The Three-Day Black Coffee Diet Plan

Black coffee is low in calories and high in antioxidants, but drinking it with every meal won't necessarily help you lose weight. The 3-Day Diet, also known as the egg diet, the grapefruit diet or the black coffee diet, is a fad diet that has circulated around the internet and involves drinking black coffee for every meal.

Although it may seem like a quick way to lose weight, the 3-Day Diet may be ineffective and unsafe, so talk to your doctor before trying it. In the meantime, consider that according to Harvard Health Publishing, crash diets that result in quick weight loss of 4 pounds per week or more can cause liver damage.

Read more: Healthy Ways to Lose Weight Fast

The 3-Day Diet is a three-day-long crash diet of unknown origins, and it is not approved by doctors or medical centers. During each meal, dieters eat very little food and drink one cup of black coffee, which may be switched out for black tea or water, if desired. Each meal is small and low in calories, and these low-calorie meals are purported to cause weight loss.

The 3-Day Diet involves eating limited portions of the same low-calorie foods for three days. Although the foods in the diet are healthy to eat in moderation, eating them every day in very small portions may be unhealthy and unsafe.

On the first day of the 3-Day Diet, you may have one cup of black coffee, half a grapefruit and a piece of toast with 1 tablespoon of peanut butter for breakfast. Although these foods may seem healthy, the breakfast is low in calories and nutrients because the portions are so small. In fact, the meal contains only 219 calories.

Follow your breakfast with a lunch of 1/2 cup of canned tuna, a slice of toast and a cup of black coffee, and you're consuming only about 183 calories for lunch. Round out your day with a 468-calorie dinner consisting of a cup of black coffee, 3 ounces of lean meat, one cup each of green beans and carrots, an apple and a cup of vanilla ice cream for a total of 870 calories.

Whenever you're consuming fewer calories than you burn through exercise and physical activity, you will lose weight. Drinking black coffee with every meal may suppress your appetite, allowing you to stick to the diet even though you're not eating the calories your body needs.

If you usually consume 2,000 calories per day and you suddenly consume 500 calories, your body may think it is being starved and release water to hold on to the fat and muscle in the body. When you start eating normally again, your body will replenish its water supply, causing you to gain the weight back immediately.

Read more: What is a Healthy Weight Loss per Week?

A fad diet, like the 3-Day Diet, is not a sustainable or safe way to lose weight. Although following the diet for only three days is unlikely to cause any permanent damage, trying fad diets on a regular basis may make your weight yo-yo up and down, creating an unhealthy relationship with food and weight loss. Eating limited portions of the same foods over and over in the long run may cause nutritional deficiencies.

To lose weight the healthy way and keep it off in the long run, eat a variety of fresh fruits and veggies, lean protein and whole grains, and exercise most days of the week to burn additional calories.