Will this drink of cucumber, mint, ginger, pineapple and lemon make the body lose seven pounds in one week if taken twice a day? No, that's not true: Two registered dieticians say that losing seven pounds by following the claim in this video is not likely, and could be dangerous.
The claim appeared in a video with a Facebook post published on July 8, 2022, with the caption "Follow us more great tips on losing bell fat! #weightlossjourney #weightloss #recipe." The video opened:
I saw this recipe on TikTok where you're supposed to drink this twice a day and lose seven pounds.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
The drink consists of cucumbers, lemon and ginger, and the narrator says she added mint and pineapple.
Lead Stories spoke to two professional dieticians about whether there is any validity to this claim. Maria Bella, a founder and registered dietician at Top Balance Nutrition told us in a July 20, 2022, email that the claim is not accurate:
First, it is nearly impossible to lose 7 pounds of real weight in such a short period of time. Such a drastic drop may be due to dehydration, but it is nearly impossible and is certainly not very safe to lose that much fat in a week.
Bella added that unless a person makes other changes to their lifestyle along with drinking this juice, they will not see any weight loss at all.
Dana Hunnes, a senior clinical dietician at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, said that cucumber and pineapple are gentle diuretics, and mint and ginger and lemon can all slightly dampen appetite. "It's unfortunately not a simple yes/no without more context and information, but the likely answer is no, unless it's the ONLY thing someone is taking in for a week," she told us in a July 20, 2022, email. However, Hunnes notes that drinking only this for weeks could lead to dangerous electrolyte changes and muscle loss.
Other Lead Stories fact checks about weight loss claims are here and here.
