Starting the 5:2 diet

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!

Haven't done it but interested in hearing your experiences! I have looked into it before but never started. I had a client when I worked at Jenny Craig that did it and she loved it and was able to lose weight when she stuck to it (she took a lot of fun trips and would not have the 2 fast days). Anyway good luck!!

mowbry wrote: »

Thank you sijomial, I shall join those groups as I couldn't find them. On the 500 cals on fast days, I'm not going to do that as it makes me want to eat. I have researched it and I like the "eat stop eat" method. As I won't be exercising then I don't feel I will need to have those calories. Thank you for the links.

You're welcome. A few fellow 5:2'ers on my FL save their calories for one evening meal but I find two small meals works best for me (lunch & dinner). Personal preference and fitting it into your lifestyle are often overlooked in term of adherence to a calorie goal. I've actually gone the other way and have about 650 - 700 (approx quarter of my TDEE) rather than the usual 600 allowance for men.

rybo wrote: »

Well i suppose if you can pull off not eating for that long then good for you. I'm a fan of the 5:2 system, but i think the part about having 500 cals is important. If you want to do an occasional 24 fast that seemed acceptable but I think doing the 2 days as complete fasts is a bit excessive. Good luck

It's actually not important to eat 500 calories on fast days. The original research investigated full abstinence from food every other day (not just 2 days a week), but then was tweaked later for adherence reasons. People were dropping out of the studies due to hunger and to social life complications. After a process of trial and error, they arrived at the conclusion that 25% (roughly 500 calories for a woman and 600 for a man) of maintenance calories is the value that balances adherence and weight loss the best.

There is evidence that fasting is beneficial. Our ancestors fasted regularly simply because food was not always available.

I would suggest you fast once a day for eight hours and build from there. Stick with one day and extend it to 12 hours and then more. If that is working for you, add another day.

Failure is often a result of being too ambitious at first and unable to maintain.

I am not exactly doing the 5:2 diet but I cut back to 1200 calories twice a week. If my weightloss stalls, I cut back to 500-600 2 days and also eat within a 6 hour window. The other 5 days, I eat 1500 calories as of last week. Before then I was on 1600. I have been able to lose 2lb per week steadily doing this and walking 10 m per week. I can't speak to the health benefits yet. Good luck

I'm doing the 5:2 as I have found it's what has worked for me in the past and I actually feel better when I am on it and am very interested in reaping the additional health benefits from this way of eating. I read Dr. Mosley's book and also Emma Thornton's book (Eat, Drink and Still Shrink). In fact, I'm fasting today! Good luck!

I don't do the 5:2 fast, but I do intermittent feeding on a daily basis with a 18/6 schedule and have been for a little over a year. I've found that this eating style more closely supports my natural hunger signals. When I first started trying to lose weight I bought in to the idea that I had to begin eating more often, which led to me eating when I wasn't even hungry, which resulted in calorie overages almost daily. I do have to be careful with it and ensure that I use my eating window fully and have at least two full meals and some solid snacks due to my history of binge eating.

Fasting is an old and well-studied human practice, but it seems peoples' attitude towards it differs depending on whether you do it for religious beliefs vs. weight loss. As a result, I'm careful how I discuss my weight loss with others (being down 85 lbs people ask almost daily) because people jump to conclusions. What's important to remember is that regardless of the method you use to reach your goals, the ultimate factor at play is tracking/maintaining a caloric deficit. This eating style simply makes it more feasible and maintainable for some. If you find it's not working for you, you can look in to other approaches. You're most likely to be successful with something that doesn't ask you to drastically change your lifestyle. I always stress the individuality and importance of flexibility with weight loss. For me, I will likely increase my eating window a bit once I am ready to maintain and add an extra meal. IF takes adjustment, but most people who try it and like it find that within a week or two its routine. I don't start feeling hungry until I am already in my eating window. I also usually work out in a fasted state (I am fairly sensitive to nausea when working out on a full stomach) and have only had difficulty when on 80+ minute bike rides, when you'd be needing a boost anyway. I'm not super strict and if I am hungry outside of my eating window I will eat, as long as I ensure that I log it. I've actually found my energy levels remain more stable over the day, and I don't get the mid-morning and mid-afternoon sluggishness I used to. I was able to break my caffeine addiction as well due to having more stable energy levels. Lastly, my cravings are basically gone. I no longer crave the pretzels, cookies, cheese, and other random nonsense I used to binge on, and I struggled with that for many, many years.

You can be successful with IF if it's the right fit for you. If it's not, it doesn't make you a failure or special - you can move on to something else that might work better. If you want your loss to stick, you need to pin down the habits you can maintain long-term. Good luck!

I do eat stop eat. Similar but the idea is to not eat for 24 hours. 5:2 seems to allow a bit of eating (500 calories) so not really fasting IMO.

Fasting is just a way of creating a caloric deficit. You'll succeed as long as you don't blow the deficit by overeating on other days.