Grapefruit diet

lovelyt06 · #1 (**permalink**) March 19th, 2006, 04:59 AM

Has anyone tried this diet? Did you like it? Did it work for you?
If you lost weight, how many pounds did you lose? Would you recommend it for a short term diet (of course not for lifestyle)

kzplano · #2 (**permalink**) March 19th, 2006, 08:59 AM

My MIL tried it, it didn't work and she was miserable.
I wouldn't recommend it even for short term.
Probably not what you wanted to hear..sorry!
It's just not a healthy option, anything that helps you lose weight too fast isn't going to agree with your body anyway (the weight will come back, your energy level won't be great etc).

wonderwoman · #3 (**permalink**) March 22nd, 2006, 01:18 PM

i dont think any mono diet is going to get you any long term results. your better off eating a greatfruit a day along with a balanced diet! grapefruit is good for fat burning and lowering cholesterol.

silly sally · #4 (**permalink**) March 25th, 2006, 02:28 PM

Hi there. I just had a baby 6 weeks ago and the first thing I did was go on the grapefruit diet. I stuck to it faithfully for a month and lost 40 pounds in four weeks but I was also breastfeeding. Now I'm just on a low carb diet. I have had past successes with the grapefruit diet as well but I'm sure it's not very healthy overall. If you do this diet make sure you have a good vitamin. The whole diet is chemically reactive with the other foods so you really have to stick to it. Once the weight loss began (about5 days into it) it just kept coming off. I know some versions of the diet say you can eat as much meat and salad as you like but I stuck mostly to fish and poultry and for salad dressing used a vinegar dressing with only a couple carbs. The more you exercise too the more you will lose. I found the diet to be okay but after awhile lost my appetite all together and still have trouble eating anything. That's just my experience. Good luck and keep me posted.

ImaFatass · #5 (**permalink**) March 26th, 2006, 12:16 AM

If you did do it, I would say maybe only 1 day a week tops. Not only is grapefruit chemically reactive in general as previously mentioned, but it interferes with many common medications that people take.

jellygator · #6 (**permalink**) June 4th, 2006, 12:17 AM

If I remember correctly, it's based on similar principles as Beverly Hills Diet, which was first hailed as very effective, until people started having serious health problems from it.

maleficent · #7 (**permalink**) June 26th, 2006, 07:00 PM

Review from Health Magazine

Grapefruit is chock-full of vitamin C, fiber, and small amounts of other nutrients and disease-fighting chemicals—so there’s no doubt that it’s a great food choice. But touting it as a magic fat burner is premature. Would that it were so easy to melt fat away and keep it off by eating one single food. Of course, that hasn’t stopped thousands of dieters from signing up for the plan over the last 70 or so years.

Does the diet take and keep weight off?
Hard to say. A small 2004 study at the Scripps Clinic in San Diego, California (funded by The Florida Citrus Department) finds that eating half a grapefruit or drinking 4 ounces of juice with meals—without changing eating habits—results in an average weight loss of more than 3 pounds in 12 weeks. Researchers have a hunch that grapefruit reduces insulin levels and so may encourage weight loss, but they aren’t certain. Is the diet healthy? Probably not. Many of the old plans provide less than 1200 calories a day, which is not enough food for good health. The Grapefruit Solution book promotes a healthy pyramid-style approach to eating, but dieters may also choose to follow troublesome popular diets including low-carb plans like Atkins.

What do the experts say?
“Grapefruit has no special properties when it comes to weight loss,” says Elisabetta Politi, RD, nutrition manager of the Duke University’s Diet and Fitness Center. “You lose weight when you expend more calories than you take in.” One small study, such as the one done by the Scripps Clinic, isn’t convincing enough, she adds. Leslie Bonci, MPH, RD, director of sports-medicine nutrition at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, thinks the weight-loss benefits of grapefruit are overblown. “Researchers have looked at compounds in grapefruit that have health-promoting properties, particularly in terms of cancer reduction. But weight loss? This is really a stretch.” And forget the grapefruit capsules, she says. “There’s no way that what’s in that pill is going to mimic the same phytochemical makeup of a grapefruit.”\

Who should consider the diet? No one.

Bottom line: What a waste of time. Grapefruit is a great food, and eating one before each meal probably helps fill you up and may help you eat less. But it's no magic fat burner.