Fad diet solutions like the 3 Day Diet -- also known as the 3-Day Miracle Diet -- promise you major results with minimal effort. Short fad diets are enticing because of the small time commitment needed. They usually have rigid menus, which relieves you from having to make any food choices. Unfortunately, losing and maintaining weight requires a long-term commitment and knowing how to choose healthy foods. Quick weight loss is possible, on the 3 Day Diet, but it's rarely permanent.
Identification
The 3 Day diet is a rigid, low-calorie diet that focuses on three very plain, low-calorie meals per day for seven days. It promises that if you follow it for three days on and four days off, you can drop as many as 40 lbs. in one month. Meals include one or two pieces of fruit, one to three vegetables, a very small amount of starch and some protein. One meal calls for hot dogs and at least two days specify that you must eat vanilla ice cream. The 3 Day Diet isn't based on a book or attached to a celebrity expert or spokesperson; it's passed around on the Internet and by word of mouth. A plan that limited cannot be followed forever, so even if you drop a few pounds during the three days you follow it, you will almost certainly put them back on during the four days you're on your own.
Theory/Speculation
Food combining is the theory behind the 3 Day Diet. Unfortunately, according to experts like those at The University of Kansas, food combining is a myth. Certain foods taken in combination do help your body absorb nutrients more readily, like the complete proteins found in rice and beans, or the way drinking orange juice with cereal aids in the absorption of iron. But, no combination of foods has ever been proven to magically burn fat or speed up your metabolism. Even if that were true, the moment you stopped eating that precise combination of foods, you would lose the effects and stop losing weight.
Benefits
While on the 3 Day Diet, you are not allowed alcohol, diet sodas, fast food, snack foods like chips and puffed cheese curls, cake or cookies. This eliminates many of the high-fat, sugar-filled and empty calories that contribute to weight gain. The diet plan also calls for you to drink at least eight glasses of water every day. If you eat fresh fruits and vegetables rather than canned, you will also reduce the amount of sodium in your diet. Staying hydrated is important in helping your liver and kidneys to function properly, and the fiber in fresh fruits and vegetables help encourager healthy elimination. This won't burn fat any faster, but it will help ease the bloating that can result from poor nutrition.
Warning
The menus on the 3 Day Diet are fairly well balanced as far as fruits, vegetables and proteins, but there are very few whole grains allowed, and the calorie count is very low. To lose weight without risking malnutrition or metabolic syndrome, you should take in at least 1,200 calories per day if you're a woman and 1,500 calories per day if you're a man. Whole grains are important for the energy they provide, as well as the vitamins and minerals.
Conclusion
Severely restricting your calorie count and food choices and then stopping over and over is not a healthy or effective way to lose weight. Any weight loss that you achieve during the rigid three day plan will come right back on unless you continue to restrict your intake on your off days. Staying on a very low calorie diet for more than three days at a time, unless you're under a doctor's supervision, can cause malnutrition or slow your metabolism to the point that your body conserves every calorie that it can. You can certainly lose weight on the 3 Day Diet, but you will just as certainly gain it back.
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