‘RHOC’ Star Eats Just 500 Calories a Day, Has Water for Lunch

Vicki Gunvalson shared the details of her extreme diet. (Photo: Charles Sykes/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Season 11 of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Orange County recently premiered, and original cast member Vicki Gunvalson has shed more than just her controversial relationship with her now ex-boyfriend Brooks Ayers.
The 54-year-old entrepreneur revealed to Entertainment Tonight that she has also dropped 22 pounds in three months.

“I cut out all alcohol … [I was down to] 500 calories a day,” she told the show. “No carbs, so I just did lettuce and grapefruit in the morning … celery, carrots, whatever it could be. Just very raw, and then nothing really for lunch. I would just do water, lemon water. Hot lemon water. And then at night, I would just have salad and protein, and it worked!”

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The mother and grandmother also admitted that the breakup with Ayers left her in “such a depressed state,” along with noticing the metabolism changes that naturally come with age.

“I put on, like, 10 pounds from my 40s to my 50s, and I never felt strong,” she said. “I don’t want to be a bodybuilder. I don’t want to do all that stuff, but I wanted to feel like, OK, I’m gonna be single now. I gotta look my best, right?”

However, her eating plan isn’t exactly the best.

“From the information Vicki Gunvalson has shared with the media, I can say definitively that her recent ‘diet’ could be truly dangerous to duplicate, especially for someone with a known or unknown heart condition,” Jackie Newgent, RDN, chef, and author of The All-Natural Diabetes Cookbook, tells Yahoo Beauty.

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While she can point out the one positive about the Bravolebritiy’s current eating regime — zero alcohol — Newgent mostly sees the glaring, flashing health warning signs. “Doing a crazy-low 500 calories a day is way below what any adult human being — reality star or otherwise – needs to support organ functions, let alone provide enough energy to lead a ‘normal’ life,” she says.

Newgent further explains that the combination of ridiculously low calories plus inadequate protein results in a significant amount of weight loss from lean body mass. “When you lose muscle, metabolism drops, so it’s actually going to be easier for Gunvalson to gain weight in the future.”

And as for the OC resident’s liquid lunch: ”Sipping lemon water for lunch should never, ever, ever count as a meal,” says Newgent. “That’s just plain foolishness. Again, her diet is no way to treat her heart.”

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