Alternate Day Diet? Is it that crazy?

Hey folks,

I happen to come across some articles about a diet that popped up in the last 2 years that makes the argument that you can eat whatever you want, as long as you diet every other day. Meaning drop your calories hard one day, and then eat what you want the next. Supposedly this keeps your metabolism at full burn and its easier to keep up a severe diet for simply one day.

Has anyone tried this? I know some folks will immediately lose their $#!+ about this because it doesn't sound exactly right, but is there really a problem? Like something that would hurt you? I've heard of people who just couldnt afford a lot of food eating something like that and they were fine. The people who started to push this diet used studies on mice that actually showed health benifits from the idea of alternate day feeding.

What say you guys?

Depends on how much you cut on the "diet day."

Some people like cycling calories, but this sounds more drastic than that.  And my concern would be that super restriction (besides playing russian roulette with your metabolism) on one day would lead to eating even more the next day - a restriction-binge cycle that can lead to eating disorders.

Say you normally burn 2000 calories. If you restrict to 1000 one day (not recommended) but let yourself eat anything and everything the next day (3000, say), your overall average is that you are eating 2000 cal/day, and you wont' lose anything (or you'll gain, depending on how your metabolism handles it).

Plus, a more consistent approach is easier to maintain, plus it teaches better food choices. If this is how you diet, what happens when you reach your goal - is every day a binge day?

I'm not saying it couldn't work, it just seems like a bad idea when there is a simple, non-havok wreaking, way to lose weight - keep a deficit of 500 each day, and you'll lose a pound a week.

Original Post by jay_breaze:

Meaning drop your calories hard one day, and then eat what you want the next.

So, don't eat enough to get proper nutrition one day, then eat tons of non-nutritious crap the next day? I don't see how you could go wrong...

Original Post by floggingsully:

Original Post by jay_breaze:

Meaning drop your calories hard one day, and then eat what you want the next.

So, don't eat enough to get proper nutrition one day, then eat tons of non-nutritious crap the next day? I don't see how you could go wrong...

 

Now that's not what I said.  Much like how people say "On Atkin's you eat nothing but horrible food." the assumption is that you will sit and eat cheesechake for an entire day and then eat nothing the next.

Eating what you want doesn't mean inhaling bacon and cheese wiz. I don't think anyone with an ounce of common sense thinks that you can inhale 10,000 calories of crap one day and eat nothing the next and lose weight. I believe the idea of the whole eating what you want means simply not to be dieting. If you wanted a slice of pizza, go for it. But I would imagine you don't eat 2 pies.

And what about vitamins and the like. You can gain nutrients from various different sources. People always yell "You're not getting your nutrients!" when people diet in certain ways, but were they getting tons o' nutrients when they ate crap loads of...well, crap? Personally, i take a multi vitamin and an fish oil suppliment daily.  I'd argue that I'm probably getting more vitamins now than i was when i was in my full swing of crap-eating simply from that.

But a person taking the proper suppliments and not decimating their stomach on the off day should be okay I would think. The major fear is the whole idea of Starvation Mode, but from everything I've read, one day doesn't send you into starvation mode. If you eat low, then higher than low, in THEORY your body should never drop into a slower metabolism.

If you have a maitence of 2700 calories, and you drop your cals to 250 - 500 one day and then eat normally the next day, or even better yet, eat 2200 calories. so thats a 2 day combined deficit of 2700 to 2950. Split in half thats about 1500 a day which is hard to maintain daily, but to maintain ONE day is much easier.

If I'm crazy let me know. I'm not advocating this method I'm just genuinely trying to understand should it work? And yes, binging is wrong, but I'm not speaking of binging and I'm also not speaking of doing this FOREVER. Perhaps once you reach your goal weight you would severly reduce how you go off and on. Supposedly it helps when you simply do 50 percent of your maitenence during down days.

No response to any of my comments?

I can't imagine being at all happy eating that little, nor can I imagine not stuffing myself the next day way past maintenance (and the day after that, I'd still be hungry - think the day after Thanksgiving - you stuffed yourself on Thursday, but on Friday, you still want to eat, and that's without starving yourself on Wednesday).

Then we've got your math - you want to have an average deficit of 1500/day - that's going to be too much, unless you are starting from a very very high weight. The reason that 500-1000/day defict is recommend isn't because it's a reasonable or doable deficit - it's because the body can only metabolize a certain amount of fat per day. If you carry a deficit too high, your body is going to get those calories from some place else.

Then, on the days you are barely eating - how will you have energy to do anything? Maybe you are one of those people who is totally fine not eating for a long time, but many people would get lethargic and out of sorts (poor thinking and decision making, maybe less emotionally stable). Not how I would want to be every other day.

I've heard people say that calorie cycling keeps your metabolism guessing, and burning. My concern is that if you went this far, your metabolism would keep guessing, but would start conserving - because it never knew if it was going to get another big meal (as described in Obesity at 700 Calories)

Finally, as I mentioned in my first response, you can slip into a bad mentality. I can see this going several ways:

1. I went a little too high yesterday on my 'normal' day - I'll just cut back even more on my 'diet' day.
2. I am so hungry today, even though it's my 'diet' day, I'm going to just eat maintenance again today. After a few days, what was the point of having that starving day?
   
3. [most worrisome] This is working great! What if I did TWO 'diet' days for every one 'normal' day? Then three. Then four....

If you were going to try an alternate day thing, I guess you'd have to do lots of calculations to see what your weekly total should be in order to maintain/lose, because the off days..if you went too crazy eating everything you wanted to, you'd probably undo the progress you made during the on days.

I think it would just make things a lot more confusing, and since it's all about calories in/calories out, I don't think your body cares which day you ate more of them or less, much like it doesn't matter what time of day you eat, it's still a matter of how many calories you consume vs how many are burned.

Original Post by jay_breaze:

 I believe the idea of the whole eating what you want means simply not to be dieting. If you wanted a slice of pizza, go for it.

Oh, and I do eat a slice of pizza. Usually more than one. Still lost weight just fine, eating a reasonable amount every day.

If you burn 2700 calories a day, is it that hard to eat 2000 calories every day and lose about 1.5lb/week?

Original Post by amethystgirl:

No response to any of my comments?

Well I thought my response dealt with your points as well. 

Your argument is based in the idea that someone automatically goes nuts. I, by accident actually- which is why I ended up googling the whole idea of eating virtually nothing in one day - had a ridiculously low cal day. I was about to go try and catch up but I read the idea of the alt-day thing. So I decided to ride out the rest of the evening and see what happened today.

I woke up this morning, and yes, I wanted something to eat but I was far from STARVING. I was just hungry. I ate, drank my water like I do, and boom, I was good.  I've been watching my cals today, but i've allowed myself more freedom with bread and things of that nature. I've enjoyed my food today and yet I've kept it reigned in. I didnt lose my marbles simply because I had a low day yesterday. I even weight trained yesterday and was fine. Did some jump rope cardio today and felt great.

I'm well within my range of cals tody and I'm far from hungry. The question is will I attempt a 2nd day of low cals.  I don't know.  It's tempting. with my percentage of fat I have a possible deficit of 2290 or so per day with out catabolizing, hence why I'm intrigued by the idea. I could lose up to 4 pounds and change per week of pure fat! I mean as I lower my fat percentage The alternative day calorie restriction can only be but so much with out risking muscle, which I have no intention of doing.

The fear of doing 2 days in a row isnt some thing I'm worried about. I'm speaking strictly on a health basis, is there a good argument against it? Not whether it may drive me to over eat, because if it does, I accept thats on me and I'd deal accordingly. I've eaten more than I wanted before for a day, and then I dealt with it. Changed accordingly. And 1 day of eating more cals than you'd like doesn't destroy you. I said it before, eating 10,000 calories in a day is only almost 3 pounds. You can bounce back from 3 pounds (and since ive been aware of what I eat, its really damn hard for me to eat that much. Even on fast food, i can do maybe 4000 in a day). 

The 700 Calorie Obesity thing doesn't really play into this scenario because the story is of someone who keeps their cals low 5 or 6 days a week in a row. That, i would imagine, slows down the metabolism. But imagine something like:

Day 1- 2000, Day 2 - 500, Day 3 - 2300, Day 4 - 500.

When would the body slow down, it only had 1 day of low cals at a time. Starvation mode doesn't kick in immediately.

well, 500 calories in one day is definitely an extreme, and it is also a path to an eating disorder. severe deprivation like that one day and then "I'll make up for it the next" is disordered eating and on the path to an eating disorder. I actually know this from personal experience. I'm not saying that you are on the way to an eating disorder, as you are just experimenting (and a day like that here and there will make little difference). I'm just saying that if you are eating only 500 calories 1/2 of the days that you are awake, it is not a good thing and could lead to much more unhealthy deprivation.

Original Post by naturallyd:

well, 500 calories in one day is definitely an extreme, and it is also a path to an eating disorder. severe deprivation like that one day and then "I'll make up for it the next" is disordered eating and on the path to an eating disorder.

Again, I didn't say "Make up for it the next."

The idea seems as if it's simply a low cal day. No "make up for it the next." You simply ate less one day. If you make up for it the next day then you haven't done anything. The idea is to rock that deficit, whatever your deficit is, if you have 70 pounds of fat you can get away with 2170 calorie deficit for a day. if you have 25 pounds you can do a 775 calorie deficit meaning if you have a 2000 calorie maitenence you CAN'T do a 500 calorie day.  at BEST you could do a 1250 day on your low days.

I'm not saying do the Eating Disorder thing. I'm saying within the realm of your body and the shape you are in, fat percentage, exercise and so on, could this be really reasonable? I've done a day with out eating simply because I was running around like a madman. I didn't freak out. I didnt overeat BECAUSE of that. Trust me, I've overeaten for many, many reasons, it just happens not to be that.

If you keep the metabolism up, this seems like a great way of losing weight with out some of the risks of changing how you burn calories.

I think I may try the low cal thing tomorrow to see if it was simply a fluke yesterday and today. Will I have the urge to decimate 5 bacon cheeseburgers  on Thursday? I have no clue.  I'm not an expert, I'm simply trying to use science to get the maximum out of watching my diet, and so far there doesn't seem to be a good argument against it(Which is what i think i was looking for when i posted, i'm a slave to logic)

I'll keep you guys posted. I might have to apologize for just not understanding the issues. But hey, maybe I'll rock it hard!

All the instinctual negative gut-reactions you are getting to your question are just that- gut reactions not based on any science.

Mice have shown to extend their lifespan by HUGE amounts when they are forced to fast every other day. Some of them DOUBLE their lifespan!!

There is little data on how alternate-day fasting would affect human lifespan, because our lives are already too long to measure easily, however as you said, there have been some promising studies showing it DOES in fact improve health.

Remember, we use the "day" as a convenient way to measure time, but eating 3000 calories every 48 hours is not that different than eating 1500 calories every 24 hours. In the long run it's the same amount of sustenance, but with built in allowances for the days when you just don't want to diet.

Some people may not have the right metabolism for it, but it's NOT the same thing as starving or an eating disorder, and it may be waaaay healthy in the long run.

Don't worry if you meet with resistance. New scientific studies are often slow to get a foothold in large populations that think there is only one right way to do things. These people aren't super-involved in the scientific community and they probably are just not familiar with the studies yet.

I'm sure they mean well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermittent_fas ting

Wikipedia has some useful info on WHY periodic fasting is actually healthy. This may help dispell some of the negative stigma.

It lists health benefits in both animals and humans, along with info on the studies so people can get more info if they want it.

I've tried intermittent fasting.  I used to go from Friday after dinner to Saturday dinner without eating, and I didn't find it all that difficult.  My appetite by Saturday night wasn't out of control, and I would eat just a little more than usual.

Cutting back rather than fasting would be much harder, IMHO.

I wasn't doing it solely for weightloss, but rather for health reasons, because I had read studies that said intermittent fasting could be as effective as long-term calorie restriction for longevity.  But it did help me break through a plateau.

I'd say try once a week and see how you get on.  Bear in mind that our prehistoric ancestors did not have access to perfect sources of nutrition all year round, and our gut evolved to deal with days of lower food intake.  Some studies back this up, but as Yummy mentioned, this is cutting edge stuff and you might get some flak from CCer's about it.

I don't see any reason why this wouldn't work either, though if the restriction day is going to be as low as 500 or so, I would probably want to do it after two maintenance days.

I'm not sure you want to be at full maintenance.  The idea is to overall have a lower caloric intake.  Maintenence 2 days in a row and then one day of low-cals wouldn't equal THAT much of a deficit.

So far, I did

Sunday - No Diet
Monday - Diet
Tuesday - No Diet
Wednesday (so far) Diet

On my "Diet" days I've done severe calorie restrictions. and so far I'm okay.  I'm not crazed or needing to cram my face.  For me I look at it that I just need to get to tonight and go to bed. Thats it. Psychologically it helps alot. I know in the morning i'll have a nice breakfast (while not going crazy, because in the end you should NEVER go crazy.) and I'll see how I feel. I'll do a little weight training today and see if I can handle it. Right now its all about how I feel and how the scale looks. If i'm not dropping weight, then I've done something wrong and will stop. If I feel crappy, then I've done something wrong.

I'm hoping for the best and prepared for the worst.

Well I'll say this much. The whole "Alternate day" thing is interesting to say the least.

Yesterday was my low cal day and around 4 to 5:30pm I wanted to punch things. But once I did my weight training i was fine. I felt great then. But the weirdest thing so far, I have to say, is TODAY.

I'm not that hungry. What the heck is up with that?  I'm somwhere around 1650 caloiries and I'm trying to eat some more before bed, but I'm just not that hungry. This morning the IDEA of a big breakfast was awesome to me. I made a 700 calorie sandwich (i love sandwiches, I can eat ANYTHING, loads of veggies, anything, long as its in sandich form. I know strange) I made sure it wasnt pure crap. I had lowfat cheese (laughing cow) baby Spinach, artechoke hearts, turkey, egg whites,  low cal sandwich spread. In theory i was ecstatic! Half way through I totally thought i ate too much.

Did i mention i had eaten virtually NADA the day before?

How can I be almost FULL on half a hero first thing in the morning?  I think this fasting thing may be AWESOME.  I normally am freaking out about eating too much and today I had to force myself to eat. I feel no temptation today either. I feel like im eating a cheesecake when i had a light apple sauce for desert today.

One of the things I read was that fasting aides in faster recovery from work outs and I think that might be absolutely true! Last week i did 3 sets, 24 reps each, of squats while holding about 50 pounds of weight and I literally was having a problem walking up STAIRS for 3 days. Ive done 4 sets on Tuesday and today and I'm FINE.

If by Monday the scale says what I'm hoping, this may be how I do things. I even read a really reasonable way to make fasting an every day life thing. Eating before 6pm one day and eating after 6pm the follwing day and just keep doing that continuously.  How EASY is that? 24 hours of no food and yet you're eating EVERY DAY.

This is still only week one, but I maaaay be a believer.

Original Post by yummy_kitty:

All the instinctual negative gut-reactions you are getting to your question are just that- gut reactions not based on any science.

Mice have shown to extend their lifespan by HUGE amounts when they are forced to fast every other day. Some of them DOUBLE their lifespan!!

Those studies involve mice that are fed reduced calories (or alternate day fasted) basically from birth.  Their lifespans are extended because they hit puberty late because they're not getting as much nutrition as normally fed mice.  Essentially, they develop slowly and therefore need to live longer to be fertile for a reasonable period of time. 

So, the only way that those results would be applicable to humans would be if people alternate-fasted their babies and kept it up for their whole lives.  Those poor kids would hit puberty at 16-18 instead of the normal 10ish, assuming they didn't suffer too much malnutrition.  Nobody's going to do that to their kids (I hope!).

Adults might be able to handle it, but it's too late to see the same type of results as seen in the mice.  And, in all likelihood, the metabolism would slow down (which is what's responsible for the extended lifetime) so it would be a poor weightloss plan in the long term.

The restricted-calorie studies are mostly inapliccable to humans, and some of the Ramadan studies performed on actual human beings doing daytime fasting show that they on average lose a little muscle and gain a little fat as a consequence of their starve/binge feeding pattern during the forced fast.

 Grocery prices in the Middle East go UP in the three months surrounding Ramadan due to people's habit of really overeating at night when food is permissible.

 Granted, if you look at something like Brad Pilons' "Eat, stop Eat", the Warrior Diet or other alternate nutritional strategies based on some notion of "more natural" or "more healthy primal lifestyle" you might get the impression that there's a lot of evidence to support the intermittent fasting/intermittent feeding idea.

 I'd just like to note that the average paleolithic lifespan was 35 years; so I have no idea why people interested in health and longevity think imitating their diet and lifestyle is going to help them reach their goal.

susiecue- That's why I said there's no research to indicate this diet will prolong a human's life (in the sentence right below the one you quoted me on).

But there IS research showing there are health benefits in general. Some people might find they over-eat on this diet and end up gaining weight. But alternating my eating habits is the biggest reason I've been able to stick to my diet and lose weight.

This diet may not be some sort of miracle diet, of course, but my entire point was that it's NOT an eating disorder and may even be healthy.

No guarantees that it works for everyone, but lots of good reasons to keep an open mind and learn from this guy's progress on his new "diet".

I started this way of eating on Wednesday.  I ended up eating 500 calories and by the end of the day I was somewhat hungry and was looking forward to the next day but I woke up and wasn't hungry at all!  I ended up eating like I normally do, low carb with lots of vegetables.  I didn't go out and gorge myself.  My calories were right around 2000.  Today is another down day and again 500 calories.  I haven't been hungry most of the day so it really hasn't been a problem.  My average calories at this rate would amount to 1250 a day.  This way of eating is actually way easier for me to do because I have a horrible time eating only 1250 calories a day every single day.  Now I can have days where I eat higher and still feel satisfied.  In fact, I already decided I would do down days monday, wedneday, friday, and up days the rest of the time so my calories would average closer to 1350 which is still low enough for me to lose weight.  This site alone told me I should eat 1550 calories a day to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week.  So in theory, I could up my low days to 600 or up my high days to 2200. 

Also, you'd be surprised how much you can actually eat on 500 calories a day.  I easily get three meals that are extremely filling (lots of vegetables!!)

Original Post by jay_breaze:

I'm not sure you want to be at full maintenance.  The idea is to overall have a lower caloric intake.  Maintenence 2 days in a row and then one day of low-cals wouldn't equal THAT much of a deficit.

To be honest, I suggested two days/one day alternating because every other day is reminiscent (to me) of some substance abuse patterns.  If you're maintaining two days at 2000, then going to 500 for the one day, your deficit is 500 for each day, a perfect amount.

BTW how's this working out for your weight loss?