Mary's Modified Grapefruit Diet Plan

I've started a little diet thing.  I'm really pretty much philosophically opposed to dieting.  I think it messes with one's mind and starts the habit of fretting about food.  The last time I was on a diet, I was 18 years old.  I really didn't need to be losing weight, but I really wanted to be a size 8 instead of a size 10.  I've always been big boned and even when in good shape, I'm not a tiny person.  Huh-uh, not me.

That said, I am sick of carrying around all this extra weight.  Grr.  So I'm attempting to "jump start" my "fat burners" with a modified grapefruit diet.  Such words we use.  It seems silly to me even to put them in print. 

I call it the modified grapefruit diet because I'm adding a few carbs and some extra dairy.  And I'm only doing it for 7 days.  If I like it, if it seems to work or help, I may do it once a month or once every few months.

Interesting to me is the accusation that the grapefruit diet is very unhealthy because it is considered a "very low calorie diet."    But I've been to about 6 web sites that describe the grapefruit diet and it seems to be so vague that anyone could eat most any amount of most anything but carbs.  And even that, if someone was not cautious, the carbs could sneak in, too. 

For instance, at the noon meal, one is to eat a salad of any kind.  It specifies, "of any kind."  Now probably they mean lettuce.  But up here in Northern Minnesota, a salad is loaded with mayo or cool whip; jello, cookies, or even candy bars.  

Besides that, the diet specifies that one may use any kind of dressing on one's any kind of salad.  So even if I am eating a nice leafy lettuce salad, which I did today, I could put any kind of dressing on it.  Something loaded with high fructose corn syrup or whatever junk, in any amount.   I stuck to just leafy greens, a scoop of grated mozzarella, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Also one can eat as much meat as one desires at the noon and evening meals.  So how could this be low calorie? 

I don't get it.  But nor do I quite understand all they low-carb stuff or the heart healthy, or whatever type trend one listens to and relies upon.  I mostly eat what I want and try to eat reasonable amounts.  I try not to keep stuff around the house that is not healthful and nourishing.  Then anything we grab is likely to do us little harm.

But I like grapefruit.  So I'll give this a try.

I'm also doing another thing, probably just for the week, but perhaps an additional one just to see what I see.  I'm recording my food intake.  I'm using the fitday website.  When you enter what you eat, it calculates all these cool things for you, such as nutritional values, total calorie intake and percentage of calories from protein, fat and carbs.  After tossing this grapefruit diet idea around for awhile, I became curious to see how much of the various components I would be taking in. 

So far today, on the grapefruit diet, with the only modification being 1/2 c of rice with 1 tsp butter at breakfast, I'm at 885 calories and 17% from protein, 20 % carbs and 62% of them from fat.  I'm not just satisfied, but full and content.  This fat % might sound kind of scary, except that I'm a pretty strong believer in the necessity of "good fats" for strong immunity and emotional health.  See Nourishing Traditions or Eat Fat, Lose Fat for more information on the good versus bad fat issue.

I might continue the fitday thing for a week or so after I'm done with the grapefruit diet, just to see what the numbers are for my regular eating style. 

I think, however, that I might not quite like what I find out about my normal eating habits...