The 7-day diet is a diet gimmick that asks you to eat a certain category of foods every day for seven days. The diet tends to be nutritionally unsound and follows no principles recommended by experts for healthy weight loss.
Origin and Claims
Where this diet originated is unknown. It claims to detoxify the body and stimulate weight loss. Promises of up to 14 lbs of weight loss in one week exist.
Features
Each day, you are given a prescription of a type or category of food to eat. On Mondays, you may eat all the fruit you like--except bananas. On Tuesday, it is any and all vegetables and vegetable soups. On Wednesday, you combine fruits and veggies--but, of course, no bananas. Thursday clearly states bananas and milk should make up the diet--the exact servings range from five to eight bananas and four to five glasses of milk. Friday, Saturday and Sunday allow four 3-oz steaks (chicken and fish are also acceptable) and lots of green vegetables.
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Effects
You might lose weight on this diet, but become extremely bored with the lack of variety on specific days. The diet does not provide a rounded nutritional profile for every day--and if followed for more than seven days could lead to nutritional deficiencies. The diet prescribes a paucity of calories and your energy levels may suffer as a result.
Considerations
The best eating plans offer you strategies that you can apply for life. A quick fix diet like this may result in immediate weight loss, but most of the weight (and probably more) will return as soon as you go back to your original eating patterns. While on this diet, eating out or going to the house of a friend or family member for meals will be nearly impossible. The extreme nature of the diet makes it hard to adhere to--meaning you are likely to give up on your efforts or worse yet, binge and gain weight.
Misconceptions
Despite the evidence that no quick-fix diet successfully brings about long-term weight loss, people still flock to fad diets like the 7-day diet. Vigorous exercise and portion control have been proven again and again to be the best means to weight loss. Suffering for a week with a diet like this will yield no sustainable results, even if you can stick to it.
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