'Morning Banana Diet' promotes eating only bananas for breakfast

The banana diet was first designed by Japanese pharmacist Sumiko Watanabe. She claims the secret to her diet is to increase the metabolism rate. Her husband was overweight so Watanabe came up with a diet plan for him where he subsequently lost 37 pounds.

Here's how the morning banana diet works:

1. Eat a banana and glass of water for breakfast

2. Eat anything you like for lunch or dinner, as long as it's before 8 p.m.

3. A three o'clock, a snack is recommended

4. No desserts after meals

5. Go to bed before midnight

Morning Banana Diet books published since March have sold more than 730,000 copies. A singer appeared on TV saying she'd lost 15 pounds in six weeks on the diet, and the next day, there was a banana shortage across stores in Japan, according to Time.

"It's the first time bananas have been quite so scarce," a spokesman for Dole Japan Company, the largest banana importer in the country, told Japanese media.

Japan has long been a home to a nation that enthusiastically embraces faddish health fixes. Last year, sales of natto ¬fermented soybeans and a distinctly acquired taste for non-Japanese due to its pungent aroma ¬boomed following similar media hype surrounding its apparent virtues as a weight loss food.