Facts About the Grapefruit Diet

The grapefruit diet has been around forever, or so it seems. At least as early as the 1930’s, the grapefruit diet promised miraculous weight loss. Even people who weren’t on a diet ate grapefruits before a meal. But what is really true about the grapefruit diet.

What is the grapefruit diet?

The original grapefruit diet was a low-carbohydrate, moderate-protein diet averaging 800-1,000 calories. This is quite a reduction in calories. Unlike the name, it is not a diet where the only thing you eat is grapefruit. Please don’t try that. You will not last long. There is no reason to starve yourself like that. It is unhealthy and unwise. Another version of the grapefruit diet recommends that prior to each meal you eat a half a grapefruit, or drink the juice of a whole, fresh grapefruit. Then you eat your meal. This version is less extreme than the 1,000 calorie diet and can be beneficial.

What is supposed to happen?

According to the legend, grapefruit has a quality that gobbles up the fat. Oh if it were only true. In fact, it is not true. Grapefruit does not gobble up fat. In fact, the reason that the grapefruit diet worked for people was the low calories.

What does grapefruit do?

Instead, the grapefruit prior to a meal stabilizes your blood sugar/ insulin. Have you ever noticed that if you go to a meal and you are ravenous, you eat more than you should. In fact, you have a hard time feeling satisfied. Why? Because your blood sugar is out of whack. It is not because you need more food, you need to work with the sugars in your blood. Grapefruit does just that. If you take a grapefruit, perhaps while preparing your meal, it gives your system what it needs to settle down. Then, when you sit down to a meal, you eat a normal amount, rather than overeat. Because your blood sugars are normalized, there is no longer a signal from your cells saying, “feed me.” The net effect is that you eat less, and thus you lose weight.

Is the grapefruit diet healthy?

In the extreme version of the diet, which has low carbs, high protein and very little calories, the net effect is a bit of starvation. However, in the modified version, where you eat normally and add grapefruit to the meal, there is nothing unhealthy about the grapefruit diet. Grapefruits are a great food, and keeping your blood sugars stabilized is a good idea. The thing to watch out for is when you either become over-acidic from too much grapefruit, or, if you eat the grapefruit and then continue to eat foods which lack nutrition. So yes, grapefruit diet can be healthy, if the rest of your lifestyle is healthy.

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