The Beverly Hills diet : fit or fad ?
The original Beverly Hills Diet plan was created by Judy Mazel, a Hollywood actress, back in 1981. Perhaps due to the rise in the fitness craze, her book release proved to be a bestseller for a while. Diets rise and fall in popularity and this one had faded considerably until recently revived for The New Beverly Hills Diet. While some restrictions were eased in the newer version, the diets are still based upon the same principles.
Ms. Mazel came up with the idea that it is not what we eat for foods but how we combine them that causes the creation of fat. Her theory was that if the food isn't digested properly then it becomes fat – a theory which is easily disproved since science shows that food won't metabolize in the body until after it has been digested. The diet is based on her theories that foods need to be combined only in certain ways to digest properly.
How does the Beverly Hills diet work ?
A big part of the Beverly Hills Diet is the claims that it makes about the properties of fruit. Ms. Mazel claims that enzymes in certain fruits will “soften” the fat, then the enzymes in another kind of fruit will burn the fat off and the enzymes from another group of fruits would was the fat out of the system. For the first third of this 35-day diet plan, you will only eat fruit. At that point, some protein and carbohydrates are added in but still are not to be combined with the fruit in the same meal.
The claim was that the diet could help you lose up to 15 pounds in 35 days. It gained popularity because it often did help people lose weight very rapidly. The problem is that this diet cannot be followed on a long term basis and most people will put the weight right back on as soon as they end the diet. The average daily calories following Ms. Mazel's plan only runs about 800 calories per day which is not sustainable for health reasons.
But the Beverly Hills diet has side effects.
The Beverly Hills Diet is sadly lacking in balance as it does not provide the nutrients your body needs in sufficient quantity. If you tried to follow this plan beyond the 35 days, you would end up malnourished and ill with a high risk of serious diseases developing. It is not based on sound nutrition or fitness principles so it definitely falls under the category of a fad diet.
