Every Other Day Diet

Intermittent fasting is a variant that isn't very low then very high. Don't eat 16 hours a day, eat 8, something to that effect. I'm in the middle of experimenting with IF myself, and am encouraged by the results.

Be careful not to endorse VLCD, that's against community TOS.

How do you feel this is changing your relationship with food in a way that a modest calorie count every day cannot?And is this something that you feel you can do forever?

I tend to do a bit lower during the week days and then higher on the weekends because social stuff/life. It doesn't fluctuate massively though. Like 1400-1800 during the week and maybe up to 2500-2800 max on weekends. I also let myself eat whatever as long as it fits in my macros, but make sure most of it's fairly nutritious.

I tried this once, except I didn't buy the book and I later realized I was doing it wrong because of some of those details. It was at a time when I was in a true plateau (i.e. I was actually eating at a deficit and not losing weight). I was so frustrated and was about to give up because I have a really big appetite. I was willing to accept that I was going to feel like I'm starving all the time as long as I was still losing at least some amount of weight. When that stopped, I was not willing to feel hangry constantly. The compromise was to do this so I would be hangry every other day and I would be satisfied with food on the feast days because I had no restrictions and could actually satisfy my enormous appetite.

After 2 months of a plateau, I chose this over giving up on weight loss entirely. But my misunderstanding was that I was supposed to eat 500 calories on fast days and as much as I wanted on feast days. Later, I realized that men are supposed to eat 600 calories on fast days and it looks like the intent is to eat at maintenance on feast days. Anyway, I would eat 500 calories every other day and around 10K calories on the feast days. After 6 weeks of doing this and not losing or gaining any weight (because I was in a true plateau, I wasn't going to gain weight despite eating at a big surplus), I returned to a small daily deficit and considered that the lack of gains confirms I'm in a real plateau.

During the 6 weeks I spent doing this diet, day-to-day fluctuations increased despite no true overall change. Typically, you know how your weight goes up or down 2-3 lbs. from one day to the next? Sometimes increases, sometimes decreases... but over several weeks, it should decrease if you are in a deficit. While doing this diet, the scale hovered around the same number, but fluctuations went as high as 9 lbs. Rather than staying within a 3 lb. range, the range became larger. The base number remained the same, but the high and low end from day to day increased.

After quitting this diet and returning to a normal daily deficit, I spent another 2 months in a plateau before finally experiencing a permanent loss of around 7-9 lbs. in less than 1 week.

Hey OP. I've been doing 5:2 for a bit but have been conaidering switching over to ADF like you are talking about. Im like you - it's so much easier for me to stay strict for a day, knowing that tomorrow I can have that treat (within reason of course - I'm still eating at or slightly under maintenance on my "feed" days). Learning to look at my weekly nutritional goal instead of daily has really helped me put food more into perspective and to eat in a more balanced way. Because of being more mindfull, I think it will be easy to maintain once I hit my goal. Best of luck to you!

So do you still count your calories on your off days? Or is it a free for all? I'd worry about undoing your hard work from the day before.