The Grapefruit Diet
How it started: In the 1930’s, the Hollywood Diet debuted; it called for downing a few select vegetables, small amounts of protein, and grapefruits, believed to contain a special fat-burning enzyme. It has spawned more than a dozen grapefruit diet over the decades.

Instructions:
Length of diet: Maximum 1-2 weeks
Amount of weight to be lost: Between  5 to 9 Kgs.
What you eat: A typical day might consist of the following:

Breakfast:
Half a grapefruit and plain coffee or tea

Lunch:
Half a grapefruit plus two eggs, cucumber & tomato salad with (Vinegar, Lemon & Herbs)
1 piece of dry Melba toast, and plain tea or coffee

Dinner:
Half a grapefruit, 150 Gms. ounces of chicken or beef or ham slices
Half a head of lettuce + a tomato (vinegar, lemon & herbs) and plain tea or coffee

• How many calories: Less than 800 per day.
  
  
• Why women love it: It’s a no-brainer--you needn’t count calories or make major food decisions. The monotony may even numb your appetite. And because the calorie cutback is so severe, initial weight loss can be dramatic—from 2 to 3 Kgs.  for a moderately overweight woman to 6 Kgs. for an obese woman.

• Pluses: Grapefruit has no fat, is low in calories and sodium, and is packed with vitamin C; the pink variety contributes beta-carotene as well. And because grapefruit is high in water and fiber, it can help fill you up.

• Pitfalls: “Any diet based on one food is much too restrictive to be healthy,” says Sheldon Margen, M.D., professor emeritus of public health nutrition at the University of California, Berkeley. You miss out on calcium, vital to bone strength; iron, which wards off anemia; folic acid, which can protect against heart disease; and most vitamins.

If you are very hungry on this very low calorie diet, take herbal appetite suppressants midmorning and midafternoon + a fat reducer like Xenadrine.