At last a diet that works!

Wistful100

I am 56 only 5'4" tall and reasonably active but was nudging 12st 7bs when my pic was taken last Oct. My husband and I started the 5:2 Fast Diet in January after reading about it in the Mail (didn't see the Horizon prog in August and you tube video has been removed - bother!) but it just seemed as if it could fit our current lifestyle. Some days we'd have trouble fitting in meals when work is hectic so what better than to use those as fast days? We do get rumbly tummies on fast days & I feel a bit spaced out if I leave it too long between meals, so we've settled on 2 or 3 small meals on the fast days. But it's been successful and has removed one huge diet spoiler problem - feeling of deprived! Within reason we can eat what we like on the other 5 days and we move the fast days around to suit our diaries so whatever we crave is only postponed till the next day at most. My Fitness Pal has been invaluable to log everything. We had to tweak it slightly to fit this diet and average out the weekly calorie intake so that on fast days we are well under budget and other days we're over but as long as we know which days we're fasting that week and the 'average' is right at the end of the week it works just fine. However there are a couple of snags. I've found that I can't log exercise as it increases my calorie intake for that day which messes up the week, some items are listed wrongly too, but other than that it's been really easy and the only way to keep a check. For example I had breakfast in McD's the other day cosnsiting of a plain white bagel & Philly - the wrapperr stated it was over 200 calories for the bun then the Philly light had it's own total, but when I logged it someone had put the whole thing on as that amount so it was some 200 calories short. Be careful that you are not making a mistake by taking the entry that comes up as correct. Always double check!! I heard somewhere recently that we all suffer from food amnesia - they are right - it's easy to totally forget something but I always add those things later when the omission suddenly pops into my head, even if it messes up my allowances, as you have to be totally honest with yourself otherwise you are compromising your chance of success and it only cheats you in the end. It takes a bit of will power to do it particularly if it blows a fast day but I know if I don't fess up to myself at least I'm on the slippery slope to failure and this time I am a winner not a failure!
Initially we weren't eating anywhere near enough calories on non-fasting days, and it actually takes us quite a 'blow-out' to go over budget on non-fast days, but the bonus of no huge difficult weekly shopping list is great too. We have both lost 13lbs in under 10 weeks (it is slowing down a bit now and I think will even out to about a 1lb a week) and my weight does yo-yo during the week but I am learning to forget about the scales as my waist is now 2 1/2 inches less and I can fit into anything in my wardrobe easily including some things I haven't worn in years. My husband has had to swop a pair of trousers for a suit he purchased recently but fortunately hasn't worn yet and he hasn't done any proper exercise where as I do go to Zumba twice a week. Remember it's cold, it's dreary, it's winter time so if you can crack it now it will get considerably easier as the weather, temperatures and sunligjht levels improve - good luck dieters