The Up Day Down Day Diet

Has anyone heard about the Johnson Up Day Down Day Diet (JUDDD)?  I was intrigued by this method and its potential results, but my information was all from the JUDDD website (www.johnsonupdaydowndaydiet.com) and therefore may be a bit biased...

The basic theory to this diet is to limit calorie intake on your 'down days' to 20-25% of your caloric count for weight maintenance.  On the 'up days', you may eat whatever you want and as much as want as long as you do not intentionally overeat.  This method triggers your 'skinny gene' or SIRT1 gene and produces wonderful weight loss results along with other health benefits, according to the website.

In my case, according to the JUDDD calculator, my 'normal' calorie intake is factored at 2516 and I  should eat 503 calories on my 'down day'.  My 'up day' is limitless and that's what makes this method sound good to me.  I would only have to diet every other day and may be able to stick with it more easily.

What do you think?

So.. if your maintenace is 2000 (pretty typical for women), you'd eat 500 calories on a 'down day' and then whatever you want on an up day?

I... don't think that sounds like a very good diet. You'll starve yourself one day, bring your metabolism way down, and then binge the next?

Why not average the two and try to stick with a reasonable deficit of 500 calories from your AMR? That seems to work for a number of us.

I agree with hk. It may sound good but, personally, I think I'd be setting myself up for failure. Eating an average of the two on a daily basis would seem the healthiest way to lose and keep it off permanently. I'd be afraid that after taking myself off that particular diet, my weight would skyrocket.

My boss at my old job (A Nutritional Therapist) tried this diet  with quite a bit of success. The theory behind it is that you minimize your caloric intake on your "off" days .. basically what he would consume was a greenfood drink throughout the day, and water or herbal teas. Then on his on days, he'd eat whatever he liked. The idea behind it is that you severely reduce your caloric intake by cutting nearly half of your calories, however you body never hits "survival mode" and stores everything you eat, because you're on the fasting portion for such a brief period (one day at a time).

He lost about 10 pounds in only a few weeks, but whether or not he kept it off, I couldn't say. One thing I can vouch for is that on his "no food days" .... not the most pleasant person to be around! Ha ha!

This sounds amazing.  Like it was created for me.  I would like to know if anyone knows if it is unhealthy to do indefinately.  I could see myself eating every other day for the rest of my life. 

Ok... so what happens when you go back to eating normally?  You've gotten use to have on and off days...do you have an off day?  I assume you will try and find the right balance between the two.

Its one thing to lose weight, its a whole other thing to keep it off.   There are many many ways to drop the pounds.  What doesn't work with these is that it does not teach you how to eat.   Some are systems, some are gimmicks, some tell you what to eat... but when comes time to go out in the real world, you haven't learned a thing.

What I love about this site (the tools and the people) is that it has taught me how to live a healthy life.  It was shown me the right thing to do, the right amounts, the right foods, so I can take this and go for the rest of my life.

I don't know about you, but I don't like having a deficit.  I want to do this once.  I don't want to try and lose weight every other year because I keep gaining it back.  So if I am going to do it right for life, I am going to do it right the first time!

If terms of it being healthy, I don't think its a healthy way to live.  You are playing with the numbers to get a result.

Your body needs energy to live.   It need energy every day.  It needs to be kept in a good working condition.  Like a car.

How far are you going to go in a car when you are trying to drive 2000 kilometers and only have 1000 kilometers worth of fuel in the car.  Sure, you can drive a bit slower, maybe put it in neutral when going down hills to maximise the speed, but all in all, you ain't gonna make it.

Your body is very similar.  It needs energy each day.  Not every other day.

But hey, I'm not a doctor.  I'm not an expert.  I'm sure if you go talk to any expert, they will tell you it is unhealthy.

Wow. The guy is a plastic surgeon. He developed this diet as a result of his own personal weight loss journey. He's writing a book. Sounds similar to ... well, at least this one DOES have an MD! And I notice he is selling a supplement (which the FDA does not regulate) on another website which he recommends on the diet website. He does have some research ideas and is, from his self-report, doing studies and has an article coming out in a peer-reviewed journal, but I have to say I would be VERY leery of following such a diet. I've no interest in being a guinea pig!

I'm still trying to imagine why anyone would force themselves to eat only 500 calories every other day.

There are other ways, ways that work! Ways that don't leave you sitting around, starving and cranky cause your blood sugar is down low and you can't even eat a hershey's kiss :p

I like my 'diet' better :)

Totally disagree with this.  Anything that is not in Healthy guidelines is just that...NOT healthy. 

too many people looking for an easy way out and too many people with eating disorders that will jump all over this idea. 

>>>too many people looking for an easy way out and too many people with eating disorders that will jump all over this idea. <<<

Very well said!

seriously.  there are girls/guys that want people to say its ok to eat 500 cals a day.  its annoying personally.

Wow, excellent feed back! I, too, am quite the skeptic and appreciate the confirmation of my own doubts...If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is!

Honestly, even if I wanted to eat only 500 cals. per day, there is NO way I could do it, no matter how hard I tried. I would definitely be setting myself up for failure!

I always hear people complaining "but what happenes when you start to eat normally again?" with EVERY diet.  The fact of the matter is this: once you lose the weight, you can never "normally" eat again. Your "normal" eating patterns are why you're on a diet in the first place.  Diets are forever.  If you gained weight by eating McDonalds and lost weight eating protein shakes and salad... you will gain it back eating McDonalads again!  It isn't magic, its common sense.  When you go on a diet, you must end it with a maintenance diet for the rest of your life, period.

Lori, I just read about this diet, too, and I'm going to try it for two weeks to check it out.  I did the calculator at the 35% weight loss mode instead of 20-25% and put in that I work out moderately 3-5 times a week, and it says that I get 864 calories on my down day, which seems more tolerable that 500 calories.  I'm also going to do what they suggest and use only shakes on the down days for the first two weeks, so that means I get almost 5 shakes on a down day.  The shakes I have are 180 calories each.  I like all the health benefits they talk about from this method of eating, especially the turning on of the skinny gene!  I think there's no harm in trying this diet for a couple of weeks.  I'm having so much trouble limiting my calories on the diet I'm on that I've only lost 2 pounds this month and I've been working out 6 days a week.  I think the severe restriction one day and then not the next is what I need.  Good luck if you try it!  My first down day will be Tuesday.

Meh, I really don't see the point in diet programs like this. Most of them are complete fads, don't work and that diet is basically an extreme version of zig-zagging.

500 calories is phisable, but not ideal.

now see i think this isnt that bad, for several reasons.  the first is that, from everything i have read, the body reacts to what you have eaten for the past several day for its metabolic level, and most of the things i have read indicate that it takes at least 72 hours to trigger a downgrade in the metabolic response due to under consumption.  so in this case, you would be preventing it (should this *tidbit* actually be true).

secondly, i tend to think that your daily calories are less important than your overall calories, unless you happen to consume a lot at one point or another or go significantly under for an extended period of time.  so in this case, you eat 500 one day, 2000 the next and end up roughly where you would have had you been simply cutting out 500 cal per day over the course of a week.  (2000 x 7= 14000, 1500 x 7 = 10500, 500x4= 2000, 2000x3=6000, giving you a net of about 2500 less calories than simply cutting 500, which is still in a healthy range of a deficet.  It ends up being close to an average of 1200 cals/day).

Honestly, I think its just another way to *trick* ourselves into eating less over the course of a week without feeling particularily deprived-- another take on the "cheat day" or "zig zag" theories.  Not bad, not great.

Dear julieraek, I, too, am giving it a try for a couple of weeks.  Thus far I've had 3 up days and 3 down days and have lost 4 lbs. without feeling deprived, hungry, or even moody.  I've chosen a less radical down day calorie intake of 850 to 900.  On my up days, I've eaten whatever I've wanted and found that I still kept intake below my maintenance level...right around 2000 calories.

My discovery so far is that when I'm craving that chocolate ice cream cone on a down day, I tell myself that I can have it tomorrow and am able to resist the temptation.

I would love to hear from you and get your input.  Keep me posted...good luck!

This is a sound theory.  Better used I'd say to break through a plateau though.  I wouldn't want to eat this way as part of a regular routine.  It's similiar to what was outlined in Rotation Diet and T-Factor by Martin Katahn PhD.  Subtle differences but same underlying (and for Katahn, proven) theory.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE DIET I USE!! I thought I had made it up, haha! But yeah, it really works. I've been doing it for a few months and I've lost 25 lbs!