Archive for 'Grapefruit Diet'
The Grapefruit Diet
Posted on 06. Apr, 2009 by admin.
MAIKEL WOOD asked:
The Grapefruit Diet is one of the fad diets that were really popular back in the 1980s although it has been in one form or another since 1930. Most of the time, the grapefruit diet has been discounted by experts as dangerously unbalanced or simply unable to deliver on its promises. It was generally thought that consuming vast quantities of grapefruit cannot influence weight loss in any way, which relegated this diet to the status of yet another fad, one of those things people go crazy about without any real reason. However, time has passed and new discoveries are about to rock the traditional view.
The basic idea behind this diet is to eat grapefruit whenever you can, drink a glass of unsweetened grapefruit juice with every meal, add grapefruit to cocktails and also to salads. Grapefruit is supposed to go well with the lean meat from crab and chicken and with vegetables, such as red onions, spinach and celery. The biggest advantage is, of course, the fact that grapefruit is virtually fat-free and has few calories. An entire grapefruit has about 70 calories, which means that you can eat about as much as you can stomach and still lose weight.
The best thing about the Grapefruit Diet is a recent study carried out by a team of scientists led by Doctor Ken Fujioka, from the Nutrition and Metabolic Research Center of the Scripps Clinic in San Diego. The study has found that, contrary to the opinions voiced by experts in the 1980s, adding grapefruit and grapefruit juice to your diet can actually help you lose weight. And what’s really great about it: you don’t have to change your eating habits at all. Naturally, eating less fat and sweets and doing some exercises is a very good way of speeding up the weight loss process, but you don’t have to go out of your way with this diet.
According to the study, eating half a grapefruit before each meal and exercising a bit every day helped a group of obese people drop an average 3.6 pounds in 12 weeks without any change in their eating habits whatsoever. A second group had to drink a glass of grapefruit juice before every meal and lost 3.3 pounds in the same 12 weeks. While it’s true that losing 1 pound per month gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “slow diet”, you have to appreciate a diet that lets you eat whatever you like and still shed a pound per month. If weight loss is not a stringent affair, then you can stick to this diet for a long time and reap the benefits.
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Is the Grapefruit Diet Just a Fad?
Posted on 06. Apr, 2009 by admin.
Peggy Edwards asked:
More than two decades ago, people who wanted to lose weight relied on the most popular diet at that time called the grapefruit diet. It is said to give the dieters around 800 calories or less if you ate lots and lots of grapefruit, believed to be fat burning and partner it with eggs for protein, dry toast and some black coffee, the amount of which is up to the dieter.
During that time, the fitness experts regarded it as just a fad diet and that grapefruit doesn’t really contain proven fat burning properties. They reasoned why the grapefruit diet aficionados lost weight was because of the low calorie intake, which could also lead to harming your health.
However, the latest research on the grapefruit diet shows that by making grapefruit and its juice part of your daily diet, it will serve as a weight loss tool without the need to change anything in the meals that you eat, unlike the diet programs during the 80’s where in order to loss weight you had to make a total change to your eating plan.
The diet plan was observed to not only aid in weight loss, but can also lower insulin levels and help prevent diabetes. This is because of the special plant compounds found in grapefruit that decreases the body’s insulin levels which then results in weight loss.
The said relationship between gaining weight and insulin levels shows that high insulin levels mean that sugar is stored as fat because it isn’t utilized into energy. High insulin levels also cause hunger pangs to be felt by the person and creates the tendency to intake more food.
Though grapefruit is said to lower insulin levels, diabetes experts still remind people that though it may be interesting, further research still needs to be done. Most fitness experts also feel that though the grapefruit diet study showed that it was successful in the participants of the study, more proof and more research are still needed to conclude that it really is the reason why the said participants lost weight. They are still not discounting the possibility that those participants decided to exercise and eat more healthy because they knew they were part of the study.
Dieters should remember that an important part of becoming slimmer and staying healthy is eating fruits and vegetables at least 5x a day and a glass of grapefruit juice is a good example which can be part of our daily diet. You have to make sure though that other fruits and vegetables are also included in your daily diet and not rely mainly on grapefruit.
If you want to lose the fats in a safe way, you should never go below 1,100 calorie intake daily. You should also eat a balanced diet everyday to facilitate weight loss and to stay fit. The grapefruit diet, if incorporated a little bit into your weight loss program in the right way, may be helpful in losing weight. Although the thoughts of eating that many grapefruit may not be for everyone.
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Grapefruit Diet
Posted on 05. Apr, 2009 by admin.
kalidas asked:
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. It became part of xerox lore, faxed from machine to machine, in the 1970’s. The Mayo Clinic, which is often credited as the diet’s creator, claims to have nothing to do with the unhealthy 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. Supposedly a person on this diet could lose 10 pounds in only 10 days. It is also commonly claimed that a dieter might not lose any weight on the first four days but then 5 pounds would magically drop off on the fifth day. The claim that grapefruit contains enzymes that burn fat has never been proven.
In 2004 a scientific study determined that it is possible that the grapefruit diet helps people lose weight. Participants in the study lost 3.6 pounds on average in a 12 week span, eating one half grapefruit before each meal. Those who drank the serving of grapefruit juice at each meal lost just slightly less weight in the same period of time. Some people lost as much as 10 pounds in the 12 week study. Researchers attributed the weight loss to decreased insulin levels caused by eating grapefruit. But the weight loss may have also been due to increased levels of exercise.
The grapefruit diet works like this:
- Dieters must drink eight eight ounce glasses of water daily.
- Eat until full.
- Eat everything listed for each meal, do not skip foods, they are specifically formulated to help 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 is OK.
- Do not eat desserts, breads, white vegetables, or sweet potatoes.
- Eat any amount of meat, salad and vegetables to make you full.
- Eating more will actually result in more weight loss.
- Skip two days between each 12 day diet period.
- Grapefruit with each meal is ½ or 18 ounces of juice.
Now you can go try the grapefruit diet.
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Does the Grapefruit Diet Work?
Posted on 05. Apr, 2009 by admin.
Janet Martin asked:
Will the “grapefruit diet” help you lose weight? Contrary to what its promoters say, this particular diet won’t burn fat. This is actually an old gimmick which made pink grapefruit popular in Britain in the early ’70s.
Because many people were fooled into thinking that they could become slim by eating this citrus fruit, one manufacturer even developed grapefruit tablets that he sold for a profit.
However, the British Advertising Standards Authority said that the same manufacturer couldn’t produce any medical or scientific evidence that his tablets worked. What about the diet’s other ingredients?
Kelp is falsely promoted as a reducing aid. One ad praises kelp as a “rejuvenator” rich in vitamins and minerals that will supposedly melt fat.
In reality, there are hundreds of varieties of kelp or seaweed. Most kelp tablets are made from the bladder wrack or laminaria, according to Arnold Bender in “Health or Hoax?”
With regard to nutrients, 25 grams (about an ounce) of kelp contain only 3/4 grams of protein and 3/4 grams of fat together with 80 milligrams of phosphate, 1.75 grams of potassium and as much as one gram of sodium. This is enough to raise your blood pressure to dangerous levels.
“Statements have been made in health food literature to the effect that kelp contains vitamins A, B, D, and E. Even if this were true, the amounts provided by a tablet or so would not be of any significance,” Bender said.
What about kelp’s alleged ability to melt fat? One “secret slim bath” that uses kelp powder mixed with boiling water will certainly make you sweat a lot. This will help your body lose water, not fat. This makes kelp as useless as steam baths, saunas, and sweat suits, said Kurt Butler and Dr. Lynne Rayner of the University of Hawaii in “The Best Medicine.”
Kelp salesmen claim that this substance has iodine, a mineral needed by the thyroid gland to secrete a special hormone called thyroxin which influences body growth. While lack of thyroxin leads to goiter, it can easily be obtained from fish and other sea foods. Insufficient thyroxin does slow down the metabolic rate but increased amounts of iodine cannot speed up the normal rate. Thus, the iodine content of kelp cannot make you slim.
Taking kelp may also be dangerous because it has harmful substances like arsenic. Traces of this poison are found in the urine of people who regularly take kelp tablets. Considering that this seaweed has 100 times more arsenic than other foods, kelp tablets may be fatal rather than a “rejuvenator.”
To lose weight safely, cut your calories and exercise regularly. To enhance your diet and exercise program, use Zylorin – the natural way to lose weight. Go to http://www.zylorin.com for details.
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What is the Atkins Grapefruit Diet?
Posted on 04. Apr, 2009 by admin.
Dan Carlin asked:
s Grapefruit diet seeks to cash in on the popularity of the fad grapefruit diet and the less fad but still fad Atkins diet, although it has nothing to do with the Atkins estate or company. Here is some information that shows the diet may be a fraud, or at least misleading.
It’s a challenge to find clear cut information, such as a web site, for the Atkins grapefruit diet. Smart people know that when someone is perpetrating a deception, or a con, they will often gloss over facts. This is what the Atkins grapefruit diet seems to do in an attempt to get people to associate it with two supposedly effective diets.
Does the Atkins grapefruit diet have anything to do with the actual Atkins diet? The answer is no, not only is there no mention of the Atkins Grapefruit Diet on the Atkins web site, but there is no fruit of any kind mentioned in the list of allowed foods in the Atkins diet Induction phase.
These are the foods allowed in the Atkins diet Induction phase – sorry Atkins grapefruit diet, no fruit here:
Fish of all kinds
Chicken, turkey and other fowl
All sorts of shellfish
Meat, such as beef and pork
Every type of cooked egg including poached, scrambled and even fried
Any variety of cheeses
Vegetables
A variety of herbs and spices
A variety of fats and oils including butter
Water and other low carb drinks including diet soda
Notice one thing – fruit is not on that list. Later phases of the Atkins diet do include limited amounts of fruits such as cantaloupe and even lemon juice, and the pre-maintenance and maintenance phases even specifically allow small quantities of grapefruit. But there is far more grapefruit in the Atkins Grapefruit diet than Dr. Atkins would ever dream of allowing.
There’s a lot of grapefruit in the Atkins grapefruit diet – up to 18 carbs. Even the phases of Atkins that allow grapefruit limit intake to below 8 grams of carbs of grapefruit per day. the two diets just don’t mesh.
Most reasonable people would look directly at the Atkins site the moment they heard of the Atkins Grapefruit Diet. When they found no mention of that diet on the site, a red light would go off and an alarm would sound.
In general remember this. Any diet that relies too heavily on one food, such as grapefruit on a grapefruit diet, is unhealthy in any but extremely short periods. The Atkins diet frowns on eating the way the Atkins Grapefruit Diet recommends.
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Atkins Grapefruit Diet
Posted on 03. Apr, 2009 by admin.
kalidas asked:
The Atkins Grapefruit diet seeks to cash in on the popularity of the fad grapefruit diet and the less fad but still fad Atkins diet, although it has nothing to do with the Atkins estate or company. Here is some information that shows the diet may be a fraud, or at least misleading.
It’s a challenge to find clear cut information, such as a web site, for the Atkins grapefruit diet. Hard to find information is a pretty good tip off that a con job is being perpetrated. The Atkins grapefruit diet is purposely deceptive in its origin to convince people that it is a legitimate combination of two popular fad diets.
Does the Atkins grapefruit diet have anything to do with the actual Atkins diet? No, in fact the Induction phase of the Atkins diet is bereft of fruit, and there’s no mention of the grapefruit version on the Atkins web site.
The induction phase includes the following foods– sorry Atkins grapefruit diet, no fruit here:
An type of fish
Chicken, turkey and other fowl
All sorts of shellfish
Any meat such as beef or pork
Eggs cooked in any style including fried
All sorts of cheese
Vegetables
Any herbs and spices to make food more exciting
A variety of fats and oils including butter
Drinks low in carbohydrates such as diet soft drinks
Not a piece of fruit to be found. Later phases of the diet do allow fruit juice and even specifically mention grapefruit. But when compared to the amount of Grapefruit recommended on the Atkins Grapefruit Diet, again there is a disagreement.
The Atkins Grapefruit diet is a diet plan, not endorsed by the estate of Dr. Atkins, that plays on the popularity of the grapefruit diet and the Atkins diet name. Don’t look now, but it may not be what people hope. First of all it’s pretty difficult to find information on the Atkins grapefruit diet plan. Smart people know that when someone is perpetrating a deception, or a con, they will often gloss over facts.
The cup of grapefruit juice offered by the Atkins Grapefruit diet has 8 grams of carbs while the cup of grapefruit sections it mentions has 18 carbs. But the Atkins diet calls for no more than 7 grams of carbs in a day. That’s a direct contradiction of one diet to the other.
When they hear about the Atkins grapefruit diet people should naturally visit the Atkins web site to read more about it. When they found no mention of that diet on the site, a red light would go off and an alarm would sound.
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Weight Loss Diet Fad’s
Posted on 03. Apr, 2009 by admin.
The Diet Guy asked:
Obesity is a physical state that refers to excessive body fat. Chances are you have experienced the frustrations of dieting at least once in your life, if you have problems with your weight. Close to a hundred million Americans go on a weight loss diet in any given year and up to ninety-five percent of them regain the weight they lose within five years. Worse, a third will gain back more weight than they lost, in danger of “yo-yoing” from one popular diet to another. The conventional approach to weight problems, focusing on fad weight loss diets or weight loss drugs, may leave you with just as much weight and the additional burden of ill health.
Today, an estimated sixty-five percent of all American adults are obese or overweight. Our culture obsesses about staying thin even as we grow fatter, but this isn’t about appearances. Obesity is known to be a precursor to many debilitating health conditions such as cancer, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis, and gallbladder disease. Obesity contributes to as many as 375,000 deaths every year. In addition, the public health costs for obesity are staggering. According to researchers at Harvard University, obesity is a factor in 19% of all cases of heart disease with annual health costs estimated at 30 billion dollars; it’s also a factor in 57% of diabetes cases, with health costs of $9 billion per year.
Set Realistic Goals:
No doubt you have fallen for one or more of the weight loss diet schemes over the years, promising quick and painless weight loss. Many of these quick weight loss diet programs undermine your health, cause physical discomfort, flatulence, and ultimately lead to disappointment when you start regaining weight, shortly after losing it. Fad or quick weight loss diet programs generally overstress one type of food. They contravene the fundamental principle of good nutrition - to remain healthy one must consume a balanced diet, which includes a variety of foods. Safe, healthy, and permanent weight reduction is what’s truly lost among the thousands of popular diet schemes.
Some of the weight loss diet schemes reign supreme briefly, only to fade out. While some wane from popularity due to being unproductive or unsafe, some simply lose the public’s curiosity. Examples of such fad diets include the South Beach Diet, Atkins diet, the Grapefruit diet, Cabbage Soup diet, the Rotation diet, Beverly Hills diet, Breatharian, Ornish Plan – the list goes on and on. These fad diets advocate a specific technique (such as eliminating a certain food, or eating only certain combinations of foods) in conjunction with the basic idea that the body makes up the difference in energy by breaking down and utilizing some part of itself, essentially converting matter into energy. This self-cannibalism, or catabolism as it is referred, typically starts with breakdown of stored body fat.
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The Grapefruit Diet: Does it Work?
Posted on 02. Apr, 2009 by admin.
Darlene Nicholson asked:
The grapefruit diet works in the short-term, but does it have any staying power? In other words, if your goal is to drop weight quickly and gain it all back in a month, then go for it. If, however, your goal is to have lasting weight loss, the grapefruit diet is not for you. Here’s why.
The grapefruit diet has been around for many years. It’s been modified slightly over the years, but for the most part, it’s the same. The basic diet plan for the grapefruit diet consists of four meals. Breakfast includes a half a grapefruit, three eggs, and two slices of bacon. Lunch is another half a grapefruit, a piece of meat (any kind), and a salad with any type of dressing. Dinner is again, a half a grapefruit, any piece of meat, salad and then added to that a cup of coffee. The last meal isn’t really a meal, but either an 8 oz glass of tomato juice or fat-free milk.
Proponents of the grapefruit diet tout the grapefruit as having a fat-burning enzyme which is why it’s added to all but one meal. Grapefruit is a wonderful fruit and a good healthy choice for fruit; but it’s not magical! The grapefruit diet helps a person drop weight quickly because it’s drastically low in calories. As with most fad diets a gimmick (in this case the grapefruit) is used to promote an extreme cut in calories. The grapefruit diet has a dieter eating around 800 calories per day which is not an adequate amount of calories to consume.
An average-sized woman who is moderately active needs around 1800-2000 calories per day for the body to function correctly. When the diet is varied and healthful, this 1800-2000 calories brings that woman optimum nutrition in terms of receiving all the recommended daily allowances of important vitamins, minerals and fiber. The grapefruit diet is seriously lacking in fiber, calcium, iron and many other important nutrients. Over time, this will cause and contribute to serious nutritional deficiency related problems such as anemia and osteoporosis. The lack of fiber will lead to gastrointestinal problems such as constipation. In addition, fiber has been shown to promote weight loss, lower serum cholesterol and aid in colon cancer prevention.
So, say hello to a thin body that will fit into the size zero dress, but you might want to pick up some make-up to cover the pale, sickly face you’ll be sporting as well! And whoever said a hunched neck as seen in osteoporosis wasn’t sexy? Healthy weight loss is not achieved with the grapefruit diet, bottom line! And more than likely, you should keep the tags on the size zero dress because the weight will be back as soon as you start eating normally again.
Seriously, lasting weight loss consists of slow, steady weight loss resulting from a healthy, varied diet, exercise and patience. The grapefruit diet contains none of these things. Start by figuring out your daily caloric needs for weight maintenance. There are many calorie calculators on the internet that utilize your height, weight, age, sex and activity level to determine the amount of calories needed for weight maintenance.
Next, realize that one pound of body fat is equivalent to roughly 3500 calories. Healthy weight loss is about one to two pounds per week. Therefore, if you wish to lose one pound per week, you’ll need to decrease calorie intake and burn calories to the tune of 500 calories per day. This could be as simple as eliminating dessert at night and taking a brisk 2.5 mile walk. Two pound per week requires a debt of 1000 calories. This should only be achieved through calorie reduction combined with exercise, or you’ll be right back to extreme calorie reduction seen in the grapefruit diet. Ramp up that work-out! Go another mile, use the incline, or increase resistance on the elliptical.
Lasting weight loss isn’t about gimmicks and fads such as the grapefruit diet. Lasting weight loss requires a person to commit to changing their eating and exercise habits for good.
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Does the Grapefruit Diet Really Work?
Posted on 01. Apr, 2009 by admin.
Dr. Kiera Jamesons asked:
Most of the people who have researched about dieting or weight loss trough online have probably come across about the Grape Fruit Diet program. Theoretically you can reduce about a pound a day over a two week period. There also introduce a 3 day plan for those who are not able to stick it with 2 weeks program. Different people gain different experience as well as them really success with this grape fruit diet program.
Definitely it can’t be a permanent solution to managing your weight. It is just a way to lose weight quickly and would probably work if you are intended to get married and needed to drop a few pounds for a wedding or also for a class reunion. Be in mind that once you lose weight with this grapefruit diet the weight will come back again if you stop the program. Because what you are losing is mostly fluids and not the fat in your body.
You must understand that the theory behind this diet is that grapefruit diet has a normal component that combined with a high protein diet that causes you to lose weight. In this program you will only be allowed to consume around 1000 calories on this diet per day. Actually 1000 calories is not a lot of calories that a person will consume in a day. You also can keep your weight if you discipline yourself and take few calories of food everyday.. Same like other diet program exercise is advised to be following and also there are of certain things that you must to eat. In this dietary program you will be asked to eat a grapefruit with each meal or drink a glass of unsweetened grapefruit juice everyday for the good impact.
You will also be required to be eating everything that is part of the grapefruit diet. They always advise you to finish up whatever that in your plate even you feel full.. Other than eating grape fruit and drinking a grape juice there is a grapefruit pill that you can take if you want to follow the diet but trust me it won’t work as grapefruit. You always can get the pills in any nearby pharmacy or it can be purchased online.
What the grapefruit diet gives you is it is another quick loss weight diet plan. It will almost certainly help you reduce 5 to 10 pounds rather quickly if you need to. If you go for a long term diet plan under this program it will leave you disappointed. Because it is not a diet program that allows you to change you’re eating habits. It’s better for you if to control your weight and get success with your plan and be happy with the result.
There are always better ways to control your weight and return to healthy diet. Remember, results that last will not be proficient as quickly as reducing 10 pounds in 2 weeks time. It’s really a bullshit program. Rather a successful diet plan will help you reduce weight gradually while showing you what foods are healthy for you and teaching you how much to eat it will be last long and you won’t be gain weight even after you stop the program. So my humble request always stays away from diets such as the Grapefruit diet and you will have a much better chance of losing weight and marinating it.
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The Grapefruit Diet: Does It Work?
Posted on 31. Mar, 2009 by admin.
Darlene Nicholson asked:
The grapefruit diet works in the short-term, but does it have any staying power? In other words, if your goal is to drop weight quickly and gain it all back in a month, then go for it. If, however, your goal is to have lasting weight loss, the grapefruit diet is not for you. Here’s why.
The grapefruit diet has been around for many years. It’s been modified slightly over the years, but for the most part, it’s the same. The basic diet plan for the grapefruit diet consists of four meals. Breakfast includes a half a grapefruit, three eggs, and two slices of bacon. Lunch is another half a grapefruit, a piece of meat (any kind), and a salad with any type of dressing. Dinner is again, a half a grapefruit, any piece of meat, salad and then added to that a cup of coffee. The last meal isn’t really a meal, but either an 8 oz glass of tomato juice or fat-free milk.
Proponents of the grapefruit diet tout the grapefruit as having a fat-burning enzyme which is why it’s added to all but one meal. Grapefruit is a wonderful fruit and a good healthy choice for fruit; but it’s not magical! The grapefruit diet helps a person drop weight quickly because it’s drastically low in calories. As with most fad diets a gimmick (in this case the grapefruit) is used to promote an extreme cut in calories. The grapefruit diet has a dieter eating around 800 calories per day which is not an adequate amount of calories to consume.
An average-sized woman who is moderately active needs around 1800-2000 calories per day for the body to function correctly. When the diet is varied and healthful, this 1800-2000 calories brings that woman optimum nutrition in terms of receiving all the recommended daily allowances of important vitamins, minerals and fiber. The grapefruit diet is seriously lacking in fiber, calcium, iron and many other important nutrients. Over time, this will cause and contribute to serious nutritional deficiency related problems such as anemia and osteoporosis. The lack of fiber will lead to gastrointestinal problems such as constipation. In addition, fiber has been shown to promote weight loss, lower serum cholesterol and aid in colon cancer prevention.
So, say hello to a thin body that will fit into the size zero dress, but you might want to pick up some make-up to cover the pale, sickly face you’ll be sporting as well! And whoever said a hunched neck as seen in osteoporosis wasn’t sexy? Healthy weight loss is not achieved with the grapefruit diet, bottom line! And more than likely, you should keep the tags on the size zero dress because the weight will be back as soon as you start eating normally again.
Seriously, lasting weight loss consists of slow, steady weight loss resulting from a healthy, varied diet, exercise and patience. The grapefruit diet contains none of these things. Start by figuring out your daily caloric needs for weight maintenance. There are many calorie calculators on the internet that utilize your height, weight, age, sex and activity level to determine the amount of calories needed for weight maintenance.
Next, realize that one pound of body fat is equivalent to roughly 3500 calories. Healthy weight loss is about one to two pounds per week. Therefore, if you wish to lose one pound per week, you’ll need to decrease calorie intake and burn calories to the tune of 500 calories per day. This could be as simple as eliminating dessert at night and taking a brisk 2.5 mile walk. Two pound per week requires a debt of 1000 calories. This should only be achieved through calorie reduction combined with exercise, or you’ll be right back to extreme calorie reduction seen in the grapefruit diet. Ramp up that work-out! Go another mile, use the incline, or increase resistance on the elliptical.
Lasting weight loss isn’t about gimmicks and fads such as the grapefruit diet. Lasting weight loss requires a person to commit to changing their eating and exercise habits for good.