About my diet

I have little-to-no tolerance for fad diets - the mathematical part of me distrusts anything that claims to subvert the calories-in-vs-calories-out equation.

I initially turned to WeightWatchers as a close friend had had good results from it and it was the only mainstream diet that was compatible with my extreme pickiness, as it doesn't forbid any foods. Unfortunately, since I was following the At Home programme there was no Leader to dissuade me from using 12 of my 20 points a day on a big bar of chocolate, or 16 on caipirinhas, and from time to time that's what I did. There is no denying, though, that the programme taught me a lot about what was the right amount to eat, and crucially it showed me that I could lose weight if I wanted to.

I could not go back to WW now, however. Recently I've tried counting calories, but found I struggled to lose tiny amounts of weight, which I then put back on ridiculously easily.  I tried going to my GP, who tested my thyroid function (normal) and then told me to stop moaning as I wasn't as fat as a lot of people. (Paraphrasing, but barely!)

Currently (for the last 4 weeks) I am following the Johnson UpDayDownDay diet, which is a modified form of alternate day fasting, or ADF. I first came across the concept in an article in the Sunday Times just before Christmas. I know that it's controversial, and that it looks extremely faddy, so let me set out my reasoning:

1. Assuming you still believe in calories-in-calories-out, to lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit. A weight loss of 1lb a week requires a deficit of 3500kcal, or 500kcal per day
2. I burn around 1800kcal a day, so to lose 1lb a week I need to eat 1200-1300kcal per day.
3. I have tried this. Extensively. I can't do it, psychologically speaking. I find the idea of eating very little for months extremely depressing, and I give up.
4. ADF requires you to eat very little (or nothing) on alternate days, and eat ‘what you like’ on the others.
5. I looked at the description, and thought “I could do that!” And it seems that mostly I can. If I think “ARGH, I’m so hungry, I want cake!” I no longer fall into a tragic gloom about not being able to eat cake ever again (or at least for six months which feels like forever). Instead I think “I can have cake tomorrow.”
6. As a result I am far less likely to think “F*** this!”, eat the cake, go massively over my calories for the day, feel miserable, gain weight, feel even more miserable.
7. Result!

And now, the numerical bit. Assuming that I need 1,800 calories a day, eating 500 for 3 days in 7 will create a calorie deficit of 3,900kcal per week, which should equate to just over a pound of weight loss. So even if you don’t believe the stuff about ADF ‘switching on’ genes that somehow magically cause weightloss, you can see that losing a sensible amount of weight per week is theoretically possible.

I have made a couple of modifications, however:

• I don’t eat whatever I want on the up days: I stick to 1,800 calories. I know from experience that I am perfectly capable of eating 3,000kcal in a day, which would undo any good from the frugal days!

• The plan suggested that for the first 2 weeks you only have diet shakes on the down days. I decided that this would be expensive and awkward, and lead to mockery from my colleagues. So I stuck to normal food, primarily soup. (More on soup later...)

It’s been going reasonably well: I lost 1.9kg in the first week (which the Boy kindly pointed out was a mathematical impossibility), and until this week had been losing another 1kg per week. I maintained this week. I’m trying not to let this get to me.

Anyway, this post has got a bit huge. In the next one I’ll talk about psychological factors and the book that’s been helping me massively this time around.