The Agile Diet – Weight loss by regular switching

Well, it was inevitable that this would happen. If Agile is figuring out the most effective way of delivering an outcome within valid constraints, then why would we not apply the Key Elements of Agile to our weight loss? After all, being Agile means we apply Agility to every aspect of our lives.

Health warning and disclaimer: I am not a nutritional or weight loss or health expert. Nothing we did should be copied or undertaken without medical supervision.

Photos of before and after at the end of the article.

Summary

We kept switching diets every 2 to 5 weeks to keep the body guessing. This also helped us in maintaining momentum, motivation and interest. In this article I explain what we did.

In 10 weeks we lost 1st13lbs or 27lbs or 12.2kg (Ali), and 1st 11lbs or 25lbs or 11.3kg (Sue). We began on 17th March 2024.

As I write this, we are over 5 months after starting this program, and I have maintained a loss of 2st 5lbs or 33lbs or 15.0kg. (Sue has also continued to lose but I don't have her details).

Our history told us

Like almost everyone else we have been on weight loss programs (diets) before. Most worked for a while, but rarely did we reach our goals before the progress slowed and the enthusiasm wained. Not dissimilar to applying a new part of an Agile framework.

We noticed that the first month or so of a new program would work reasonably well. Usually we would lose around 6lbs (2.5kg) within the first week. But we found out that this was mostly the water which accompanies the glycogen we are storing in the body. This would be the case for pretty much every diet we ever tried.

A good bit of information to have

We learned that to remove 1kg (2.2lbs) of fat requires a 7,700-calorie deficit.

Our best-case scenario would be just over 1,000 calorie deficit per day. This would give us around 7,700 calories deficit and 2.2lbs / 1kg loss per week.

You can’t break the laws of physics, even with an Agile approach ??.

So, after that initial 6lb loss in the first few days, we worked out that the optimal weight loss we should expect for us is around 2lbs (0.9kg) per week. This was confirmed by our trainer, the excellent Lee Carnaby .

Which diet program to start with?

This was less important than the fact that we knew we were going to switch within 2 to 5 weeks.

Below is what we did week by week. But as I mentioned at the beginning, this should not be followed without medical supervision. I am listing this for information only, and to explain how our Agile Diet worked for us.

Your Agile Diet will be different to ours and unique to you. Eventually you will discover your own diet. ?

Weeks 1 & 2

We started with the The Fast 800 for 2 weeks.

We lost the expected 6lbs / 2.7kg in the first week and another 2-3lbs in week 2.

We learned that:

There was no need to count anything (calories, macros, etc.) because we just followed The Fast 800 Recipe Book by Dr Clare Bailey and Dr Michael Mosley.

Our hunger very quickly disappeared, and it was fun trying new things.

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Weeks 3 & 4

We then moved to the Fast Diet 5:2 for 2 weeks. This is where you eat normally for 5 days in the week and restrict your intake to between 500 and 800 calories for 2 days in the week, not necessarily consecutively.

We were already doing some intermittent fasting by now, so we felt this was an obvious choice. Intermittent fasting for us meant not eating till somewhere between 5pm and 7pm.

We lost 4lbs / 1.8kg in these 2 weeks. Still in line with our expectations.

?

Weeks 5 to 7

Next we moved to a Carnivore diet, initially for 1 week, but on advice of our doctor we extended that and completed 3 weeks.

We stayed the same weight for the 1st week.

Then we lost 9lbs / 4kg (Ali) and 7lbs / 3.2kg (Sue) in the next two weeks.

We learned that:

We must take in considerable Fat with our Protein. Lean Proteins get turned into Sugar, apparently, and can move one out of ketosis. Hence why the Adkins program requires Fat to work.

While went into ketosis. During the first week when we were not losing anything we concluded that either:

• the body was either adjusting to the new weight,
• the body was upset it was not getting complete nutrition,
• or that our fat reserves were not being released because they may be storing toxins which the liver was unable to process.

We found that in addition to the above possibilities it was likely we were consuming a lot of calories. We basically ate as much as we liked in that first week. We found the over time we got less hungry so we ate less which may be why we had so much success in weeks 6 and 7.

Carinvore is fun but a little brutal, I suggest speaking with someone like Lee or your doctor before trying it.

Weeks 8 to 10

Next we began introducing a light salad. Moving from Carnivore to Ketone and focusing on keeping Carbs down. We were very happy to be re-introducing lettuce and cucumber onto our plate. At this point we aimed to keep Carbs below 20g per day.

We gained some weight in the first week, 3lbs / 1.4kg (Ali) and 2lbs / 1kg (Sue).

But we lost 8lbs / 3.6kg each in the next two weeks, and reached our first major goal at the 10-week mark.

Due to the plateau in week 8 we also re-introduced our vitamin and mineral supplements together with a Daily Greens shake. This seemed to break the plateau, though we cannot be sure it was all because of that. But importanly we did feel better overall, and we continue the supplements and Greens now.

During this time I remained focused on restricting Carbs, while Sue refocused on the Calories deficit while measuring Macros (percentages of Proteins, Carbs and Fats in her food).

We learned that:

• 1g of Proteins or Carbs has 4 Calories, while 1g of Fat has 9 calories.
• I could get close to 50g Carbs per day and stay in ketosis, we think because I was exercising every one to two days – aiming to burn over 500 Calories each time. Sue had to stay under 20g for a short while as she was resting following an operation to remove a metal plate from her leg.?

From the end of week 10 to now (week 23)

We have continued intermittent fasting, but ensuring we have a full calory intake each day. Due to the weight loss our training has become more intense, so we still have a small calory deficit.

We were going to try the Combination or Hay Diet, where you keep carbs and proteins in separate meals, but we have not yet gotten round to that. We have found the following seems to work best for us (for now).?

Introducing the 4:2:1 Diet - and other Psychological tricks

We have introduced our very own 4:2:1 Diet. Like the Fast 5:2, except that every so often (less than once a week) we have a day when we have whatever takes our fancy.

We call the 1-day “Cake Day”. This started because we had “missed out” on eating cake at 3 or 4 birthdays, so we set the goal that on Cake Day we allow ourselves to eat as much cake as we wanted to (we have photos).

We had our first “Cake Day” a month after starting this regime by having a blowout Chinese meal with my parents. That dealt with the psychology of feeling we were restricting ourselves too much. It gave us the idea for Cake Day.

We have had 3 “Cake Days” in the past 13 weeks, so more like a monthly event rather than a weekly one. I guess because we know we can have one any time we want we don’t then crave it so much.

Overall, we consider what we are eating and doing over a longer period of time than just one day. Eating too much one day can easily be dealt with by a fasting and/or some intense exercise the next day or so.

Other psychological tricks we employed

• We told 6 people (3 couples) about our plan and we committed to keeping them informed of our progress every week. Every Sunday, we would update them on our WhatsApp group. Not of the weight we were, but of the amount lost (or gained).
• Looking at the full torso version of the photo of 8th March 2024 was a great motivation for me.
• All my physical activity I felt better and better, especially my yoga. Oh, the poses I can now hold! Pull ups?! Well wow. I am flying through those. As for rope climbs. Amazing.
• Reminding myself that "nothing tastes as good as skinny feels" (I believe a Kate Moss quote), was a real help too.
• If we really needed to have something "naughty" we had one, or two. Combined with the skinny feeling we want, the desire soon went (before we would eat the whole packet) and very little damage is done.
• Did I mention Cake Day?

What we learned:

We find that having a target date for “eat what you want” removes crazy cravings. And it means that we continue to benefit from not eating too much of stuff we are told is bad for us (sugar, simple carbs, alcohol, processed food, etc.).

Also, if we do have a Cake Day (or two) we know how to get back before the weight accumulation again. Introduce a 2-Day (or two).

We listen to our bodies. If we feel hungry before our main meal, we eat a little something, and wait. If we are still hungry, we eat a little something more, and continue until we are feeling OK.

The old “drink some water” also helps a lot of the time to curb hunger.

What is next?

I am currently at 18.8% Body Fat. I would like to be below 17%. I am less interested in my absolute weight as I am in how I look and feel. Whereas I would like to lose another 5lbs / 2.3kg I know that I may actually gain weight as I continue the gym work I am doing, so long as the weight is not unnecessary fat coming back on.

We continue to monitor ourselves. Not by stepping on the scales every day or every week, but by checking how we feel. A little bloated? A little sluggish? We know we can do something about it right away.

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Some further things we learned along the way

• Plateaus – they happen, a lot.
• We knew there would be plateaus. Ensured we had other means of measuring success.
• Understand the plateau – measuring ketones while not losing weight kept us motivated and curious about what should change.
• We lose weight differently, and we maintain weight differently. I could stay in Ketosis with 50g of carbs, Sue had to stay under 20g.
• Exercise helps, a lot.
• Begin when motivation is high and mental resources were full. Use all psychological tricks to get you started and keep you going.
• Don’t beat one-self up. Re-set and re-group.
• Measure what is going on. Track things other than weight alone.
• Set short goals that can be hit and celebrate – like our Chinese dinner or cake.
• Do our own research. Don’t try and follow what others suggest, necessarily, it may not work for us.
• It was very important to remind selves of what achieved.
• Sometime we need to set small goals with big rewards to get us motivated, like CAKE!
• Muscles are less prominent on ketone diets. The lack of glycogen and water in the muscles makes them look less impressive.
• We fuel our bodies differently according what we are doing and eating. We found the liver takes a few minutes to kick in compared to the instant energy availability of glycogen in muscles. So the beginning of a work out when on low carbs can feel a lot harder, but within 20 minutes we were all good and powering through.
• Use accurate scales for measurements – our home scales show my body fat is still at 30% whereas the accurate scales in the gym show I am at 18.8%.

So, those photos then...

To see the naked torso version shimmy over to my other social network platform. I am told this is not the place to show off my recently uncovered abs.

8th March 2024 - the full torso version of this photo was my motivation.

11th March 2024 - great workouts being done, but not losing weight

Very happy, but chubby. 15th March 2024.

20th June 2024

29th July 2024 - 2 days after my 58th Birthday

If you would like help with your weight loss please contact Lee Carnaby , for anything else related to Agile ways of working and Agile delivery feel free to get in touch with me.

As Dr Sam Goodwin in the show New Amsterdam would say: how can I help?