Low Carb Diets: Curves

By Jonathan Berohn

Ok—here’s one diet that is strictly for women in that it’s basically an add-on for the Curves workout regime, which require you to join a women’s only work-out facility.

You can check out Curves and find a location near you at the Curves web site.  To me, the whole Curves set up seems a little bit gimmicky, but we’ll get back to that in a minute; first the basics of the diet.

Curves offers two plans, so you don’t have to opt for the low carb option, but as that’s what we’re dealing with here because it seems to be all the rage in dieting these days, let’s focus on that (the higher carb plan basically works the same except you eat—belive it or not—more carbs).

The major Curves difference is that their diet is designed to work hand in hand with their workout regimen.  Curves is into circuit training.  The idea is that you show up and do about a half hour to forty-five minute workout on various pieces of equipment.

The thinking is you’ll get your metabolism going and burn off those excess calories.  There’s nothing wrong with that, of course.  Exercising more is certainly a good approach to weight loss.  The Curves diet ties into this metabolism boost business by changing the traditional 3 meals a day plan to 5 meals per day.

Curves also—and here’s where the gimmicks really start to build up—conveniently center their diet around an expensive protein shake that they sell.

In a nutshell, while the basic motivation here seems like a good plan, the expense is hard to justify.  For what it costs to join Curves, you can easily buy a membership at a full service health club—or at least a community rec center or YMCA.  At Curves, you get their machines—in limited numbers to boot.  You don’t even get a locker room or showers let alone a pool or a track.  Then when you add on the weekly cost of protein shakes, you’re laying out quite a bit of money for less value added than you might expect.

Now—if you like to a have a very regimented system and you don’t mind blowing money on protein shakes, there’s no reason Curves can’t work.  There are just a lot more economical options available if you like any sort of variety to your exercise.