Messini diet: principles, advantages, disadvantages

The Messini diet is a very low-calorie diet designed for obese people, in association with the resumption of physical activity. Medical supervision is essential before, during, and after this diet.

What is the Messini diet?

The Messini diet is a very low-calorie diet with a proportionately high protein intake. Designed for obese people, it is offered over 2 to 3 weeks and is associated with the resumption of physical activity.

How does the Messini diet work?

The Messini diet is about eating less and moving more. Energy intake decreases (we eat less) and energy expenditure increases (we do physical activity), which inevitably leads to weight loss.

If possible, physical activity started before the diet and continued during and after the diet helps to preserve muscle mass. At the end of the diet, this prevents a too sharp drop in basal metabolism (energy needs at rest are preserved), which limits the risk of the yoyo effect, i.e. the risk of taking more weight after the diet that we lost.

What can I eat?

The Messini regime leaves little room for improvisation. The menus of the week are made (see below) and the quantities specified. It remains to follow them.

Recommended foods

Simple, unprocessed foods listed in the menus of the week.

Prohibited foods

Foods not listed in the weekly menus

Dishes in sauces, industrial dishes, pastries, sodas ...

Is the Messini diet easy to follow?

Messini diet menus make meal planning simple, but the diet can be difficult to follow. On the one hand, due to a significant calorie restriction. On the other hand, because of the associated physical activity which, in this context of low-calorie intake, risks tiring. However, the cure has a limited duration of 2 to 3 weeks.

What types of exercises should accompany the Messini diet?

In an obese and sedentary person, prior medical consultation is recommended to detect a possible contraindication (cardiovascular, respiratory, rheumatological, etc.) to the practice of a sport and to specify any necessary adaptations.

Before the diet, gradually re-exercising if you are sedentary, or increasing your usual level of physical activity is strongly recommended. This helps increase muscle mass and rest metabolism.

Regular physical activity (at least 5 hours per week) will then be maintained during and after the diet.

Physical activity limits muscle and bone loss during dieting and helps maintain diet-induced weight loss.

What types of exercises to practice?

Multiply physical activities according to your taste and abilities.

Gradually resume daily physical activity and maintain it over the long term.

You can start by taking the dog for a walk, walking instead of systematically taking the car for short trips, taking the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator, getting off the bus one station earlier, swimming (sport recommended to strengthen your muscles. and work the heart without straining the joints), ride a bike ...

In the gym, do supervised cardio-training and muscle-strengthening exercises to regain breath, tone and strength.

This gradual rehabilitation to the effort will then make it possible to practice other sports safely. Brisk walking, for example, requires breath, tone, muscle strength in the lower and upper limbs, but also the abdominals and back muscles. Gradually readjusting to the effort will prevent brisk walking from causing back pain or discouraging.

Is this diet dangerous for health?

The ANSES opinion on the request for an assessment of the risks associated with weight-loss dietary practices in 2010 warns on the one hand about the dangers of very-low-calorie diets of between 800 and 1200 calories per day (case of Messini diet) but also those linked to a slimming diet associated with the resumption of physical activity (case of the Messini diet).

Cardiovascular risk

Cardiovascular risks specified by ANSES are linked:

Diet (risk of sudden death linked to cardiac arrhythmias), weight fluctuations (a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome)

And to the association of a slimming diet with the practice of physical activity (cardiovascular risks linked to the resumption of physical activity in a sedentary subject for several years and presenting vascular risk factors).

Blood sugar risk

In addition, ANSES specifies that combining a weight loss diet with the practice of physical activity exposes the risk of short-term discomfort when the food restriction is pronounced, which is the case of the very low-calorie diet of Messini. Hypoglycaemic or vagal discomfort may thus occur, more or less aggravated by dehydration.

Finally, as a final point, ANSES specifies that the very-low-calorie diets, including the Messini diet, expose to hepatobiliary risks such as hepatic inflammation, moderate portal fibrosis, and gallstones.

Are the contributions of this diet sufficient?

Calorie intake

The nutritional intakes recommended by ANSES are 2600 kcal / d for adult men and 2100 kcal / d for adult women.

According to our calculations, the Messini diet would provide an average of 892 kilocalories per day.

ANSES classifies diets from 800 to 1,200 kilocalories per day compared to the nutritional intakes recommended in very-low-calorie diets.

The Messini diet is therefore a very low-calorie diet.

Fiber intake

The recommended dietary fiber intake is 25 g / d. According to our calculations, the Messini diet provides an average of 14 g of fiber per day, which represents insufficient intake compared to the recommended nutritional intake.

Protein intake

The recommended nutritional intake is 83 g / d. According to our calculations, the Messini diet would provide an average of 57 grams of protein per day, which is insufficient compared to the recommended nutritional intake.

What types of meals does the Messini diet offer?

Breakfast

The juice of an orange or a black coffee or a lemon tea, with sugar (half a spoonful) or a sweetener

Possibly a tea or a coffee with an orange or a pear

You can also take the juice of half a lemon in a glass of hot water half an hour before breakfast.

Lunch

1st and 4th day of the week: fat-free beef broth (100 g) a slice of melon no bread

2nd and 6th day: pasta with gluten (20 g) a grilled lamb chop (100 g) or defatted raw ham (100 g) or 1/4 cooked chicken without the skin, an Apple, a small slice of bread (10 g)

3rd and 7th day: vegetable soup (50 g of vegetables) grilled veal (150 g) a cooked tomato or 4 stalks of celery seasoned with lemon and vinegar (50 g) 3 apricots no bread

5th day: rice soup (20 g) or asparagus (30 g of asparagus) grilled fish (150 g) with 30 g of mayonnaise green salad (150 g) with lemon and vinegar raw fennel (150 g) Orange a thin slice of bread

Having dinner

1st and 4th day: boiled egg with 150 g of green salad lean cheese (25 g) cooked plums without sugar (40 g) no bread

2nd and 6th day: grilled beef tenderloin (100 g) cooked vegetables (200 g before cooking) a pear a thin slice of bread (10 g)

3rd and 7th day: raw ham without fat (70 g) or cooked liver (80 g) a baked tomato, or in raw vegetables with a green salad seasoned with lemon and vinegar (150 g in total) a slice of melon no bread

5th day: fish in oil (60 g) green salad (150 g) seasoned with lemon or vinegar, or an artichoke, or a cauliflower (50 g) or carrots (50 g) an apple or 100 g of fruit without sugar a thin slice of bread.

The benefits of the Messini diet

The Messini diet allows you to lose weight if you need it

If it is of short duration (1 to 3 weeks), the risks of deficiencies are limited

Regular physical activity and protein intake conserved in this diet can help maintain muscle and bone capital

The Messini diet is conceived within the framework of medical treatment of obesity likely to bear fruit in the long term. The emphasis will then be on the importance of understanding why you have put on weight, setting up corrective elements at your own pace before the diet, to resume regular physical activity before, during, and after the diet, and to listen to your hunger. and his satiety.

The disadvantages of the Messini diet

This very low-calorie diet is potentially dangerous for health

The cardiovascular risks and discomfort are real. They require that physical activity be supervised and its intensity adapted to the patient's condition

Finally, the last disadvantage of the Messini diet is that of being a diet. Because like any slimming "diet", it rides on the belief that a food constraint limited in time will solve the problem of overweight or obesity. It is not so. A slimming "diet" makes it possible to lose weight but exposes the risk of regaining more or less long term more weight than we lost (yoyo effect).

To get back to a healthy weight and maintain it over the long term, it is a good idea to:

To understand why we have put on weight (stress, snacking in front of the television without hunger, alcoholic or sweet drinks, a diet based on ultra-processed products, too much food consumed during meals, etc.)

To set up corrective elements at their own pace

Gradually resume and maintain physical activity over the long term (at least 5 hours per week)

To listen to his hunger and his satiety