The Scarsdale Diet
The full name of this diet is the Scarsdale Medical Diet. It was created by Herman Tarnower, a cardiologist and family doctor. The diet is a very restrictive one that requires calorie reduction and low carbohydrate intake. The diet allows lots of diet drinks, coffee, lean meats, cheese, vegetables and fruits. On the other hand, it restricts the intake of legumes, alcohol, peanut butter, oils, sandwich meats, beans and butter.
Dieters who select this type of diet should be able to follow a strict diet with lots of limitations. It helps if you have a high tolerance for caffeine since you can ingest that in unlimited quantities.
Although this weight loss diet has been in existence for quite some time, it continues to be one of the popular ones. The Scarsdale Diet, an extreme weight loss plan, requires a rigid low carbohydrate intake. This means that dieters will be eating lots of vegetables, fruits and lean meats. Although it allows three daily meals, no snacks are permissible. This fourteen-day plan is geared to kick start your body into fasting by limiting the amount of carbohydrates that you may consume. Moreover, this plan encourages the use of artificial sweeteners, herbal appetite suppressants and caffeine.
Unfortunately, the Scarsdale Diet discourages any exercise or vigorous activities since you will have a lower reserve of energy due to restricted caloric intake. Furthermore, the reduction in the amount of protein consumed while on this diet might possibly lead to lost muscle mass. As you can see, some of the points to this plan are not exactly favorable to your body as a whole.
After the first two weeks, this weight loss plan moves into a maintenance phase. Even though fewer restrictions are included in this part of the diet, some dieters will still find it to be restrictive. This diet does lead to weight loss success for some, but at the cost of feeling hungry or irritable at times. In addition to being restrictive, the Scarsdale Diet offers bland food options with very few allowable substitutions. It's a good thing that this diet plan does include caffeine though, because you may need it to stay awake.
Some of the pros for this diet include the fact that it should help weight loss to occur and portions for the suggested foods are not limited. On the other hand, the cons include the facts that it is very restrictive and essentially low in calorie intake, which may not provide the healthy balance of nutrition you need.
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