Has anyone heard about the Intermittent Diet? I'm thinking of giving it a go

[NotMostPeople]

www.genesisuk.org/media-centre/articles/The%20Intermittent%20diet%20.html

It's not specifically for women who want to prevent breast cancer although who doesn't? The idea was to look at alternative ways of dieting to the standard calorie counting/Mediterranean diet as people find it hard and it's important for cancer prevention to keep your BMI in the heathly range.

I'm thinking of giving it a go as a part of my inevitable New Years loose weight resolution and it would be great to hear of anyone else who's done it or would like to give it a try.

My plan is to start a general 'good' diet tomorrow, throw out the booze and chocs and once the dc's are back to school at the end of the week start the intermittent diet.

Am having today as my VLC day. Have been at the hairdressers on and off since 1pm - so have eaten nothing!
Had 2 slices of thin danish toast for brekkie, then a milky coffee before hairdressers. And just back and had a cup of tea with a teeny corner of hot dog roll!
Kettlebell last night and my 16 trousers are all now too big around the waist.

I'm surprised at how my appetite has decreased on non-vlcd. I've not felt the need to eat biscuits and sweets (always available) at work today and tonight I've had to talk myself into having dinner. Seems to be working

I had an odd experience at dinner tonight. We had roast chicken and I love roast chicken. I normally hoover it up. Tonight I didn't eat it all. I got full really quickly. Stopped eating and moved on. It was weird!

Just sayin'.

Maybe it's working?

Yesterday was my 4th vlc day (not in a row!) and it was best. Not really hungry, though I did feel kind of empty and a bit sloshy from all the liquid, slept fine last night too. Had eggs on toast for breakfast and now feel like I've eaten a 3 course banquet! Think I'm getting used to this.

" it was the best"

Hmmm. Maybe today won't be a vlcd today. Woke starving and knackered. Just TROUGHED a sausage buttie.

Oh well, tomorrow's another day.

Hey Os

You are brave doing exercise on a VLCD. I get sooo tired when I do that so I'm sticking to exercising on normal days. (This clearly implies that exercise is happening although I can tell you that it isn't happening nearly as often as you might think.)

Anyhoo.. in answer to your yoghurt question. It's a low fat, low sugar yoghurt. All trace of anything remotely fun removed. I've been having whole milk yoghurt, made by my own fair hands, with a spoon of sweetener and a handful of berries in it. It's my choice though. I could just eat a Muller Light!

Maisie You did make me chuckle troughing a buttie....

I had a yoghurt this morning, a nice milky coffee, the Genesis tomato soup at lunch (not half bad really), chicken and salad for tea. Now I've got terrible indigestion. Milk, cinnamon and sweetener before bed.

I've lost 2lbs this week which makes 5lbs in total. Not bad considering how much eating out we've done. Am about to go off for my birthday weekend, so I suspect I'll get some of it back!

I'm keen to get back on the straight and narrow next week though. It's really motivating to consider how much I could've lost without all the meals out.

hi everyone. with you on the sloshy feeling from all the drinks on vlcd, Prof.

Am on a VLCD today (maisiemoo, are you joining me or am i alone on a friday?), my third week of doing this but first time spaced out so far - 4 days apart. Quite pleased that I've managed to stick to the diet each time (except for the 1 day when i was targetting 750!) Seeing how it goes. am huyngry but now in an ignorable way, if that makes sense.

Thanks for all the advice on the weird weight stuff. I'm trying not to weigh daily any more and am trying to see a long-term trend rather than weekly loss necessarily but we'll see.

Oh and happy birthday, Prof! Lovely feeling to be on a diet yet able to indulge when you want to! Enjoy.

Something very, very strange is afoot. I have my second VLC day of the week yesterday. I was obsessing over a bacon sandwich so made myself one this morning. Wholemeal bread and trimmed bacon, Yum.

I didn't want it though. I was full up after half. I have just thrown half a bacon sandwich away. This has never, ever happened before.

Is my stomach shrinking? I'm not that interested in food anymore.

I have a sneaking feeling that this is working for me :)

Week 1

Zog - 4lbs
Radio -2lbs
Expat - 2lbs
ZZmum - 3lbs
NMP - 4lbs
Bluebird - 3lbs
EBD - 6.6lbs
Prof -3lbs

Week 2

Zog - 2lbs (-6)
ZZmum -2lbs (-4)
Maisie -2lbs
Radio -3lbs (-5)
Prof - -2lbs (-5)

Happy Birthday Prof - enjoy your weekend. Champagne has fewer calories

Hey bluebird it's incredible isn't it. I'm sitting here post baby swimming having a cup of tea and I don't want a biscuit. Seriously, this never happens. Not sure how to deal with it

Same with me - it is odd - you can see how it works - this is how genesis explained the success of the diet - it works on 2 levels one is the low calories days doing something to your hormone levels and the other is it makes you so much more aware of what you eat the rest of the week you naturally reduce and cut back on calories so it is unconcious decisions which work better then the external ones forced on you by a formal diet.. and this is far more successful as you do not feel deprived or dictated to..

Thanks for all the birthday wishes

welcome, prof, hope it's a good one

i'm getting so evangelical about this. never really been on a diet at all before but, like you guys, got a funny feeling this one works.

Agree Genesis info v compelling. It also feels natural, sure our bodies are meant to fluctuate between feast and famine to some degree, but with such prolific availability of food we all tend towards the feast.

The more i think about it, the more i'm convinced that many conventional diets are actually evil - there's a business model behind them which aims to get a loyal customer, a repeat customer, a long-term customer ie one for whom their diet will fail, again and again! It is not in the interests of a commercial company producing diet-related material for said diet to work, otherwise they've evaporated their own market. Wonder if they tinker with them just enough so that they work in the short-term to get someone "hooked"? And, after all, who isnt going to lose weight for a while if they limit their intake/lose some water retained etc etc almost regardless of what they eat..

i'm actually getting v heated but think i'm redirected heat from yet another argument with dc1, who grows more challenging every day. Plus am a little hungry..! lethal combination..

I know what you mean though Expat. All the cash I've spent over the years on being thinner. All the guilt I've heaped on my head. All the humiliation I've bourne at the hands of thin, predominantly blonde, fat fighter type leaders. All diets are designed to fail, otherwise why would we keep going back with our £5 a week. That's a lot of money when you look how many classes are running.. then there are all the special foods you have to buy into too. That's all extra profit. I remember counting over 60 people getting weighed at one session... £5 a time. That's a lot of cash and what's worse is that the women were all pleased to be handing it over, desperate for an answer, for company, to not feel alone.
Here is the dictionary definition of evil. Sound familiar? Start your sentence Diets are.......

1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.

2.harmful; injurious: evil laws. 3.characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days. 4.due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation. 5.marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.

Righty, you've inspired me. I'm going to try to add up how much money I've spent on trying to be thinner over the last 15 years.

Back soon with a scary figure I bet.

Over £4k and I'm heavier than ever before.

FFS.

On the brighter side I'm not falling into a takeaway as I usually would on a Friday.?

..but don't beat yourself up, bluebird..we all have our vices and we've all been conned by the diet industry to some degree, it's very powerful, at least we've seen the light now

RH, i agree, I think that dictionary definition of evil is perfectly applicable!

What's going to happen with ID in future? is is going to be flogged to the masses at vast expense, are they going to nick our recipes and sell them in a gloosy ID Recipe book? . Here's hoping not. Let it be a philosophy, a way of living..Let it work also!

Os, how long have you been doing it? 1 lb down is v healthy and respectable loss in a week, for example, otherwise it really becomes crashdieting and you risk losing too much and putting it all back on again. This ISN'T a competition, we're all in v different places with different amounts to lose, different circumstances etc etc.

Sustained, gradual weight loss is the way to go. If you read back thro some of my posts, i've been tearing my hair out over seeming lack of progress over actual weight loss - i'm up & down within a range of 2.5 k (5.6 1bs in a week!) But, it lots of factors there - period/ delayed effects of VLCD - i'm showing 1.5k less today than yesterday on vlcd..!

It's confusing and changeable but as long as there IS downward trend week by week rather than day by day and clothese feeling a little loser, then that's fine.

I really don't think you should do 3 x VLCDs without medical supervision, honestly. it's too much.

How about telling yourself you'll try it for a month no matter what and only weigh once a week? Or not at all until the end of the month?

It might help to keep away from the scales so the up/down water weight loss doesn't put you off, it's lovely to see a big loss on the VLC days but it's not real.
The real loss has to be much more gradual because it's a sensible diet that's aiming for sustainable long-term fat loss (the only way to really lose that much weight in a matter of days is going to be liposuction, isn't it?!)

I was tempted to do an extra VLC day this week but it would just be cheating so I could pretend the water loss is the actual loss IYSWIM. I've gone a bit bonkers on the vino on my normal days so I'm not doing my usual daily weighings because I'm too scared and trying to be a bit good this weekend so I can see the real picture on Monday :)