Last reviewed on 8 October 2026.
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The GM diet is a seven-day eating plan that gives each day its own short list of foods: fruit on the first day, vegetables on the second, both on the third, bananas and milk on the fourth, then rice, tomatoes, sprouts, paneer or meat. Costed with Indian food composition figures, one hospital version of the chart supplies roughly 680 kcal and 22 g of protein a day, against ICMR-NIN's 1,660 to 2,110 kcal and 46 to 54 g for sedentary adults. No randomised trial has tested it. This entry is part of NNWA's handbook of diets.
What is the GM diet?
It is a one-week plan for quick weight loss, and GM is short for General Motors. A 2023 paper from a liver transplant unit in New Delhi describes it as a low calorie seven-day diet developed by the company in 1985 for its employees, with help from two United States government agencies and testing at a university research centre. The paper gives that history on the strength of a single reference, and no original document from the company or the agencies was found for this entry, so treat the origin story as unconfirmed.
What can be described with confidence is the plan itself, because the same paper prints the chart its dietitians handed to patients. Each day has a theme, the foods within the theme are eaten through six small meals, and the chart asks for 8 to 12 glasses of water a day. Versions passed around in India differ in detail; this hospital chart uses curd, sprouts, paneer, chicken and fish as its protein foods.
The seven days as commonly circulated
| Day | Theme | What the chart lists |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fruit only, no banana | Apple, papaya, melon, orange or sweet lime, pomegranate, tender coconut water |
| 2 | Vegetables only | One boiled potato at breakfast, then cabbage, salad of cucumber, onion and tomato, carrot, beetroot, greens; a teaspoon of oil |
| 3 | Fruit and vegetables | Apple, carrot, mango, melon, orange juice, salad and boiled vegetables |
| 4 | Bananas and milk | About eight bananas across the day with curd or buttermilk and a thin vegetable soup |
| 5 | Rice or meat with tomatoes | A cup of brown rice or grilled chicken or fish, tomatoes, curd, sprouts, tomato soup |
| 6 | Sprouts, paneer and vegetables | Sprouts, boiled vegetables with paneer, beetroot juice, tomato soup |
| 7 | Rice, vegetables and juice | A cup of rice at lunch and dinner with boiled vegetables, fruit and fruit juice |
Three things stand out before any arithmetic. There is no roti, cooked dal, egg or nut anywhere in the week, and oil appears only by the teaspoon, so the usual carriers of protein and fat in an Indian meal are missing. The first three days contain no cereal at all. And the chart gives few quantities: it says a bowl, a cup or a glass, which is why two people following the same sheet can eat very different amounts.
How much energy and protein does the plan supply?
Far less than an adult uses. Because the chart does not fix quantities, this page has assumed generous household portions for each day and costed them with the Indian Food Composition Tables 2017, the same data behind NNWA's food tables. The portions are assumptions, the results are estimates, and a smaller eater will land lower. Curd and buttermilk are counted with the figure for whole cow's milk, and sprouts with the dry weight of moong before soaking.
| Day | Portions assumed | Energy | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 medium apples (300 g), 2 katori papaya (300 g), 2 katori watermelon (300 g), 2 oranges (200 g), half a pomegranate (100 g) | 450 kcal | 7 g |
| 2 | 1 large boiled potato (150 g), about 1 kg of cabbage, cucumber, tomato, carrot, beetroot, French beans, spinach and onion, 1 teaspoon oil | 430 kcal | 17 g |
| 3 | 650 g fruit (apple, papaya, orange, mango), 650 g salad and boiled vegetables, 1 teaspoon oil | 450 kcal | 11 g |
| 4 | 8 bananas (800 g edible), 2 glasses milk as curd or buttermilk (400 ml), soup from 300 g cabbage, tomato and onion | 1,210 kcal | 27 g |
| 5 | 2 katori cooked rice (100 g raw), 6 tomatoes (500 g), 2 katori curd (400 ml milk), sprouts from 30 g moong, 1 carrot | 880 kcal | 34 g |
| 6 | Sprouts from 60 g moong, 100 g paneer, 500 g boiled vegetables, soup from 200 g tomato | 630 kcal | 44 g |
| 7 | 2 katori cooked rice (100 g raw), 400 g boiled vegetables, juice of 4 oranges (400 g), 1 apple, 1 katori papaya | 740 kcal | 18 g |
Added up, the week comes to about 4,790 kcal and 156 g of protein, an average of roughly 680 kcal and 22 g a day. Only the banana and milk day passes 1,000 kcal. Day five is shown in its vegetarian form; with grilled chicken or fish in place of rice it would carry more protein. Protein is lowest exactly when energy is lowest, on the fruit day, and the protein table for Indian foods shows why: fruit and watery vegetables hold about 1 g or less per 100 g.
What do Indian requirements say about those numbers?
They say the plan meets well under half of an adult's needs. ICMR-NIN's 2020 report puts the energy requirement of a sedentary woman of 55 kg at 1,660 kcal a day and of a sedentary man of 65 kg at 2,110 kcal. The recommended protein allowance is 0.83 g per kg of body weight, which is 45.7 g and 54 g for the same two adults. The plan's averages are set against those figures below.
| Measure | ICMR-NIN value | Plan average | Share met |
|---|---|---|---|
| Energy, woman of 55 kg | 1,660 kcal a day | About 680 kcal | About 41 per cent |
| Energy, man of 65 kg | 2,110 kcal a day | About 680 kcal | About 32 per cent |
| Protein allowance, woman | 45.7 g a day | About 22 g | About 49 per cent |
| Protein allowance, man | 54 g a day | About 22 g | About 41 per cent |
ICMR-NIN's Dietary Guidelines for Indians, revised in 2024, speak to this directly. Weight reduction should be gradual, weight-reduction diets should not go below 1,000 kcal a day and should provide all nutrients, and a loss of half a kilogram a week is considered safe. The same guideline notes that the muscle-sparing effect of protein is compromised once the energy deficit passes 40 per cent of daily needs. For the reference woman that limit is an intake of 996 kcal; six of the plan's seven days fall under it.
Is there any trial evidence for the GM diet?
No controlled trial was found. A PubMed search for this entry returned one study that used the plan: a retrospective review of 51 prospective liver donors at a New Delhi hospital between July 2019 and January 2023. They had a body mass index above 30 or scan evidence of a fatty liver, and followed the diet for an average of 8.3 days before surgery. Mean weight fell from 80.67 kg to 77.2 kg, a loss of 3.46 kg, and the liver fat fraction on magnetic resonance imaging fell from 8.93 to 5.13 per cent. Liver function tests, albumin and haemoglobin did not change.
That is weak evidence for anyone outside that setting, and the authors are candid about it: they write that the mechanism is not known and that there is no literature on the diet's efficacy. The study had no comparison group, so it cannot show that this plan did better than any other week of eating very little. Its participants were selected adults being monitored for an operation. It measured one week, did not report body fat or muscle, and did not follow weight afterwards. Nothing in it says the loss lasts.
What does research on rapid weight loss show?
It favours going slowly. A 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis in the British Journal of Nutrition compared gradual with rapid weight loss in people with overweight or obesity who lost the same total weight. Those who lost it gradually shed about 1 kg more fat and kept a higher resting metabolic rate; the difference in fat-free mass was not statistically significant. The review was not about the GM diet, but it tests the idea the plan rests on, that faster is better, and does not support it.
A second gap is practical, not statistical. A seven-day chart ends on day seven and teaches nothing about day eight: how much roti, dal and rice to serve, how to eat at a wedding, what to do on a tired evening. The guide to how much weight a person can lose explains the pace that guidelines consider sustainable.
A worked example: one week of arithmetic
This is an illustrative case, not a real person. Take a 31-year-old woman with a desk job in Hyderabad who weighs 68 kg, has a family function in ten days and has been sent the chart by a relative. Before starting, she works through the numbers.
The sums she does first
Energy for the week
ICMR-NIN's sedentary reference woman needs 1,660 kcal a day, or 11,620 kcal in a week. The plan as costed here gives about 4,790 kcal, roughly 41 per cent of that.
Protein for the week
At 0.83 g per kg, her 68 kg calls for about 56 g a day, close to 395 g in a week. The plan gives about 156 g, around 40 per cent.
The guideline floor
ICMR-NIN advises against weight-reduction diets under 1,000 kcal a day. Six of the seven days are below it, three of them below 500 kcal.
What the scale would and would not tell her
The only published study recorded 3.46 kg lost in about a week by heavier adults under hospital supervision. It did not measure how much was fat, or what happened in the weeks after.
The decision
She decides the plan cannot be made adequate by adjusting portions, since the food list itself excludes dal, roti and most protein foods, and looks for an approach she can continue after the function.
Risks and side effects: who should not try it
The best documented risk of very fast weight loss is gallstones. The US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases explains that when a person eats very little or loses weight quickly, the liver releases extra cholesterol into bile and the gallbladder may not empty properly. It adds that losing and regaining weight in repeated cycles may also lead to gallstones, and advises staying away from crash diets. The donor study did not report hunger, weakness, headaches or dizziness, so how often they occur on this plan is not known.
Stop and see a doctor if you faint, have chest pain or palpitations, vomit repeatedly, or develop severe pain in the upper right of the abdomen. A week-long diet is not a treatment for any medical condition, and following one is never a reason to change a prescribed medicine on your own.
Common myths and mistakes
The second mistake is repetition. People who regain the weight often run the plan again a fortnight later, and then again. Each round is another week at about 22 g of protein a day, and the pattern of losing and regaining is the weight cycling that the gallstone guidance warns about. A third is reading the hospital study as proof for everyone: those were donors being prepared for surgery, with blood tests and scans before and after.
What can you do instead?
Use the same week to start something that can continue. ICMR-NIN's guideline on body weight is short and practical, and it needs no special food. An Indian diet plan for weight loss built on these lines keeps dal, roti, rice and curd on the plate and changes the amounts, and the calorie calculator gives the starting figure for the first step below.
A slower start, from ICMR-NIN's guidance
Find your starting figure
Estimate your daily energy need. The guideline describes typical weight-loss diets as a deficit of 500 to 750 kcal a day, never an intake under 1,000 kcal.
Keep protein at every meal
Dal, curd, milk, paneer, egg, fish or chicken. The guideline suggests about 15 per cent of energy from protein during weight loss to help preserve muscle.
Put vegetables in every meal
ICMR-NIN asks for fresh vegetables at each meal with whole grains, pulses and beans, which is the useful half of the GM chart without the missing half.
Drop what adds energy without food value
The guideline names sugar, processed products, fruit juices and foods high in fat, sugar and salt as the things to avoid.
Aim for half a kilogram a week
That is the pace the guideline calls safe. Add regular physical activity and judge progress over a month, not a week.
Learning this with NNWA
Requirement arithmetic of this kind is taught at NNWA, a private skill academy in Kolkata whose classes run online in English and Hindi. Its programmes, the Weight Management course among them, prepare people to coach healthy clients and to send medical cases to a doctor. No NNWA course is a degree or a dietitian qualification.
Sources and further reading
The documents the figures on this page were read from.
- iLIVER (PubMed Central). General-motors diet: A quick fix for steatotic live liver donors. The only study of the plan found, DOI 10.1016/j.iliver.2023.08.002: prints the seven-day chart and reports weight and liver fat in 51 donors.
- ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition. A brief note on Nutrient Requirements for Indians, the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA) and the Estimated Average Requirements (EAR), ICMR-NIN, 2020. Gives the energy requirements by activity and the protein allowance of 0.83 g per kg for adults, with the additions for pregnancy and lactation.
- ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition. Dietary Guidelines for Indians, 2024. States that weight reduction should be gradual, sets the 1,000 kcal floor and the half kilogram a week pace, and describes the 40 per cent deficit limit.
- ICMR-National Institute of Nutrition. Indian Food Composition Tables 2017. The source of the energy and protein values used to cost each day of the plan.
- US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Dieting and Gallstones. Explains why fast weight loss and weight cycling raise the chance of gallstones.
- British Journal of Nutrition (PubMed record). Effects of gradual weight loss v. rapid weight loss on body composition and RMR: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Compares gradual and rapid loss of the same total weight, DOI 10.1017/S000711452000224X.