Grapefruit Juice Diet
The Truth about the Grapefruit Juice Diet
The grapefruit juice diet has been around for eighty years and every decade or so it regains some of its popularity. No one knows where it came from but the grapefruit juice diet has enough believability that it continues to be carried on by word of mouth.
There are many variations on the grapefruit juice diet. For instance, you can eat half a grapefruit with each meal or drink 8 ounces of grapefruit juice. While you are on the grapefruit juice diet, you also need to eat large amounts of proteins. The theory behind the diet is that grapefruit juice and protein equal fat burning.
All of this, of course, is going to help you to lose weight. The strange thing is, the grapefruit juice diet does work. That may, in fact, be the reason it has survived this many years. People go on the diet and right away in the first week, they lose maybe ten pounds or so. This convinces them that the diet works and so they continue on it.
The truth about the grapefruit juice diet is that it doesn’t really work. There is no miraculous equation which proves that grapefruit plus protein burns fat. The grapefruit juice diet is not meant to be long-term. It is essentially a diet for losing weight fast. And you do lose weight fast.
The weight loss, however, is fluid not fat. It is water that accumulates and is released when you have a dramatic shift in diet from high carbohydrates to low carbs and high protein foods. The minute you go off the diet, the fluid will return and your weight loss will be zero pounds.
The grapefruit juice diet is not meant for long-term weight loss. Most versions say that you can lose ten pounds in twelve days. Then you can take off two days and do the 12-day diet all over again if you wish. Some versions of the diet give you sample meal plans. In truth, the grapefruit juice diet is very much like the Atkin’s diet with grapefruit added.
Dieters are free to drink large amounts of water and black coffee throughout the day. A sample menu might include a breakfast of two slices of bacon, two eggs, black coffee, and a half a grapefruit or 8 ounces of grapefruit juice.
For lunch, grapefruit juice dieters can have all the meat they want, a salad with dressing plus their half grapefruit or 8 ounces of grapefruit juice. Dinner can include a salad or red and green vegetables (none with starch), all the meat or fish you wish plus half a grapefruit or 8 ounces of grapefruit juice. You can have a glass of skim milk as a bedtime snack.
The grapefruit juice diet doesn’t allow snacks until before bed. You can eat only the foods listed for the diet. Strangely enough, you can eat all the butter and salad dressing you like and you can even fry all of your foods. This is not a low-fat diet, so if you have heart disease, you might want to look elsewhere for how to lose pounds.
This diet has around 800-1000 calories per day. Critics claim that this alone is the reason for the weight loss and you would have identical weight loss whether or not you ate the grapefruit or drank the grapefruit juice. Grapefruit are good for you as they are low in calories and have lots of fiber and vitamin C like other citrus fruit.
While you may actually lose ten pounds on the grapefruit juice diet, in the long run it is not really worth the effort. You will immediately gain back those ten pounds as quickly as you lost them. Instead, choose a healthy weight loss plan where you eat all food groups and add exercise to your lifestyle. By controlling calories, you can lose weight in a healthy manner and keep it off.