I was researching online some ways to lose weight. I've tried lowering my calorie intake to 1200 a day but I havn't seen much of a change. I was reading online and I saw an article saying that your body adjusts how many calories it burns per day to how many you're eating. It said it takes around 2-3 days for your body to do this. I was thinking, what if I ate around 1500-2000 calories per day,(no junk food) and then on every 3rd day i only ate around 400 in the morning to get my metabolism running. Do you think this would work? Or am I missing something important? :/ Also, if it makes a difference I'm vegetarian. I eat a protien shake every morning though. (1 banana, 4 strawberries, .5 cup blueberries, .5 cup apple juice, 1 scoop protien powder)
2012-05-07T16:15:19Z
But that's why I would only do it every 3rd day, so that my body would stay at a normal metabolism rate because I would be eating 2000 calories for 2 days inbetween.
Moxie2012-05-07T16:18:31Z
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The whole "starvation mode" thing is bad science. And starving yourself every two days is just out and out unhealthy. You could trigger much more serious things than starvation mode: hypoglycemia, diabetes, thyroid problems, etc.
You need to limit your caloric intake DAILY and increase your exercise. You need to be realistically JOURNALING every single thing you put in your mouth. You don't need a protein shake. You need real food and to honestly track everything that you are eating. Study after study shows that journaling your food helps you lose weight far better then guesstimating your caloric intake. People tend to be incredibly off when they aren't writing every little thing down. And, there's less accontability if you aren't journaling.
The important thing you are missing is that this is one of the many many many crazy diet ideas out there.
You can lose weight on pretty much any wacky weight loss diet. You can lose weight by eating nothing but hot dogs all day every day. Doesn't mean that this is healthy or a good idea. The same goes for the diet you found.
If you're down to 1200 calories a day and not losing weight, you either need to exercize more or have already lost all the weight your body can afford to lose.
You need to include a walk silly you can't always count on just food. Get your calorie count to a reasonable level and stick with it. Then just go on walks, bike rides, anything physical for at the very least 20 mins a day. Though the less you do the more of a work out for you it should be. Just work out in some way five days a week. Don't let just food do the work for you. You'll find more bad for you things and artificial gunk in a lot of low cal food. I'd recommend a personal trainer actually. If you do it right and put some effort into it you'll start to see progress at the end of a week.
what I did not see from your question is description of your exercise regimen or activity level which should keep your metabolic rate higher without the semi starvation rituals and gimmicks. Frankly, it sounds like another fad lifestyle diet being hawked by someone hoping tom make big bucks by discovering the next big gimmick. Next thing you know, he has a company "exclusively" selling "special" foods to get better results in less time. Just tin time for that bikini body perfect for summer!!
I think I will stick to what has worked for me (and billions of other people) since high school: three "square" meals a day everyday and about 1-2 hours of exercise plus a generally active lifestyle.
Are you trying to do intermittent fasting, such as that advocated by Brad Pilon (Eat Stop Eat)? I've done it, and it is effective. But you basically eat clean, DO NOT count calories, and just skip when you feel like it. You also have to eat a lot of fat and protein to keep you full during that time (lots of nuts and legumes). I've done it, and it does work pretty nice.
Skipping a few meals once in a while isn't that big of a deal. For most of human history we didn't have access to 5 small meals a day that we do now, we had to listen to our body and eat when hungry, stop when full, and learn to deal if we didn't have food for a few hours.
But it's not supposed to be rigid or a way to punish yourself if you pig out or have a cheat day. It's also something that you work in gradually, and it isn't regimented. Also, many people with disordered eating habits shouldn't be doing this type of eating.
You can experiment and see what works for you. The many small meals works for some people, while the just skip a meal every few days works for other people. One way of doing it isn't meant for everyone. You just have to experiment. But YOU CANNOT BE RIGID, AND YOU DO NOT COUNT CALORIES.