Do you think this diet is healthy?

  • I used to post on here about a year ago, and I lost 70lbs, but over the course of a year of kinda not caring about it, I gained 20 of it back. :/

    So I'm ready in gear now to lose weight again. I have a few friends that have been doing the Skinny Girl Diet. I actually hadn't heard of it before a week ago. Basically, you can eat as many fruits as veggies as you want, and you have a set amount of other calories that come from other foods. It's usually around 400-700 calories each day. You also exercise for 30 minutes 5x a week, and if you go over your daily calorie limit, you have to exercise more to compensate for it.

    At first I thought this sounded pretty ridiculous because the calories you're allowed is so low, but my friends told me that they primarily eat fruits and veggies (which aren't counted in your daily calories), so it's basically a vegetarian diet. I think it sounds pretty good, and they've been getting awesome results from it.

    What do you guys think?

  • To me that is utterly ridiculous! I would cave after the first day and binge for a week straight. I think medically it should never be done. 1200 at min in my opinion.
  • Most likely, on the above diet, you will end up at far too few calories for your current weight. So no, it's not healthy or long-term sustainable. I think you would be doing yourself a favor long-term to avoid this type of fad diet which restrictively prescribes calorie levels and behaviors, and instead learn about eating a whole-foods diet at a calorie level which will work for you. And when I say "work for you" what I mean is produce ongoing weight loss, improve your health, and not make you insane.

    For example, I would highly recommend doing the South Beach diet for the above goals. Alternately, do calorie counting with a focus on whole foods.
  • I'm editing my post because another member realized that I misread the OP details and pointed out that the diet plan includes more than 400 cal because the dieter would also eat fruits and vegetables which are not counted in the total calories. We're still keeping this thread closed, but I would like to suggest a new approach to this diet where you DO count your fruit and veggie consumption in either calories or serving sizes because it's very easy to either be way under or way over your calorie limit.