There’s a style of dieting that has gotten a mild amount of press, and I have heard of many people attempting it–
In this article, they often refer to it as the “two day diet,” and in it’s strictest sense, the dieter is to eat very low calorie (and low carb) for two days, and then stick to a moderate Mediterranean diet for the other five days of the week. The rationale behind it? It’s easier to diet for two days a week than it is to diet for seven. I would agree with that statement when we’re discussing people starting to change their lifestyle; however, I still maintain it comes down to changing your whole lifestyle.
This diet is also based on the principles of Intermittent Fasting, which can lead to a more favorable body composition. A study in rats even proved this, however, rats don’t tend to complain about being hungry and raid cupboards, so it’s important to keep that in mind. I digress.
Does this diet work?
This diet can work, as evidenced by a study out England examining the results of 100 participants.
Does this diet really work?
Again, if you’re totally compliant and aware of what you’re eating, of course this diet can work. The problem? Most people don’t actually stick to this diet at all. The idea behind it is to eat moderately and sensibly for five days while being very strict with yourself for two. This creates a deficit in calories, which is required for weight loss. I want to show you how easy it could be for this diet to become derailed on a weekly basis; it’s worth noting that this example applies to basically any diet, as these are the sorts of problems most people encounter.
To better illustrate this, let’s talk about a hypothetical person represented by this stock photo:
Meet Jane. She’s 30 years young, 5’10”, 170 lbs., and she enjoys going out to eat with her boyfriend. She works a desk job, but manages to get in two hour long runs a week in an effort to try and lose weight– Her goal is to lose 25 lbs. Her resting metabolic rate (RMR) is 1573 calories, and her total energy expenditure (TEE) is 2163. In order to lose weight, she has to eat less than 2163 calories per day. For our example, let’s look at it as a week: In order to lose weight, she has to eat less than 15141 calories a week. Easy enough, right?
Jane does this 2 day fast and 5 days moderate diet, and here’s how she goes about it:
For the 2 day fasts, she sticks to the diet by the book. She eats low carb, and maintains at around 1000 calories both days. Well done Jane! By Wednesday morning, she has created a deficit of 2326 calories; roughly two thirds of a pound.
On Wednesday, she goes back to eating normally. She does her best to eat moderately, and let’s just say she’s done a great job and is going into dinner at only 1,500 calories. She also decides she needs to reward herself for her good work by going out to dinner with her boyfriend. They choose The Cheesecake Factory. She tries to eat sensibly (since seafood can often be lower calorie), and orders the Jamaican Black Pepper Shrimp with a glass of wine. In the dinner and wine, there are 1260 calories, not counting any appetizers or bites of anything else. Jane decides against dessert since the wine was her little extra. Where does she end today at? 2760 calories, which means her deficit is down to 1729. Not too bad– She’s still on track to lose half a pound at the end of the week.
She does great on Thursday, and would have eaten at maintenance (2163 calories), if it weren’t for meeting a friend at Starbucks. She’s not a big coffee drinker, but loves a Grande Mocha. Today, she went over her calories by 260 (She opted for 2% milk). Her deficit for the week is now at 1469– She can lose almost half of a pound this week if she doesn’t go over on the weekend.
Friday. She eats well throughout the day, and is going out for a night of bar hopping / clubbing with her friends! She feels she’s doing well on her diet, but will try and keep things under control since drinks have calories; of course, she wants to “live a little!” Throughout the night, she orders two 10 fl. oz. Long Island Iced Teas. This equates to 552 calories, which brings her deficit down to 1117 calories– She can lose almost one third of a pound at the end of the week.
On Saturday she does great most of the day, and then goes out to dinner with her boyfriend. They enjoy watching hockey, so they go to a Buffalo Wild Wings for the Sharks game. At this point in the day, she has consumed 1900 calories, and opts for a healthier food option: Naked Tenders and Fries, since it’s on the healthy menu (Still 700 calories). Now she’s at 2600 calories for the day (luckily, she opted just for water), which brings her deficit down to 437 for the week– She can lost almost one fifth of a pound at the end of the week.
On Sunday she eats reasonably well, until the evening. She realizes that her fast begins again tomorrow, and with that comes the restriction of carbohydrates. She feels like she ate moderately enough to allow herself some frozen yogurt at night. Little does she know that she’s already eaten 2000 calories today. She goes to Yogurtland and gets a fair amount of yogurt, but no toppings. Smart move. However, her trip also added 400 calories to her day since this is her “last hurrah for the week,” as she says (A psychological byproduct of restricting foods). Now she’s at 2400 calories for the day, which brings her deficit down to 200 calories for the week.
In this hypothetical week, Jane could have lost .66 lbs. Instead, she ended up only losing .06 lbs.– Barely more than 1/20th of a pound. Over the course of a year, that equates to only 3 lbs. lost if she never binges. (For comparison, if she stayed on track, she could have lost 34.5 lbs.) Most dieters fall out of compliance because they don’t see results fast enough– Jane would likely fall into this group.
Of course, this is all hypothetical, but I wanted to demonstrate how easy it could be to derail a diet, and how it happens. The key to weight loss is calories in, vs. calories out. If you opt to not pay attention to your calories at all, you could end up like Jane.
(On the flip side, you could count your calories every day like Jane’s friend Janet; maintain a small deficit, not starve yourself, have a completely unrestricted diet, and get the results you want. Janet will also have an easier time transitioning to a healthy lifestyle post “diet.” Remember: whatever you do, it all comes down to calories.)