There are several versions of the Cardiac Diet to be found. Some say that this diet is used by hospitals in the Cardiac Unit to help patients lose large amounts of weight quickly before going into heart surgery. It is estimated that you can lose up to 10 pounds in three days.
On the other hand, this diet is often referred to as a "fad" diet because you can lose so much weight so quickly, but it's not safe to stay on these diets for an extended period of time. They are very low in calories and don't provide you with the complete nutrition that your body requires.
This diet is also known as the "3 Day Diet." The diet was supposedly created by the American Heart Association. The diet causes you to lose actual body fat and not water. It has been suggested that it is the combination of foods in this diet that causes the weight loss due to a chemical reaction. When you are on this diet, you know you are dieting, but you can tell after the first day that you are losing weight.
The diet consists of about 900 calories, which means you do not want to do this diet more than three days in a row, as it can be dangerous to drop below 1200 calories in a day, especially for more than a week's time. The main components of this diet is grapefruit or grapefruit juice, black coffee or tea, toast, tuna, peanut butter, hot dogs, vegetables, apples, vanilla ice cream, egg and bananas. Variations of these foods are eaten for breakfast lunch and dinner for three days straight.
The only seasonings allowed in this diet are salt and pepper. You may drink water or diet soda as well and you can add an artificial sweetener to your tea. It is also important that you drink at least nine glasses of water a day. You are not supposed to snack throughout the day when participating in this diet plan either.
It has also been suggested to keep exercise to a minimum when using this diet. This is due to the fact that you are consuming a low amount of calories and that your energy level drops significantly on the first two days. This diet plan is not meant to be followed for more than three days at a time and should have at least three days of regular calorie consumption between diet days.
Although this diet is known to shed the pounds very quickly, there is no medical evidence to show that the combination of foods is the true reason for the weight loss. Because the diet is a low-carb diet as well, most of the weight loss may be water weight.