The Three Day Diet

The 3 Day Diet is one of those trendy little diets that seem to be popular today. If you follow the 3 day diet correctly, you can apparently lose up to 10 pounds in just three days. That seems like a lot of weight to lose in such a short period of time.  Is it healthy or even possible?

While it’s certainly possible to lose 10 pounds or even more in just three days, it’s not the healthy way to go, and generally not recommended by health professionals. The 3 day diet is invariably frowned upon by nutritionists as being an overall a fad diet that is not very effective in producing sustainable weight loss. Sure you can lose 10 pounds in three days, but the chances are you’ll put it right back on again when you finish.

The 3 day diet isn’t really anything scientific or overly complicated. It’s basically just your typical calorie restricted diet. Most formulas for it involve three meals a day consisting of very limited portions of low fat, low sugar foods. Some examples of a few of the meals recommended in the 3 day diet include half a grapefruit and one slice of toast for breakfast; a half a cup of tuna (no mayo) and a slice of toast for lunch; and a three ounce portion of chicken, two cups of vegetables and one cup of ice cream for dinner.

Like many diets, the 3 day diet recommends drinking at least four glasses of water daily, and allows you to add any low calorie seasonings to your food, such as Worcestershire sauce, spices, mustard, vinegar, salt and pepper, soy sauce or ketchup. It also allows for drinking tea, coffee, or diet soda, so long as there is no sugar added.

So does this kind of 3 day diet plan work? Chances are you will in fact lose some weight if you stick to it. However, this diet does not provide your body the vitamins and minerals it needs to keep your immune system up and healthy. It is not a diet plan that will sustain the requirements that your body needs.  If you are used to eating more calories per day, you may find yourself getting quite hot-headed and very hungry in this 3-day diet.  Essentially, you’ll be in starvation mode, and the moment you resume regular food consumption you’ll promptly start gaining weight again.

Having bread and refined carbohydrates in your meals also does not help as it will create a sugar craving.  Your body will crave for more sugars and starches in this diet, making it a difficult diet to sustain…..even for three days.

Overall, the 3 day diet is not the best diet plan. However, if you are dead set at trying it out, I would suggest a few adjustments to it, to make it a healthier diet.  Here are some of the changes:

• Add 500ml of green smoothies for morning and afternoon snack
• Remove diet soda from your list of drinks
• Remove toast and bread from your diet

If you incorporate these changes, I think you will have a better chance of sustaining this diet.  You also will not risk your immune system from crashing at the end of the three day diet.

Adding these three recommendations in the 3 day diet will make the diet a more effective and sustainable weight loss program that will boost your energy levels and your immune system.