Has anybody had success with Intermittent Fasting?

Just listened to the news on the radio (Australia) and scientists have completed a study that shows intermittent fasting (2 non-consecutive days a week) reduces your chances of getting chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. This was allowing up to 500 cals (???) on the fasting day, don't know if the radio journo meant 50 cals as 500 is the equivalent to 2 small meals... From what others have posted, I am assuming 50 cals. Could this include green juices without fruit? celery, cucumber, kale, silverbeet??

That study is from doing 2 non-consecutive fast days of 500 calories. It's popularised under the names "5:2 Diet" or "Fast Diet".

I do 5:2 myself and have lost 12lbs in 4 weeks. I don't really worry about which days I do the 2 fast days on; I just tend to slot them in around my schedule and pick the days I'm busiest (and therefore most distracted.) It also doesn't really matter when you eat the 500 calories on fast days if you're doing 5:2 fasting - I tend to save all mine for one meal in the evening (which generally works out around 22hrs of total fasting from the evening meal on the day before) but that's simply because I find it easier.

I REALLY want to try this, but to be honest I'm not really sure how to go about it, i.e. what to eat/what not to eat, when etc. Any advice? I may try it tomorrow.

Eat your maintenance level calories on non-fast days and eat 500 on fast days. It doesn't matter what you eat to make up that 500, though I tend to find that soup is the most filling option.

That's it. It's not a complicated plan by any means. As for starting - whenever you like. I started on a Monday...but that's only because I'm as grumpy as all hell on a Monday anyway so thought I may as well compound it by not eating much either ;-)

Information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5:2_diet

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I've been trying the 5:2 diet and I have found it to be really good. The main points I'd say about it are:
- don't have your two fasting days next to each other
- when you fast you can have 400-500cals for women and 500-600 for men
- for the health benefits, aside from weight loss, you should not eat more than 35g protein in your 500(f)/600(m) calories
- stay hydrated while you are fasting, otherwise you might get headahces
- during the fast you can have very low cal soup to keep you going (I have 29cal miso soup at lunch) but this needs to count in your total calorie intake for that day.

I find it really hard to sleep if I am hungry so I eat the evening before and then don't eat again until dinner the following evening. It isn't nealry as hard as I expected it to be and I find I can be more alert than I am otherwise (no 3pm slump). Hungry pangs come and go and if you are busy it is pretty easy to just sail through the day without noticing.

Oh, I also don't do heavy exercise on my fasting day - the one time I did, I felt dreadful. Light exercise like yoga or something is fine for me though.

jehavin makes a good point. When you read these descriptions of the varying fasting techniques, the tendency is to casually group them all together in such a way that each of them seem to describe whatever anyone is doing. I'm left wondering, "Wait!?!? Am I fasting, 23/1, intermittent fasting, 16/8, simply calorie restricting, 5:2, etc.?" I honestly have no idea--course, I haven't REALLY stopped for a minute to wonder what the heck I am doing because I'm currently in a "test-wait-and-see" fasting mode. So jehavin--or anyone else reading--what AM I doing, and what's your suggestion for me adjusting my routine for better results? I know that "whatever works for you," is the standard mantra, but I'm seeking general guidance on what typically works well for most--however difficult that may be to actually gauge. What I'm currently doing is quite simple:

Every day--Sunday through Saturday, seven days a week--I eat at 6:00 PM, whatever I want until full. This does not result in a "pigging out," but rather, after no eating all day, I quickly become full within 15 to 30 minutes, and I'd imagine I'm eating no more than 500 to 800 calories of food daily. I then don't eat until 6:00 PM the following day. I'm not hungry throughout the day; I'm not starving; I merely eat once a day. I drink zero-calorie sodas primarily, some water, some coffee at random. And that's it. I'm not really monitoring what I eat in terms of "eat this amount of carbs etc." I've been doing this for about three weeks now daily recording on my Withings scale and casual observation. Like I said, I'm in testing mode; so I haven't been doing any conscious monitoring of water weight, as I drink whenever I want. So who's to say what and when I was drinking at the time of each recording. But here are some comparisons:

Thursday, 05/30/2013 @ 8 AM was 164.5 lb.
Thursday, 06/06/2013 @ 8 AM was 163.8 lb.
Thursday, 06/13/2013 @ 8 AM was 162.2 lb.

Now my weight throughout the day fluctuates wildly, which is normal as I understand it; so I'll need longer term monitoring to really see what's going on here. But to do this "right," I want to know what I should adjust. Should I for example, instead of eating daily, fast for a full 24 hour period, say, eat at 6 PM one day, then do not eat at all the next, and then eat at 6 PM the following day? There's so many different schools of thought that I want to keep things working for my body and not run into a plateau. As it stands now, I'm not quite sure whether my body is doing really anything, and I won't know for sure until longer term monitoring kicks in. But at the very minimum, what exactly is this type of "fasting" I'm doing called? Thanks to any and all in advance!