ok... just one more thing & then I'll shut up.

This is not a starvation diet. You eat pleanty of food & never have to feel hungry.

And when I did it I actually gain muscle, so did my bf & his partents. That has to do with the TONS of meat & veggies that your putting in you body! I wasn't even working out when I first started it but I immediatly started to feel very energized & strengthened! As I lost 5 lbs consistently every week, I also gained a noticable amount of muscle; and my exercise routine was random... it mostly consisted of daily chores like cleaning & walking to work.

Within the 1st week my boyfriend was thrilled to find that he could lift quite a bit heavier weights at the gym when he stuck to this plan. Plus... he's a big guy (not overweight, but big & tall) and he also never went hungry or felt unsatisfied on this diet.

ps~ please stay open minded. just because you don't agree with something doesn't mean it's wrong. there are many solutions to every problem.

~kaly

I guess I just don't get the "do this diet until you lose the weight" concept.

Why not find a way of eating that works for you for LIFE? It makes no sense to eat a certain way til you knock off 20 lbs or whatever your goal is, then go right back to your old ways and gain it all back and more. And this is exactly what happens when people use a "quick fix" diet, or any way of eating where they feel deprived or cut out entire food groups.

You said "(Exercise) is just not always a must in a weight loss plan. The right combo of foods will do the trick! " I don't believe this, personally. There are no magic pills, and no magic foods.

Laura

sure it works....
 

If simply 'losing weight' is all you are trying to achieve.

I have done this diet before and yes, I lost quite a bit of a 'weight' on it, I think what people are trying to say is that you will most likely be losing muscle and water and not so much FAT on this plan - and its FAT that we all want to lose.

Losing 'Weight' is easy, losing fat and keeping muscle takes a bit more work. Losing 'weight' can make you feel better in the short term, losing muscle will bring regrets later.

Although I was very happy with the results at the time I followed this diet, I was not able to maintain the weight loss, and I believe I stuffed up my metabolism for future weight loss efforts.
You are right about this diet being unhealthy for the long term and not only that but it is impossible to follow for very long.

As someone who has found another way I can understand those who just want to say "you don't have to go to these extreme's to get the results you want" It may take a little longer - but it will be permanent - and healthy. You've only got one body aye - you have to look after it.

Carps

p.s. I must also add though, that I have never heard of fat needing sugar to stick - and I would certainly want some scientific research and proof before I believed it. As I understand it, the body stores ANY excess as fat. - but I could be wrong.

let's do this together
 

Kalypso,

I hope you come back to this forum so you can read this message. I don't have the desire to argue with any of these people and their negative comments. We both personally know people who used this diet with success and I would love for us to do it together. We could create a thread for us in this forum, but my temper would eventually get the best of me from all of the negative comments we would receive everyday. But the funny thing is that I really believe that if we DID create a thread and lost a significant amount of weight on this diet together, there would suddenly be a whole lot of people in the supermarket buying meat and veggies...if you know what i mean:s:
Anyway, i want us to do this together via e-mail, so we won't have to put up with negativity. I don't want to put my personal e-mail address on here for obvious reasons, but i'll give you my school e-mail address since i don't care who writes there anyway.so, here it is: [email protected]
I hope you write me so we can be on OUR OWN PLAN OF WEIGHT LOSS TOGETHER!

Hope to hear from you soon in another place:smug: ,
Kyra

one more thing
 

kalyspso,

if for some reason that address does not work, write me back in this forum (as much as it pains you to) and let me know...i guess then i would have no other choice but to take the chance of releasing my personal e-mail address( or you could turn your private messages on since they are off).

Okay, ttyl
Kyra

hi friend!
 

quteky~
Hey it's me! I got banned for leaving messages about controversial diets! I left you a personal message. Go to your profile then check your messages!

Hope to hear from you soon!

I have a question. While being on a diet like this (short term), would including cardio exercise and weightlifting/strengthening help NOT to lose as much lean muscle mass or what?

Sorry to add to the controversy here, but I'm just curious. It doesn't seem to me that this diet is one of starvation. If one were to keep up with excercise, water intake, vitamins, and limit the amount of meat (even though it says however much you want, I'm not all that crazy about a lot of meat), wouldn't it still be somewhat healthy?

I don't know. Sorry, but I'm no experet and was just curious and interested about this diet.

I have a question. While being on a diet like this (short term), would including cardio exercise and weightlifting/strengthening help NOT to lose as much lean muscle mass or what?

Sorry to add to the controversy here, but I'm just curious. It doesn't seem to me that this diet is one of starvation. If one were to keep up with excercise, water intake, vitamins, and limit the amount of meat (even though it says however much you want, I'm not all that crazy about a lot of meat), wouldn't it still be somewhat healthy?

I don't know. Sorry, but I'm no experet and was just curious and interested about this diet.

I agree with Kalypso
 

Hello, everyone. Please forgive me for buttin in, but I have to agree with Kalypso. Although the diet might not work for you, it doesn't mean it wouldn't work for someone else. Carps used the diet, lost weight, and gained it back because she went back to her old eating habits. It doesn't matter which diet you go on, if you go back to your old eating habits than you're going to go back to your old size.

Now, MsJim, I know you mean well, but I could not help, but to comment about this very statement you made--"in 'starvation mode' you're turning the switch on in your body that says 'hey, I'm starving...in a famine situation...so I'd better hold onto the fat and burn muscle instead'. You see, in a famine state, your body will pick lean body mass as its first source of food, saving the fat for worse times."
Not to pin point you out, but in your previous forums, you stated that you lost majority of your weight on a liquid diet consisting of 800 calories a day for a period of 12 weeks. Now if that isn't starvation mode, than I don't know what is. In my opinion this Mayo diet seems alot more fulfilling than a liquid diet. Now I know you might say that it was doctor supervised, but either way you look at it, you was still just putting 800 calories in your body a day. So whose to say what diet is right for whom. We are all different and its up to us to find out what will work in our own best interest.

I really hope I didn't offend anyone. I was only being honest. Good luck to all.

I am sorry that you are feeling attacked. I think that the feedback you are getting are from older women who have done everything to crash diet and have gained not only experience but weight. I don't think MrsJim was ever advocating a liquid diet. That is just her experience of what desperation to lose weight quickly will bring you to. Her posts about her experiences is to help others avoid some of those crazy experiences. She never advocated that a liquid diet is healthy.

The "Mayo" diet is a low carb diet with some nonsense about grapefruit being a fat burner thrown in. I was on this "diet" when I was about 16. It worked, as do all low carb diets. They work for a time and then they do start to burn lean muscle instead of fat. Even body builders who go the low carb route supplement with carbs from 1-3 meals a week. It is done in a very systematic way. The food plan to do that is called the Cyclical Ketogenic Diet (or CKD). Body builders know that even if they low carb it, they can't do it for longer than 4-5 days without cutting into their muscle. So a long term low carb diet will eat lean muscle and that is a fact, not anecdotal evidence. To burn fat and build muscle that will burn fat, you must eat a balanced diet. If your diet is not balanced, you must balance it at least once a week. Again, systematic and not willy nilly.

Another reason why you're getting flak I believe is because years of yo yo dieting make it very difficult to lose when you are older. While it is very very hard to envision what it will be like at 40 when you are 18, I can only tell you that these crash diets will not work any longer after years of being on them. You can go to any Atkins site and there will be people in their 40s who lost a ton of weight on Atkins when it first came out (in the 70s) who cannot lose anything on it. It's because the body is resisting after years of yo yo dieting and things change when you get older.

I know that you are feeling besieged by "negative" people but I think that getting into crash diets now and starting the yo yo syndrome is something you will regret later.

My suggestion would be to really research what you are doing. The lack of sugar is not what causes the weight loss. Sugar doesn't make fat "stick" to you. The reason low carb diets work is because carbs are the body's firstline energy source and it goes to carbs first. Hence the initial loss. However, after a while, when the diet continues to be unbalanced the body does, as MrsJim says, suspect that it is being starved, and it stops using its fat supply (the body hordes fat when it thinks it is being starved and even though it is getting 'food' the lack of balance leads it to think starvation) and starts burning lean muscle. That is WHY people who really know this stuff and choose periods of low carb will supplement with carbs every few days. Or a plan like Sugar Busters also includes carbs every day I think (I read it once but don't remember how often you get carbs).

If you research Atkins, Protein Power, et al. and then look at the ways in which athletes and body builders work with carbs, you will see the difference. There is more of a zig zag in the athletic form of carb intake.

Being well informed will keep you from being susceptible to the latest crazy diet. I am not insulting you with that. I spent years spending a lot of money on a lot of really dumb things. I try to help others avoid that.

I wish you luck in whatever you do. If you choose low carb, 3fc has low carb WW and also Atkins boards and other low carb forums where you can find support. However, don't be fooled by claims that grapefruit (or anything else) is a "fat burning" food because there is no such thing.

Good luck!
Susan

Re: hi friend!
 

Really?

You weren't banned from here. I checked your other account and the status shows "awaiting email confirmation". What you did was change your email address on your account. The program auto-generates an email to your new address which you have to validate before you can get back into your account. You didn't do that, and that account is on hold until you do. As long as the email address was real, you can validate it and get back in.

That's not quite the same thing as a "ban".

Sometimes a little research can help prevent long-term mistakes.

Luv u all, I COMPLETELY agree with you. If we go back to eating McDOnald's after this diet, of course we will end up fat again! DUH! And i hope they realized that kaly said that she was the only one who gained her weight back, and that was after eating badly for a YEAR! Well, a few of us, (including kaly) are all doing this together via e-mail, so we don;t have to hear the negative comments. It's going to feel so good to come back here in a month and let everyone know that we lost 30 pounds..and then in a year and say that we kept it off. You can e-mail me if you are interested too...and that goes for anyone!
To each his own...,
Quteky

Quteky, forgive me for butting in, but if this diet was that perfect, that it not only worked for short term loss (i.e. water, muscle) but also for long term fat loss, don't you think the Mayo Clinic would actually endorse it? They'd make a killing off it! Not only that, but every doctor in the world would be pushing it and it would be broadcast on the evening news. Instead, it's passed around as freely as the infamous Neiman Marcus $250 Bogus Cookie Recipe.

If you are really determined to do this diet and then show up later with your results, make it accurate. Go to your doctor now and ask for your body fat percentage to be measured via bioelectrical impedance then do it again every month while following the diet.

You will indeed lose weight on this diet. No one said otherwise. Anyone that cuts nutritional intake that drastically WILL lose weight. And it's not just a matter of not going back to eating McDonalds to keep the weight off.. Any normal healthy diet is still going to be much higher in fat and calories than the Mayo Clinic diet, and if your body has lowered your metabolism to survive in starvation mode, then a "normal" diet will cause weight gain.

But the key word here is "weight". Some will be fat, more will be lean mass. The majority of the weight loss during the first 2 weeks will be water weight. Many diets will cause a large water loss at first. Therefore, those results don't mean anything. It's not being "negative", it's being realistic. My own metabolism has been destroyed by years of yo-yo dieting, from trying diets like the Mayo Clinic diet.

I just looked through a few reputable health sites and every reference to the so-called Mayo Clinic diet state the same issues that MrsJim mentioned.

I think the point most people are trying to make here is that we've all been on countless diets and have years of experience gaining, losing, gaining, losing weight. We're tired of miracle diets and quick weight loss schemes. We're tired of losing water and muscle mass. What we want now is long term fat loss with a diet that is healthy, substantially nutritious, doesn't leave us lethargic or losing our hair, and that is safe in the long run.

Jumping on a fad diet bandwagon makes no sense if you think about it long enough. It reminds me of when I was pregnant with my son. I was just 18 and very naive. Someone told me that she knew lots of people that determined the sex of their baby by performing a simple test. (nothing like a bit of second hand knowledge for accuracy) So the next day I peed in a can of Drano. It was supposed to turn blue if it was a boy or pink if it was a girl. That's how my son almost became known as Jessica Marie. In the end, the house stunk like rotten eggs for a week, and when I gave birth, I sat in the hospital for 2 days trying to come up with a name for my surprise baby boy. Everyone has a story to tell, everyone knows someone that a diet or some type of action worked for. But without medical studies and research to back them up, the results mean little to nothing.


Fad Diets... about as reliable as peeing in a can of Drano.

as someone stated before, neither doctors or the mayo clinic will recommend the diet because they have to cover themselves in case of a law suit. They don't want to be held responsible if anyone claims that the diet caused them to have kidney stones, or caused extreme fatigue, or became extremely dehydrated (all of the meat acts as a diuretic..and don't tell me that it doesn't because i was in the bathroom all day during the atkin's diet and i have been already on this one). That's why they don't support it. All of these things are possible, but i would rather take those risks than take the risk of being obese (not that i am incredibly overweight, but some people here are) and having a heart attack. Or, what about the people who are so incredibly overweight that they literally cannot excersice? They have to go on strict caloric diets to begin weight loss without excercise. Why don't you all beat up on the people who ar on the atkins diet on this web-site? THAT is more strict than this diet because you NEVER get to have carbs until your maintainance, and they can't have ANY fruit. At least we get to have a little bit of fruit and we can eat whatever we want (including carbs) every other weekend.
We are using this diet because we have under 100 pounds to lose, so short term is fine with us. But we do know that after we lose the weight, we can watch what we eat and execise without being neurotic about it, to keep the weight off. Kaly and i both know people who kept the weight off without drastic efforts.
Everyone starts out by losing water and muscle, but eventually the fat will leave. Otherwise anorexics would still be fat.
And i don't feel the need to prove my point by going through bmi tests to show you all that the diet actually worked..i made that statement sarcastically. But i guarantee that those of us who succeed with this diet will be happily strutting our shorts and tanks this summer while many of you will still be counting calories, points, and exercising like crazy. What kind of way to live is that?
I think i'm going to follow kalypso's path and not even bother with this web-site anymore.
Good luck to everyone...whatever weight loss method you choose.
Last call for anyone who has any faith and wants to join us and at least TRY IT!
I think the criticizers should try it first, and if you can't do it or keep the weight off, THEN you should have something to say.

I tried it, as did my sisters and my mother and my brother. This is a very famous fad diet, that's all. Most of the members on this site have tried it. We're still here because this diet does not work Long Term.

Doctors don't promote this diet because it's unhealthy, pure and simple. And they WILL give you a balanced diet to follow if you ask them.

Just remember that this diet is not some special magical fix for weight loss. It's just an extreme lowfat/low calorie diet like all other fad diets. You compared this diet to being anorexic? How many anorexic women are actually healthy? Being thin and being healthy are two completely different things.

You are right, most diets do start out with a drop in water weight and sometimes a little muscle too. But fad diets cause more muscle loss because your body is not getting proper nourishment. They also alter the metabolism so weight management will be a lot more difficult after you've lost weight.

If you wish to follow this diet, then go for it :) But please don't come here and complain to everyone for not being gung-ho over something like this. This diet is proven unhealthy, and that's why you won't find many people here promoting it.

Good luck in whatever path you choose, and above all, stay healthy :)