Martin Katahn's Rotation Diet?

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Okay, now I'm HUNGRY (Day 4)

Finished first 3 days with an average of about 1000 cals/day. A little more than the planned 900 calories, but not by much. Just ate a little more of that healthy food than I'd planned. No biggie, though - it's working. On the morning of Day 4 I was down 3 pounds (207->204)!

I started feeling really hungry yesterday evening (end of Day 3). Managed to sublimate my cravings for food into over-planning today's lunch. We have way too much food in the fridge so it was more a matter of narrowing things down than trying to find something. I finally settled on a recipe inspired by the "Fat Belly Diet" book - turkey wraps with low-sodium deli turkey on the outside. Recipe called for a filling of avocado, string cheese and red pepper. There was an open avocado that needed eating, and we had all the other ingredients so this seemed perfect. But I didn't think the rubbery texture of string cheese would work very well with avocado, so instead I mashed up the avocado with a couple of tablespoons of cooked yams. And red pepper doesn't agree with my stomach so I used green onion instead. And garnished it with fresh parsley and mint leaves from my little herb garden and a handful of grape tomatoes.

So, okay, it wasn't their recipe at all. But it was absolutely DELICIOUS, even the mint. It's cold in my office so I had a cup of decaf with it, which turned out to go really well with the avocado. Mmmm. A very enjoyable lunch. And only 250 calories.
 
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End of Week1, 2nd rotation: solid 3 pound loss

Starting week2: 1500 cals/day all week.
Week 1 went very well. I averaged 1000 cals/day for 4 days, then deliberately went up to about 1500 Fri-Sun. Actually, I was closer to 1400 on Sunday - it was desperately hot and muggy and I felt more thirsty than hungry.

I averaged about 1200 cals/day for the week, lost 3 pounds in the first 3 days, and then maintained at that weight for the rest of the week. I'm very pleased. My weight has been up and down for the past decade, but the overall trend has been downward (like a superball bouncing down stairs). I am now at 204, definitely my lowest weight since sometime in the early to mid 1990s. I've actually reached my goal for the summer of 20 pounds lost, but I'd like to lose a few more pounds before winter sets in.

Anyway, I'm planning on 1500-1600/day for this week. Aim is mostly to maintain at 204, although if I exercise a lot I might lose another pound at that rate.

Surprisingly, I haven't been especially hungry today. Despite a modest breakfast (almond butter toast and kiwi fruit) I wasn't hungry for lunch until about 1:30, and only ate about 1/3 of the food I'd packed.
 
Week2, Day 3 (Wednesday) - 1500 all week

I haven't been especially hungry this week so far and easily stayed under 1500 cals for the first couple of days. Light biking on Monday, tough exercise class + lots of walking on Tuesday and I'm still not ravenous. I did hit a bump in the road today, though - forgot to bring my lunch to work. I'd packed one, just left it at home. I was debating what to do for lunch when leftover meeting food miraculously showed up in the break room. Not pizza either - it's my favorite salad: mixed greens with strawberries, walnuts, and feta cheese. Usually there's a lot of roast chicken breast in this salad, but the people for whom the food was ordered had picked it over and eaten all the chicken! Still, with a side of melon slices and a piece of bread, it made a pretty satisfying lunch. I calculate about 350 cals, which is perfect.

Haven't lost any weight this week, but I didn't really expect to. My pattern this summer has been that I lose weight only on the low-cal weeks and just maintain during the "filler" weeks at 1500-1600 cals.
 
I am starting Monday

Hi I am starting the rotation diet on Monday and I am very excited I am doing the diet in conjunction with Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. So Wish me luck guys!!!!:)
 
Phetermine!!

When I start my diet on Monday I will be taking phentermine it does not give me a ton of energy but it does curb my appetite so I won't have to worry as much about the 600 low calorie intake.
 
sharoo said:
I stopped posting here because everybody else disappeared, but what the heck, I'll talk to myself for the historical record.
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Congratulations on sticking with it and reaching your lowest weight of the millenium! I hope I'm back posting - just haven't had the motivation this summer and even now I am not looking forward to eating less.

However, in two weeks I want to wear my favorite tweed suit several times at a Church convention and the skirt is just a little bit tight. So hopefully that will be keep me on the straight and narrow. I don't think I can do super low calories but I intend to eat 1300 calories a day for 2 weeks, starting today. I don't have much energy lately but I will do some exercise daily even if it's just 10 minutes of weights and/or rowing.

Today's menu - steel cut oats, milk and a tablespoon of raisins
rye sandwich with cheese and deli turkey, lettuce and tomato
low fat yogurt with pear sweetened with stevia
sweet potato, herb seasoned chicken breast, green beans
a few grapes, half a slice of bread and a red pepper

Today's weight was 177
 
kbrown39 said:
When I start my diet on Monday I will be taking phentermine it does not give me a ton of energy but it does curb my appetite so I won't have to worry as much about the 600 low calorie intake.
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Welcome, kbrown! You certainly sound serious. I'm not much of one for taking pharmaceuticals but I admit that hunger is a serious challenge for those desiring to cut calories and burn fat.

I was pleasantly surprised to weigh in at 174 today. But I am not stopping there. Even though my husband and mother-in-law were eating cookies and talking about how good they were and offering those and chocolate covered raisins, I resisted. Didn't exercise today but did give blood.

Breakfast - cottage cheese and tomato and a minibagel
Lunch - small Wendy's chili and side salad with ranch dressing
Supper - Cheesy brown rice and broccoli
Snacks - Granola bar, yogurt, grapes and stevia
 
reporting in

Well, weighed in at 174 this morning. I fear the 172 goal still eludes me. But I must confess I didn't keep counting my calories but I tried to eat sensibly and modestly. Only had zuchini in tomato sauce with parmesan for breakfast,
brown rice, cabbage, and mozzarella cheese for lunch, yogurt and grapes for afternoon snack, 2 T. of raw almonds, sweet potato, 2 lowfat hotdogs, green beans, and a few baked beans for supper plus 2 slices of rye bread for evening snack.
 
Diet going well, but not exactly Rotation Diet

Things are going pretty well with my diet plans, but I've drifted so far from the actual Rotation Diet at this point that I think I'll go back to posting on the "Age 55 and Up Club" instead. Aloe? Disparue? Where did you go? Are you still over 55? Then come back and join me in the elder ghetto!

WRAPUP POST for this summer's Diet Vaguely Inspired by the Rotation Diet...
1) I've lost 20 pounds this summer, and it seems to be a pretty solid loss. I definitely dropped a size or two and had to retire a large part of my wardrobe, which is a sign that it's a real weight loss, not just water-weight games.

2) My general diet plan has been a combination of the Rotation Diet and Prevention's "Flat Belly DIet" (a name I find stupid and embarrassing, but it's a pretty good basic diet approach).

The Prevention Diet is one of those sensible 1600 calorie diets based on a moderately low-carb Mediterranean diet. The problem with that is - at my post-menopausal age a 1600 calorie diet is barely a weight loss diet. I might lose 2 pounds/month on that if I stuck to it strictly, but it's hard being hungry all the time and seeing so little progress. So I fall back to the more dramatic Rotation Diet concept, which is based on being very hungry for short periods of time alternating with eating comfortably.

3) I've been keeping careful records for several years and trying to make sense of my weight loss/gain pattern. I've concluded that I lose weight in a 3-month cycle. In the first 6 weeks I lose 8-10 pounds. Then I get very hungry and either gain it back (if I'm not monitoring my diet carefully) or just plateau for 6 weeks if I continue following my diet plan. During that second 6 weeks, the fat on my body redistributes and at the end of it I suddenly see obvious results of weight loss in clothes fitting differently. At this point I can start another serious diet phase with an initial period of easy weight loss (especially if I go low-carb for a few days to kickstart it).

4) I've done two of those 3-month cycles this summer with great results, losing about 10 pounds each time. The diet plan I've drifted into goes like this:
a. 4-week rotation to get weight loss started: 900-1000 calories for the first 3-4 days, then 1200-1500 for the rest of the week. Then a maintenance week at 1500-1600 calories. Repeat. This is the basic idea of the Rotation Diet, but at higher calorie levels. I exercise 5-7 hours/week and I can't tolerate the super-low calories even for a short period.

b. If I do the rotation at the right point in my larger cycle, I should see 6-8 pounds weight loss in 4 weeks. Then I do whatever it takes to maintain that loss - another partial rotation or just holding steady at 1600. As long as I don't give in to hunger and start over-eating I should see another couple of pounds disappear unexpectedly at some point in that 2-week period.

c. For the next 6 weeks, just hang on at 1600 or thereabouts, but don't expect any weight loss during this period, because it WILL NOT HAPPEN. The goal here is to get body stabilized at the new weight. When there's a noticeable change in clothing size or my face starts looking thinner, think about starting a new cycle. My big breakthrough here is realizing that a 6-week plateau is part of my pattern of weight loss and not a sign that my diet isn't working.

5) I probably will never be able to maintain my weight without logging my meals and counting calories. No matter how much I exercise or how well-balanced my diet is, when I "eat to appetite" I quickly bounce back to a set point much higher than I want to be at. I think that the set point has dropped over a period of years - I used to bounce back to 250 when I stopped dieting but now I seem to settle at about 233. So maybe someday I'll get it down to a weight I can live with. But I suspect my set point weight will always be too high.
 
Rotation Diet.. Can I join you?

Hi

My name is Andrea. I am delighted to stumble across this thread!

Basically I have gained weight since packing in smoking last year. I need to lose about 14pounds or so. I have tried soooo many diets over the past year.. I am sick of dieting and failing! I have tried Atkins, Dukan Diet, 3 day diet, low carb, low calorie, wheat and dairy free, Carb cycling, you name it, I have tried it. I never used to be bothered about food before I quit smoking.. in fact, I used to skip breakfast. Now, I cant believe how much food is the centre point for our social life and socialising with friends. And I also feel that I should treat myself as guess what? I deserve a treat as I am not smoking! That's my brain talking!

Anyway, there is a competition at work The Biggest Loser... the prize is $250 NZD, a night in a luxury hotel and a meal for two at a luxury winery. The thing is, it finishes the end of November. I need something to get my backside into gear! I have just read a book from the library all about eating clean whole foods and that fat - good fat is good for you and low calorie diets are a load of rubbish.. may be true but they can also be very effective if you dont have any medical problems.

I have ordered a copy of the Rotation Diet but because I live in NZ its gonna take forever to get here and since the competition ends the end of November, I am going to eat healthy foods but count the cals. I am going to do this!! I dont suppose it matters if you dont follow the meal plans does it?
 
Pommychic said:
Hi
...since the competition ends the end of November, I am going to eat healthy foods but count the cals. I am going to do this!! I dont suppose it matters if you dont follow the meal plans does it?
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As I said, I've modified the basic diet plan so much by now that it probably isn't fair to even call it the Rotation Diet any more. ;) But I'm looking for a diet buddy right now, so I'd love to keep you company in this thread. :party:

So if you ask me, no you don't need to follow the plan exactly. The basic idea is to alternate extremely low calorie counts with more moderate ones to keep the metabolism from dropping. You keep this up on a particular pattern for 4 weeks, then transition to a healthy maintenance diet (the good old "eat sensibly and exercise" plan. Ultimately, you can't get away from that).

I like the meal plan because it's a nice balance of protein, fat and carbs and because it recommends a lot of fresh fruit (which works really well for me). I can't deal with diets that try to cut out all fat or all carbs. Your body does need some fat, for sure. The old Rotation Diet probably has more saturated fat than is healthy. So I've modified the meal plans to replace some of the meat and cheese with healthier fats (avocados, olives, nuts). And I use a higher calorie count for all the phases, because I'm very active and just get too hungry to function on 600-900-1200. 900-1200-1500 is still pretty challenging, and I won't say I've stuck to it 100%, but it's doable.

Welcome aboard!
 
Menus: Monday and Tuesday (900-1000 cals)

Hey, pommychick! Since you don't have the book yet, and since I'm obsessed with food right now because I'm hungry, I thought I'd share my menus for the week with you. :sifone: (I am starting one more 4-week rotation right now, planning to lose 5-10 more pounds before winter).

Most of these meals are not exactly from the Rotation Diet book, but they are balanced about the same way (if you ignore the sugar in Tuesday's baked apple snack). The sunflower seeds, olives and avocado are inspired by the Prevention diet - sources of healthy monounsaturated fats.

Let me know if this is helpful!!
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MONDAY (905 calories) - I actually stuck to this 100%
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EXERCISE: ice skating (1 hr)
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BREAKFAST: Rice chex (1c), skim milk (1c), 1/4 cup fresh raspberries, 1T toasted hulled sunflower seeds, coffee.

LUNCH: Big pile of lettuce, roast chicken breast (4 oz), fresh strawberries and cantaloupe chunks, Greek olives/feta cheese and pickled onions with about 2T of the olive-oily juice they came in, 2 piquante pickled peppers stuffed with low-fat ricotta cheese.

SNACK: strawberry fruit smoothie with 1/2T flax oil

DINNER: lean turkey burger with grilled asparagus and mushrooms


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TUESDAY (970 if I had been perfect, which I wasn't)
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EXERCISE: BOSU class at the Y + 15 minutes treadmill
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BREAKFAST: ww toast with almond butter, fresh raspberries and strawberries. 8 oz skim milk. Coffee.

LUNCH: hard-boiled egg, steamed broccoli, grape tomatoes, 1/4 avocado on a base of lettuce. 1/2T poppy seed dressing drizzled on top.

SNACK: 1/4 cup baked apples (sweetened), low fat ricotta cheese.

DINNER: Chicken/veggie stir fry, 1/4 avocado
 
Wednesday (1044)

I was absolutely ravenous all day Wednesday, but still stuck to my plan. I decided to eat a South Beach snack bar before skating, which pushed me over 1,000 calories, but I'm fine with that. An hour of skating burns something like 600 calories, and I didn't want to crash and burn during skating class. Other than that, I stuck to plan perfectly.

The next day (Thursday) I was down 3 pounds from my starting weight on Monday! Thank goodness, because I don't think I could put up with being this hungry even for 3 days if I didn't see some results!

WEDNESDAY (1044)
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EXERCISE: 1 hour ice skating
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BREAKFAST: ww toast with almond butter, fresh strawberries. Coffee.

LUNCH: Carrot/raisin/apple stirfry with chicken/garlic sausage, 12 grape tomatoes. 1 small can V8.

SNACK: Chicken breast sandwich with low-cal, high-fiber bread and 1/4 avocado. 1 South Beach High Protein Cereal Bar.

DINNER: 1 cup homemade soup (chicken broth, brussells sprouts, 2 or 3 small meat balls, some random vegies). 11 mini-sized rice soy crackers.
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Back to reality

Sharoo - thanks for that interesting post about your diet cycle. It's great that you are getting to know how your body operates and I think the rest of us may find a similar pattern.

Pommychic - Glad you are joining us! I think you will be successful if you just follow the basic principles as talked about on this forum till you get your book.
Like Sharoo, I pretty much make up my own menus trying to keep a healthy reasonably balanced diet even at the lowest calorie levels.

Since my last post I have been to the Feast of Tabernacles (and yes we do feast!) been home a couple of weeks and then gone to visit my son for five days, eating out many times. I shall see what the damage is tomorrow and report in. I think I am satiated and ready to get back to another rotation and this time keep the weight off. We have time to lose at least some of the excess by Thanksgiving.

Desparue was writing about reaching some weight goal by October but she stopped posting and I think she either reached her goal or got overwhelmed by super zealous dieting. I hope she will be back!
 
Hi there,
Thanks to everyone for the encouraging posts! We can do this! I have had a disastrous weekend - its been a long holiday weekend here in NZ and I have eaten and drunk all the very bad stuff! I have placed an order upon recommendation from a friend for some Hoodia tablets... I know, I know dont say anything, but needs must and if they stop me craving all the naughty stuff and curb my appetite then bring it on!

I am definately interested in everyone's weight loss journey and the ice skating sure does sound a lot of fun!
 
Could have been worse

Weighed in at 178 this morning. Have had about 950 calories and not feeling too hungry. Breakfast was yogurt, orange and wheat germ. Lunch was millet, spinach and cheese plus some radishes. Snack was 1/2 cup strawberry yogurt smoothie. Supper was lentils and rice and salad.

Too bad about the setback Pommychic but we all have those days. Get back on that horse and ride!
 
Day 2

Weighed in at 176 - just lost water weight but I am glad to see it go. I had oatmeal cooked in milk and tea for breakfast, whole wheat penne with tomato sauce and cheese and salad for lunch, radishes for a snack, chicken, broccoli and an orange for supper. That puts me at almost 1000 calories.
 
A brief post

176 pounds, 1300 calories today. On the low calorie days I like to use the free things like spinach, lettuce, zucchini, radishes, mushrooms to make the meals look and seem more substantial, like lots of mushrooms in your pasta, lots of spinach for your vegetable, and of course, that old stand-by, a big green salad minus all the tasty things that would add lots of calories. That reminds me I can snack on radishes tonight if I want to. Whoopie!:smilielol5:
 
176 pounds, 1600 calories. Not doing too well standing the hunger.
 
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