Anyone try The Every-Other-Day Diet
Ctmikey1980
Posts: 8 Member
My sister sent me this link regarding the every other day diet. Just seeing if anybody has tried this with success? The book’s author is Krista Varady. The basics are you eat 500
Calories one day, and the next day you eat whatever you want, then you repeat, etc etc.
Calories one day, and the next day you eat whatever you want, then you repeat, etc etc.
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Replies
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if i ate 500 calories one day no one would want to me near me and i'd likely be fired :P
but this ONLY works if you are eating at a calorie deficit at the end of the week. i can see many people going crazy on eating day especially after having starved themselves the previous day and eating more than enough to keep gaining or maintenance.
There is no magic way of eating. to lose weight you need to be in a calorie deficit. if for someone they can eat a reasonable amount of calories on eating day then sure this could work for weight loss.
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Ctmikey1980 wrote: »My sister sent me this link regarding the every other day diet. Just seeing if anybody has tried this with success? The book’s author is Krista Varady. The basics are you eat 500
Calories one day, and the next day you eat whatever you want, then you repeat, etc etc.
It's just version of intermittent fasting similar to 5:2 (same idea but you eat at maintenance for 5 days of the week and ~500 cal for 2 days). The key is you are building a calorie deficit over the week with the low calorie days and eat 'normally' at maintenance the others.
Some people enjoy these versions of IF, but you still have to be mindful not to overeat on your maintenance days so that you keep a deficit over the week.4 -
if i ate 500 calories one day no one would want to me near me and i'd likely be fired :P
but this ONLY works if you are eating at a calorie deficit at the end of the week. i can see many people going crazy on eating day especially after having starved themselves the previous day and eating more than enough to keep gaining or maintenance.
There is no magic way of eating. to lose weight you need to be in a calorie deficit. if for someone they can eat a reasonable amount of calories on eating day then sure this could work for weight loss.
+1
Sure fire way to easily wipe out a deficit on the "eat whatever you want" days.
Edited to add: Easy to wipe out a deficit if the person is not already actively aware of how many calories they were eating daily prior to starting a specific way of eating. They could be used to eating over 2000 calories a day, and by restricting so much, on those 'eat anything' days they could easily over eat and increase that intake by much more if they were already eating over their maintenance level.3 -
I'm doing the 9 day watermelon-egg fast diet this week. if it doesn't work I'll try the every other day diet next week.40
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I'm doing the 9 day watermelon-egg fast diet this week. if it doesn't work I'll try the every other day diet next week.
why? why all the fancy hyped up things. seems like an exercise in futility.
just log your food and eat at a calorie deficit. practice good eating habits you can keep for your life (aka "maintenance")22 -
Ctmikey1980 wrote: »My sister sent me this link regarding the every other day diet. Just seeing if anybody has tried this with success? The book’s author is Krista Varady. The basics are you eat 500
Calories one day, and the next day you eat whatever you want, then you repeat, etc etc.
Back in the day when I followed it, it was called JUDDD-Dr. Johnson's Up Day, Down Day Diet. Dr. Johnson was before Mosley and Varady took ADF/IF to the mainstream. ADF was what I did for my active weight loss phase and it worked well for me-lost the extra weight with little fuss and transitioned into maintenance fine. Now that I'm a few years into maintenance I've gotten away from IF but I have nothing bad to say about my experience with it
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Ctmikey1980 wrote: »My sister sent me this link regarding the every other day diet. Just seeing if anybody has tried this with success? The book’s author is Krista Varady. The basics are you eat 500
Calories one day, and the next day you eat whatever you want, then you repeat, etc etc.
How about 5:2? Eat 500 calories just 2 days a week and then maintenance the other 5. Deficit is less steep. Aggressive weight loss makes a larger % of lean muscle loss more likely.
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/100058-5-2-fasting
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/8628-5-2-diet3 -
I'm doing the 9 day watermelon-egg fast diet this week. if it doesn't work I'll try the every other day diet next week.
It is not a fast if you are eating. You can't do a 9 day diet in a week. Most of what you will lose is water weight so if working to you mean a scale loss you will likely see it but it won't last because the water weight will come back. Basically there is no point in doing it.8 -
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »
Yeah, I know what you mean. I was tempted to Google the diet, but then thought better of it. I'd like to not know whether it's an actual fad diet or not.
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lynn_glenmont wrote: »
actually, I was being totally facetious. Just my luck it turns out to be a real diet. smh35 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »
actually, I was being totally facetious. Just my luck it turns out to be a real diet. smh
My optimism is restored. 8 -
There is probably very little out there that has not been tried as a magic bullet. Who knows how many people have been out on their front lawn grazing to lose weight.4
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I'm doing the 9 day watermelon-egg fast diet this week. if it doesn't work I'll try the every other day diet next week.
Quite a combination there.
Um ewww no.
My friend did the alternate day diet. And of course she regained everything she lost when she went back to "normal eating".1 -
New_Heavens_Earth wrote: »
I did ADF and have now been maintaining my loss for over 5 years. After I transitioned into maintenance I switched to 16:8IF for a few years and that worked well for me, for that time.
The long term success rate for maintaining weight loss is dismal, regardless of what plan is used for the weight loss phase.7 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »
actually, I was being totally facetious. Just my luck it turns out to be a real diet. smh
That’s so funny and very sad at the same time.6 -
leanjogreen18 wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »
actually, I was being totally facetious. Just my luck it turns out to be a real diet. smh
That’s so funny and very sad at the same time.
Welcome to Poe's Law1 -
It wouldn't work for me because there's roughly 127.3% chance I'd more than make up for any calorie deficit I had acquired on the previous day if I just ate whatever I wanted.6
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New_Heavens_Earth wrote: »
I did ADF and have now been maintaining my loss for over 5 years. After I transitioned into maintenance I switched to 16:8IF for a few years and that worked well for me, for that time.
The long term success rate for maintaining weight loss is dismal, regardless of what plan is used for the weight loss phase.
A friend of mine does 5:2 -- she doesn't track on the 5 days, only the 2. She likes it because for her it was an easy way to lose some vanity lbs (few years ago) and now to maintain without having to track other than she knows what she can eat for the 500. It wouldn't be for me, but she enjoys it.2 -
I'll skip... 50p cals a day... fml...1
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I heard of her when she had her fallout with Michael Mosley for taking her research out of context.
She is a serious researcher and unlike many other jumping on the IF bandwagon is actually qualified in her subject.
In the end OP the only way to find out if it works for you is to try it.
5:2 worked for me (I simply found it a less hard way to achieve a sensible weekly deficit) but for many they absolutely hate it.
Whether you would overeat enough on the non-fasting days to cancel out such a substantial deficit is also going to be personal but her research showed it generally wasn't the case. But even if 80% (guess!) achieve a sustainable deficit this way that would be irrelevant to you if you happened to be one of the 20%.2 -
If you’re trying to lose weight, to me at least, it seems far more sustainable to just be in a daily 500 calorie deficit throughout the week rather than a 1500-2000 calorie (dependent on BMR etc) for 3 days out of seven. A diet which champions ‘eating whatever you want’ for 57.143% percent of the time without accounting for over all calories runs the risk of not actually being in a caloric deficit over any set period of time. It only works if you are eating up to or below your maintenance calories on your ‘normal days’!.
The maths are relatively simple, so there is no need to partake in what is essentially ‘Dietary Gambling’
Good luck regardless 3 -
i know for me, id wipe out ANY deficit i had trying to 'diet' only every other day. id be ravenous and eat any and everything i could fit in my face. id also be in prison because id kill my husband, son and anyone else who crossed my path.
if it works for you and youre able to do it for the rest of your life, go for it.
prison time isn't worth it for me.
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I heard of her when she had her fallout with Michael Mosley for taking her research out of context.
She is a serious researcher and unlike many other jumping on the IF bandwagon is actually qualified in her subject.
In the end OP the only way to find out if it works for you is to try it.
5:2 worked for me (I simply found it a less hard way to achieve a sensible weekly deficit) but for many they absolutely hate it.
Whether you would overeat enough on the non-fasting days to cancel out such a substantial deficit is also going to be personal but her research showed it generally wasn't the case. But even if 80% (guess!) achieve a sustainable deficit this way that would be irrelevant to you if you happened to be one of the 20%.
That was my experience as well, after the first couple weeks I naturally dialed back my non-fasting days, without even trying. I hung out with small group of women who were all doing the plan and most of us didn't even track on our non-fasting days, we ate as we wanted and stopped when we felt full. We all lost significant amounts of weight, mostly just focusing our attention on our fasting days.
The plan is definitely not for everyone, or even most people, but it worked well for me.2 -
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callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »i know for me, id wipe out ANY deficit i had trying to 'diet' only every other day. id be ravenous and eat any and everything i could fit in my face. id also be in prison because id kill my husband, son and anyone else who crossed my path.
if it works for you and youre able to do it for the rest of your life, go for it.
prison time isn't worth it for me.
Why would you have to do it for the rest of your life? ADF is not meant to be done long term. I did it for few months and lost the 50lbs I needed to lose. Then I transitioned into maintenance and switched from ADF to 16:8IF. Did that for a few years without problem. Now almost 6 years into maintenance I've gotten bored with IF, so I quit that and I'm currently experimenting with the DASH protocol. In a few months I may do something else, who knows.
The further along into maintenance I get the more I realize that I won't be doing the same thing forever, because that's boring to me, which leads to sloppiness. While CICO is the foundation of my weight management plan, I'll always be mixing things up to keep it interesting for me.6 -
jakobloveless wrote: »If you’re trying to lose weight, to me at least, it seems far more sustainable to just be in a daily 500 calorie deficit throughout the week rather than a 1500-2000 calorie (dependent on BMR etc) for 3 days out of seven. A diet which champions ‘eating whatever you want’ for 57.143% percent of the time without accounting for over all calories runs the risk of not actually being in a caloric deficit over any set period of time. It only works if you are eating up to or below your maintenance calories on your ‘normal days’!.
The maths are relatively simple, so there is no need to partake in what is essentially ‘Dietary Gambling’
Good luck regardless
I'm not interested in doing it personally, but it's not really gambling. If you find you aren't losing after a couple of weeks, you do something else. Some people just don't want to log daily.2
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