Archive for February, 2009
Cabbage Soup Diet
Monday, February 9th, 2009If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
It’s very easy to describe the cabbage soup diet, it’s FAKE. There’s no need to know anything more about this ridiculous diet. For the sake of filling time, more information is presented.
Nobody knows who created the cabbage soup diet. Like a chain letter or junk e-mail it was sent from fax machines to fax machine in the early 80s. The diet went under many names, often using a part of the name of a well respected institution such as the Russian peasant diet, or the St. Jude’s diet. Needless to say, the diet has no relation to any of the institutions, nations, or people used in these names.
The cabbage soup diet calls for drinking nothing but water or unsweetened fruit juice on days when juice is allowed. In general this is the diet.
Day one — cabbage soup and any fruit except bananas.
Day two — cabbage soup plus vegetables, which could include a half baked potato with no butter.
Day three — cabbage soup and any vegetable or fruit except bananas or potatoes.
Day four — cabbage soup 8 bananas and skimmed milk.
Day five — cabbage soup, six tomatoes and up to 20 ounces of beef.
Day six — cabbage soup, unlimited beef, and any vegetables except potatoes.
Day seven — unsweetened fruit juice, vegetables except potatoes, brown rice, and of course our friend cabbage soup.
The cabbage soup diet claims that people can lose 10 pounds in only one week. Unfortunately that would be 10 pounds in water weight. It’s impossible to lose 10 pounds of fat in a week. But given a week the cabbage soup diet could make someone seriously ill from malnutrition.
In addition the cabbage soup diet isn’t easy. Not because it’s too complicated, but rather because seven days of cabbage soup becomes monotonous. Many people who have started the cabbage soup diet quit after only one or two days. There were even attempts to spice up cabbage soup recipes but they failed.
In general nothing quite as extreme as the cabbage soup diet is needed to lose weight. Exercise more and cut out calories in order to accomplish a goal.
Grapefruit Diet
Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009The 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 photocopy lore, faxed from machine to machine, in the 1970’s. The diet has been described as bad by the Mayo Clinic, often associated with the diet.
Originally the grapefruit diet was an Atkins style diet that added one half grapefruit before each meal. The diet only allows three meals each day, with no snacking in between meals. The diet claimed that people could lose 10 pounds in 10 days, or 5 pounds in five days. The distribution was just as far fetched, no weight loss for four days then five pounds lost all on the fifth day. It was based on the claim that grapefruit contains fat burning enzymes, something that has never been proven.
Researchers showed that the diet may work in a 2004 study. Eating just ½ grapefruit prior to meals helped people in the study lose 3.6 pounds in twelve weeks. Drinking the juice from the grapefruit led to only slightly less weight loss. Many of the participants lost more than 10 pounds in 12 weeks. The doctor who conducted the study found that the grapefruit diet seems to reduce levels of insulin. But the study didn’t limit people to just diet, they also exercised more which may have resulted in the weight loss.
Here’s a typical grapefruit diet:
- Eight 8 ounce glasses of water each day, this is a must.
- Eat until full.
- Eat all the food listed at each meal, skipping food interferes with fat burning.
- Grapefruit is the key so eat that as specified.
- Try to avoid coffee, but if drunk consume only three cups a day.
- No snacking.
- Butter is OK.
- Avoid sweets and starches such as bread and potatoes.
- Protein and vegetables are fine.
- Eating more will actually result in more weight loss.
- Follow the diet for 12 days, skip two days, then start again.
- Grapefruit with each meal is ½ or 18 ounces of juice.
