THE TWO-WEEK DIET - Printer Friendly

THE TWO-WEEK DIET

Brian Rowley, MS

Stop starving yourself and still lose bodyfat!

Sound too good to be true? Experts now believe you can get rid of excess fat--and just as important, keep it off--without constantly being hungry. Credit one Swedish researcher who may have discovered a cycle diet that works (1): Reduce your calorie intake for two weeks, eat more reasonable portions for up to a month, then begin again.

While many kinds of cycle dieting are disastrous as far as your figure is concerned, this new eating regimen is proving useful for some individuals. Timing, say experts, is everything.

Avoid Crash Dieting
As everyone knows, crash diets don't work--sooner or later you lose control and overeat. Muscle loss is also common, robbing you of firmness in your arms, chest and glutes. Worse, because dieting causes a drop in metabolism, fat loss slows to a whimper (even when you don't eat much) and the fat threatens to return when you resume normal eating patterns. Women have been praying for a more efficient way to lose fat for years, and science may have delivered.

In the Swedish study at the Obesity Unit of Huddinge University Hospital, three two-week periods of very strict dieting separated by a month proved better than six weeks of continuous dieting. Initial fat loss was basically the same for all subjects, but the phased dieting produced less muscle fatigue and other side effects. Over time, the cycle dieters lost more fat than the controls, achieving greater fat loss at three months (32.8 pounds vs. 28.2 pounds) and six months (34.1 pounds vs. 28.2 pounds).

Staying Low Calorie
Better yet, weight lost during the very-low-calorie phases stayed off when subjects went back to a less-restrictive low-calorie diet, even when it was for a whole month (1). Apparently, either two weeks was short enough to prevent some of the drop in metabolism that can occur with long-term dieting--and the dreaded "fat rebound" that comes after it--and/or metabolism was restored enough during the less-restrictive periods that fat regain was prevented.

Because the women studied were extremely obese, healthier women wishing to lose fat may benefit from a more balanced approach than the one researchers used. Our optimally balanced 1,400-calorie eating plan is even designed to preserve underlying muscle (see "Diet-Day Meal Plan"). Tired of the diet ups and downs? Give this fat-blasting program a try.

The Science of Cycling
The low-cal eating plan resembles a diet a female fitness contestant would use in the weeks before a show. Indeed, physique athletes have used cyclic eating patterns for years to great advantage, successfully optimizing muscle and minimizing fat. One version, the ABCDE (Anabolic Burst Cycling of Diet and Exercise) regimen, was invented by Swedish bodybuilder and medical expert Torbjorn Akerfeldt (2).

The core principle is simple: Eating big for 14 days, then small for 14 days, is better than eating medium for 28 days--you end up with more muscle and less fat. Although Akerfeldt says the regimen works for him, ABCDE remains scientifically untested. Even so, the principle is powerful and warrants exploration. Not only does it agree with the idea that two weeks of dieting followed by 2-4 weeks of less-restricted eating can defend against a drop in metabolism, but it also raises the possibility of a muscle-preserving effect.

One line of evidence comes from a study in which all subjects exercised three times a day for 40 minutes at a time and were put on either high- or low-calorie diet plans. Although lean young men were used in both groups, the results are expected to apply to women. With both diets, body composition changes were approximately 2:1 in favor of muscle over fat. In other words, test subjects lost more fat by dieting than they gained by overeating, and gained more muscle by overeating than they lost during dieting (3).

Questionging the Days
What if the subjects had alternated 12 days of overeating with 12 days of dieting, instead of doing just one or the other? From the evidence, one predicts they would've gained 2 pounds of muscle and lost 2.6 pounds of fat--a huge improvement for just 24 days of food manipulation but no weight training (just aerobics). Such an effect would be consistent with the idea that percentage bodyfat can best be improved by cycling calories about once every 14 days.

No one knows for sure if 14 days is the optimal period of low-calorie eating, but it seems about right for less-restrained eating. In women, eating more food makes insulin, testosterone and IGF-1 levels rise progressively to peak in about 15 days, after which they mysteriously decline (4). This suggests that it takes about 14 days to increase (or perhaps restore) levels of muscle-preserving hormones in response to a change in eating habits. As a result, it might follow that women should take 2-4 weeks off from dieting now and then to regain levels of muscle-preserving hormones that have otherwise fallen due to dieting.

Following the healthy two-week low-cal plan outlined on page 100 appears to be an effective alternative to continuous dieting. After being "good" for two weeks, a period of more permissive eating (see above) is a welcome respite and gives you a sense of accomplishment, besides restoring muscle-preserving hormones and rate of metabolism. Even so, dietitians caution that long-term changes in diet and exercise habits are needed for sustainable fat loss. Always consult your doctor before beginning a diet or other fat-loss program.

REFERENCES
1. Rossner, S. Intermittent vs. continuous VLCD therapy in obesity treatment. International Journal of Obesity and Related Metabolic Disorders 22(2):190-192, 1998.
2. Sports supplement review, 3rd issue, 261-286. Golden, CO: Mile High Publishing, 1997.
3. Jebb, S.A., et al. Changes in macronutrient balance during over- and underfeeding assessed by 12-day continuous whole-body calorimetry. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 64:259-266, 1996.
4. Forbes, G.B., et al. Hormonal response to overfeeding. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 49:608-611, 1989.

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