4/12/10 The Grapefruit Diet

April 12th, 2010 | by Tycco

Fitness Myth Monday discusses Grapefruit Diets

Grapefruit Diets

The Grapefruit Diet falls into the same category as the shake-weight.  It baffles me that people think it would work.  At first, I thought it was just created by an excellent spin doctor.  Know who claims ownership of the plan?  NOBODY!!  Ok, so that’s not a good sign, but surely there must be something behind this diet. I mean, it’s been around for decades.  Surely something that stupid wouldn’t stand the test of scrutiny?  Of course it wouldn’t, but the trick is getting overweight and desperate people to scrutinize it.  Whcih they generally don’t.  What this diet DOES have going for it is it’s the first entry on this site that Weird Al wrote a song about.  So that’s something, I guess.

The premise of the Grapefruit Diet is based on a magical ingredient (seriously) in grapefruits, that, when eaten with protein, triggers fat burning.  The diet is designed to promote fast weight loss.  And because grapefruits are MAGICAL, you can eat pretty much whatever you want.  Bacon, french fries, and UNLIMITED MEAT(!!) are actually recommended in some of their meal plans.  And as long as you eat half a grapefruit after every meal, you’ll lose 10 pounds in 12 days.

A few problems with a diet:

1)  Grapefruits are disgusting.  They taste like rancid oranges. 

2) Grapefruits are also not magic.

3)The diet is so dumb that nobody has even tried to take credit for it.  Which, if you consider the dumb diets that people do take credit for, is pretty mind-boggling.

4)You’ll gain back all the weight as soon as you stop, and the plan only allows for 12 days of the diet.  It’s that bad for you. 

So, in short, this diet is 12 days of gorging on a limited variety of foods, getting bored and overcaffeinated, and having all your friends hate you because you smell like a rotten orange mixed with bacon grease.