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.

I weigh myself every morning pre-breakfast obsessively and since starting this my weight's been like this:
Day 1 start weight
Day 2 (VLC) -3lb
Day 3 (VLC) -6lb
Day 4 -7lb
Day 5 -5lb
Day 6 -4lb
Day 7 -4lb
Day 8 (VLC) -5lb
Day 9 (VLC) -8lb
(all weight losses are from start weight not previous day's weight IYSWIM)

So daily weights are a bit up and down but lost 7lb on the VLCD and only put 3lb back on the normal days, if this continues then :o

Roll on tomorrow though, feel quite bleurgh tonight after 2 VLC days (and still managed not to cheat, unheard of for me!)

What are dib dabs? Curiosity killed the cat and all that...

Right ladies I am 2lbs down on last week. About to start the VLC days tomorrow so the house is full of yoghurt and cottage cheese, salad and mushrooms! May add an egg to the mix!

Got a cold and done no exercise at all. Got my period this week so I have felt like eating everything and doing precisely nothing. I have to say the VLC days did stave off the usual mad carb fest that usually highlights the day before I surf the crimson wave. Had a massive carvery on Sunday too. Well chuffed with the results thus far. I may however, be forced to do a bit of exercise as well this week. I'm not promising great things but the exercise bike might see a bit of action, especially as we now have the freeview box hooked up to the tv in the spare bedroom so I can watch music videos beloved by "young people" while I cycle!

Dib dabs are periods.
So same boat as you radio.

Ah... I sometimes get the screaming ab dabs but that's different... well it's not that different really... in fact some months it's one and the same thing

Did I mention I'm starving?

If this masochism doesn't make a major difference to my weight and metabolism then I'm giving up and will spend the rest of my life gorging myself until I can't fit out of my front door.

Ooo I've just realised I've still got milk left from my 2 pints, warm milk and cinnamon before bed, that's cheered me up :o

I'm such a party animal...

Go Zog... drink the milky goodness....

It'll all be over soon and you can eat again! That's the joy - you are never more than 48 hours from a square meal.

.

Thanks for that Zog - it's a useful little record. I suspect my metabolism is fucked very strange these days so I doubt my results will be as good but I shall keep a record out of curiosity and hope I can resist spoiling my good work so far (warm milk and cinnamon sounds very tempting btw).

hi. well done everyone who got thro yesterday, esp those of you doing 2 in a row, RESPECT!

Am on VLCD today, omelette for breakfast, prawns & veg lunch, chicken & veg for dinner. Am trying to tell myself I'm not really hungry..

and paranoid that this ID business is going to turn out to be dodgy/ill-founded or some such and that I might be buggering my metabolism up big time and so in need of permanent diet just to stay where I am!

In more considered moments, I tell myself- it's well-researched, from eminently respectable source and that it fits well with the intermittent fasting principles which claim such eating patterns are good for us..

Zog - you're doing the milk version on the vlc days aren't you? Why not try the protein and veg approach and see if that's any easier?

Yaffle I'm stubbornly sticking to the milk version because I don't have a good record for restricting portion sizes and if I allow myself to think too much about food then I just know I'm going to start cheating (I don't 'do' moderation )

moonshine Day 10 weighing is -10lb from start weight :)
The graph is a turning into a wavy downwards slope, big drop on/after VLC days then a slight upturn back to just below the 'target' line... and long may it continue!

expat I suppose as long as we don't go mad on the normal days it can't do any more harm to our metabolisms than the cabbage soup diet etc, can it? [hoping]

moonshine - am just listening to a podcast from Dr Briffa's website:
www.drbriffa.com/2011/06/24/podcast-26th-june-2011/

-interesting findings being discussed re the higher protein/lower carb (primal) diet combined with resistance training, women doing both these lost on average 4.4kilos (of which 3.4k was fat) compared to those eating a standard low cal/higher carb/lower protein diet who lost average of 2.6k (of which 1.7kilos was fat).

zog - well done on the weight loss! Am varying the milk VLCD with a protein version (get me!) just to add a bit of spice..

yaffle - i'm eating similarly to you - omelettes or scrambled eggs/prawns/chicken/raw veg w fat-free tzatsiki dip..
snacking on a couple of almonds, fat-free yog with blueberries

Expat - I feel the same re faddiness. Didn't help that dh immediately went when I said "Have you heard of intermittent fasting?" I didn't have a strop

I'm a bit concerned because dh and I seem to be eating out loads atm - after last weekend we're out with pil tomorrow, out for Sunday lunch with friends then the following weekend is my 40th so we've got a weekend away. I just really really hope the vlc days are mitigating the damage. At least it's motivating me to be very good on my none vlc days at home (1,700 calories yesterday)

steak & salad? fish & salad? chicken & salad? Seafood salad?

seriously, I wouldn't worry, hopefully that's the beauty of it, 2 days really low carb makes up for the others. Think a couple of sources I've read (and a couple of people on here, I think) actually advocate the occasional splurge to trick your metabolism and keep it guessing rather than defaulting to starvation mode.

Maybe (as has been suggested on this thread, sorry I've forgotten who by now it's got so large, zog or zzmum maybe?) we all should have 1 "whatever" day each week, 2 x VLCDs and 4 being careful days. Can you work the next couple of weeks around that, maybe? I really might start doing that, go for a curry and all the trimmings or something (and see if I'm still capable of eating all that carb!)

once a week or so...

OK so maybe digging the allotment on a VLCD was a mistake... all swimmy and light headed now!

Look before we change it about too much why don't we just try for a month. See how we go and then reassess. If we tinker too much at the start then we'll never know if it actually works for us. Four weeks isn't a long time to do this, whether it's milk or protein VLCDs so lets just see what we've achieved at the end of the month. This is my plan. If it's not working I'll have to factor in some more exercise and more careful eating, but not until then. January is a shit month, depressing weather, no money etc... why make it worse?

Yeah, I think I'm just going to have to stick with it and see what the scales do. I'm going to try and be careful tomorrow and Sunday when we eat out (well, as much as you can do when there's no calorie information on the menu) but I'll be having what I want on my 40th - my only concession to dieting will be to stick to champagne instead of pints of cider

Anyway, I'm sure that not doing vlc would make the situation worse. We don't have that many friends, the social life will end soon!

radiohelen - i see what you mean, wasn't recommending we all eat that way (though realise it sounded like that).

I may try it as a) it suits my lifestyle - all or nothing kind of person and tend to go to splurgy bbqs at the w/e for example.. . yet am not v tolerant of gluten anyway and had already more or less given up bread & pasta a while ago..
b) summer with me and it's hot which makes it easier to try this out.

I see the ID hopefully, as a lifestyle rather than a diet so it has to work for me, just as you have to use it your way.. Come July, i'll be the one hibernating!
Profyaffle, sure you'll be fine! And happy birthday in advance!

I'm with radiohelen on this, really just taking the 5 normal days as they come, no attempt at being 'careful' or 'good' and certainly not low-carb.

Saying that, I'm still seeing a huge difference to my eating habits on normal days compared to before ID.
I actively want to eat better food and smaller portions, and I'm stopping eating when I'm pleasantly full instead of ploughing through the plateful on autopilot like I used to. Food tastes nicer and I'm savouring each mouthful because I was sooo bloody starving yesterday

I could get quite evangelical about this :o

I know what you mean Zog. Yesterday my 1,700 calories felt like riches beyond imagination.

I'm using myfitnesspal to log the calories and it's going nuts, alternately scolding me for eating under or over the calorie limit of 1,500 it's decided I should have.

I'm on my 2nd starvation day today and am in a bad mood - but will struggle through and enjoy my food tomorrow. On my days off I'm having 3 healthy meals a day (making sure I include my 5-a-day) and if I want one allowing myself a small treat in the evening. Also started exercising this week too. Weighing in tomorrow so hoping for a loss...it definitely won't be in the region of 10lbs though, well done Zog!!!

Mine won't be 10lbs either really, my weight fluctates so much normally that I can't tell until next week what I might have actually lost.

Last week I dropped 7lb but put 3lb back so actually lost 4lb, I'm hoping to only put back 2-3lb this week giving me a loss of 7lb in 2 weeks.... actually, that is really good isn't it?! There's an incentive not to pig out on my normal days in itself :o

hi made to say more earlier but had school run. I don't think any of us want this to be competitive in any way or that we all do exactly the same, not what I meant at all, so I hope no-one feels pressured into doing anything on top of the 2VLCD unless they really want to. I'm doing a VLCD today too and it's bloody hard!

It's just that, for me, I already avoid a lot of gluten and also used to do lots of long-distance running (till I got injured ) and gym-work . I found pounding away for hours at whatever didn't seem to burn off any excess except on REALLY long runs (but then there was me, on advice of all those running mags, taking in super carb-laden fuel, even when i didn't need it).

I therefore wanted to research around this - how to keep fit in the best, most efficient way w/o injury and am v drawn to Briffa et al's idea of exercising in short intense bursts a few times a week, supplemented with short weight-resistance workout at home. He argues that long runs/cardio-workouts don't help weight loss (and I'm inclined to agree, from my own experience) .

I'm already in my 40s and consider myself reasonably fit and slim but I struggle to tone up now as easily as when i was younger, if combination of this diet/exercise works in the long-term, I will be delighted to get pay-back finally for all the effort I've put in. Not suggesting anyone else should do this unless of course they want to do so. Am just sharing the info I find in case anyone is actually interested...