Hunger Games: Jo's Final Opinion of the 8 Hour Diet

Well, Jo has been faithful to her word, and tested out the 8 Hour Diet. Here she gives her final review and advice based on what she has experienced through the experiment. 

Having spent two weeks fruitlessly feeding my face in the daytime, then drinking litres of water to get me through the night, I was annoyed but not surprised to see I hadn’t lost any weight by following The 8 Hour Diet according to Zinczenko’s contradictory instructions to eat all I want, but stick to superfoods. Taken day by day, the scales fluctuated up and down as much as a kilo. But for me, that happens all the time, even though I always weigh myself at the same time.

I thoroughly fell off the bandwagon on the long weekend at the end of my two week trial. Events conspired – a going away party, some night shifts – with a general lack of will-power. Any weight-loss I’d managed was fast undone.

So, I’ve now ditched the book, and turned me attention to intermittent fasting, without the hype. In my initial research, some of the reviews of The 8 Hour Diet have been more useful than the book itself.

This three star review highlights the research that preceded The 8 Hour Diet (though these authors are ignored in the book). This reviewer recommends Brad Pilon’s “Eat, Stop, Eat” program, as well as Martin Berkhan’s leangains.com. The reviewer implies that you can get all the info you need online, without putting yourself through Zinczenko’s writing.

While I agree with the above, I also found an easy way to read the book – via this summary article, “8-hour diet lets you cheat and still lose up to 10lb in a week”, written by the man himself. Even though it’s written to spark people’s interest in his product, it gives the book’s core content.

Back to the reviewers on Amazon.com, another reviewer discusses her previous experience with a type of intermittent fasting. Even though her 5 star rating for the book makes me instantly suspicious, her experience is useful to hear. After many years doing a kind of intermittent fasting, she stopped when doctors and friends argued that she didn’t eat enough. This saw her stack on weight, so she went back to IF, and quickly saw improvement in her health and weight. She says the book helped her lose the last few kilos she wanted. “This book reminded me of everything I believe in about the body's need to rest and not constantly be working day and night to process food. It does not makes sense to eat around the clock, we have only had access to excess food a hundred years or so.”

Interesting point.

More importantly for me, she highlighted reasons for why the diet fails for some people: “Many people here say the diet did not work for them so it may not work for everyone. Every body is different. I lost 10 lbs in one month and that's all I needed to lose. But I ate the 8 super-foods everyday and after filling up on them I didn't eat any junk. I also workout daily. I think giving it a try is worth it but you really do need to exercise and eat the 8 everyday in order to test it properly.”  And there’s the crux. You do actually have to be sensible and ignore all the author’s hype.

This is also what makes me the most cranky about the diet. I followed it properly and I ate the 8 superfoods each day. Okay, I might have also added a block of chocolate – BUT that’s supposedly allowed. As is occasionally falling off the bandwagon…. The book emphasises how it’s a diet that you can adapt to fit your life, and even if you only follow it strictly for 3 days a week, you’ll still see results. I don’t think this is true – not for me, at least.

So, where do I go from here?

Research time. I found this article on IF by Joseph Mercola, helpful. This tip jumped out at me: “Remember it takes a few weeks, and you have to do it gradually, but once you succeed to switch to fat burning mode you be easily able to fast for 18 hours and not feel hungry.  The “hunger” most people feel are actually cravings for sugar, and these will disappear, as if by magic, once you successfully shift over to burning fat instead.” (A word of advice: ignore the rest of the website this is posted on!) 

The disappearance of cravings really surprised me, but this goes towards explaining it. I’ve always craved sugar, and have been worried even by the idea of giving it up, in the belief that the cravings will have me whimpering in the sweets aisle within hours of quitting them. It was quite exciting to be free of them so easily! And it gives me hope that if I feed myself properly, I can escape the Sugar Demon. 

This is another thing that Dr Mercola highlights – nutrition. “I have been experimenting with different types of scheduled eating for the past two years and currently restrict my eating to a 6-7 hour window each day. While you’re not required to restrict the amount of food you eat when on this type of daily scheduled eating plan, I would caution against versions of intermittent fasting that gives you free reign to eat all the junk food you want when not fasting, as this seems awfully counterproductive [my emphasis].”

Yet how does Zinczenko sell his diet? “Watch the pounds disappear without watching what you eat!” It’s seriously worrying that such misinformation – nay, a downright lie – prefaces the whole book.
Take away message?

As Mercola points out, “It typically takes several weeks to shift to fat burning mode, but once you do, your cravings for unhealthy foods and carbs will automatically disappear. This is because you’re now actually able to burn your stored fat and don’t have to rely on new fast-burning carbs for fuel.”

While I take anything I read online with a grain of salt, I am finding truth in what Mercola writes. I’m now almost four weeks in, and I’m starting to get better at ignoring my brain’s habit of thinking I can’t sleep without a recent feeding. I’m also learning the right amounts to feed myself to get me through the fasting period. I’ve ditched The 8 Hour Diet, but I am thankful for the useful information I’ve found in the process. It looks like there’s an increasing amount of research being done on this kind of dieting (Google it, you’ll see!), so it’s something I plan to watch, at the same time I watch the clock and improve the nutrition value of my meals.
 
Thanks Jo! It has been quite a journey, and I'm glad it was you doing it!
My next installment on the 5:2 Diet will be coming soon. 

The 5:2 Diet - Two Weeks In

On Tuesday Jo gave us a summary of her first 8 days on the 8 Hour Diet. It's been going well, and she has seen some good weight loss (600grams in 8 days) without too much difficulty.

Therefore, I thought it about time I stepped up to the plate and told you about my first two weeks on the 5:2 Diet.


Overview:

If you haven't already, check out my full post on what the 5:2 diet is all about. But for those of you too lazy to click back there, here's the overview:

5 days a week you can eat anything you want, and 2 days a week you eat 1/4 for your calorie requirements, so roughly 500 calories for girls and 600 for boys. 

Simples.

This all started because I had reviewed the 8 Hour Diet, but wasn't prepared to do it myself. A friend was over for dinner and said that if  I wasn't interested in the 8 Hour Diet, I should look at the other big intermittent fasting diet at the moment, the 5:2 diet. There and then we grabbed out the laptop and did some research. A diet where most of the time I get to eat absolutely anything I want guilt free, huh? Sounded pretty good to me.

So I started the very next day (can't do too much thinking about these things). It was a Thursday.


My First Day:
 
It was a pretty easy start, since I was running late for work anyway, so skipped breakfast.

By mid-morning I was starting to feel a bit rumbly, but managed to quell the noise with some (carefully measured and entered into MyFitnessPal calorie counter) milky tea. Totally worth the 30 calories.

Then came lunch. One of the great things about writing a fitness blog is that you can try all these bizarre things and just tell people you are 'doing research'. So luckily for me I had no problem at work, I just explained that I was testing out this fad diet for the blog (so much better than trying to hide that you are on a diet, and just really, really want to eat a plateful of kelp, or you like drinks with lemon and cayenne pepper in them). I actually had a large bowl full of oats made up with water, which I liberally sprinkled with cinnamon and then added a level teaspoon of brown sugar.

Turns out that 60grams of a oats makes really quite a large bowlful and in winter is a really good meal to keep you going. Though a lot of people do not understand the wonder of hot porridge as a lunch choice. However, once informed, the girls of my work happily joined in discussions on the pros and cons of the diet.

The afternoon wasn't too bad. It wasn't brilliant, but totally doable. (Disclaimer: I've done quite a lot of different types of fasting for religious purposes over the years, so I did sort of know what to expect, and also that whatever whinging my body is doing, it can last at least 24 hours without food.)

For dinner I had what I had actually planned to have anyway: a Lean Cuisine (or one of those) microwave meal of Lamb Hotpot, which came in at 250 calories.

I sat down and ate it slowly while watching the documentary Eat, Fast and Live Longer, which is the foundation for the diet. I highly recommend doing this on your first fast day, as it makes you feel all empowered and like you are changing your world for the better. Afterwards I spent a little while working out what I would eat tomorrow when I could have anything I wanted, and then went to bed with just a few rumbles.


The Next Day:

Woke up feeling really good and not starving. I had decided I would get a hot breakfast from the fast food stand at the station, and splurged out and got an egg and bacon sandwich and a chicken skewer. Have to admit, the chicken skewer was one of the greatest things I had ever tasted. At work I then finished of the bacon and egg sandwich and felt really quite sick for eating way too much.

Yup, after even one day of fasting, your stomach contracts so you are satisfied with much less. Score!
I also found myself craving salad! Don't ask me why. So I had a salad for lunch. Someone had brought in homemade biscuits and I happily scoffed as many as I wanted with a smile on my face.

At the end of the day, I sat down and did the maths:

If twice a week I eat 500 calories, and the rest of the time I should eat 1800 calories, then on my feasting days, I can eat (1300x2)/5 =  520 extra calories and still maintain my weight, so that's 2320.

I then added up absolutely everything I had eaten that day, when I had eaten everything I wanted to, and found that I had actually only eaten just over 2000. Now I know that on some days I can eat more than that (especially when KFC beckons) but it was still looking pretty good.


Second Fast Day:

Got round to the second fast day and it was a whole lot easier. Partly this was because I knew what to expect, but partly because I also prepared and cooked better. For breakfast I sauteed a cup of mushrooms and two cups of spinach leaves in vegetable stock, and roasted a tomato with basil. Quite a lot of food, less than 100 calories. I also added 25grams of cooked oats to give me some filling to keep me going.

Only problem on the day was that Mum came down to town to take me out to lunch. (I know, what a waste of a free lunch!)

'Surely you can eat this?' She said, pointing to the avocado and creamy dressing salad.
'No, I really don't think I can.'
'How about this?'
'No, not that either.'

If I had been able to plan for it, and had rearranged my calorie intake it would have been better. However, in the end I did find a vegetable, oxtail and freekha soup which apparently came to only about 200 calories. For the win! Add in a diet coke and I was a happy girl.


Exercise:


And for those of you wondering, yes you can still exercise on a fast day. On both my Sundays I fasted and did my long run for my half marathon training. The key, I think, is to do aerobic exercise, long and slow, rather than high intensity. Last Sunday I did my longest run yet (13kms) and ended up burning twice what I had eaten for the whole day, with no adverse effects.


Weightloss:

So, the big test for me is the weightloss. Yes, yes the health benefits will be great, but they don't show up as much in someone my age unless I was at risk already. It's when you get into your 50s+ that the health benefits really kick in.

Unfortunately, I didn't actually weigh myself just before I started as I didn't own my own scales. I had planned to run to the gym on the first morning, but ended up being late for work so couldn't.

As you might know from following my half marathon training posts, I had started around 77kgs, and over a few weeks worked my way down to about 75kg (I got a great reading one day, then realised it was actually because I had used my parents' scales which were not the same as the gym ones).

However, over the next few weeks, where I paused my training and had a lot of family birthday parties, mother's day, fish and chips etc, I had crept back up to 77kgs. The last time I had weighed myself (just a few days before my first fast) I had been about 77.6kgs.

After the first week I dropped down to 75.6kgs. That is pretty good, but I felt I was only just getting back to where I had been, so wasn't super excited.

After the second week I dropped down to 74.4kgs, breaking new ground!

I have now bought myself a set of scales, and I weigh myself most mornings to see how it all works.  (Not generally recommended, once a week is totally fine, it's just for scientific research purposes I'm doing it everyday.)

The morning after your fast day the scale will read ridiculously low, partly because you will have emptied your gut without filling it up, and also you need to be careful of dehydration. The next day it will have jumped up around 0.5-1kgs, which is a bit despiriting, as you think that it will just keep going up and up.

However, the next two days after that, even though you continue to eat whatever you like, it starts to creep back down again. It won't hit where you had been on a fast day without another fast day, but it definitely keeps going down.

Now, I have been warned that you get the most weightloss in the first two weeks, and then it slows down. However, it is totally worth doing even just for 0.5kgs a week.


Conclusion So Far?

Last Friday I was out for work drinks and I ordered a bowl of wedges and was chomping away. One of the girls was like, 'Hey, you can't eat that, you're on a diet!' Cider in one hand, wedge in the other, I waved it under her nose and said 'It's exactly because I'm on a diet I can eat it! It's when you don't do anything you can't justify the extras!' And happily went back to munching with a sigh and a grin.

Feeling totally justified in having that second piece of cake on my feasting days completely make up for any hardship of fasting two days a week. And during the fast, just smiling and saying 'I can have that tomorrow' makes all the difference over other diets.

Therefore, currently it has my thumbs up. It makes the rest of your life happier, I appear to be losing weight, the fast days become easier and it is fun trying to get as much food in as possible for 500 calories (this also encourages you to eat veggies as they are the best way to fill up your plate for less).

I have become a little bit evangalistic about this diet, to the point that my family are trying it! They weighed themselves on the 1st of June, are fasting Tuesdays and Thursdays, and are going to weigh themselves again on the 1st of July. Also, luckily for me, my dad had his cholesterol taken just before he started, so we can see if the diet makes any difference (though he was pretty good to begin with).

The most important thing, I think, is to work out delicious meals for 500 calories. I usually try for two smaller meals of about 125 calories each (30 grams of oats and then some sauteed veggies for example) and then one bigger meal of 250 calories.

Anyone got great low calorie recipes they want to share? 

The Hunger Games: 8 Hour Diet - 8th Day Wrap

The Hunger Games have begun! First in with the results, Jo tells us about her first 8 days on the 8 Hour Diet.

Hello Basecampers – Guineapig Jo here, trying out the latest fad diet for you.

A Quick Recap of the 8 Hour Diet Structure:

You’re only allowed to eat during an 8 hour period, followed by 16 hours of fasting (water and black teas only), and your goal is to include a serving of each of the 8 superfoods per day – lean meat, veggies, beans/legumes, nuts and seeds, berries, fruit, dairy/yogurt and wholegrains. The more often you manage to stick to this diet, the greater the health gains are, including weightloss and general health.

I decided to read the book while doing the diet, curious to see whether the many promised results were at all realistic. My view after the first week? Well, there’s a big gap between the ideas and how they’re presented in the book.

Let’s break it up this way:

THE BOOK…

….is ridiculous, and should be taken with kilos of added salt. Its over-the-top (and counter-intuitive) claims begin with the tagline: “Watch the Pounds Disappear Without Watching What You Eat!”

We’ll return to the truth of that, when I’ve finished complaining about the book.

Author David Zinczenko never properly references his explanations. He sometimes refers to a specific study, but without any formal referencing, his words must be taken on faith. I find that a difficult way to read a book that’s meant to be ‘changing my life’. But then, that’s just symptomatic of an author who has no respect for his audience’s intelligence.

You also have to ignore the constant contradiction of his basic premise that you can eat anything you want… alongside the fine print, that you must make sure you eat the 8 superfoods every day and be moderate about junk food and don’t drink alcohol and and and…

The interesting information lurking behind all this centres on the large body of research into intermittent fasting. The book barely discusses the tip of the iceberg of this research, though it does briefly discuss how fasting enables our bodies to focus on daily regeneration, thus preserving youthfulness and health.

The other informative aspect is the explanation of why his 8 superfoods are, well, super. What he doesn’t make obvious, yet likes clearly between the lines, is that to eat all these superfoods you either need to be seriously committed to spending 8 hours of your day eating, or you have to cut the lousy foods to fit in all the superfoods. (Back to my point about respecting his audience…)

So, what about the actual diet and results?

After promising Buffy I’d give this a good for two weeks, I’m finding myself quite intrigued by its effects.

At first I was worried at the limited time to eat and how I’d fit that all in. Then I realised I’m normally only awake for, like, 14 hours in a 24 hour period (don’t judge me, I’m a bear hiding in a woman’s body, I need my sleep!)

The first day saw me feasting until the final minute. For that matter, every day has had the same mad rush at the end – quick, eeeeeeat! I was later surprised to find that I wasn’t hungry during the fast, as long as I slept in until 9ish (yes, a freelancer’s luxury) so I could eat within a few hours of getting up.

Also, the focus on my daily superfood requirement has improved my diet, though it’s not hugely different from usual. I’m reasonably healthy, focusing on meats, veggies and rice, mostly because my gluten intolerance forces me to avoid breads, baked goods and other wheaty nasties. I typically already ate 5-6 of his superfoods per day, so bumping that up to 8 wasn’t too hard. (Then there are the other days with the hot chips, icecream and chocolate binges, but that’s irrelevant – those are allowed on the diet too! … Sort of.)

And, since I can only manage to prepare and eat two meals in the 8 hour period, my caloric intake has decreased by about a third.

And so, the weightloss?

I weigh myself every morning, around the same time, after my early morning bladder emptying (too much info yet?). Over the first two days I lost 600grams, which isn’t uncommon for me when I’m exercising, but I wasn’t on these days! On the third day I had my weekly bout of heavy exercise. The next morning I’d dropped exactly a kilo.

I followed the diet strictly for the 4th day, and lost another 300grams over that 16 hour fast.
Then I pushed it a little on day 5. The book says repeatedly that as long as you fit in the 8 superfoods, you can eat whatever else you want…. For me, this included half a 200gram block of Whittakers Peanut Butter Milk Chocolate…. Then a cheeky glass of red later that night.

Next morning, day 7, I weighed in 800grams heavier.

I wrote that day off, since a friend’s going away party promised too many drinks and a lot of party nibbles.

Day 8 began healthily at 600 grams lighter than Day 1. Over the day I “ate my 8”, until I cracked and ate two bags of Maccas fries, a short-cut way of carb-loading for a tournament the next day...
And that, my friends, is 8 days of the 8 hour diet. Overall, 600grams lighter – more results to come! 

Summary:

The book is crap, but I’d be interested to do some more research about intermittent dieting and caloric control.

…. I’m also working on getting better at sticking to the diet…..

Thanks Jo! Stay tuned for the next post where I tell you about my first 2 weeks on the 5:2 Diet.

Any questions for the brave girl? Anything you would like to know about the diet as she tests it out?

Update: See Jo's Final Review of the Diet. 

8 Hour VS 5:2 Diet - Let The Hunger Games Begin!

   VS

A few posts ago I reviewed the 8 Hour Diet and at the end called for guinea pigs that would want to try it out. Jo, a friend I hadn't caught up with in years (literally, we worked out it was about 4 years... very sad) facebooked me and put her hand up.  Full points for being brave, if not smart :D

I was then chatting with another friend over dinner and she mentioned that since I had looked at the 8 Hour Diet, I really ought to also look at the 5:2 Diet, the other (more) popular form of intermittent fasting.

5:2 Diet you say?

Why yes!

I jumped on line and did a bit of research, and the research interested me. While I will go into the diet in more details later, as the name suggests the basic formula is eat whatever you want 5 days a week and then have a very restricted diet 2 days a week (so not even real fasting!).

How restricted you ask? 25% of your required daily intake, which is roughly around 500 calories for girls and 600 calories for boys. Just to put that in perspective, an Australian MacDonald's Big Mac burger is 515 calories, without the chips or drinks (Yes, the number of calories does actually change country to country... more in Singapore, would you believe?). However, you would be amazed how much food you can squeeze into 500 calories if you really try.

So I posed to Jo the concept of a challenge - her on the 8 Hour Diet and me on the 5:2 Diet. Minimum two weeks: which was easier to live with and produced good results.

Sadly, can't directly compare them against each other in weight loss terms, as I'm still trying to train for my half marathon (yes, I haven't posted, but I'm still, sort of, with slightly guilty tones, training), and the other general personal differences between us. Also, I happened to start on Wednesday last week while Jo couldn't start until Saturday. As I didn't know this until I had already started fasting, I wasn't going to give up the hard work I had done already. But I'm sure you will forgive me.

But we will tell you all the gory details and leave you to decide. 

So, in the next post I'm going to outline for you the 5:2 Diet and why I think it's going to be the more practical and sustainable of the two. 

Then, at the end of each week Jo and I are both going to report in with how things have been going, any weight loss, and advice to those trying to follow in our paths.

The Hunger Games have begun... stay tuned for more!

Check out Jo's first check-in: 8 Hour Diet 8th Day Wrap!