3 apples a day.

Fed up of diets that are impractical, or leave you plain starved? There may be a “natural” solution you can sink your teeth into: apples! Apples are low in calories, fat and sodium, and contain vitamins, minerals and fibre. So how do they help you lose weight?

Washington based dietician and trainer Tammi Flynn has come up with a 3-Apple-a-Day Plan (where you eat one apple before each meal) after one of her clients—who’d reached a diet “plateau” – simply ate the fruit before each meal (without changing anything else) and lost half a kilo of fat in a week!

Tammi applied this idea to a group of people and found that they lost three times the amount of weight than before the special diet. So how does it work? Mumbai nutritionist Naini Setalvad says, ‘The apple is a “dream fruit”, zero-fat, with a low glycaemic index (low sugar) of 35 – perfect for diabetics – it makes you feel full and satiated, and keeps you from bingeing.’