EatQOD

We put out a second printing of the book to better explain the effects of QOD eating on glycogen stores, but also to increase the recommended amount of protein powder intake (whey, egg, and/or soy) from 30 to 60 g/day.

The minimum protein intake is a function of gender, age, and body weight. People have gone on the QOD diet without eating any extra protein on the OFF days, but we've found that the protein powder seems to really cut down on any residual hunger, both on the OFF day and on the next ON day (some QOD diet users take another 30 g or protein powder during the ON day as well). Plus, longer term, extra protein powder should help to maintain muscle mass.

It's important to maintain muscle mass during any diet - long-term, your metabolic rate depends on your muscle mass. So if you lose muscle mass, your body will ultimately require fewer calories. So after a diet, if you go back to eating, if you've lost muscle, your weight will come back faster, and you will then be fatter, but also will have less muscle. This is not good.

So that's why we increased the minimum recommended intake of protein powder during the OFF day to 60 g. For small people, this may be a bit too much, for large people, esp. men, this may not be enough, and you can always take a bit more. So far the people doing this are still losing weight at a rate of about one lb. per week. It's best to mix protein powder with a tablespoon or two of yogurt, and take either 20 g three times per day, or 30 g twice a day, during the OFF day.

If you bought a copy of the book in January of 2006 or early February, and the protein rec is still 30g, you can send it back to White Swan and we'll send you the updated version.

Actually, now that it's too late to change it in the book, I think it's better to take in the 60 g/day of protein powder in 3-4 minimeals during the day, to make sure that the protein is best utilized.

See the "learning from other diets" forum section to understand why.

(For smaller women, 60 g/day may also be a bit more than they need).

So four 15-gram little dishes of protein powder during each OFF day for men, and maybe three for women. But now we're splitting hairs, aren't we?

JT

Who knows. Probably 60 g is too much for some people. 40 g/day may also be OK. (20 g at breakfast or lunch and another 20 g for early supper).

Whey protein is very quickly absorbed - maybe too quickly - may turn into non-protein calories. I'm using primarily egg white powder. But the whey protein powder does tend to taste better.

JT

We added the protein powder as a later feature of the diet. At first the idea was just to keep up mineral intake by veggie juice and 300 calories.

Some people are having trouble losing weight - one problem is, the protein powder does has 4 cal/g. So 60 g = 240 cal, and 40 g = 160 cal.

If you mix this with yogurt, that's another 50 cals from the yogurt each time, so you're up to about 340 cals, and then if you eat an additional 300-400 calories, you may be up to about 740 cals. This may be too many calories in some people to lose weight, although it may be OK to maintain weight.

If you're having trouble losing weight with QOD, for the first few months, if you are overweight and have good muscle mass, you might consider taking in only 20-30 g/day of protein powder, and mixing this with water to avoid additional calories. You can try to skip it completely, but this will tend to make you more hungry during the ON days, and probably, over the two days, your calorie intake may even go up. So it is better to use the protein powder, but 60 g/day may be overkill especially for smaller people and women. Even 20-30 g/day may be sufficient in the short term.

JT