My Favorite "Kick Start" Diet

Like most people, I suck at diets.  I don't like getting together a bunch of ingredients I might not otherwise have on hand, measuring portions, and sticking to a plan that likely has nothing to do with what I like to eat.  However, a few years ago a friend told me about a very old diet, the Scarsdale Medical Diet, from the 1970's.  You don't have to buy the book (though it's usually less than $2 used on Amazon.com) - there's a great support website for this diet here.  Read the diet:  it's easy.

Basically - try it for a minimum of 7 days and follow it with NO cheating.  Breakfast every day is 1/2 a grapefruit and a piece of dry toast - I hate the toast dry.  At first I used a spray "I can't believe it's not butter" and a fake brown sugar/splenda product to make the toast edible.  But it still sucked, so I ended up skipping the toast and going with grapefruit only.

Lunch is always lean meat or salad (no oil or fat in the dressing - I use spray on zero calorie Wish Bone dressings).  The amounts are not limited it is WHAT you eat that matters.  Dinner is usually meat and veggies.  No oil or fat.  No beans.  Very low carb. No sugar (including in soda). No alcohol.

Your body goes into ketoisis on this diet and you burn fat without being hungry.  If you weigh yourself every day you will see that you do lose a bit nearly every day.  You can only do it 14 days at a time.  If you do not cheat by adding in sugar, far, oil or anything not on the plan, you keep burning fat.  When I first did this diet I got some ketone strips from the local pharmacy (made for diabetics I think).  You pee on the strips and can see if your body is/is not in ketosis.  This is good feedback - you know it's working - and you stay motivated.  But after you try this diet a few times, you know it absolutely works and it's easy.  They have a vegetarian version but I can't bring myself to do it, the options have no appeal to me.

The reasons I like this diet so very much:
1.  It kicks you off losing weight and that helps me get motivated and stay motivated - after losing 10lbs you want to keep going don't you?
2.  It always works if you follow it - always
3.  It's healthy - no weird supplements, no bad foods, all wholesome
4.  No measuring/portion control necessary
5.  I like lean meats and salads and fruit so I can stay on this.  Hell yes, I miss bread and pasta and butter and oil - but it's worth it, and I'm not trying to gag down stuff I hate.
6.  You can even eat out if you do so carefully (I recommend avoiding it but if you have to dine out with a client, etc you can find a way to stay on this one usually)
7.  Knowing my body is in ketoisis and I don't want to kick it out keeps me from cheating - no rationalizing that "one bite" of something will be ok - it's not!

Just try it for one week - it's a great jumpstart - and I bet you do 2 weeks.  Then eat a healthy diet that isn't Scarsdale for a couple weeks and go back on it.