Grapefruit Diet

Grapefruit Diet

The history of the Grapefruit Diet seems to have started in the 1930s but seems to have taken off in the 1970s when the diet became very popular. No-one knows who started it though. Half of a grapefruit or a glass of grapefruit juice is consumed with each meal.

The citrus fruit has a high content of citric acid which burns calories, therefore reducing calorie intake to fewer than eight hundred every day. The claim is that grapefruit has a fat burning enzyme. The diet limits fruit and vegetables but encourages a person to eat larger amount of meats. Along with the grapefruit this is a high fat, high cholesterol diet.

Generally it is followed for twelve days and the claim is approximately a pound a day weight loss.  If you should wish to repeat the diet, a two day period occur between the each stint of the Weight Loss Plan.

This Grapefruit Diet is also known as the Hollywood diet but it is definitely not the Mayo Clinic Diet as some have been known to refer to it as. Grapefruit when eaten with protein the claim states that it triggers the fat burning process therefore causing weight loss. 

It also has been known that the weight almost always returns when a person stops the diet because most of the weight loss is from body fluid being expelled but rarely the removal of fat. It seems that the weight loss diet derives from another diet being of low caloric intake, high protein and low carbohydrate.

Exercise and Dieting

Most of the Weight Loss Diets recommend exercise to accompany them but there are those who do not. The Grapefruit Diet is not made to be done in the long term for weight loss control.

This diet includes a meal plan for all three meals and the only snack is at bedtime. The foods used are eggs, bacon, black coffee or tea, salad with dressing, unlimited meat, red or green vegetables, unlimited fish. No starchy vegetables such as peas, beans, corn or sweet potatoes are allowed. The snack consists of eight ounces of skim milk. All meals except the snack have either half a grapefruit or eight ounces of unsweetened grapefruit juice and you must drink sixty four ounces of water per day.

Nothing, not named on the diet plan may be consumed. You may also use all the salad dressing that you desire along with all the butter or margarine, you may wish to use throughout the day.  You can prepare your food any way that you choose which also includes fried.

Greapfruite Diet and Insulin

The question seems to be elusive as to why the Grapefruit Diet enzyme works and how come it is not found in other citrus fruits. Adding grapefruit to a diet could reduce the level of insulin in the body and therefore could result in a small weight loss. Even though a grapefruit is loaded with vitamin C, fiber and is a low calorie fruit; studies show that the grapefruit enzyme is not a miracle fat burner. The reduction of insulin causes the eater to feel full faster therefore reducing the amount of calories eaten thus resulting in eventual weight loss.

Apparently at this time, no sufficient proof exists that the Grapefruit Diet has any fat burning enzymes for weight loss. What seems to cause people to get frustrated and stop their diet program, is that the person becomes bored with it and tired of eating the same foods. Add variety with the Grapefruit Diet and success will come.