THE DIET: The ubiquitous Grapefruit Diet found on Internet forum postings and spread by word of mouth
THE CLAIM: Grapefruit contains a fat-burning enzyme. If that were true, you'd figure the person who discovered it would've taken the credit and won the Nobel Prize for science, or at least become very wealthy writing diet books. As it is, we don't know who created the diet, what the true diet regimen is, or whether it was created as a joke in the first place.
WHAT YOU EAT: It varies, depending on the version you're following. Most versions require you to consume half a grapefruit before each meal, along with lots of coffee, tea and not much else.
WHY IT SEEMS TO WORK: No mystery: Very few calories and plenty of caffeine to act as a diuretic and appetite suppressant.
WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU: If you lose anything at all, it will only be water weight, which you gain right back when you stop the diet, regardless of whether you return to healthful or unhealthful eating habits.
TAKE-AWAY LESSON: Grapefruit is a nutritious, low-fat, low-calorie food by itself, but — surprise! — it possesses no magical fat-burning properties. If you plan to change your eating habits and learn to eat more healthfully after this sure-to-be-short-lived diet, you might as well bypass the grapefruit diet and begin eating healthfully now. Why wait?
This article was obtained from: http://www.phys.com/b_nutrition/02solutions/diet_debunker/grapefruit.html
