Grapefruit Diet
The grapefruit diet is one of the earliest known Hollywood fad diets. It first came to fame in the 1930’s when many stars used it. Then in the 70’s it became a piece of fax junk, sent from machine to machine, commonly known as xerox lore. The diet has been described as bad by the Mayo Clinic, often associated with the diet.
The grapefruit diet is essentially like the Atkins diet with the addition of a grapefruit before each meal. The diet only allows three meals each day, with no snacking in between meals. The diet claimed that people could lose 10 pounds in 10 days, or 5 pounds in five days. As wild as that sounds, this is wilder, the diet claimed someone might not lose weight for 9 days, but then suddenly drop 10 pounds in the last day. It was based on the claim that grapefruit contains fat burning enzymes, something that has never been proven.
In 2004 it was proven that the diet may work. Eating ½ grapefruit prior to meals helped people in the study lose 3.6 pounds in twelve weeks. Drinking the juice from the grapefruit led to only slightly less weight loss. Many of the participants lost more than 10 pounds in 12 weeks. The doctor who conducted the study found that the grapefruit diet seems to reduce levels of insulin. However, all the participants slightly enhanced their exercise programs, which may account for the lost weight.
Here are the rules for the grapefruit diet:
- Drink eight servings of water a day.
- Eat only until you are full at each meal.
- Eat every item of food listed for each meal because the menus are formulated to burn fat.
- Grapefruit is a catalyst that starts fat burning. Do not change the amount of grapefruit.
- One cup of coffee can be consumed at each meal.
- No snacking.
- Butter can be used.
- No starches or sweets can be eaten.
- Eat any amount of meat, salad and vegetables to make you full.
- It’s important to eat into you’re full because the more you eat the more you will lose.
- Follow the diet for 12 days, skip two days, then start again.
- Grapefruit with each meal is ½ or 18 ounces of juice.
Now you can go try the grapefruit diet.
