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.