Exactly what is the Sacred Heart Diet? And can it really help you lose weight that fast??
Although many think of this diet as something "new" in truth, it's been around for a long time. Every few years it seems to take on a new life, as the myth of its creation is re-circulated through the "moron mainstream media".
The Fairy Tale goes like this: The Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital in Montreal, Canada, designed this diet to be used on heart disease patients who were scheduled for upcoming surgery. In order to lose substantial weight quickly, the patients would use the diet for 7 days at a time.
The problem is, the Sacred Heart hospital has sent out an official press release which says that no one at their hospital, "took part in the development of this diet". On top of that, their Medical Centre has also officially "disclaimed any association" with the diet. On top of THAT, the American Heart Association has officially stated that the diet is a fake.
Get the idea yet?
Now this is not to say that the diet has no value. The diet CAN work - and work well - IF you know the correct way to use it.
(By the way, this diet goes under many other names, for example: the Sacred Heart Memorial Hospital Diet , the Cleveland Clinic Diet, the Spokane Heart Diet, and the Miami Heart Institute Diet.)
The first priority is to deal with the problems the diet creates:
1) The diet claims that you can lose 10 pounds or more, in a single week. As expected, weight loss that occurs this quickly, is mostly water. Which means there's the danger that you will gain all the weight back, as soon as you go off the diet.
2) The diet is very low-calorie. As expected, this means that you cannot continue the diet for long periods - and certainly cannot follow it as a "healthy lifestyle"!
3) The diet is somewhat unhealthy (due to its severe restrictions) - but this problem can be reduced with the proper modifications to its "rules".
4) The very low-calorie nature of the diet, and it's food selections, cause frequent, unwanted "side effects". Diarrhea is the most widely reported. But also, weakness, light-headedness, dizziness - and even fainting! (The modifications mentioned in point 3 above, can also reduce these problems somewhat.)

Here is a brief outline of what it's like to follow the Sacred Heart Diet. (I will give you the full diet plan, including the main Soup Recipe, plus ways to deflect the "side effects", in the next article in this series - see below for details.)
The diet runs for 7 days. The main component is a "special" soup recipe, which can (and should) be eaten all 7 days. To that, is added a list of fluids, which are also allowed on every day.
On each of the 7 days, there are specific foods added to this base. (Different foods on each day.) Most of the additions, not surprisingly, are vegetables and fruits. However, there are days which also allow some definitely non-dietary additions: some starches, baked potato WITH butter, milk, beef, rice.
Despite these odd additions, the truth is, the Sacred Heart Diet is NOT easy. And it can be unpleasant - especially in its "side effects". But you can deal with these problems, and we will discuss exactly how to do that - plus the Full Diet Plan layout (including the Recipe), in my next article in this series on: http://celopindietpill.blogspot.com/