Minimize Me: 10 Diets to Lose 25 Lbs in 50 Days by Andy Leeks Page A

in the 1980s and has been widely
criticised since. Nutritional experts were queuing up to dismiss it as another
fad diet, saying that the ‘fat-burning’ properties of grapefruit were, in fact,
a total myth and any weight loss that occurred was almost certainly down to the
extremely low and potentially dangerous calorie intake.
     
    Studies have since been published by
scientists in San Diego which suggest that adding grapefruit and grapefruit
juice to your diet really can aid weight-loss. Importantly, this can be
achieved without changing what else you eat. I’m at a stage in the challenge
now where I want to eat healthily. I’m in the zone. I’m making healthy choices
and avoiding sugary and fatty foods. Having just been on the calorie-controlled
diet, I know that I can easily get by on around 1,500 calories a day, which is
far less than the average recommended intake for a man. I’m interested
therefore to test out the theory that I can still lose weight, or even lose it
faster, by simply adding grapefruit to my diet. I have the perfect benchmark
test, having just done the calorie-controlled diet. I figured that if I just do
the same again but add grapefruit to the mix, I will have conducted the perfect
study.
     
    The study that was conducted in San Diego included 100 obese people who were divided into three groups. The first group
ate half a grapefruit before each meal three times a day. The second group
drank grapefruit juice before each meal. The third group received no grapefruit
and no other changes were made to any of their diets.
     
    After twelve weeks, the participants who
ate grapefruit with each meal lost, on average, 3.6 lb. Meanwhile, those who
drank grapefruit juice three times a day lost 3.3 lb in the twelve weeks. By
comparison, those who didn’t consume any grapefruit lost just 0.5 lb on
average.
     
    3.6 lb is only a third of a pound a
week, and I’ve already proved that I can lose two pounds in just five days
without so much as a sniff of grapefruit juice. In the interest of fairness, I
need to lose at least 2.25 lbs for the grapefruit diet to be considered a
success.
     
    The leader of the study in San Diego went on to say, "For years, people have talked about the grapefruit diet.
Now we have data that grapefruit helps weight-loss. Our study participants
maintained their daily eating habits and slightly enhanced their exercise
routine. The only dietary change was the intake of Florida grapefruit and
grapefruit juice."
     
    I find it strange that the study group
decided to ‘slightly enhance’ the participants’ exercise routines. I’m no scientist,
but I’m pretty sure that in order to test a theory, you start with a control
and then go on to change one variable at a time. It’s like saying, "Look
everyone, we’ve proved that you can send cancer into remission by eating
gooseberries! The only other thing we did was slightly increase the frequency
of the chemotherapy..."
     
    I personally have deliberately kept the
amount of exercise I do the same throughout the challenge so as not to skew the
results. It might not be a lot, but at least it’s consistent. Perhaps if the
guys in San Diego had done the same, they might have come up with an entirely
different result.
     
    It’s clear that my nutritionist, Louis,
isn’t a fan of the grapefruit diet, at least in its original 1980s format. He
says that while grapefruit is relatively low in calories and high in vitamin C,
it most definitely isn’t a magical fat-burner. He says that limiting food and
calories does not encourage dieters to change their eating habits for the
better – if anything it creates new negative habits. He was definitely far
happier when I explained that I was ditching the grapefruit diet of the
eighties in favour of the grapefruit diet of the noughties. I’ve essentially
traded in the Walkman for the iPod. Actually, my analogy of comparing portable
music devices to grapefruit diets works on more than one level,