Review of the 5 Bite Diet

The thin, large-print, paperback book “Why Weight Around” (2007) by Alwin Lewis, M.D., encourages readers to follow the five-bite diet for weight-loss. This is a self-published book through Lulu "vanity" press and it retails for around $25.

Dr Lewis recommends the 5 Bite approach to eating:

• Drink as much as you want as long as the drinks are free of calories.
• Skip breakfast
• Have 5 bites of any food for lunch.
• Have 5 bites of any food for dinner.
• Eat at least one bite of protein each day.
• Take a multi-vitamin supplement every day

Dr. Lewis assures the reader that after three days on this diet, that you will stop feeling hungry because your body will learn to feel full on this smaller amount of food. This is commonly known to be a valid statement, as hunger ordinarily leaves one’s body after approximately 3 days of starvation such as during a water fast.  He says the the body continually recycles amino acids so very little daily protein is actually necessary when on a weight-loss program.

The five-bite diet involves voluntarily eating the way people are forced to eat after a gastric bypass, in order to give a dieter the benefits of stomach stapling without the surgery. As with many diet plans, the principle of the five-bite diet is to exercise portion control in order to limit your calorie intake. The program allows you to choose to eat any food you want, which can help prevent the feelings of deprivation that often lead people to quit their diets. The five-bite diet is not designed to be a permanent plan. Once you've reached your weight goal, you're advised to resume your normal eating habits.

Dr. Lewis says the volume of 5 bites is about the same as a regular size Snickers candy bar, and recommends that people on the diet eat two Snickers bars a day in order to familiarize themselves with how much 5 bites is.

Dr. Lewis, …just like almost all diet book authors … claims to have successfully followed his diet himself, and at 6 ft tall, he says that he lost from his high of around 190 lbs down to 137 lbs. He recommends that, for good health and a more attractive appearance, everyone should achieve an 18.5 BMI, which is at the bottom border between underweight and normal weight.

Dr. Lewis practices Internal medicine in Burbank, California where he apparently treats obese, overweight, and normal weight patients who have a BMI above 18.5, by putting them on the 5 bite diet. His website, theslimmingstation.com offers an online membership, for $50 per year, but at times this membership fee is $50 per month. It also offers 3 months of weekly one-on-one telephone coaching with Dr. Lewis for a $2,000 fee.

As part of my dieting hobby, I have experimented with the 5 bite diet. Twenty years ago, after my own gastric bypass, I personally experienced what post-gastric-bypass surgery eating is like, and was interested in running a comparison between that experience and the 5 bite diet.

My experimentation with the 5 bite diet occurred while my weight was in the middle of the normal weight BMI range. I successfully completed two weeks of 5 bite diet, and left it in the third week. The first week my weight dropped 7 pounds. While continuing to successfully follow the 5 bite diet rules, during the second week on the 5 bite diet, my body re-gained 5 of those pounds. I left the diet during the my third week, and upon returning to my normal 1,000 calorie diet, the remaining 2 pounds immediately returned, giving me a zero net loss. During a three year period, I repeated this experiment on several occasions, and each time I received similar personal results.

The calories in two 2 oz Snickers candy bars is a total of about 550 calories.   Therefore successfully following the diet would cause weight loss for almost everyone, especially if that person is obese. Normally, I maintain my current weight on about a 1,000 calorie daily average. My personal results were due to my normal-weight as a short, inactive, reduced-obese female over 60 years of age, with a very low calorie burn, and probably... during the diet, my body's metabolism shifted downward to compensate for the very-low-calorie-intake.  if I had chosen to follow the 5 Bite diet for a longer period, over time, it might have caused a net fat-loss. However, the 5 Bite Diet hasn't provided enough appeal to me personally to motivate me to follow through with testing that hypothesis.

My first experiment with this diet was several years ago, and as a part of that process, I purchased a year’s online membership for $50, and for a time, actively posted on Dr. Lewis’ site. As part of that membership I participated in several of the weekly chat sessions with Dr. Lewis himself.   Dr. Lewis was very committed to the 5-bite diet and enthusiasttic. He appeared, however, to be rather insensitive, very egocentric, and sometimes quite rude. When people achieved only modest weight-loss results, he was prone to imply they were lying about their compliance. He ignored some very basic dieting realities, and while "coaching" members, he was prone to state his opinion as fact, and make grandiose claims which (similar to marketing puffery) were backed up by little or no verifiable evidence.

My above-stated opinion was formed due to what I witnessed during my online participation,  As one personal example: I took exception to Dr. Lewis' blanket statements about HOW FAST EVERYONE ALWAYS loses weight after a Gastric Bypass, and advised him that this was not my own experience nor the experiences of many other women that I have personally witnessed. 

To explain my objection to his claims of fast weight-loss for EVERYONE, I told Dr. Lewis that after reviewing my own detailed  records (which I kept current during the first year after my own Gastric  Bypass), my personal weight loss during the first year after surgery ... while eating only about 500 calories per day ... averaged around 2 pounds per week... From 271 lbs down to a low of 159 (which for me was still "obese", because that number is 6 pounds above the bottom BMI border of my "Obese"  weight-range).  Providing him with this information and detailed records, did not cause any adjustment or alteration in his position, and in fact Dr. Lewis indicated to me that he believed that my statements were either inaccurate or less than truthful.

For those here who are interested, I'll add that following the 1st year after my Gastric Bypass, I had an almost immediate  regain into the mid 160s, as my ability to eat more calories increased. After about three years, while eating approximately an average of not more than 1,500 to 1,600 calories a day ... together with a great deal of active dieting to maintain my weight-loss,...  my weight crept back up into the 190s.

I believe that every diet works for someone. The 5-bite diet is an interesting concept, and I can see how it could be an effective weight-loss tactic for an obese person with an extremely busy schedule, especially if that person has latent anorexic tendencies and lacks a genuine interest in food.  At this point, I am not totally opposed to the 5-Bite Diet. It has many things which appeal to me, and there may be a future time when I will choose to try it again.

Below are two videos about the 5 Bite Diet.

The FIRST video is an interesting and positive interview of Dr. Lewis.

The SECOND video is an rather amusing negative diet review.

 
Dr. Siegel’s Cookie Diet is a meal-replacement plan. One eats six of his cookies throughout the day in addition to one meal at the end of the day. That meal should include approximately six ounces of lean white meat protein and one cup of vegetables. Also drink at least 8 to 10 glasses of a non-caloric beverage, such as water, each day.

Dr Seigal advises his patients to eat six cookies throughout the day whenever hungry. The cookies are the only foods eaten all day and then the patients are ‘rewarded’ with dinner.

Depending on one’s individual food choices, the diet is between 800 and 1200 calories a day. Each cookie contains 90 calories and each dinner meal should contain no more than 500 calories. In addition, one is to drink eight glasses of liquid a day (ideally water). Coffee and tea are allowed on this diet. There are five varieties of Dr. Siegal's cookies that you can choose from: chocolate, oatmeal raisin, coconut, banana, and blueberry. Each week’s box of cookies contains a bottle containing a 7 day supply of generic type multi-vitamin pills, which are to be taken daily.

The cookie’s ingredient label is full of things you'd recognize or be able to pronounce. The first ingredient is sugar, with 9 grams of sugar in each serving. The cookies have less than a gram of fiber per serving. Dr. Seigal states that the cookies contain a "particular mix of proteins" as being key to keeping users feeling full. The cookies are relatively low in sodium, with no more than 200 milligrams per serving. The ingredients appear to be nutritionally similar to most of the popular meal replacement shakes that provide a quantity-controlled diet product.

Dr. Siegal states that his cookies are scientifically designed to help to control appetite and reduce hunger. Each cookie contains 90 calories and contains ingredients such as whole wheat flour, bran and oats. However the main reason he says they work is due to a secret blend of amino acid proteins. 

 The cookies are edible but not the tastiest. Even Dr. Seigel’s website states that ‘we wouldn’t call them delicious’. They say delicious cookies make people fat and there certainly is some logic to this as dieters are less likely to overindulge in really good tasting cookies. Cookies are packed in boxes containing 42 cookies packed in 7 daily bags which will last for one week if the diet is followed according to the instructions above. The price is approximately $56 US plus shipping and handling. 

 As a part of my own dieting hobby, I personally experimented with this diet for a couple of weeks, and thereafter occasionally for a few days at a time. I enjoyed the novelty of the idea, and the cookies were acceptable to me, however, NOTE: that a Dr. Siegal’s cooke tastes better after sprinkling a packet of Splenda on top and placing it in the microwave for 10 seconds just before eating.

Since I was already normal weight and used to small portions when I did my experimentation, I didn’t find myself hungry on the diet, but the lack of food variety was a problem for me. Also, I kept comparing my own homemade recipes for portion-controlled foods to the purchased cookies … such as my microwave cookies made from protein powder which have more grams of protein and less calories. After comparison, I felt that if I really wanted to only eat cookies all day, I would be better served to eat 6 of my own homemade portion-controlled protein cookies. 

 I found “Dr Siegel’s Cookie Diet Book” (2009) to be rather an interesting book, and I’ve read it a few times. I enjoyed the chapters dedicated to weight loss history, and found Dr. Siegal’s attitude about weight-loss to be refreshing. In his opinion, speed of weight loss is a critical success factor because when people don't get results right away, they're more likely to get demotivated and quit.

Dr. Siegal's positon is that weight loss and weight maintenance should be recognized as two different tasks and two different skills, like fixing a car when it's broken and then taking ongoing care of your car so it doesn't break again.

I was especially interested in that part of the book in which Dr. Siegel refers to the scientific principle of 3500 calories equaling one fat pound as “The Great Calorie Theory and in his discussion as to why, although he accepts that principle as a working model, he considers it to be an unproven Theory. 

  I found Dr. Siegal’s Cookie Diet to be a reasonable diet for anyone who wants to eat pre-packaged meal-replacements during the daytime and other foods only at dinner-time, and who has a body with an average personal calorie burn which consistently falls within the number averages of the Harris Benedict and Mifflin formulas.

Since I am a short, normal-weight, older, sedentary, reduced-obese, female ... one of my own problems with the plan is that the daily cookie total was 540 calories. Adding another 500 calories for dinner brings the plan up to 1040 calories… which my 8 years of careful food records show is actually very close to my present daily calorie burn for maintenance of my current weight. At 1,200 calories, my body gains weight, so this plan was actually NOT calorie-restrictive ENOUGH to cause weight-loss for me personally, and I didn't enoy the plan enough to use it long-term for my ongoing maintenance.

Dr. Siegel’s official website is: www.cookiediet.com

Below are two videos about the Cookie Diet.

The FIRST video is an ABC news broadcast about the Cookie Diet. 
Click inside the video twice to see it on YouTube.
 

                                                    
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 used up my inspiration and energy in writing this long e-mail answer, so I'm sharing it here in this article. 

 Someone asked me the following question:

"Can you tell me how many carbs you limited yourself to
when you were on low carb?
Did it work well for you?
I seem to have more luck counting carbs."
 

Here's my answer. 

I think that low-carb is an excellent diet plan, and if it is a workable plan for you, go for it. Personally, whether I'm doing low-carb or not, I've found that it is necessary for me to track my food, and count calories.

All of my own research and experimentation and observation leads me to believe that Calories Count, even when doing low-carb, and IF there is a "calorie edge" to eating low carb, it is a very small one, probably not more than 100 calories a day.

I've seen that people who choose to eat more calories than they burn ...over time... while doing low-carb will still gain weight. Low-carb -- when it's VERY low carb -- tends to be more satiating, and more and more I suspect that --- over time --- it works primarily because people ingest less food.

My experiments with low-carb have been during maintenance at normal weight, so it can't be fairly compared with someone in the weight-loss phase.

I am intrigued by Gary Taubes' position about carbs, (see the BOOK TALK Section at DietHobby.com) and did a lot of experimenting with it in 2011.

I have experimented with what is known as ZERO carb -- which actually turned out to be around 5-10 carbs a day, because I choose not to give up my very small amount of plain, Greek yogurt.

However, during most of my low-carb experimentation, I worked to keep my carbs around 20 or less.

When I'm doing my "normal" - "balanced" food plan, my carbs are usually around 50-80 or less. For me, a normal, really high-carb day would only be about 100 carbs. It just turns out that way, because I don't have a large enough calorie allowance for more.

My own experience .. so far .. because I expect to be doing further future experimentation with low-carb
is that ... either because of the lack of variety in the food, or because carbs cause more cravings (& at this point for me I can't honestly say which)

My appetite tends to be satisfied at around 1100-1200 calories a day, which is just a tiny bit ABOVE my calorie allowance to maintain my current weight, and over a long period of time, would still involve a weight-gain, but I didn't lose any actual fat weight at that calorie level on 20 carbs or on zero carbs.

What happened for my body, was that my weight dropped between 3 to 5 lbs DURING THE TIME I was low-carb, but I feel very certain that this drop was only due to water-weight, because within a week or two of returning to a very-low-calorie, "balanced" diet of around averaging only 800 calories, and my weight quickly adjusted to the previous number.

This happened to me 4 different times, each time after more than a month of successful low-carb eating so I never experienced even a real fat loss of even 1 or 2 lbs,after weeks and weeks of low-carb eating.

That's the personal data I have so far, but it isn't conclusive, and I will be doing more experimentation.

My preference is to receive diet questions in the comment section of DietHobby.com rather than in e-mails, so that the comment and my answer will benefit all of the readers there.

Due to my time limitations, When I spend time writing a long e-mail answer, there's a good chance it will wind up as a future article, anyway.

Like it just did. 

 

I read a lot about various Diet Plans, and I've spent a lot of time experimenting with them. I am not a fan of the Intutitive Eating Diet (and it is a Diet, although proponents like to label it a "non-diet"). 

My research and personal experience with it  has proven to me that "Intutive Eating" is an absolute disaster as a weight-loss plan for almost every person who struggles with obesity.  In my opinion, even "Faith Healing" has a better track record.

People who embrace the Intuitive Eating concepts sometimes develop Peace of Mind about their eating...but that usually lasts only until they realize that, not only are they NOT losing weight... they are Actually becoming fatter.

However, adding some simple guidelines to that concept can help stop the Intuitive Eating runaway train to Fat City.

I think that embracing the No S Diet plan is a useful strategy that can be helpful for people who have bought into, and found themselves trapped inside, the Intuitive Eating fantasy mindset.

Here's a very insightful quote by a long-time member of the "No S" forum:

When a thin person says she eats as much as she wants, it is a different "as much" as the typical overweight person.

Most thin people have a different definition of what full or stuffed is. Most of them hate the feeling of being stuffed. And most of them will routinely wait a long time to have a meal, if necessary. If they have to wait longer for dinner one day, they just get hungrier and wait. They will leave even food they love on their plate when they are full.

If eating as much as you want routinely means eating when you are hungry and beyond full or slightly less than full, you will not lose weight.

In the meantime, when you are intermittently reinforcing the habit of overeating, eating just because you have an urge that has nothing to do with hunger, responding to environmental cues, etc., you are making that habit stronger and stretching out the time it takes to help establish and solidify the habit of allowing yourself to get hungry several times a day by eating moderate amounts and then waiting an appropriate amount of time.

I spent years looking at why I ate. It wasn't until the No S Diet that I realized that it didn't matter. The best way to cut the cord between multiple reasons to eat and eating was to surrender to the one-plate 3-meal structure.  I won't ever be able to remove all the reasons I would like to eat.  On N (normal) days, most N days, they are irrelevant.  The problems don't go away.  The random eating has.

I eat my meals, some light, some heavier.  I get hungry, I satisfy the hunger.

It is ten times easier (but not easy at the start) than anything else I've done and that includes several years wasted trying to just read my body's signals. It is too easy to lie to yourself or to just not be sensitive enough. Besides, on that system, I was routinely getting hungry even fewer times per day because I would overeat the wrong foods all the time. Do you think you can get used to that?

Then again all the experimentation did finally make me see the futility of the other methods for me.