The watermelon diet is one of many which are considered fad diets. They become extremely popular for a time because people maintain that they lost weight, and everyone wants to lose weight. But, let’s face it, none of us want to eat only watermelon for the rest of our lives and if you stick to this diet for a long period of time, you will lose your health rather than gain it.
Watermelon is a great fruit and there are various benefits of watermelon to maintain good health. There is not any question about that. It is one of the fruits now identified as being very high in antioxidants, which have been shown to reduce your chances of acquiring certain types of cancer and other diseases. Watermelon has huge amounts of vitamins C, B6, and A as well. Lately, watermelon has also been discussed as having many of the same sexual potency effects as Viagra ™.
People do lose a lot of weight on a watermelon diet. But, it is mostly water loss, because watermelons are 90% water. As soon as you go off the watermelon diet, you will immediately gain back any of the weight you lost. Because a watermelon consists of so much water, you are also going to go into an extreme calorie deficit.
And, while many people think that cutting calories is a good way to lose weight, cutting them too dramatically can actually have the opposite effect. What happens is that your body’s metabolism will actually slow down so that it burns fewer calories. Your body can also start using lean muscle tissue to get the nutrition it needs for survival. The less muscle you have, the fewer calories you burn.
So, in reality, severely cutting calories and consuming mostly water is not a good way to lose weight. You would be much better off with a more well-thought out nutrition plan combined with exercise at least three days a week. This is particularly the case if you are obese. These “quick fix” diets will do no more than make you incredibly fatigued because you are not consuming enough calories.
The only way to sensibly lose weight is not with a watermelon diet, but by consuming the proper amount of calories from protein, carbohydrates and fats. Fruit is a healthy part of any nutrition plan and if you choose watermelon as one of the fruits you eat frequently, you can benefit from its many vitamins and antioxidants.
One way that you can make watermelon a healthy part of your diet is to have it for breakfast. One or two servings of watermelon in the morning combined with a watermelon snack is one way to cut some calories and benefit from the nutrients in watermelon. Every ounce of watermelon has only eight calories.
Starting out with watermelon for breakfast is going to make you very hungry by lunchtime and by then you will be in a calorie deficit. Exactly why watermelon for lunch it not going to be a good choice! Instead have a bowl of soup. Vegetable is always a good choice and then have a healthy sandwich of lean meat, such as chicken on some whole grain wheat bread. Here is where you can make some really good choices by adding lettuce and tomato and using a fat-free mayonnaise. You can have watermelon or another fruit for dessert as well as for your afternoon snack.
A healthy dinner could then consist of six ounces of baked or broiled fish or poultry. Lemon is always a good flavoring as you need to stay away from too much butter at meals. A large green salad with fat-free dressing is a perfect accompaniment to the meat. You could have other veggies as well, such as spinach or broccoli.
If you are not too sick of watermelon you could have another slice for dessert but no fat or low fat yoghurt with fruit also makes a tasty and healthy dessert. This is one way you can use watermelon in a nutritious diet without resorting to the extremes of a totally watermelon diet.