the 5:2 diet - eat, fast and live longer.

I do IF, but I do 20/4 (fast 20 hours, eat for 4 hours). I love it. I'm never hungry during the day anymore because my body has adjusted to only eating between 7pm and 11pm. 5:2 sounds hard because your body doesn't adjust to it. Too much mixing up of routine.

I know several people who do IF, and it does great things for them. That said, any "diet" that says "eat whatever you want on these days" is setting the dieter up for failure. It doesn't matter if you only eat 500 calories 2 days a week if you are eating a gallon of ice cream on the other 5. You must consistently eat healthy food and burn more than you consume to be healthy. Fad diets are just ploys to make money!

Sounds like way too much of a slippery slope to me from a well intentioned lifestyle change to an eating disorder...No way would I touch a diet like that...Fasting may help you lose weight short term but I hardly doubt it benefits the body systems &/or brain...

Starving the body of nutrients is incredibly dangerous and wreaks of desperation to me. I would rather put the effort into creating healthy eating habits for life...

I would be interested to see scientific research on 'fasting' diets like this and the users across a period of a decade or longer, including brain and organ effects...

Just to clarify, IF is not a "diet".

From what I understand and my interpretation is that It's all a matter of when you eat your calories....it's not about not eating or potentially severe calorie restriction. The concept follows more of a weekly calorie goal, rather than daily. Also, it's not about eating "whatever you want". You would still make the same healthy food choices and/or follow your macro requirements as you would if you were eating every 2-3 hours. It's simply a preference.


This method is completely sustainable...again, it's all about personal preference and what YOU find works best for YOU.

I have now been doing IF for about 4 weeks and feel MUCH better. I follow a 14/10 split where I fast for 14 hours (btw, if you eat dinner at 6pm and then don't eat again until 6am that is a 12 hour fast). I really enjoy being able to have full big meals. I find that I feel much more satisfied than eating multiple times/day....but then again that's MY experience.

Edit to add that I workout 5 mornings per week in a fasted state. I have absolutely no problem with energy whatsoever....again because I'm still eating the same calories as I would otherwise.

I wouldn't even attempt it because I work out for 4 hrs a day

tangent but WTF? Every day??!!

And fasted training can be perfectly fine for some people by the way.

PU: how can the body adjust to an alternate day feeding? How does it know if it is a feeding or fasting day?

I did this for 2 weeks and lost 5lbs but then fell out of the habit of having my fast days and piled it all back on. I do enjoy it as a diet and like the idea behind minimising cancer risks etc.

Heaps of people do IF here, I do 5:2 and fasted today. There is an Intermittent Fasting group here if you'd like to join us of just ask questions. Some people hide it though because others don't get it. We'll all be laughing though when we live to 120!

I sorta do that, some days I only eat 500, and the rest 1,000 - 1,200

I did IF for a bit. One thing i learnt is that you can't exercise while fasting. I personaly struggle to exercise on a healthy stomach, so when i went to karate without breakfast i ended up fainting. So yeah, if you do it, make sure you don't do it on exercise days. Furthemore, the science behind it is mainl based on males, there isn't enough evidence to support that it has the same benefit for woman. It's interesting to do though, because you listen to you body a lot more, and you learn that hunger comes in short bursts, doesn't build consistently.
Other than just stopping because of prefering to exercise to fasting, i also stopped because of insomnia. One thing it does is make ou way more alert. I already had insomnia, but with this i ended up unable to sleep for two days. It is a survival instinct, that only happens to females (apparently) and it is meant to help you to search for food if you were in a famine. It's a pain.
I would recomend it for men, because the benefits were obvious. Wouldn't do it solely for weight loss, that would be a bit, counterproductive to your healthy mindset.
Watch the eat, fast and live longer documentary and you can see that there are many benefits, but like i said it's only really based on males, so although if you're going to do it ou should go to the doctor, you should deffiantly go if you are female.

However, i do occasionaly fast, mainly if i have binged the day before, and i'm still full of food. As far as i'm concerned my body doesn't want food, and it willt ell me when it is ready, otherwise i feel like i'm messing up my body more.

Hi-I have been on her for a while but only filled in my profile today. Opinion seemed very divided about 5-2 fasting. Where would I find support from others on here who are interested and are not frightened of the horror stories? Have been doing it for about 5 weeks and am really enjoying it and feeling positive benefits...

I understand that everyone reacts differentl, and i was merely pointing out my own experience. I like IF, Although i'm not sure it works for my lifestyle. Who knows? I've been thinking about adding one on my rest days, as i want my memory to improve.
Dieting (or weight loss) makes you more likely to develop an eating disorder. I'm not saying that you will promote the idea of Anorexia, but i wouldn't do it solely for weight loss. It gives the wrong idea i think. There are lots of other benefits. Also, imagine someone with Bulimia tendency. They binge, they decide IF will work for them afterwards. They take it to extremes in order to control their weights, they stop doing it healthily, and they get ill. Also, the idea of if you mess up on the fast, you must binge, and therefore fast to make up for a binge.
Again, not saying it leads to eating disorder, but it doesn't help those with the tendencies, but then again, neither does weight loss at all, that's why i focus on fitness instead of scale, and why i would do IF for the other benefits and not solely for weightloss.
I think what i said might have been read wrong. I like IF, i support it. It's a good idea i think. It just doesn't work for everyone, and i was merely giving my experiences.

I combine a lot of things and have settled on what makes me feel good while achieving weight loss and having amazing energy. WHEN I eat, I eat Paleo in a roughly 80/20 balance. When I'm not eating, it's because of IF (both 18/6 and ESE (Eat, Stop, Eat) dinner-to-dinner fasts.

Mon - fast until dinner (about a 22-24 hr fast, depending on when I ate dinner the night before)
Tues - fast until lunch (about a 17-19 hr fast, depending on when I ate dinner the night before)
Wed - fast until dinner (about a 22-24 hr fast, depending on when I ate dinner the night before)
Thurs - fast until lunch (about a 17-19 hr fast, depending on when I ate dinner the night before)
Fri - fast until dinner (about a 22-24 hr fast, depending on when I ate dinner the night before)
Sat and Sun - eat whenever I feel like it. This may include long periods without eating or it might mean 3 big meals or a day of grazing all day. I listen to my body. This is when my "20" of the Paleo 80/20 comes into play. I try to enjoy my life and not stress about food. I often don't count calories on weekends. It makes it so M-F I have zero temptation to "cheat." While Paleo eschews counting calories, I try to keep an eye on them so I know I'm in the ballpark.

I can only say what I have personally experienced. I have MORE energy for my daily (twice a day sometimes) workouts with a completely empty stomach. If I have eaten within 4-5 hours of exercising, I feel sluggish.
Because I eat Paleo, and have for awhile, I feel my body is completely fat-adapted. Meaning it's comfortable burning fat as a fuel source and only burns carbs if they're there. Since they aren't there in abundance, I mostly burn fat. Since I'm fasted much of the time, I burn a lot of fat. I may not be using the right scientific language to describe this, but I know the old me couldn't go 2 hours without eating because I would get so hungry I wanted to stab someone. Serious crashes. Now, I don't crash when I'm hungry, I rarely feel hungry. When I do, it's like a little nudge saying "you could eat if you wanted, but if not, no biggie, I'll wait." It is such a gently nudge that if I am doing anything else, I don't notice it. If I start to go as long as 24 hours, it gets more insistent and I eat.

I love the way I feel, for the first time, being hungry doesn't have an effect on me. On my moods, constantly thinking about my next meal, etc. I love the days I can leave for work and not have to pack a lunch, snacks, or even think about food. I am mentally more focused and physically stronger. I have tried a lot of things and I have no problem feeling what doesn't work for me and eliminating it. The first time I went dinner-to-dinner it was amazingly easy and I never looked back. It feels good to feel this good.

So, for me, IF, in many of its iterations, works great.

Thank you for mentioning your experiences are YOU experiences. I appreciate that