Intermittent dieting

lemurcat2

I would find it difficult, but that doesn't mean you will, and it's an interesting concept. Let us know how you like it. I did eat at around maintenance once a week.

NovusDies

I think the danger for me would have been that it would take longer for me to build a foundational routine. Also, I might feel just deprived enough during the "on" weeks that I might not want to mentally return to them after the "off" weeks. It would probably take a little longer for some people to get accustomed to additional thrills of the roller coaster scale results.

I do bank enough calories each week to have a maintenance day on Sunday typically. It is thoroughly broken me from my past all-or-nothing approach to weight loss. I also see enough people roll through here that are so obsessed with scale results they cannot seem to relax. I know some people can get away with it and be successful but as we know almost all weight loss efforts fail so many of them will fail.

OP, it is interesting but the real question is... is this your easiest path forward? Being interesting might be fun to discuss online or among friends but that is not a reason to stick to it. My own plan puts people to sleep when I get asked but it has gotten me well over 150 pounds of weight loss so far. So as usual I advise people to consider anything new an experiment and be constantly evaluating it for ease and flexibility within your life. I am not trying to talk you in or out of it because there is no harm in trying it if you think it will work. Just be prepared to adapt it to work better for you or move on.

dewd2

HelenWater wrote: »

It’s been a while, but I’m trying the MATADOR study protocol of alternating two weeks at 67% of maintenance and two weeks at maintenance. My macros will be different from the study macros as I have other considerations besides weight loss.

It's been 2 years. I'm curious what happened the first time? Did you try this approach? How was it and did it allow you to maintain long term success?

HelenWater

I started losing weight without trying too much for about a year, but my weight started creeping up again in the past year. That’s why I’m addressing it now. I suppose I won’t really know if it works for quite some time.

HelenWater

A few years ago I lost 30kg in a year by eating less and exercising more. Then 25kg came back. I think it will be easier to restrict food intake half of the time, and I will get to eat at maintenance half of the time.

I would really like to hear about anyone’s experience with this protocol.

janinemharris

I'm interested in this approach. I lost weight cutting consistently then moved countries and it was easy to eat too much in the new place. So now that has happened to me again and I have tried harder to only eat at maintenance for the last four weeks - so at least I haven't put on weight back on as last time. I think this approach will allow me less lost progress in those weeks where I am stressed as my workload changes a lot week to week. As one commenter says, practising eating at maintenance is also an interesting idea as it's very easy to say, I'm not dieting anymore and then eat way above maintenance and sabotage all your hard work!! This way it's not just dieting time that makes you cautious of what goes in; it's all the time, in preparation for after the weight is lost. I think it seems sensible (and directly searched intermittent dieting) so I will try this too, I think.