All About The Mayo Clinic 3 Day Diet

You may also know the Mayo Clinic 3 Day Diet as the Grapefruit Diet.  This diet is all about eating certain foods at particular times each day.  Each meal will include half a grapefruit which is where it gets the name 'grapefruit diet'.  Although the diet is not actually endorsed by the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, the name of the Mayo Clinic 3 Day Diet still lives on.

Let's take a look at the three main meals of the Mayo Clinic 3 day diet.

Breakfast - For breakfast each morning you will have a black tea or coffee, half a grapefruit and bread with some protein.  For the bread and protein you could have toast with egg, toast with cheese or toast with peanut butter.

Lunch - lunch will also include protein and bread.  Some examples of lunch could be toast with a boiled egg, toast with 1/2 cup of tuna or cottage cheese on crackers.  You can also have a black tea or coffee with lunch.

Dinner - dinner is the most substantial meal of the day with this diet.  Day 1 dinner includes 3 oz lean turkey, 1 cup of carrots, 1 cup of green beans, 1 apple and 1 cup of vanilla ice-cream.  Day 2 dinner consists of 2 beef franks, 1 cup of cabbage or broccoli, 1/2 cup of carrots, 1/2 a banana and 1/2 cup of vanilla ice-cream.  Day 3 dinner includes 1 cup of tuna, 1 cup of cauliflower, 1 cup of carrots, 1 cup of melon and 1/2 cup of ice-cream.

Every meal should include 1/2 a grapefruit or 4 oz. of grapefruit juice.

The key to success with this diet plan is that you must drink at least 32 ounces of water a day.

There are a lot of people that swear by this diet and have said you can lose 6 points in the three days of the diet.  Here are some of the reasons why this diet is so effective.

1. The number of calories consumed is extremely restricted.  Even though the diet includes ice-cream every day you are still only eating around 1200 calories a day.

2. This diet helps to flush out your system and help you to lose a lot of water weight.

3. This is not a permanent weight loss.  This is a fast weight loss and if you go right back to your usual eating habits as soon as you finish the 3 days then you will put the weight back on.

So what is the point of dieting for 3 days if you are just going to put it back on?  This diet is great if you have an event coming up that you want to lose a few pounds for.  If you have a wedding, school reunion or want to fit into your skinny jeans to go to a concert, then this diet can help you to do that.

Although grapefruit is a vital part of the Mayo Clinic 3 day diet, there is no proof that it has any magical weight loss qualities.  Not everyone likes grapefruit and some people will substitute it for orange during the diet.

Grapefruit does however have 6 grams of fiber in half a grapefruit so when you are eating 3 servings of it a day then you are getting 18 out of the 25 grams of recommended daily fiber.  Diets that are high in fiber will help to flush out the system and assist with weight loss.  Grapefruit juice though does not have any fiber.

The Mayo Clinic 3 day diet can also be useful to kick-start a diet and give you a fast weight loss to begin your weight loss journey and when you finish the 3 days on this diet you can then move onto a healthy eating plan to lose more weight in a slower time period.  The kick-start at the beginning of the diet can help motivate you to continue to eat healthy and lose more weight.