Martin Katahn's Rotation Diet?

[sharoo]

I got fed up of losing weight so slowly on a 1200 diet, and I think it's a great strength of the Rotation Diet that it provides a lovely boost to motivation when you've reached a plateau.

And although we both know that the first few days of weight loss is mostly water, it still makes us feel lighter and more interested in exercise too.

I wonder if some of it is delayed weight loss from your last few weeks on the 1200 calorie diet. I have this bat-brained theory about weight loss - that fat is burned in a 2-stage process. First the fat turns to water and then it is eliminated from the body. Sometimes there is a waiting period between step1 and step2 where your body is holding onto the fat in an intermediate watery form before finally letting it all go. Sometimes you just get stuck at that intermediate stage with all this liquefied fat hanging around as "water weight" and you have to do something to prod the body into letting it go. Anyway, that's how it seems to work for me.

I'm the same. Far from feeling weak, losing 12 lbs has made me feel more energetic. But I haven't put my body to the test yet. Strenuous exercise up ahead starting pretty soon. I'm going to try to keep the weight loss averaging out at 3 lbs a week, so a great deal of exercise will be required. I'll be looking to you for inspiration

Do be careful, though. I think there's a point where trying to push your body with too little fuel backfires. The short-term problem (which happens to me) is that if I try to work out when I'm hungry I get light-headed (and really bad-tempered). I assume it's low blood sugar. I usually have a snack before I skate or head to the Y. The long-term danger is that you'll start burning muscle to fuel your activity. Remember, no matter how much weight training you do, your body can't build or maintain muscle if you don't give it some raw material to work with.

I love your menu; it made my mouth water and you're a lot healthier than I am.

Why, thank you - I'm glad you appreciated that. Since I have an audience, maybe I'll keep listing my menus. I get kind of obsessed with food when I'm dieting, to the point where I enjoy simply reading about what I ate the day before. Everything tastes so good when you're hungry - it's fun just thinking about food.

 

[Disparue]

About half-way through Day 3 I suddenly became ravenously hungry.

That's supposed to be when our glycogen stores are all used up, but since we were both already dieting before we started rotating we probably didn't have much in the warehouse to begin with

Then about 2 hours later I was hit with that kind of primal hunger that seems to come up from the individual body cells. Nothing to do with the stomach, or craving for a particular food or anything mundane like that. It was more like, "Must. Get. Home. and. Eat. Dinner."

That made me smile And you're right; it's like our stomach is a second brain, far more insistent than the one residing in our skulls, full of unrealistically perfect ideas about dieting and far away from the reality of getting the organism fed.

If I hadn't been so close to the end of the first phase I would've eaten one of my emergency snack bars just so I could stop thinking about FINDING FOOD and focus on work.

Hunger can almost completely cut off access to any other kind of thought until it's satisfied, but I suppose that's because getting fed is more important to the body than thinking.

Of course, eating happened long before thinking did. Amoebas obviously don't have brains but they know how to engulf nutrients (presumably by reacting to chemical stimulation, a bit like us reacting to the smell of food ). I wonder how complex an organism has to get before it can feel hunger?

Just musing

But as it turns out, it's a slow week at work anyway, so I didn't really have to focus. I did have to stay at work another hour or two for various reasons, but I didn't have to be productive. When I finally made it home about 6:30 my wonderful husband was just taking supper out of the broiler oven: broiled tilapia and vegies, which I had with a little rice. It was only about 250 calories, but it did the job. I'm not usually that crazy about white fish, but it tasted fantastic and temporarily quelled my hunger.

That's one of the benefits of being on such low calories - tastes intensify and seem more complex than usual. I think we pay more attention to the food when we don't have completely free access to it.

I've be doing a modified Fletcherism thing since starting the Rotation. I don't count how many times I chew anymore as it's become a habit, but it's fascinating how tastes can evolve if food is chewed for longer.

I started feeling hungry again 2 hours later, but managed to avoid eating anything. If I hadn't had a calorie increase to look forward to the next day I wouldn't have made it.

Absolutely. On my low calorie days I'm looking forward to the increases, and after a week on the higher calories I can't wait to get back to the accelerated weigh loss on the lower calories. Win - win

When Day 4 dawned (this morning) I discovered I had lost another pound, for a total of 4 pounds in 4 days. Cool.

Brilliant

 

[Disparue]

I wonder if some of it is delayed weight loss from your last few weeks on the 1200 calorie diet. I have this bat-brained theory about weight loss - that fat is burned in a 2-stage process. First the fat turns to water and then it is eliminated from the body. Sometimes there is a waiting period between step1 and step2 where your body is holding onto the fat in an intermediate watery form before finally letting it all go. Sometimes you just get stuck at that intermediate stage with all this liquefied fat hanging around as "water weight" and you have to do something to prod the body into letting it go. Anyway, that's how it seems to work for me.

I agree. I'm not sure how it works exactly but water is the only thing that I can think of to explain certain anomalies. You can be dieting perfectly for ages with no weight loss showing up on the scales, and then you can find yourself dropping 3 lbs overnight.

As for prodding the body into letting it go, I find that having a day on very low carbs, low sodium and lots of veg will ensure a couple of pounds off the next morning. But of course it's all back again if I eat a big bacon buttie the next day

Do be careful, though. I think there's a point where trying to push your body with too little fuel backfires. The short-term problem (which happens to me) is that if I try to work out when I'm hungry I get light-headed (and really bad-tempered). I assume it's low blood sugar. I usually have a snack before I skate or head to the Y.

I'm only just reaching the end of the third week, and I can see this becoming a problem in future. So far it feels OK, but I am just starting to notice my energy levels flagging a bit.

I'm off for a long walk in the woods today with a platonic friend who's a rock climber. He's like the energiser bunny and keeps me on the go. I'll see how my legs feel after several hours.

The long-term danger is that you'll start burning muscle to fuel your activity. Remember, no matter how much weight training you do, your body can't build or maintain muscle if you don't give it some raw material to work with.

I've been thinking about that. And after three weeks of including a lot of biscuits on the diet I think I'm finally losing my taste for them Maybe my body is craving more protein because of the weight training because I'm longing for more sea foods.

I love meat and fish, and have been including a lot on the diet so far. Over the three weeks I've been maintaining muscle in my lower half and building muscle in my arms, shoulders, back and abs. I'm doing high weights and low reps, and each time I can do more crunches and lift heavier weights, so apart from having visual confirmation the increase in strength must mean that I'm putting muscle on.

But as you say, we're talking about long term dangers, and I'm only keeping on continuous rotations for another nine weeks or so. After that I'll be content to take things slower and intend to do higher calorie rotations as you do. I think that's the much healthier option in the long run.

Why, thank you - I'm glad you appreciated that. Since I have an audience, maybe I'll keep listing my menus. I get kind of obsessed with food when I'm dieting, to the point where I enjoy simply reading about what I ate the day before. Everything tastes so good when you're hungry - it's fun just thinking about food.

I know what you mean. I tend to dream about the next meal, and I love reading cookery books when I'm dieting

Please keep listing the menus. They're temptingly eclectic What's the history of regional recipes in Minnesota? Is there still a French influence?

How did it feel to be able to eat more on day four?

 

[sharoo]

As for prodding the body into letting it go, I find that having a day on very low carbs, low sodium and lots of veg will ensure a couple of pounds off the next morning. But of course it's all back again if I eat a big bacon buttie the next day

But it won't necessarily all come back on if there was actually dissolved fat in the water that gets flushed out.

I've been thinking about that. And after three weeks of including a lot of biscuits on the diet I think I'm finally losing my taste for them Maybe my body is craving more protein because of the weight training because I'm longing for more sea foods.

I don't quite get how you can be eating doughnuts and biscuits (by which, I assume, you mean "cookies") on a 600-calorie diet and have any room left in your calorie count for protein. Or much of anything else. I mean, 2 doughnuts and you're pretty much done for the day, right?

But as you say, we're talking about long term dangers, and I'm only keeping on continuous rotations for another nine weeks or so. After that I'll be content to take things slower and intend to do higher calorie rotations as you do. I think that's the much healthier option in the long run.

By long term I meant more than a few weeks. It sounds like whatever you're doing is getting spectacular results so far, but if you start feeling weak or sick when you exercise I hope you'll be flexible and add a few more calories, esp. protein. The experts on this site are very into high high high protein for muscle building. Their recommendations seem a little excessive to me, but what do I know about body building?

What's the history of regional recipes in Minnesota? Is there still a French influence?

Not a lot of French influence - it's been a long time since the Voyageurs. If there's any kind of regional cooking in Minnesota it would be a mixture of Germanic/Scandinavian and good old middle-class recipes from the pages of 1950's women's magazines (all of which is actually pretty boring). That's how they cook in the small town where my in-laws live, anyway.

Minneapolis is extremely cosmopolitan - just about every ethnic restaurant you can imagine and a large pool of celebrity chefs who are currently busting out of their downtown kitchens and running around opening classy little bistros in the residential neighborhoods. Minneapolis was also a hotbed of hippie cuisine during the '70's when the food co-op movement was flowering and there's still a strong tilt towards vegetarian/organic/locavore food. My husband and I tend towards a hybrid of Asian-inspired cuisine (lots of stir-fries), Mexican, hippie food (yogurt, tofu, vegies, whole grains), and hearty meat and vegetable stews (because it gets cold in the winter).

How did it feel to be able to eat more on day four?

Not all that much different, honestly. 300 additional calories isn't very much. I'm not quite as hungry as I was at this time yesterday, but I don't exactly feel like I'm luxuriating in all the food I could possibly want.

Today is the real test. Friday is when I always blow my diets. My husband has a game-playing party every Friday night. So I get home from work tired and hungry to find brownies and cookies and pizza all over the place. I've got a couple of hundred calories for an evening snack, but all it takes is one piece of pizza and couple of cookies to go way over.

I'm planning to grab a small snack and a bottle of beer and then sneak up into the attic (where the TV is) and watch "Jaws" on Netflix.

 

[sharoo]

Friday's Menu (Day 5)

I'm not actually DONE with Day 5, but assuming I stick to the plan and don't scarf down pizza and brownies when I get home tonight...

Calorie target: 1200
Exercise: 1 hour of ice skating

BREAKFAST: 1 piece whole grain toast with almond butter and fresh strawberries, coffee.

SNACK: because there was a tray of them at work, but I only ate one small piece - some yummy rollups with cream cheese and green onion filling. I did pass up the leftover pizza!

LUNCH: 3 chicken pot-stickers with stir-fried carrots left over from last night (with onions, apples and raisins). This was delicious, and only about 200 calories. Fresh fruit medley (banana, nectarine, berries) and an ounce of nuts. The nuts were the real indulgence, but the whole lunch came to almost exactly 400 calories, which was my goal. .

DINNER: Subway chicken breast sub sandwich with spinach, tomato, cucumbers, black olives, onions and a splash of sweet onion dressing. Yeah, it's fast food, but it's still pretty healthy except for the excess of salt in the meat. Only 350 calories.

EVENING SNACK (planned): a bottle of beer. If there's a light beer in the house I can have a few crackers or chips with it. But now that I think about it, there probably isn't a light beer to be had, so I'd better skip the chips.

 

[Disparue]

I don't quite get how you can be eating doughnuts and biscuits (by which, I assume, you mean "cookies") on a 600-calorie diet and have any room left in your calorie count for protein. Or much of anything else. I mean, 2 doughnuts and you're pretty much done for the day, right?

Absolutely, but I can only have two doughnuts on a 1200 day . For the past three weeks I've been eating around a third of my allowed calories in sweet treats, so on a 600 day I'll have one ring doughnut and that leaves around 400 calories for meat/fish and veg.

In the past I've always broken my diet because of craving sweet things and going on a binge when I felt desperate. By having a calorie-counted treat every day I just don't get those uncontrollable cravings anymore.

I know it's not healthy, but in the end I made the decision to do it this way because it seemed a lot more dangerous to remain at the weight I was. Also, it means that I'm staying in control of what I eat, and not the other way round. To eat a doughnut no longer signals failure or guilt and I really enjoy every mouthful.

By long term I meant more than a few weeks. It sounds like whatever you're doing is getting spectacular results so far, but if you start feeling weak or sick when you exercise I hope you'll be flexible and add a few more calories, esp. protein. The experts on this site are very into high high high protein for muscle building. Their recommendations seem a little excessive to me, but what do I know about body building?

I'm only just learning the mechanics of it myself. As an omnivore with strongly carnivorous leanings I love animal-based protein so I think I get enough, even on this diet.

I'm feeling fine when exercising so far, but if I do start to feel queasy I'll definitely take your advice.

Not a lot of French influence - it's been a long time since the Voyageurs. If there's any kind of regional cooking in Minnesota it would be a mixture of Germanic/Scandinavian and good old middle-class recipes from the pages of 1950's women's magazines (all of which is actually pretty boring). That's how they cook in the small town where my in-laws live, anyway.

Minneapolis is extremely cosmopolitan - just about every ethnic restaurant you can imagine and a large pool of celebrity chefs who are currently busting out of their downtown kitchens and running around opening classy little bistros in the residential neighborhoods. Minneapolis was also a hotbed of hippie cuisine during the '70's when the food co-op movement was flowering and there's still a strong tilt towards vegetarian/organic/locavore food. My husband and I tend towards a hybrid of Asian-inspired cuisine (lots of stir-fries), Mexican, hippie food (yogurt, tofu, vegies, whole grains), and hearty meat and vegetable stews (because it gets cold in the winter).

I think it helps a great deal to have access to a large variety of foodstuffs when dieting to avoid getting bored. Your regular diet sounds perfect health and taste-wise

I have a stock pot on the go all winter so stews are a staple, but not complete without suet dumplings

Not all that much different, honestly. 300 additional calories isn't very much. I'm not quite as hungry as I was at this time yesterday, but I don't exactly feel like I'm luxuriating in all the food I could possibly want.

I'd do much for a diet that made me feel like that

Two things have really helped me take my mind off food. One has been immersing myself in PC games like Morrowind, Oblivion, Drakan and Half Life 2. They make the time between meals go faster and I never eat when I'm playing. I originally got the PC games for my daughter, but she didn't stay interested for long, whereas I adored the graphics and trying to cheat the programming

The other thing is that I got a DSLR camera and can't bear using auto, so learning manual from scratch is keeping me fully occupied, especially on sun in, sun out days like yesterday. I'm obsessed with macro photography, especially insects.

Today is the real test. Friday is when I always blow my diets. My husband has a game-playing party every Friday night. So I get home from work tired and hungry to find brownies and cookies and pizza all over the place. I've got a couple of hundred calories for an evening snack, but all it takes is one piece of pizza and couple of cookies to go way over.

I'm planning to grab a small snack and a bottle of beer and then sneak up into the attic (where the TV is) and watch "Jaws" on Netflix.

Are you sure you should watch a film with so much eating in it?

From your following post it looks as if you did brilliantly up to and including dinner, and you passed on the pizza too

It looks as if you've got into a habit of blowing your diet on Friday nights, and doing that repeatedly can lead to feelings of helplessness in the face of all that food waiting at home to ambush you. So your plan to grab a measured snack and a beer, then take yourself away from the crime scene is the perfect solution

It's rarely possible to just break bad habits; they have to be replaced with other, healthier actions, and repeated until they become unthinking habits in themselves.

I can't wait to hear how the planned evening snack went.

Your photos and food creations are fabulous. I'd never heard of Bento before. You have a very creative eye; do you do any other kind of art?

 

[Disparue]

End of week three report.

I lost another three pounds this week, giving a total weight loss of 12 lbs in three weeks.

Wk 1 600/900 : 8 lbs

Wk 2 1200 : 1 lb

Wk 3 600/900 : 3 lbs

Things are slowing down now, as predicted, so I'll be doing a lot more aerobic exercise to compliment the weight training. I'm looking forward to finding out how much I can accelerate my weight loss this way.

I walked for miles through the woods yesterday, but stopped often to take photos of interesting insects. My patient companion remarked that some fast walking would work better for fat loss, but treadmills would bore me, and there are just too many things to stop and enjoy in the countryside Off-road cycling might be best to get me out of breath a little. I'll try that.

 

[aloe1]

May I join you?

Is 1600 calories a maintenance diet for you, or a weight loss diet? If the latter, it may be unrealistic to believe that you can eat at that level and not be hungry. If your appetite is working as it is supposed to, you WILL feel hungry when you are not taking in enough calories to maintain your weight. That's why the appetite mechanism exists, after all.

You mean we can't fool Mother Nature? I assumed the people who lost huge amounts of weight must have been able to negate the hunger issue to stay on track so long. Fitday calculated I burn 2300 a day, so 1600 would be a weight loss level. Mentally, I think I could be satisfied with 3 400 calorie meals and a 400 calorie snack so that's why I thought to try that level.

Unfortunately, I am entirely capable of feeling full and hungry at the same time. A digestive system full of fiber may be good for me, but it doesn't fool my appestat, which keeps shrieking, "DANGER! DANGER! CALORIE DEFICIT ALERT!" Even more unfortunately, the dial seems to be permanently fixed on a set point of about 230 pounds, which is what I ultimately drift back to if I stop counting calories.

I know that feeling all to well! I hope you can reset it eventually - you are doing well to maintain your weightloss even if you haven't reached goal yet.

Anyway, I didn't stick with the 1600 because we bought a box of blueberries and I made a bunch of healthy desserts because my husband doesn't like them raw.

I am thrilled to have both you and Disparue rotating so I think I will join you, starting today with a 1200/1500/1800 plan. Congratulations to both of you on your success. My weight has been bouncing between 174 and 176 lately.
Thank you both for your detailed reports. Time to figure out a nice low cal supper.

Do either of you use "safe fruits"?

 

[aloe1]

End of week three report.

I lost another three pounds this week, giving a total weight loss of 12 lbs in three weeks. .

Fantastic!

I walked for miles through the woods yesterday, but stopped often to take photos of interesting insects. My patient companion remarked that some fast walking would work better for fat loss, but treadmills would bore me, and there are just too many things to stop and enjoy in the countryside Off-road cycling might be best to get me out of breath a little. I'll try that.

That reminds me of a book by Covert Bailey, who wrote "Fit or Fat" which is pretty much about short daily exercise sessions. He writes quite a bit about metabolism and in a later book he recommends long periods of slow exercise like walking to change the muscle enzymes from a fat to a fit person's levels.
So your long slow walk may have been more beneficial than you think.

 

[sharoo]

You mean we can't fool Mother Nature? I assumed the people who lost huge amounts of weight must have been able to negate the hunger issue to stay on track so long.

I dunno, apparently some people can. There are a lot of people who claim that they were able to lose weight without ever feeling hungry by: filling up on fiber, drinking lots of water, exercising more, having their stomachs stapled, etc. Haven't tried the stomach stapling, but none of those other tricks have ever stopped me from feeling hungry. The ones that baffle me the most are the people that insist that "exercise makes you less hungry." If this were the case, wouldn't lumberjacks starve to death?

Personally, I suspect that all those people who claim to be able to lose weight without hunger are people whose appetite mechanisms aren't really functional, so they eat purely out of habit and proximity to food. On the other hand, they might be the same people that placebos work on. (I'm pretty sure placebos don't work on me, since I have no difficulty detecting the difference between medications that work for me and ones that don't.)

Fitday calculated I burn 2300 a day, so 1600 would be a weight loss level. Mentally, I think I could be satisfied with 3 400 calorie meals and a 400 calorie snack so that's why I thought to try that level.

Those calculators are WAY off for me, especially since I turned 50. I seem to be burning 300-500 calories fewer per day than I did 30 years ago. Many menopausal women find this to be the case (although Disparue seems to be living proof that it isn't true for all of us). In any case, everybody's metabolism is different. So the best approach is to keep a careful food diary for a week when you are not dieting to determine what you normally eat, then start from there. Either that or start with something sensible like 1600 and make adjustments after you see what happens. In my experience, however, if you aren't a little hungry by the time you go to bed, you aren't losing weight.

Anyway, I didn't stick with the 1600 because we bought a box of blueberries and I made a bunch of healthy desserts because my husband doesn't like them raw.

Ah, the Farmers' Market trap! I got tripped up this weekend by unbelievably delicious FRESH SWEET CORN. [that's supposed to be "drooling." But it looks more like "choking on my own vomit." What do you think? Should I just get over this whole animated emoticon thing?]

I am thrilled to have both you and Disparue rotating so I think I will join you, starting today with a 1200/1500/1800 plan.

Yay! You might find that calorie count a little high for rapid weight loss, depending on what your maintenance rate really is and how much exercise you're doing. I'm using 900/1200/1500 (in principle, anyway. This past weekend was less than perfect).

Do either of you use "safe fruits"?

The first time I did the diet, years ago, I did use apple as my safe fruit. It worked for a while, but by the 3rd week I was so sick of apples that I dropped it (and haven't much liked apples since then). I do, however, eat a LOT of fruit when I'm dieting, an idea I probably picked up from the Rotation Diet in the first place. I used to think it was silly to consider fruit a "dessert," but since foods taste sweeter when hungry fruit is starting to seem like more and more of a treat. I'm picking away at a sliced nectarine right now as an afternoon snack, and it DOES taste like a dessert. In fact, it's so sweet that I'm very glad I included an ounce of cheese along with it to cut the sweetness. Mmmm.

 

[sharoo]

Week 1 Report - qualified success

Following 900-1200 rotation. I was absolutely perfect the first 5 days, including Friday evening, which is when I usually blow it. I was especially proud of that success considering that I was exercising an hour a day. And not just walking either - mostly skating and BOSU class which are both pretty strenuous. Counting the 2-pound instant water loss at the beginning, I actually did lose a pound a day, weighing in at 211 on Saturday morning! Wow!!

Then I spent Saturday helping friends move and got so hot and tired that I pigged out on ice cream (which I don't eat at all in the winter but can't resist when the weather is hot and steamy). I was still so hungry at bedtime that I had a couple of bowls of granola, which sounds healthy but isn't. Ended up with at least 2100 calories for the day, maybe a little more that I forgot to log.

However, when you offset that with several hours of carrying heavy boxes up and down stairs, I think it's about a wash. I didn't lose anything on Saturday, but I don't think I really gained anything back either. Sunday I was back under control and ate only healthy food, but somehow racked up about 1600 calories. Again, not to plan, but not bad.

Overall, the first week was a success: lost 5 pounds, then rebounded slightly from 211 to 212. That's 4 pounds that look like solid weight loss.

 

[Disparue]

I am thrilled to have both you and Disparue rotating so I think I will join you, starting today with a 1200/1500/1800 plan. Congratulations to both of you on your success. My weight has been bouncing between 174 and 176 lately.

I'd planned a long bike ride, but I woke up feeling a bit dispirited and unmotivated yesterday morning. However, when I read your post I felt so inspired that I took off just before dawn I was out so long that I didn't have the chance to write when I got home, so here's a belated congratulations on starting a rotation

Do either of you use "safe fruits"?

The copy of the book I ordered from the States seems to have managed to escape over the Atlantic, so I'm not sure what counts as 'safe'

That reminds me of a book by Covert Bailey, who wrote "Fit or Fat" which is pretty much about short daily exercise sessions. He writes quite a bit about metabolism and in a later book he recommends long periods of slow exercise like walking to change the muscle enzymes from a fat to a fit person's levels.
So your long slow walk may have been more beneficial than you think.

That's good news

Ever since I was a kid (a thin kid) I've hated getting out of breath, but I played outside all the time and walked and cycled everywhere as we didn't have a car (and I've never felt the need for a car to this day). If I get out of breath I feel sick and faint, yet I can easily walk, cycle or swim for hours, as long as I do it relatively slowly.

I wouldn't keep up any kind of exercise I don't enjoy, but I compromise on the aerobic thing by running up and down a flight of 15 steps x 5 at home whenever the feeling takes me. That makes my heart go much faster without leaving me panting.

I'm not sure if the pace of cycling I do counts as 'aerobic' but I mostly cycle along coast paths which have small but intense inclines that push my quads to the limit for a short burst every few hundred yards. That's fun. I find it hard to enjoy exercise if I feel I 'should' be doing it.

What kinds of exercise do you enjoy the most?

Looking forward to your first reports

 

[Disparue]

Following 900-1200 rotation. I was absolutely perfect the first 5 days, including Friday evening, which is when I usually blow it. I was especially proud of that success considering that I was exercising an hour a day. And not just walking either - mostly skating and BOSU class which are both pretty strenuous. Counting the 2-pound instant water loss at the beginning, I actually did lose a pound a day, weighing in at 211 on Saturday morning! Wow!!

Congratulations

And especially well done for finding ways to circumvent the Friday temptations

Then I spent Saturday helping friends move and got so hot and tired that I pigged out on ice cream (which I don't eat at all in the winter but can't resist when the weather is hot and steamy). I was still so hungry at bedtime that I had a couple of bowls of granola, which sounds healthy but isn't. Ended up with at least 2100 calories for the day, maybe a little more that I forgot to log.

I think we must have had some kind of mind meld thing going on, as after three perfect weeks I decided to have a treat day on exactly the same day . Home made chilli con carne, millionaire biscuits and lots of lolly pops I reckon I hit the same number of calories as you did.

But the main thing was that it was a decision, not a surrender .
I didn't feel out of control. I was still counting the calories and felt in charge. And I enjoyed every mouthful to the limit

Yesterday I had put on 5 lbs, scalewise; returned to 1200 calories and am now 201 (3 lbs over my lowest of 198). However, I had a goal in mind to lose 14 lbs total this month, so I've decided to eat 600 per day until I reach 196 lbs, hopefully by August 1st.

However, when you offset that with several hours of carrying heavy boxes up and down stairs, I think it's about a wash. I didn't lose anything on Saturday, but I don't think I really gained anything back either. Sunday I was back under control and ate only healthy food, but somehow racked up about 1600 calories. Again, not to plan, but not bad.

That's the main thing. To get straight back on the plan the next day. As you know, one day can't make a huge difference in terms of actual fat gain.

Overall, the first week was a success: lost 5 pounds, then rebounded slightly from 211 to 212. That's 4 pounds that look like solid weight loss.

An excellent result

 

[sharoo]

Congratulations
And especially well done for finding ways to circumvent the Friday temptations

Thanks.

But the main thing was that it was a decision, not a surrender .
I didn't feel out of control. I was still counting the calories and felt in charge. And I enjoyed every mouthful to the limit

Not so much in my case, which is why it annoyed me, even though I didn't really eat enough to sabotage the diet. I'm impressed by your self-discipline.

Yesterday I had put on 5 lbs, scalewise; returned to 1200 calories and am now 201 (3 lbs over my lowest of 198). However, I had a goal in mind to lose 14 lbs total this month, so I've decided to eat 600 per day until I reach 196 lbs, hopefully by August 1st.

Wow, you really do have some major water-weight swings going on there! I don't have that so much - my weight stays pretty much within a 2-pound range from day to day. Maybe an extra pound if I indulge in a lot of salt and sugar or fly on an airplane. Of course part of the reason for the stability is that I am taking a diuretic blood pressure medicine. I'm not sure I really need it for BP at this point, but I like the side effects.

 

[sharoo]

Starting Day2 of Week 2 (1500 cals)

Supposedly this week is supposed to feel like a rest week because of more calories, but I was hungrier yesterday than I've been for a long time. I'm proud to say that I stayed within my calorie limits even though it was my big exercise day (Monday night skating lesson). I'm a little worried that I'm so hungry, though. Hope I can make it through the week.

Still hanging at 212, which is good. After the amount I ate (and drank) on the weekend, I'm pretty sure this is a real weight loss, not temporary dehydration.

MONDAY'S MENU (delicious across the board!)
Calories: 1400
Exercise: An hour-plus of ice skating

BREAKFAST: 2 eggs, 1 pc whole wheat toast, 1/8 avocado, coffee [yum]
LUNCH: leftover vegie stir-fry with chicken bratwurst, 1/3 c. rice
SNACK: fresh nectarine, 1 oz cheese, 1 small square dark chocolate
DINNER: salmon loaf with ketchup, salad with feta cheese and olives

 

[sharoo]

Week2 status report

Day 2 (Tuesday) I was perfect, coming in at around 1400 calories. However, to my annoyance I was a pound HEAVIER this morning. I know it doesn't really mean anything, but it's hard not to focus on the scale when you're hungry.

TUESDAY'S MENU
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BREAKFAST: Mexican cheese toast, fresh nectarine, coffee
LUNCH: leftover salmon loaf and spinach salad (just as good cold as it was hot!)
SNACKS: 1/2 c. applesauce, South Beach hi-protein cereal bar, 3/4 c. granola, 4 T low-fat evaporated milk
DINNER: Broiled salmon, grilled baby carrots, baked beans w/onion

All my exercise plans fell through, so no exercise.

 

[sharoo]

Still hungry.

Now on Day 4 of the supposedly easy week (I'm doing 1500 cals) and I'm ravenous. The extra pound that appeared on the scale yesterday is gone today (so ticker is accurate again), but that still means zero weight loss so far this week. Grrrrumble.

On the plus side, food continues to taste really good. Here's what I ate yesterday, all of it delicious.

WEDNESDAY MENU
Calories: 1555
Exercise: 6 miles biking

BREAKFAST: light French toast (made with egg substitute and non-stick pan) with light berry syrup (1/2 c. frozen berries + sugar-free syrup), coffee.

LUNCH: 4 pieces sushi, teriyaki beef, roasted vegies, 2 cream cheese wontons. Lunch came with rice, miso soup and a really terrible iceberg lettuce salad, but I ate only a few bites of the side dishes.

DINNER: (originally my lunch, which I ate for dinner because I went out for lunch) Spinach salad with beet-pickled egg, 5 chicken postickers, 1/3 c. baked beans.

SNACKS: 5 whole wheat crackers, cold broccoli soup, 1 oz. dark chocolate

 

[sharoo]

Starting Week 3 (900-1200)

Last week (the supposedly easy week) was really hard for me. I started out hungry, and just got more so as the week went on. Still, I was pretty much perfect until Friday night, when I came home so ravenous after skating that I gobbled up about 900 additional calories. Definitely not a diet day.

On the other hand, I'd had so much exercise that it probably just balanced out to steady state. "General ice skating" supposedly burns 600 calories an hour. 2400 calories - 600 = 1800. Which is approximately my maintenance amount. I ate more than planned on Saturday, but not nearly as much, and by Sunday I was back on target with just under 1500 calories for the day.

Overall, Week 2 was not a great triumph, but I did manage to lose one more pound, for a total of 5 since I started the rotation. And I'm starting the 2nd low-cal week feeling fairly comfortable (that is to say, not ravenous!)

 

[sharoo]

Week 3, Day 2

So far so good. Came in at 915 calories for Monday and still had enough energy to skate for over an hour - AND pass my Gamma level skating test! Under 600 calories for my first 2 meals today and only a little bit hungry. Didn't lose any weight the first day - I guess I'm all out of easy water weight to shed.

MONDAY
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Calories: 915
Exercise: Figure skating 1-1/4 hours

BREAKFAST: Mexican cheese toast, fresh cherries, iced coffee (low-cal)
LUNCH: Big salad with beet-pickled egg, 1/8 avocado, Peppadew peppers stuffed with low-cal cream cheese, black olives, poppy seed dressing diluted with white wine vinegar
SNACK: small can V-8 juice.
DINNER: broiled chicken breast, 3 broiled mushrooms topped with gouda cheese, green salad with sliced apples and fat-free mango vinaigrette dressing, stir-fried vegies.

 

[sharoo]

Starting a 2nd rotation

I stopped posting here because everybody else disappeared, but what the heck, I'll talk to myself for the historical record.

I went through a full 4-week rotation (after a fashion) and lost 8 pounds, which is about what I expected. I have never in my life lost more than 2 pounds/week, even when I was young and spry. I must admit, that I didn't follow the diet to the letter. Basically, I stuck to the calorie limits I'd chosen M-F, but was so hungry by the end of the week that I took an (unplanned) day off on Saturday (or sometimes Friday evening). I guess you could call it a "refeeding." After eating pretty much to appetite on Saturday I wasn't terribly hungry on Sunday and would get back to about 1500 calories. The end result was probably an average of 1200/day during the odd weeks and 1600/day on the even weeks. All the weight loss showed up on the scale during the strict (odd) weeks.

Anyway, I started the 4-week rotation July 12 at 216 and finished up at 208 in early August. The next couple of weeks I had a lot going on, so all I aimed for was maintenance. Miraculously, that's exactly what happened. I actually dropped another half pound (to 207.5) and then stayed at EXACTLY that weight for 10 days. I don't usually record my weight to the half-pound, but this was so unwavering day after day that I had to note it. During the last week of this little plateau I was back on a "sensible" 1600/day diet, but not seeing even a fraction of a pound change in the scale. Grrrr.

I figured there was at least a little bit of delayed weight loss lurking under there, so I decided to start another rotation and see if I could get the scale moving down again. Sure enough, I dropped 2 pounds overnight (to 205.5)! This is definitely my lowest weight this millennium!

I just finished lunch on Day 2. Haven't felt extremely hungry yet. But I have a skating lesson tonight, which usually makes me ravenous. So today's challenge is managing my arrival home from skating WITHOUT stuffing my face.