Greenlane Diet

The Greenlane diet (also known as the British Heart Foundation Diet)
is a poor fad diet that has been circulating for many years. Please note that the British Heart Foundation has nothing to do with this diet whatsoever.

The diet has circulated in the form of a one page sheet that claims you can lose 10 pounds in 3 days. The diet has been popular in the UK - but it’s exact origins are unknown.

Interestingly, the diet bears a striking resemblance to the Scarsdale diet - also written in the 1970s.

Greenlane Diet Plan

The Greenlane diet is a very low calorie diet - a typical day’s eating culminates in only 700 calories. This is a crash diet - a sudden and severe reduction in calories that results in primarily fluid loss. The diet should never be undertaken for more than 3 days, any longer and your body will immediately slow down metabolism and place you on target for yo-yo dieting (and subsequent weight gain).

The Greenlane Hospital diet contains a small selection of foods; Dry toast, fruit, tuna, ’snax’ biscuits. Snax biscuits are a cracker made by the food brand Griffins in New Zealand indicating that this diet may have originated from this part of the world (which does have a Greenlane hospital in Auckland). However this cannot be verified.

Sample Meal Plan

This diet is not recommended

Breakfast

5 ’snax’ biscuits (dry crackers)
1 slice of cheddar cheese
1 small apple

Lunch
1 boiled egg
1 slice of dry toast

Dinner
1 cup of tuna
1 cup of beetroot
1 cup of cauliflower
1/2 melon
1/2 cup of diet vanilla ice-cream

Drinks
Black coffee/tea/water

Comments

Victoria

Worked for me!

Anon

I’m currently on this diet. The plan suggested here is wrong…

Black Coffee/Tea for each morning only, with one extra serving at Day 1 Lunchtime.

It is most likely working due to it being a chemical breakdown.

Nic

This diet was developed for cardiac patients by the Greenlane Hospital in Auckland, who have a specialist heart & lung department. It is ONLY recommended to patients who need to lose weight before surgery. It is only recommended for very short amounts of time, for rapid weight loss, under doctors direction.

jade

I dont like tuna is there anything i can eat instead?

Gerry Tweedie

I started this diet 6 weeks ago and have lost 1 st 13 lbs.Explain that.I stick rigidly to the diet 3 days a week,and the rest I just take some care.It does work.

Anon

Yes, it does work. This diet has been around for years. I first tried it in the late 70’s/early 80’s and it has worked every time. I’ve reached a plateau…been here for a few months, so today I pulled out what I call my ‘plateau booster’. After 3 days it’s back to my current eating plan. Not good for athletes though.

Mazza

I done this diet 5yrs ago with among alot of my friends but they pulled out & I continued on….which I lost 15kgs…but then fell pregnant & the hard dieting went into toilets & lost the menu…since then I’ve been looking for this diet but couldn’t find it resulting to using Ferguson diet so forth which never worked…now I’m in Australia & found this FANTASTIC DIET again I am so happy that I’m going back on it again with my husband. For those who are questioning, this is a chemical breakdown & it actually shrinks your stomach..BUT..you need to know when to stop by..weighing yourself all the time & stick to it & do it for 3 days only not more. You must be carefull have a friend or family keep you in track.

Kim

My Mum followed this diet for all of 2007. She was undergoing surgery early 2008 and had to lose weight before the operation.It has certainly worked for her and she has lost 50kgs and kept it off. Not bad for a 71 yr old who could only walk with a walking stick!!

amy

This diet is based on a chemical breakdown method, and is used for heart patients that are overweight to loose a great amount fast for surgery

Last modified: April 2, 2008