Starting the 5:2 diet

pollypocket1021

mowbry wrote: »

Luckily my surgeon is Asian and practices fasting for her religion. As I not fasting till next Monday she has said it will be ok but if I feel light headed then I must stop. She said to listen to my body and I will know. She said exercise common sense and that she has practised this since she was six years old.

Calories help you heal. I don't let my patients diet, let alone fast for 3-6 weeks postop.

andylllI

How fresh post-op are you? Have you talked to your surgeon about being in a caloric deficit while healing? There is new research about how important feeding is for healing and recovery...things like wound infection and dehiscence for example. If your surgery was extensive and you haven't discussed your diet with your surgeon please start there. Take long view here. Weight loss can wait until the early healing period is over.

kmccann357

MY boss is a big believer in this, though he cheats constantly. We avoid him on his two days as you are prone to feel like cr@p and your mood reflects it also.

Capt_Apollo

bunnywestley81 wrote: »

I did do 5:2 last year. Was quite successful. Ate reasonably 5 days and fasted for 2...sometimes I had snacks in the day (fruit or veg sticks), sometimes I saved all the cals for dinner (500cal on fast day)

Just depends on your will power not to go mental when you do get to eat and stick within the 500 cals.

I sort of do 5 fast and 2 mental now. Still working. Averages at 1400 cals a day.

I'm a bad loser I do well for a while...plateau for a bit and then lose interest!

this is the most perfect answer to not do the 5:2 diet.

Jolinia

I really liked the documentary Eat Fast & Live Longer. I bet it's still floating around online to watch. I've done 5:2 and ADF, too. Right now I'm more of a one big meal a day faster, though. I find my energy levels throughout the week are more predictable. But if my weight loss stalls in the future, 5:2 is first on my list to add back in.

WaterBunnie

My understanding from watching the BBC Horizon programme he made was that the health improvement research was based upon the fast days being consecutive as it relies on a depletion of hormones or something which doesn't kick in until quite late into the fast? Has the 2 separate days been brought in just for the diet side rather than the mental improvement side? I know it wouldn't work for me. I get headachy if I miss a meal.

STUPID_GOPHER

good luck, but I prefer more of an alternate day style or 4:3

JAT74

I just watched the documentary again to remind myself of the reasons I should do it. At the end Michael Moseley said his blood test results brought his cholesterol and other readings right down to normal levels after 5 weeks of doing 5:2 and he also lost 8% body fat and a stone (14lbs) in weight.

He did the 5:2 on non consecutive days so that would be enough to get good results.

In addition (which I didn't remember from the last time I watched) one of the messages given was that protein intake should be reduced in order to reduce the levels of growth hormone on the body and to eliminate the risk of many cancers.

I would be interested to know if this was only needed on Fast days or also on feast days and what number of grams of protein would be considered safe.

Many on here including myself at the moment eat higher than recommended quantities of protein in order to maintain muscle while losing weight or to increase muscle etc.

maria0104

Just out of interest- you do know that religious fasting is broken by things like illness, surgery etc for the body to repair and because it cannot be as beneficial for the body at such a time, and I cannot forsee why your doctor would allow you to fast so soon after surgery.

I have seen success with this diet and wish you all the best but I would be cautious of anyone letting me do it so soon after surgery.

JAT74

Maria the Fast diet only requires you to eat 500 calories 2 days a week so it shouldn't affect recovery as you can eat what you want on the other days. Most religious fasts tell people not to eat at all during the period of the fast so it's not the same thing at all.

mkakids

I love this method! Its super easy, and effective! I feel GREAT of fast days, and prefer to schedule my Intense workouts for fast days.

Merkavar

For some reason I thought people were fasting 5 days and eating 2.

Doesn't sound like a good idea to me either way it's done. But I haven't done any research on it.

For me I would rather eat everyday.

On this diet do you eat the same for the week as others as in you eat more for 5 days and a lot less for 2?

Christine_72

Merkavar wrote: »

For some reason I thought people were fasting 5 days and eating 2.

Doesn't sound like a good idea to me either way it's done. But I haven't done any research on it.

For me I would rather eat everyday.

On this diet do you eat the same for the week as others as in you eat more for 5 days and a lot less for 2?

you eat your maintenance on 5 days and up to 500 calories on 2 days.
for some people it's easier to "diet" for only 2 days a week, rather then stress about everyday...

JAT74

Merkavar I would recommend watching the BBC documentary you'll find by following the link posted on the 1st page of this topic. I am going to re-start 5:2 this week. I did it a couple of years ago for a while but this time I plan to make it part of my lifestyle. My mum and step-dad did it for almost a year and both lost a lot of weight as well as generally feeling a lot healthier.

I want to stick with it until I reach my goal weight and then maybe switch to 6:1 in order to maintain.

Basically the calories you eat on Fast days should be 25% of your TDEE (but not less than 500 cals) so in my case my TDEE is around 1800 so I can't eat more than 500 calories on those days. Men usually have a higher TDEE so they recommend men should eat 600 calories. My boyfriend is going to re-start with me this week too so he will be on 600 on his fast days.

The other days I plan to count calories, though technically the Fast diet says you should be able to eat whatever you want but I'm trying to stick to a weekly deficit large enough for me to lose 1-1.5 lbs per week so I will count my calories instead. This means that on feast days (non-fast days) I'll eat between 1275 & 1400 for a 1-1.5lb weekly weight loss figure.

Whitezombiegirl

IIRC the TV programme stated that the health benefits of switching the body from emphasis on 'grow' mode to 'repair' mode were with:

300 cals for women and 600 cals for men. The cals were consumed in one very low protein meal and the body was fasted for 24 hours. (not spread throughout the day) The low-protein part was extreamly important as was the no snacking bit.

The 'Fast Diet' seems to be somthing different- it appears to me to be low calorie for weight loss, rather than the health benefits of the hormonal effect. Which is fine too- but it's best not to confuse the two.

Personally I'm only interested in the hormonal health benefit (method 1) and would not use it as a weight loss tool (method2) as i prefer the daily defecit way.

JAT74

The two are not being confused. I watched the BBC programme yesterday and can promise you the final results/blood test he had were based on his doing 5:2 as it's explained here for a total of 5 weeks. Two days of low calories and the other days of eating what he wanted. By doing this ie. restricting calories on two days a week (not alternate days or a 3.5 day fast as he initially tried).

He then wrote a book based on the experiment and the diet as it should be followed. I've read the book two and also looked at the Fast Diet website and it tells you how much to eat on the Fast days. The hormonal effects and health benefits will follow after a few days of eating this way.

The findings basically related to calorie restriction and I guess this is just one way to restrict calories. Some people do it by eating less daily or alternate days but it seemed that the best results came when calories were restricted to much lower than normal levels on some days each week.

joolsmd

I tried it last year to no effect, but gave it another go this year and its working miracles. I think it didn't work at first because I gorged on my feast days which wasn't supposed to happen (according to Michael Mosely), but then they never met a truly greedy person before

I fast Mondays and Thursdays, unless I need to change days for social activities. I eat 600 cals a day on fast days usually spread out on 100-200 cal increments. I eat no carbs at all those days either and, like someone posted above, I tend to do my more strenuous exercising on fast days, mainly because it takes my mind off food. I stick to 1400 cals on non-fast days.

There are several ways to do the 5:2 diet - you can do both fast days together (if you have strong willpower or are just that masochistic), you can do one meal, two meals, or do 6 little meals like me. You can change the days you fast to fit round your lifestyle. I wouldn't say I am an evangelical convert because I hate fussing about food all the time, but while I am calorie counting I'm going to do that anyway, so may as well get some decent results. 10lbs down in the last 6 weeks so fingers crossed it stays that way.

The Horizon progrmme Whats The Right Diet For You recommended the 5:2 diet for Constant Cravers, as it also helps to educate us to what actually feeling hungery feels like, so we learn to eat when actually hungry, and not all the time.

maria0104

JAT74 wrote: »

Maria the Fast diet only requires you to eat 500 calories 2 days a week so it shouldn't affect recovery as you can eat what you want on the other days. Most religious fasts tell people not to eat at all during the period of the fast so it's not the same thing at all.

My reply was to OP's use of her doctor saying it was okay because she/he too fasts for religious reasons, which I meant is different to what she is doing. Religious fasting usually gives a period of allowing to eat i.e. Ramadan where you can eat during certain times- which would be similar to what OP is doing as usually there is a 'window' of time to consume during modern practice of 5:2.

I understand the premise but the 5:2 is not either 'eat what you want' and you still follow a calorie restriction on the rest of the week, so all I am saying that I would be cautious to follow any kind of calorie restriction so soon after surgery, not that there is an issue with the premise or fast itself but so soon after surgery I would be concentrating on actually getting nutrients into my body rather than restricting it possibly from vital nutrients every day in the first few weeks following surgery.

JAT74

Jools that's really encouraging. I'm starting this week and like you did it before and didn't have amazing results. I just seemed to lose and gain the same weight over and over, but like you I think I ate too much on the feast days. This time I will be a lot more careful with my daily calorie intake on feast days and stick to 1275-1400 maximum. I have already lost 6-7lbs in 6 weeks just by calorie counting and have been averaging 1400 calories per day so if I add in the fast days I should be able to lose a bit more quickly which would be great.

JAT74

Maria there is no specified time restriction with 5:2. You just pick a normal day during which you want to fast and decide how to distribute your calories during the fast day. In my case I have 3 meals, a small breakfast, a slightly larger lunch and a small dinner as I would normally when not restricting calories.

In addition, there is nothing saying that you have to restrict calories at all on a non-fast day as you are supposed to eat what you want. The main aim of 5:2 is not for weight loss, but for myself I prefer to count calories because I know from past experience that it's easy to eat too much just because you can! Last time I did the fast diet I found that my appetite decreased on the non-fast days anyway so it would be easy to eat a little less than you would otherwise on non-fast days.