The “3 Day Diet” goes back to 1985 and today can be found all over the Internet and on book store shelves. The three day diet and its variants claim quick weight loss, a cleansing of the system, lower cholesterol and increased energy all through a “specific metabolic reaction” that no version of the diet has ever validated

. The diet is to be followed for only 3 days, with an off period of generally 5 days in between diet times. All the versions of this diet share in common difficult steps that must be followed and foods that must be eaten in order for the diet to work.

What better way to blame the dieter when it doesn’t work than “you botched the formula.”

Breakfast on the first day comes with coffee (no sugar), one half a grapefruit, and a piece of toast with 1 Tbsp peanut butter. For lunch, you are to eat a can of tuna, a piece of toast, and black coffee. For dinner it’s 3 ounces of chicken or lean meat, a cup of green beans, one cup of carrots, one apple, and one cup of regular vanilla ice cream. The other two days are about the same but with some substitutions such as hot dogs instead of lean meat. The diet sellers claim that weight loss of 10 pounds is achievable over the 3 days that the diet lasts.

Hogwash is the answer. The question is what is a specific reaction to that claim? As stated the metabolic reaction has never been explained much less proven. Any weight loss would be mostly water loss due to a lack of carbs which help the body retain water. That could lead to dehydration.

Because of binge eating after such starvation and because most of the weight lost is due to water, the weight will quickly return after the three days.

Deprive the body of water in three day cycles enough times and a person could develop kidney damage, dehydration, or a host of other dangerous conditions.

The 3 day diet is best treated as a no day diet. In other words, don’t do it.