The 2468 Diet is a unique diet plan that is actually fairly simple to follow and gained a ton of popularity from the Pro Ana crowd.  What makes this diet plan so popular and what are the negative side effects of it?  Read more to find out…

What Is the 2468 Diet

The 2468 Diet is a strict calorie restrictive diet that asks you to follow a calorie plan of 200 calories first day, 400 calories the next day, 600 calories the 3rd day, then 800 calories the 4th day and then repeat the process.  This is suppose to keep your body and metabolism guessing as if you only took in a very limited calorie amount your body will think it is starving (which it is) and metabolism will slow down to a crawl.  This will actually slow down your fat burning process.

2468 Diet a Bad Idea

So what makes this diet such a bad idea?  The calorie intake is so small.  It’s hard to even eat any meal under 200 calories, nor less the entire day!  You should be taking in at least 200 calories for breakfast.  See our breakfast article for more information on our Pro Ana homepage.  A normal body takes about 1,200 calories per day to operate and that is without any exercising or really anything at all.  As you can see, 200 calories is less than 10% of that amount.  This could be a dangerous route to take to get to your goal.  We recommend cutting back on calories but not as drastic as this.  Remember, as we continue to preach weight loss is a lifestyle change and not just a strict monthly diet.

We spoke with several people who had actually tried the 2468 diet.  The majority of them said they would not do it again since it was so hard to keep up.  You could do it for a few “cycles” but then after that you normally move on to something else.  We do not recommend weekly or monthly diets, as these end up doing more bad then good.  The reason is you complete the diet for a week or two, you do see some weight loss.  However, you then slide off the diet quickly and then slowly gain back the weight you worked so hard to lose.  Losing weight is hard enough, you don’t want to fall off the cliff soon after and lose all of that hard work.

2468 Diet – An Alternative

We recommend a great alternative to the 2468 diet.  Take your “normal” day of eating and count the calories the best you can.  Search online there are some free websites to help you calculate how many calories you just ate whether it’s simple foods from the grocery store, fast food, or meals at restaurants.  Do this for 5 days and keep track of it whether it’s on your computer/phone, or simply writing it down somewhere in a journal.  Take the average of those days and this is your normal calorie intake.  Reduce this number by 25%, then 18%, then 10%, then 5% and repeat.  So for instance, if you ingest an average of say 1,800 calories per day then your first day would be 1350 calories, next day would be 1476, day 3 would be a total of 1,620 and then the last day 1,710 calories total for the day.

This is a great alternative to the 2468 diet because all bodies are different.  Some of us have a larger body mass than a petite girl so that is why we do the 5 day calorie average of normal days where you are not dieting and trying to cut back.  If you want to be even more aggressive than you can try 25%/20%/15%/10%.  However, try to only do what you can keep up for quite some time.  Also, don’t get stiff with the calorie counting, try to reach that number but if you come close then congratulate yourself.  Don’t forget to mix in some exercises at least 3 times a week.  I promise, if you follow this type of diet you will see results and you’ll feel much better than if you try the strict 2468 diet.