The Alternate Day Diet (2008) by James Johnson M.D. is commonly known as Alternate Day Eating, JUDDD, or Johnson’s Up Day Down Day Diet. 

Dr. Johnson practiced as a New Orleans plastic surgeon. He appears to be another Diet Guru with an MD who, although knowing very little about nutrition, has discovered an eating gimmick or… different type of dieting method… that appears to work for some people.

Although his book was published in 2008, it is based on conventional wisdom, and states many “scientific facts” that have been proven false during the past decade or so.  Dr. Johnson still fervently believes in the cholesterol myth,  and he clearly states that a low-carb diet is unhealthy.

The scientific data used by Dr Johnson as a foundation of his Theory relates to some rat studies involving calorie restriction and longevity research, along with a bit of research involving the effects of short-term alternate day fasting on the human metabolism.

Dr. Johnson created a modified version of an alternate day fast, in which he ate 20% (a number apparently pulled out of thin air) of his normal maintenance calories on “down” days, and normal maintenance calories on “up” days. He quickly lost 35 lbs, and then started using it on his own patients (without ….as far as it appears in his book… any additional prior testing). Based on his own results, and reports of his patients, Johnson proceeded to write a book about it: The Alternate Day Diet (2008) by James Johnson, M.D.

The basic premise is to eat as much as you want one day--without intentionally overstuffing yourself--and to eat only 20% to 50% of your daily calorie requirement the next day. At least at first, Dr. Johnson suggests using prepackaged protein drinks or other packaged foods on your down days, so you can be sure of the calories. The reason for the spread between 20% and 50% has to do with weight loss: If you have a lot to lose, go with 20%. If you've reached your goal and you're maintaining your weight, 50% is fine.

The idea behind JUDDD, (and any kind of alternate day eating plan) is that it works because if one eats within reason during UP days, one's average calorie intake (which is your UP day total added to your DOWN day total) divided by 2, will be low enough to cause weight loss.

The percentage calculations are based on the standard 3500 calories = 1 fat lb Theory, which is used together with one’s BMR as determined by the Harris-Benedict formula, or one’s RMR as determined by the Mifflin formula. A small percentage for one’s activity factor is then added to that Base number.

 For example, an UP day of 2000 calories and a Down day of 500 calories, are added together and then divided by 2, therefore those two days have an average calorie intake of 1250 per day.

An advantage of alternate day eating, is that one eats “normally” every other day, and therefore, one is only dieting “half” of the time… i.e. every other day.

A disadvantage of alternate day eating, is that because one is not consistently eating small amounts, the amount of hunger one feels on “down” days does not decrease over time.

It is the nature of the human body to adapt….and the body’s tendency is to lower metabolism due to consistently reduced food intake. Although there have been a few short-term studies which indicate that metabolism rate is not affected by fasts of 48 hours or less, there have been no studies as to whether the metabolism rate is affected by the use of short-term fasting ... such as alternate day eating or intermittent fasting ... on a regular basis for lengthy time periods. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn’t.

My first experiment with the Alternate Day Eating concept was in July 2006  when I experimented with following QOD.  A link to that diet book, along with several others mentioned in this article can be found here at DietHobby under RESOURCES Books & Tools. In my own case, alternate day eating plans worked better for me weight-wise during the first year that I experimented with them, and not as well in later years. However, this could have been due to a drop in metabolism as a result of my long-term maintenance, rather than due to any specific food plan, because in later years, this lowered metabolic rate has appeared within every food plan I’ve used.

Alternate Day Eating, is also known as QOD, or Eating Every Other Day, or Alternate Day Fasting, or Intermittent Fasting. It has elements in common with Calorie cycling or Zigzag dieting. All of these labels apply to the concept of varying the amount of caloric intake from day-to-day with a goal of keeping the body’s metabolic rate up while restricting calories. There is no long-term research indicating whether or not this way of eating is metabolically helpful, and the anecdotal evidence appears inconsistent..some people say they’ve tried it and that it helps their metabolism, other people say they’ve tried it and seen no benefit at all.

Many People who experiment with JUDDD, appear to also be familiar with QOD, and with various other popular Intermittent Fasting plans, such as EatStopEat, and Fast5. These Plans have much in common, and each of them can be used alone, or can be combined in various ways.

 During recent years, the various forms of Alternate Day Eating, including JUDDD, have become quite popular in various weight-loss forums, and numerous people appear to have achieved substantial weight-loss by using them as a calorie restriction method. I’ve personally conducted quite a few individual experiments with these plans, and with various combinations of these plans. Sometimes they’ve “worked” for me…. in that they brought me weight-loss. Sometimes they haven’t worked….in that I’ve failed to achieve weight-loss. I am still attracted to the concepts and open to the theories that surround them. I also still run personal experiments with these various ways of eating.

I’ve learned that when using the DietPower computer software program,   it is possible for me to make careful food choices and meet my own nutritional requirements while eating very low calorie. No matter what diet or way of eating I choose to use, I track all my food in that program every day, and along with watching my calories, it is fairly easy for me to see which food choices will ensure that my basic nutritional needs are met. For more information on this see my recent article: Records: My Past 8 Years, which shows a review of my past 8 years of food records.

You can read Dr. Johnson's marketing hype as well as learn details about how the diet plan works here at the JUDDD online site. I am opposed to buying supplements from weight-loss Gurus, and I advice against any such purchase.  However, I believe that the mechanics of just about every Diet works for someone, and that the Best Diet is whichever one that you personally can live with.

            
I am currently involved in trying yet another Experiment
which is very similar to one I’ve run in the past.
And yet I’m hoping for a Different Result.
Since that meets one definition of insanity,…
     ………….enough said.

Remember, other people's expectations are NOT an excuse to overeat.
We cannot be held hostage to other people's food issues.

 One of my most difficult areas is overeating between meals.  
I've never...(yet)... been successful at having only Three meals a day.  Despite many, repeated efforts at sticking to a 3 meal a day plan or even sticking to a 6 mini-meal a day plan, I have not been able to break my "grazing" habits.  My lifetime habit of eating all-day-long started for me in childhood, and although it has been a hindrance to my weight-loss and maintenance efforts, it sometimes seems impossible to overcome.

Eating between-meals was the subject of recent posts on a forum which I often visit.
A new Forum Member commented:

"i think also the fact that in the USA it is encouraged to snack all day, eat all kinds of things like desserts just randomly because 'someone brought it' etc, is just so acceptable here.  Crazy how that works. Anyway, would love to know others' thoughts on this."

A wise "old-timer" Forum Member responded:

"Last night I was reading “Outside the Box: Why Our Children Need REAL FOOD, Not Food Products” by Jeannie Marshall. She is a Canadian living in Rome. She wrote some about food culture:

Jeannie Marshall wrote:

A food culture has something to do with recipes and something to do with the ingredients, but there are also rules. A food culture organizes your eating instead of allowing you to graze, nibble and snack all day long. Yes, spaghetti al ragù might be part of the culture, but you don't eat it at any time, and you don't get a plastic container and then eat it on the bus on the way home from work. By the traditional rules of this food culture, you eat at a table at the appropriate time of day with other people. (Italians feel sad when they see someone eating alone.) The food culture sets rules for consumption that puts limits on our tendency to overindulge. When I first came to Italy, snack foods were still fairly limited. We didn't see the racks of packaged snack foods that have since appeared in the coffee bars and tabacchi. If you went into a shop that sold slices of pizza at around four or five o'clock in the afternoon, the person behind the counter would offer to cut you a very small piece, about six to eight bites in size, and you'd have to coax and persuade him with stories about the meagerness of your earlier lunch before he'd give you anything bigger.

Generally a food culture sets prescribed mealtimes. Yet you don't feel deprived because you're really not thinking about food all the time -- which might seem counterintuitive since you're surrounded by all this great food. but if you don't constantly see advertisements reminding you to eat, and if you don't see people eating all the time, if it's not acceptable in the culture to walk around eating and drinking, you don't do it. For instance, a good friend of mine, Brenda, came to visit us from New York shortly after we moved to Rome, and she really wanted to try a creamy pastry that she saw in a pasticceria. The man who sold it to her wrapped it beautifully in paper and ribbon. Brenda took it outside, unwrapped it on the street and started to eat it as we strolled around Trastevere. Within two bites she became extremely self-conscious, aware of the disapproving glances directed toward her, and she realized that eating a wonderful creamy pastry on the street wasn't really done. It's not culturally acceptable. It's not that Italians disapprove of pastry, but there is a time and a place for it, and that is after dinner. This might be why American adults associate chocolate cake with guilt while the French associate it with celebration.

A food culture is also about community. In Italy there are special food festivals -- le sagre -- that run from fall through spring to celebrate single foods. In the late fall there are olive festivals to celebrate the olive harvest and in spring you can find celebrations of the artichoke.

Those are the elements of a food culture,as far as I've observed. But there's more below the surface. Just as the slow-cooked mingling of freshly chopped tomatoes; green, fruity, fresh olive oil; and sea salt produces a flavourful sauce that defies those simple ingredients, so too do the health benefits of a food culture go far beyond the nutrients in the food. "History" and "tradition" are other words for the accumulation of hundreds, sometimes thousands of years of food and health knowledge contained in a food culture. But this knowledge is not always (or even often) consciously understood, and it's not the main point; rather, it's the flavour, the aroma, the pleasure, the sense of hunger satisfied in the company of people close to us that keep a system like this going. Italians don't eat the way they do because it's healthy, but because it tastes good and because it tastes familiar. Health is a side benefit.

I didn't become so fascinated by the food culture of Rome because of its health benefits (there are many cultures that are even healthier). I was attracted to it because of the and the sociable aspects of the culture. While I was out smelling the fruit and admiring the vegetables, the fact that this food is linked to the health of the people who eat it never really entered my mind.

Our food culture is whatever, whenever. And the food is generally linked to our increased weight and lack of health. Like Michael Pollan has written, "What an extraordinary accomplishment for a civilization: to have developed the one diet that reliably makes its people sick!

 

  One thing that I do here in maintenance, is continually work to keep my calories down.  It has become clear to me that a firmly entrenched Habit to eat only at specific scheduled times would be extremely helpful to me, and ... despite my current and ongoing....lack of success with this way of eating ..... I still work toward establishing such a Habit.