Diet of ballerinas for weight loss: menu, reviews and results

Graceful, fragile ballerinas have known the secret of being slim since childhood and today they share it with you. Get 5 effective diets and learn 8 rules, the observance of which will save you from the problem of excess weight forever!

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Author: Kristina Lobanovskaya, doctor, practicing nutritionist Article updated: 02/13/2020

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The grace and lightness of ballerinas are admired by many, but a chiseled figure is the result of hard physical labor. Often, girls have to go on strict diets to stay in shape, and today you will find out which of them are the most effective and what results can be achieved with their help.

Nutrition rules for ballerinas

There are several basic nutritional rules that ballerinas follow to maintain optimal weight:

Rule one - any single serving of food should be reduced exactly in half. Following this rule makes it easy to reduce caloric intake without changing your diet. Rule two - soups are a separate food and should not be eaten with other dishes. As you know, soups stimulate metabolism very well, so soup eaten separately from other food helps burn fat in the body. Rule three is not to combine various proteins in one meal - for example, fish and meat, cheese and meat, etc., this allows the body to digest food more efficiently and not store excess fat. Rule four is to exclude mayonnaise from your diet. This is not only a high-calorie product due to its high fat content, but also a harmful product that slows down digestion and promotes fat deposition. The fifth rule is to exclude table salt from your diet, or significantly reduce its consumption. To replace, use spices, tomatoes, herbs, seasonings, soy sauce. Table salt retains water in the body and also stimulates appetite.

Rule six - try to drink water correctly: drink at least 30 minutes before meals and no earlier than an hour after meals. A very good rule - drinking water, juices, sweet drinks during meals and immediately after, slows down digestion and promotes fat deposition /. The seventh rule is to drink at least 1.5-2 liters of non-carbonated drinking water per day. Regular consumption of liquid helps reduce appetite and rejuvenates the body. Rule eight - maintain the right balance. Your daily diet should be varied and balanced in proteins, fats, carbohydrates, and also contain a sufficient amount of vitamins and microelements. This will save you not only from a deficiency of a particular substance, but will also eliminate the possibility of uncontrolled overeating. For more information, see Why nutrition should be balanced

Rule nine - when choosing dairy products, preference should be given to low-fat ones. Try to use low-fat dairy products for your diet, as they contain fewer calories.

Following these simple and reasonable rules will allow you to easily lose weight, normalize your metabolism and improve your health. Well, if you also adhere to the rule of not eating after 18-19 pm, then your results will be even more noticeable.

Nutritionist's comment: It is not entirely clear what the phrase means: “One serving of food should be divided into two times.” If it is implied that you only need to eat twice a day, then this is wrong: the breaks between meals should be no more than six hours. If you mean that a person will eat half of his usual portion at a time, then everything is quite reasonable. This is a frequent recommendation from nutritionists and endocrinologists for people who are overweight. Regarding soups as an independent meal: from a nutritional point of view, it doesn’t matter whether it comes with the “second” or separately. And fish and meat in the stomach will not quarrel. Although they are quite rarely found at the same time in some dish. I agree about dairy products: it’s really better to eat them low-fat. Everything is fine with mayonnaise too. However, to lose weight, you need to control the serving size of the sauce. If you eat homemade mayonnaise from the heart, you can even gain weight. Everything is true about salt and water.

There is also a special diet for ballerinas, which can be used if necessary to urgently lose extra pounds. The diet is designed for 7 days, of which the first two days are preparatory.

Prohibited Products

The list of foods that cannot be eaten is much wider. The diet of ballerinas prohibits adding salt to dishes. Sodium chlorine retains water in the body. The following food groups should be excluded from the diet:

starchy vegetables, legumes;
fruits: canned pineapples;
snacks: salted fish, popcorn, chips, nuts, crackers;
flour, bakery, confectionery products (including marshmallows, marshmallows, Turkish delight, ice cream);
fatty meat: pork, lamb;
sausages: boiled and raw smoked, wieners, frankfurters;
fish: fatty varieties, salted herring, smoked mackerel;
sauces: mayonnaise, ketchup (use lemon juice, soy sauce, spices as dressings);
semi-finished products, fast food.

Menu for preparatory days of the ballerina diet

Type of diet - low-calorie Weight loss - 4-5 kg Duration of use - 7 days

First fasting day: tomato Breakfast: start the day with a glass of tomato juice. Lunch: eat a piece of black bread with two glasses of tomato juice. Dinner: we end the day, as we began, with a glass of tomato juice. Second fasting day: milk-kefir Breakfast: drink your choice of a glass of low-fat kefir or milk. Lunch: two glasses of kefir with a slice of black bread. Dinner: just like for breakfast, drink a glass of kefir or milk.
Such fasting days can be used independently once a week in order to give the body a break and lose one or two extra pounds. After fasting days, you must follow the following diet for 4-5 days:

Video materials

When considering certain variations of dietary diets, be it the popular protein diet or the equally popular Hollywood diet, try to surround yourself with a sufficient amount of additional information. The more up-to-date data on the nutrition program you have at your disposal, the more effective and safe the menu you will be able to implement.

Next, we bring to your attention thematic video materials dedicated to the diet of ballerinas. In them, experienced nutritionists give direct recommendations on how the menu should be formed in accordance with the principles of the described system. Therefore, you will definitely adjust your diet to achieve your goal.

Have you set a goal to lose weight in a short time? Do you want to use only time-tested techniques, an example of which is the model diet? Try the principles of the ballerina nutrition program for yourself. Thanks to a thoughtful and responsibly implemented diet, you will lose a significant amount of body fat and feel great at the same time. Today, thousands of representatives of the fair sex from all over the world use this program, and in practice, the number of admirers of the method of combating excess weight is systematically growing. Start organizing an effective menu now and go to the store for quality products that will allow you to adhere to its effective tenets.

Diet menu for ballerinas “Swan Lake” for 10 days

The modern diet of ballerinas is not much different from the one that was known 20 years ago. In classical ballet, as you know, you need hardy “lean” muscles and a minimum of fat.

Such a physique can only be ensured by nutrition with a sufficient, almost high by the standards of most nutritionists, carbohydrate content. However, ballet does not always eat, as will be described below. Both carbohydrate loading and protein diets are practiced to “drain” before a performance. Well, what we’ll talk about today is rather an isolated case, the diet of a certain ballerina, which she once shared with a friend, and she posted it on the Internet. Actually, the diet has “taken root” among the masses, and today, when talking about what dancers eat, they most often remember this ten-day period.

This diet, in general, meets the basic principles of nutrition in dancing:

not only the type of food is important, but also its weight , it is simply impossible to train for 6-8 hours a day with a full stomach, so the weight of each serving is no more than 300 g, and it is strictly forbidden to wash down food;
soups, smoothies and juices are a separate dish and not a liquid additive to solid food;
You need to drink water, preferably 2 liters per day , but in prof. ballet is also practiced by the “cream”, i.e. drinking 3-4 liters of distilled water per day in combination with a very meager salt-free diet, this should not be done, as it can be harmful to the kidneys and overload the heart;
Sugar and fast carbohydrates are a big issue with this diet. In professional ballet, low-fat sweets such as marshmallows and marmalade are used in very limited quantities, as they help a person maintain a high level of energy during a long workout. In online diets, any sweets are prohibited, which is due to the priority goal - rapid weight loss, and not maintaining a strict training regime and an already developed “lean” body;
You can eat fruits , but not those that cause bloating, and not immediately after the main meal.

The approximate diet of this diet for 1 day is repeated for all 10 days:

Breakfast: skim milk, optional with coffee, plus a third of a pack of low-fat cottage cheese;
2nd breakfast: coffee, 30 g of bread, dry in a toaster, spread with butter and honey;
Lunch: soup - 150 ml of broth, 50-100 g of boiled meat, a spoonful of rice, a little grated carrots. The soup must be “collected”, i.e. cook everything separately, chop and pour in broth;
Snack : apple or orange;
Dinner : a glass of warm milk, a teaspoon of honey.

Nutritionist's comment: From a balance point of view, this diet suffers from a lack of fiber. There are almost no vegetables, few fruits, and practically no grains. This is harmful both for the intestines and for general well-being. Problems with stool and abdominal pain may begin. In addition, there is little liquid on the “menu”. It will be difficult to survive longer than two or three days on such a diet - it is monotonous and “hungry”. Hence the disappointing forecast: those who go on this diet have every chance of consuming something sweet or fatty by the end of the week.

Advantages and disadvantages

The diet of ballerinas has its advantages, which are that it:

Helps you start eating right.
Improves the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract.
Helps improve the condition of skin and hair.
Develops and improves our immune system.
If you also play sports (and you should do this, because it accompanies weight loss), the ballerina diet also helps to get a beautiful and pumped up body.

Of course, there are also disadvantages:

The body experiences stress at first, headaches and lethargy may appear (since unloading is usually done before starting).
You spend a lot of time preparing healthy meals.
You will need to spend money on scales and a juicer, if you don’t have one.

Ballerina diet menu for 4 days

The diet of ballerinas for 4 days consists of alternating contrasting fasting days, the principles are the same, that is, eating in small portions and drinking enough water:

Day 1 – 1.5 liters of tomato juice without salt and sugar and several black (rye) crackers;
Day 2 – the same amount of milk, crackers;
Day 3 – 5 servings of “soup” - for each serving 1 teaspoon of boiled rice, 150 ml of broth, 50 g of meat and 1 tablespoon of grated carrots;
Day 4 – fasting day on mineral water, or, if hungry, on milk or kefir.

Nutritionist's comments: The result of the ten-day diet given in the article may be a weight loss of 5-10 kg, depending on the initial parameters. However, you should not be deluded by the sports origins of the diet - you will still lose a significant percentage of weight due to a decrease in muscle mass and will only slightly adjust your weight by reducing the percentage of fat. The human body is physiologically unable to utilize more than the amount of fat that is consumed on medium-calorie diets. A significant energy deficit is always replenished by a source that is easier to split - i.e. muscles.

The calorie content of the given menu is critically low - despite the “indulgence” in the form of 2 tablespoons of honey, it is deficient in carbohydrates, and contains very little fat, in addition, it does not contain any PUFAs at all.

This is exactly the case when a half-starvation diet is disguised as a healthy weight loss plan; in fact, the “dosage” of proteins is also sufficient only for a person weighing 40 kg who leads a sedentary lifestyle. As a rule, such a diet is not required, and everyone else will lose muscle quite actively.

In fact, the “dinner” of the diet – a glass of milk – will leave a person hungry for 12 hours, since such food is absorbed very quickly, and practically does not linger in the stomach, and even contains few calories. Therefore, anyone who wants to stick to this diet should be patient.

Reviews about the diet of ballerinas Reviews about the diet of ballerinas found on independent sites are very ambiguous. Some authors claim that the diet is very hungry, and they are perplexed how someone (the notorious ballerinas) manages to dance and move on such a diet.

The answer is simple - most of the “ballet” people still adhere to completely different diets. In the buffet of any choreographic school you will find boiled fish, vinaigrettes, vegetable salads and soups. This, as well as porridge, and even some sweets, is the basis of the real diet of a person who is on the move 6-8 hours a day.

Professional ballerina Ilze Liepa writes that eating disorders are not uncommon in ballet. And although everyone knows which foods are healthy, few people deny themselves chocolate and sweets, but then go on a strict mono-diet a few days before the performance. Ilze Liepa also writes that her relationship with her own body and shape have only improved since she began to eat porridge for breakfast, some fruit in between meals and vegetables and meat for main meals. This ballerina prefers dark chocolate as a treat, and she also boldly says that the results of a ballet diet will only come if you actually do ballet.

Returning to the diet from the Internet, we note that according to medical standards (minimum 1200 kcal per day and 2 g of protein per 1 g of weight), it is not suitable for physically active people. Of course, you won’t be able to “kill your metabolism” in 10 days of fasting, but if this diet becomes another stop in a series of numerous restrictions for the sake of losing weight, the effect can be quite harmful. Your-Diet.ru – fitness trainer Elena Selivanova

Important: before going on a ballerina diet, consult your doctor. And finally, a very exotic version of the ballerina diet...

List of approved products

Girls who devote themselves to ballet endure enormous physical exertion - they practice for 5-6 hours every day. It is very important for dancers to eat a high-quality, varied and balanced diet. Their diet necessarily contains the following products:

Meat, poultry: chicken fillet, rabbit, veal.
Fish, seafood: dorado, pollock, cod, tuna, saury, trout, hake, flounder, shrimp, squid, mussels.
Vegetables: broccoli, Brussels sprouts and Chinese sprouts, cucumbers, lettuce peppers, zucchini, tomatoes.
Greens: watercress, iceberg, spinach, parsley, dill, arugula.
Fruits: apples, kiwi, lemon, grapefruit, orange, avocado.
Cereals: wild rice, buckwheat, oatmeal.
Rye bread, whole grain bread.
Dairy products: sour cream 10%, milk 1.5%, kefir 1%, natural yogurt 2%, cottage cheese 1.8%, yogurt.
Other permitted foods: mushrooms, dried fruits, dark chocolate, natural marmalade, acacia honey, tomato juice, butter and olive oil.

“Ice” diet of ballerinas

“The ballet girls revealed to me one secret on how to lose weight with a 100% guarantee... When you are going to eat starchy, fatty, sweet, unhealthy, but tasty food at night, you first step on the throat of this desire and don’t immediately grab pancakes, buns and pork chops with pasta. No, you go to the kitchen, pour half a liter of water into a saucepan and put it in the freezer. After about fifteen minutes, when the liquid has not yet turned into ice, but has already formed a light crust, pour out one glass and drink quickly.

I emphasize that the drink should be very, very cold, almost icy... Then, with a calm soul, you eat your fill and drink the rest of the water... This phenomenon is simply explained. Firstly, after you swallow 250 milliliters of liquid in one gulp before eating, much less food fits into your stomach, and secondly, the body spends a lot of calories “warming up” what you drink to the desired temperature, and if anyone has forgotten, it is equal to 36 and 6!

The method of acquiring slender forms by “winter swimming the stomach” has been known for a long time; ballet girls were told about it by their mothers, dancers of the Bolshoi Theater, and, accordingly, their grandmothers told them about it, who, as legend says, were taught this by Matilda Kshesinskaya, the mistress of three Grand Dukes of the Romanovs. They say that the genius Agrippina Vaganova herself removed accumulated fat in a similar way.” (Daria Dontsova “Forecast of nasty things for tomorrow”)

Nutritionist's comment: Everything here is justified logically. Indeed, after a glass of ice water, you eat less, and the body will need some energy to warm up. But where is the confidence that you will not consume more calories than your body expended?.. Moreover, I would like to emphasize that this is the way of ballet dancers. Firstly, every day they receive such physical activity that we, “ordinary sportswomen and athletes,” have never even dreamed of. Secondly, for ballerinas, “eating” at night is the exception rather than the rule, and their excess fat is measured in grams, not kilograms.

Important: This method is mainly suitable for those who carefully monitor their diet every day, but sometimes want to pamper themselves. It is not at all suitable for people suffering from acute or chronic ENT diseases (tonsillitis, tonsillitis, sinusitis, otitis) or chronic diseases of the gastrointestinal tract (gastritis, peptic ulcer, pancreatitis).

The Ice Diet requires at least a hardened throat. But your otolaryngologist still won't like it.