Hi, I'm back after being gone for a while. I am considering going back on Atkins (which is the only thing I have had success with), but someone I work with "knows" someone who has lost weight on the Up-Day, Down-Day diet. If I am getting this right, you eat VERY low calories for one day (like protein shakes?), then the next you eat what you want and all you want?? My gut says this can't be good but has anyone heard of it or tried it. THANKS!

[bargoo]

I haven't heard of it and haven't tried it, of course, but I am sure that would never work for me. Eating anything I want can only lead to the mother of all binges.

[kittygrrll]

I haven't heard of it either... but it sounds interesting. Just don't know how healthy it would be. I'm guessing on the day you could eat anything it would have to be controlled portions, i.e. a slice of cake and not the whole thing lol.... mmmm... I love me some cake - lol.....

[kaplods]

Yeah I've tried it, and a dozen or so other variations of it. This diet has been around for decades in one form or another, in a variety of variations (high day every other day, or every third day - low during the week and high on the weekends....).

I've tried them all.

Every other day low/high does NOT work for me. I can easily eat three days worth of calories on the "high" day. In high school I was able to lose some weight by essentially only eating on the weekends, but eventually I was even able to overcompensate on the weekends enough to stop losing.

I had to shrink my stomach to make dieting more comfortable, so even eating "whatever I wanted" only a couple days a month kept my stomach from shrinking.

I started eating every two hours, no more than a cup of food at a time (I'd read the suggestion in a Prevention magazine article).

That isn't the only change I made, and it wasn't the mainstay of my eating plan (you can still get a lot of calories into a cup of food).

For me, the bottom line has to be reigning in appetite. A day of uncontrolled eating undos way too much progress, and makes staying on plan that much harder the next day.

I'm not discouraging you from experimenting. I suspect it can work for someone whose eating habits aren't too far from what they need to be, but for anyoe who is prone to overeating more than minimally, I think the progress can be too easily undone.

[Caro0811]

I'm doing a diet like this now and it's working out for me. On the up day I have whatever I want for lunch in an alloted 30 minute time frame. That way I don't go crazy. On my low day it protein, veggies, and dietary fats. I've lost close to 30 lbs since January.

Thanks for your responses.