The Two-Day Diet That Works
Carl Lowe | Dec 13, 2011 | Comments 12
If you’ve been struggling to lose pounds, wondering how you’ll get through week after week of dieting, there’s good news on the weight loss front: Dieting for just two days a week and eating normally for the rest of the week may actually help you lose more weight than trying to diet every day. It may also cut your risk of cancer.
Another advantage of this new style of dieting: It seems to easily fit into a busy lifestyle while trimming your waistline and improving health.
Intermittent Dieting, Steady Benefits
An expanding collection of research is showing the benefits of what is called “intermittent dieting.” What these studies have demonstrated is that you don’t have to diet every day of your life to lose inches around your middle and maintain your weight, you merely have to watch what you eat for just two days a week. And the weight loss that results from intermittent dieting has been found to lower levels of insulin, a cancer-promoting hormone.
In the most recent study, scientists at the Genesis Prevention Center at University Hospital in South Manchester, England found that eating a restricted, low-carb diet for two days a week helped women lose more weight over a period of four months than did restricting calories seven days a week.
In this research, 115 women were assigned one of three diets:
- For only two days a week they restricted their calories and ate a low-carb diet. The rest of the week they ate what they wanted.
- For two days a week they ate a low-carb diet and did not restrict calories. The rest of the week they ate what they wanted.
- Every day of the week they restricted their calories and ate a Mediterranean style diet.
The women who followed the two-days-a-week diets lost more weight than those who dieted every day. Plus, their blood tests showed that they had less insulin resistance, a measure of how well their bodies were handling their blood sugar. Increased insulin resistance has been linked to both breast cancer and diabetes.
Weight Loss
“The take home message is that this is potentially a very interesting approach for anybody concerned about weight or insulin,” Dr. Michelle Harvie, Ph.D., an investigator with Genesis Center told the British newspaper The Telegraph, in the kind of understatement typical of a serious researcher. “We’re not talking about Atkins here,” she said, referring to the Atkins diet which is often interpreted to encourage the consumption of foods high in saturated fat. “But we were encouraging that they eat lean, healthier proteins and healthy fats as well.” These included fish (broiled and baked, not fried), lean meats, olive oil, nuts and seeds.
A typical diet plan that the women in the study followed for only two days a week:
Breakfast: A banana with fruit tea or mug of coffee with milk.
Mid-morning: A plum with a can of diet soda or a cup of tea.
Lunch: Carrot and coriander soup and half-pint of milk, or salad, glass of diluted fruit juice and half-pint of milk.
Mid-afternoon: Glass of diluted fruit juice, or glass of sparkling water and satsuma or tangerine.
Dinner: Soy sauce and ginger stir-fry with two vegetables and glass of water, or vegetable curry with two vegetables, half-pint of milk and cup of tea.
Supper: Pint of milk, or hot milk with cinnamon and sweeteners.
Losing Weight, Gaining Health
The women who consumed this 650 calories/day diet for two days a week lost an average of about 13 pounds in six months. On average, their insulin dropped by 25 percent and blood levels of protein that signal inflammation dropped by around 15 percent.
Gillian Haddock, Ph.D., a research professor who took part in the study, reports, “I (followed) the 650-calorie diet on a Monday and Tuesday and it was great because I knew that by Wednesday I would be eating normally… I did it on my busiest work days and I would mainly have the milky drinks while I was at work so I didn’t have to worry about shopping or taking in a specially prepared packed lunch.” Haddock is now trying to convince her friends to try the diet.
For those who have been trying to find a diet they can live with, this kind of approach to weight loss may work where other plans have typically failed.
Filed Under: Alternative Medicine • Easy Health Digest™ • Weight Loss
I’ve read of the approach of eating less some days and more other days for awhile and it makes sense – however – DIET SODA?! (POISON) and milk – as in regular milk? Maybe grass fed raw but not that junk. I don’t eat a lot to begin with but I would feel sick and weird in the head all day if I tried to live on that for two days! Blood sugar would go too low- especially that morning meal!
I agree Lizzie, I can come at the idea of dieting two days a week, and that being effective, but don’t ask me to drink all that milk. I’d much prefer to have an egg with grilled tomato for breakfast, lean chicken breast with salad for lunch, and thai steamed fish with broccoli for dinner – and lots of water. Given reasonable small serves of the proteins, that lot would come in somewhere between 650-700 calories. Two days on that i can imagine – and will even give it a go! You can keep your milk. Very interesting research though.
Please hear me out! I read your article & the claims which are nothing short of amazing! However, I would have to agree with Kate & Lizzy & add that I think it’s wiser to change your lifestyle & eat more plant based proteins, keeping your fat intake around 10% & eat mostly fruits & vegetables that are alive & full of all the goodness intended. That’s right, Raw, living foods because they are easiest to digest & assimilate. The original fast food & trees use the land much more usefully than using it for grains or cattle. And if you really need animal protein, choose fresh water fish, range eggs & raw goats milk! When does your body need the most protein for growth? In your first two years & Mother’s breast milk is the best food. Protein content: 4-5%!!! There is nothing better! Protein needs above this level are purely BS & just look around at those animals that are eating like I’m suggesting. Can you climb straight up a tree in seconds like an orangutang or win a tug of war with 100 strong soldiers like an elephant! Exercise right, live right & eat right & you’ll know if I’m telling you the truth! I’m 64 years old & still going strong with God’s love & help! All the Best!
I agree with Lizzie and Kate above in that diet soda, milk and even diluted juice are not healthy.
Our milk is from cows injected with hormon, diet soda is full of poisonous chemicals, juice (unless self-made prior to consuming it) is full of sugar and additives.
All that said, I can see this method works so long as the participant eat healthy and at moderation the other 5 days a week.
Although we don’t advocate drinking milk or diet soda and have objections to what these foods contain, in the interest of objectivity, we felt obliged to report what this study found. The list of foods we included in the story merely reflect what these researchers fed to participants who took part in the study.
Frank you are dead wrong about protein. We are NOT monkeys and never have been evolved from them. Read about our ancient ancestor’s diet that have been around hundreds of thousands years before farming was introduced around 8000 to 7000 B. C. Cave man’s typical diet was 80% fresh killed animal protein and organ meats, including wild caught fish and poultry. The rest of their diet included some vegetables, berries, fruits, nuts and seeds. There were NOT any modern diseases like heart disease, diabetes, cancers and so on at that time as documented from the found fossils of prehistorical people. I would recommend to get some basic information from the nutritional biochemistry of our bodies. If you avoid animal protein and even saturated fat for this matter, you will be deficient from all fat soluble vitamins, at least 8 accentual amino acids that our bodies can NOT produce by itself and only come from animal protein. Your HDL will be low and you will run high risk of developing heart diseases as the K2 vitamin that comes with the saturated fat, animal protein and organ meats will be practically absent from your body. The K2 vitamin keep your arteries from calcification and directs calcium to your bones where it suppose to be. As some Nobel Prize winner doctors and scientists proved that all the health problems in modern society related to our modern diet that had been drastically changed relatively not along time ago since people got away from may be million years of a cave man diet and started to consume much more of the plant based food. Our DNA’s still are 99.99% the same as they were 250,000 years ago.
I agree with others, while I like this concept, the menu that was used for the “diet” days is horrifying to me! I think a disclaimer should have been included in the story that this menu is NOT exactly healthy! First of all, diet soda is ridiculous! Then all that milk…I don’t think I know one adult woman who drinks milk! Not to mention too much fruit…although I love fruit, this is excessive fructose intake, and especially the banana is very high glycemic. I would be willing to try out the theory here, but my “diet” days would look VASTLY different, and would include a lot more protein and much less carbohydrate for sure.
I agree with most comments on here. The diet they followed for the two days is the typical diet recommended in hospitals by dieticians. I bet they used margarine too.
I would replace the soda with kambucha or any other healthy tea unsweetened or sweetened with stevia.
I would replace the banana with some strwberries sprinkled with some stevia for a sweeter taste, if desired or some citrus such as grapefruit.
The milk is fine, only if raw and from pastured cows. Raw yogurt or kefir work too for keeping up healthy levels of probiotics.
For lunch and dinner, veggies/salad and a nice cut of healthy protein is always good!
Guys- Get a grip! this article simply states a study done and it’s results. It does not say this is the most healthy diet around, it just says it is a diet containing 650 calories a day. You can change the diet to be whatever 650 calories YOU think is healthy, which is different for all people. I think most health minded people know not to drink lots of milk or eat lots of fruit or ever to touch diet pop! So this study just says that eating less calories (healthy or not) for 2 days a week is more effective than eating less every day of the week. Stop obsessing over the unhealthy food in it and look beyond that to the main idea it presents! that’s the point!
Cut to the chase Marie. You are right Marie, people go off on tangents and miss the main point so many times. I am going to try this little idea starting next week but I will use the type of foods Kate mentions. As for milk, my mother, who lived to be 89, guzzled it down happily every day of her life; personally I can’t stand the stuff. I don’t really think it is poison though folks.
I can’t believe the comments on milk here! No wonder there are so many women with osteoporosis! Milk is an extremely healthy protein filled food (skim milk, with no hormones) 75% of the people i know, (men and women most over the age of 30) drink milk on a daily basis and love it! Havent you ever seen the numerous ‘GET MILK’ commercials and ads? Skim milk is the perfect food, skip the caffeine filled teas and coffees though! There are also numerious studies showing that women who consume at least 3 servings of fat free dairy daily lose weight and keep it off more than those who don’t consume dairy products. (also doesnt include sugary ice creams, milk shakes and the like) A tall refreshing cold glass of milk is one the greatest pleasures of life and healthy for you too!
Hi,
I have gone through the TOW DAYE DIET PROGRAMM above and the comments and your repliesIt is good and hope will work wonderfully.
I would request you to help me with a diet chart for my 19year old daughter who is 82kgs.We are in Bangladeh a very small country beside India.
We can not get all the fruits those you take and easily available in your country.But do have lot of other fruits like Apple,Orange, Pineapple,Grapes, Banana etc……..
Please help me with a diet plan consiering above fruits which will help my daughter to reduce weight cosiderably and at a quicker rate.
Please reply