge yourself in the evening with pizzas, pasta, and Oreo cookies. Nope, that does not work either.
You must be in a calorie deficit anyway if you want to burn fat. That’s paramount and Nate makes it clear from the start, as is not such thing as fat burning foods, if your calorie intake is greater than your energy expenditure.
Once you are in a moderate calorie deficit, carbs have their time and place and will not cause you to binge around if you eat them late in the evening, actually, they will help you be consistent with your plan and lose fat once and for all.
To sum up, the plan is all about dieting and avoiding carbs for half a day only. This trick only will help you to remove the carb-loop trap and stay on track.
This nutritional pattern is a kind of short-term intermittent fasting repeated daily, a feeding structure reminiscent of our ancestors’ meal distribution during the day: they’d be hunting and gathering all day and feasting at night when back in their dwellings.
The Half Day Diet Simple Guidelines
Aside from being based on a simple but sound theory, this program is also easy to follow, without unnecessary, complicated gimmicks.
It’s all about eating strategically the right foods at the right time of the day and choosing the right carbs at night.
The plan is structured on 3 principles:
Macro Optimization – This aspect of the plan is concerned with optimizing your macros, protein, fats and carbs by choosing the macro-nutrient template that best matches your personal situation, telling you what to eat and when.
Customization – Most diet plans are cookie-cutter affairs with a one-size-fits-for-all approach. The Half Day Diet plan offers the ability to customize your plan to your own personal food preferences, lifestyle, and situation.
Evolution – As you lose weight, your caloric intake and nutrition must change. The plan offers protocols and templates to adjust your diet as you lose weight along the way. This is also a very important aspect often left out in other plans: as your weight drops, your calories and nutrients should be adjusted.
On a practical level, the plan encourages you to drink a lot of water, eat dense but low-calorie foods like meat and fish and vegetables, adding carbs like potatoes and rice for those who workout, or adding fats like coconut oil or animal fats for those who do not work out and, of course, consume the greatest part of your daily requirement in the evening while fasting during the day.
What About Scientific Evidence?
The plan sounds all well and right, but what about evidence? Nate Miyaki does not disappoint. He produces a vast range of literature references from top authoritative sources.
For example, this article from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ shows that our ancestors relied a lot on animal-based foods but less on carbohydrates from wild plants. As a result, most of their energy came from protein but less on carbohydrates.
This other study shows insight on leptin response to carbohydrate and subsequent satiety and energy intake, or this one on the effects of excess carbohydrate or fat intake.
Nate Miyaki is a Certified Personal Trainer from the American Council on Exercise (ACE), a Certified Specialist in Sports Nutrition from the International Sports Science Association (ISSA), and a Certified Specialist in Fitness Nutrition from the International Sports Science Association (ISSA).
He has won the 2009 Musclemania America natural bodybuilding contest and the 2004 NPC Max Muscle Naturals contest and has impressive credentials with an endless list of formal qualifications as follows:
BA, University of California, Berkeley
Post-baccalaureate studies in Kinesiology, San Francisco State University.
Functional Training & Corrective Exercise Specialty Certification (ACE)
The Janda System of Evaluation and Treatment of Muscle Imbalance Certification
Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy Certification (DSW Fitness/Human Kinetics)
2017 INBA Battle Against Cancer – 2nd Place, Men’s Physique Open and Junior Masters divisions
The bottom line is that Nate Miyaki is exceptionally well qualified in a vast range of health, fitness, muscle building, and fat loss disciplines. He is certainly a man you can rely on for advice in the business of fat loss.
What’s In The Half Day Diet Plan?
The Half Day Diet is a digital plan offering a main manual plus 5 different bonuses. All components are books plus an online club that you can access from your smartphone or PC. You get the books and access to the club immediately via a download upon purchase. Here is a breakdown:
The Half Day Diet Handbook – This is the main part of the plan with all the theory and strategy laid out. Here you will find information on macro-nutrients, their practical application, intermittent fasting and resources, and references.
The Bonuses
Happy Hour Handbook – A guide to alcohol management for when you go out socializing. It tells you how to enjoy a few drinks without going overboard, what to eat before a night out, and the best time to drink.
A Restaurant Meal Guide – A bonus book with recommendations on food choice so that you can still follow your diet plan even when out for a meal.
A Vegetarian Diet eBook – A guide focused specifically on pescatarians, lacto-ovo and vegans for their particular requirements.
A Holiday Fat Loss Guide – Similarly to the restaurant guide, this book will tell you how to manage your macronutrients during special occasions like BBQs, birthdays, Thanksgiving, New Year, or Christmas.
The Flat Belly Platinum Club – This is a special online club you can access from your phone with thousands of members. In it, additional recipes, articles, videos, and software to calculate calories and nutrients.
The Half Day Diet is a simple, yet effective plan for sustainable and safe fat loss based on sound principles and scientific evidence. Author Nate Miyaki is fully qualified for the job and the program offers a realistic and down to earth approach to weight loss management.
It is based on a proven calorie deficit and intermittent fasting ideas together with a skillful selection of your eating times so as to optimize your body response and promote fat loss.
The program is sustainable and easy to stick to thanks to carbs allowance in the evening, which primes your body to burn fat without actually being off the carbs, in stark contrast to no carbs diets like the Ketogenic diet.
The Half Day Diet is also easy to slot into your social commitment and the author offers additional, useful bonuses to address social eating and drinking, as well as cheat days.
All in all, this is a safe, legitimate, and sustainable fat loss program for anyone.
My name is Jay Fielding. I gained an interest in fitness since I was a child, and eventually developed my passion into a career path. I am now a Certified Personal Trainer with a natural ability to program customized body recomposition and motivate people in achieving their goals, be it gaining muscle or losing fat.
