5:2 diet and fat loss results?

JAT74 · February 2015

I have just watched the Michael Moseley documentary for the 2nd time and was extremely impressed with his results after 5 weeks of following 5:2. The main thing which impressed me was that his weight loss was 14lbs and his fat loss 9% as well as the other readings from his blood test results which brought all the important elements such as cholesterol to normal levels.

I am currently trying to lose at least 10% body fat and ideally another 24lbs of weight in total. I am currently calorie counting and trying to create enough of a deficit to be able to lose 1lb per week, and so far in 6 weeks I've lost 6-7lbs so I'm on target.

I did 5:2 a couple of years ago for a short time but want to do it again starting this week, possibly to speed up my weight loss/fat loss and also so that I can improve my overall health. This time I am looking at it as a long-term way of eating and may switch to 6:1 when I reach mantenance rather than stopping completely.

Is there anyone on MFP who has been doing this for a while and if so, what kind of body fat % and weight loss have you seen so far and how quickly have you been losing?

It would be amazing if I could lose the whole 9-10% body fat in the next 6 weeks and also drop at least half the weight I want to lose but I don't have any idea if this is realistic or not, though Michael Moseley was able to do it.

I am planning to stick to 2 fast days eating 500 calories per week and then eat no more than 1500 calories on the other days so this averages out to 1215 calories per day. It's a little less than I have been eating recently as during the 6 weeks I've been logging on MFP daily I have averaged 1300-1490 calories per day actually eaten regardless of exercise.

JAT74 · February 2015

Bump

joolsmd · February 2015

I tried the 5:2 diet last year and didn't lose a pound. With hindsight I believe I overdid the 'eat anything you like on feast days' bit. the documentary and books state that fasting on two days a week re-educates our eating patterns and we shouldn't overeat on feast days, but I am just greedy.

I started the diet again after watching 'Whats the Right Diet for You', a BBC documentary (available on iPlayer). I've been following it for 4 weeks now. Not sure about body fat loss as I haven't got the means to measure that, but I have lost 6lbs in 4 weeks overall. I eat around 600 cals on Mondays and Thursdays (although I move the days depending on any social commitments I have) and stick to up to 1500 cals a day the other 5 days. My goal really is to stay below 10,000 cals a week. I have also cut carbs, though thats my personal decision, and my fast days are low carb, high protein. I also do my workouts on my fast days (anything to keep my mind off food!!)

Michael Mosely was already pretty fit when he did that documentary, and he not long afterwards did a documentary about HIIT, specifically about exercising for 10 mins a day to replace steady state cardio. Also, being male, he would find it a lot easier to drop body fat and weight than us wobbly women. I am not sure me or you would get the same startling results that he did, but it's definitely helping me reduce my weight, and I think that actually being hungry from time to time helps us recognise cues to eat instead of mindlessly stuffing our faces.

I may treat myself to some calipers to check body fat, but I think I have a long way to go before it hits my desired target of a 10% reduction. But as a way of counting calories I think it has its merits, and it's working for me. Hope it does so for you too.

wendimarr · February 2015

Hiya ..............last year I did the 5:2 diet after watching the documentary. I lost over a stone ....no idea of the amount of fat , but I can honestly say I looked and felt much better that I ever have ...and lean too.

Unfortunately , I gained most of it back when I fell off the wagon for a few months (6) so I am back this week to do it all over again.

I never exercised. I went to a couple of classes , hired a vibroplate and a step machine .....they were great for drying my clothes !!!

TBH I love this way of eating , feel so good after a couple of weeks , definitely make healthier choices subconsciously and still get to eat lots of chocolate

xxxxxx

I hope this diet works for you .....feel free to add me as a friend if you woud like to compare fast day diaries xxxxx

JAT74 · February 2015

Hi Jools, thanks for your reply. I think we're twins! I've seen both docs, the one about exercise was really interesting too. I do HIIT but via Jillian Michaels DVD Body Revolution. The workouts are around 30-40 minutes maximum including warm up and cooldown so not too long. I also walk and do a little extra cardio in the gym on the machines from time to time but more to increase the amount I move as I am very sedentary due to working from home.

Today is my 2nd fast day, but like you I am finding it hard to stick to 500 cals so am aiming for 550 and will go up to 600 if necessary on some of the fast days. 6lbs in 4 weeks is amazing! I am hoping for around that as up until now only managed to lose around 4lbs in 4 weeks.

You're probably right about body fat, I'm currently 32% which is quite high for someone of my height and build so I really need to get it down. I haven't thought about going low carb on my fast days but I have been exercising. I've got calipers and body composition scales so between them and online calculators I think that's pretty accurate.

I'll stick with it for a few weeks and hopefully be able to get the body fat down as well as just the scale weight.

JAT74 · February 2015

Hi Wendi

I'll definitely add you, and Jools too if you don't mind. I haven't found any other friends so far doing 5:2 so it will be good to compare diaries as you said. My mum did it for around a year a year or so ago but when she stopped she also gained back the weight. I am definitely going to try and stick with it until I get to my goal weight of 116lbs or thereabouts and 20-22% body fat. After that I'll probably go down to 1 fast day as I think it's good for our bodies to do that anyway. I'll then hopefully be able to increase my calories a little on feast days but we will see.

As I've come to realise the only time I ever lose weight or maintain is when I keep logging my food diary so I now know that it will be something I have to do for life.

I actually have the Fast diet book in my Kindle App and also a recipe book but haven't looked at them for about 2 years so I'll have another read of them for more ideas. This week I'm just keeping it simple but I might start trying to increase veggies and make salads and things and try low carb. I need to try and increase my protein intake on fast days as the feast days I try and get it up to 80-100g so it would be a shame to drop it so much lower every fast day.

jamesc9282014 · February 2015

I've been doing a lot of research on this. I've recently just heard about this and am very interested. I'm a little confused but want to try. Feel free to add me as well please

joyummymummy · February 2015

Hi I am following the 5:2 diet, this is my second go at it. So far I'm on my 1st fast day today. I would love to give yous an add also for inspiration.

JAT74 · February 2015

James have you seen the Michael Moseley BBC Horizon programme? It should help answer some questions. There is also a book available, I got mine in digital form for my Kindle App and don't think it was very expensive. There's also a 5:2 fast group on MFP so that might be worth joining if you have any questions about it too.

Joyummymummy thanks for the add. I'm almost at the end of my 2nd fast day and so far so good! It's not been that hard, but I suppose results will be key and only time will tell if I will be able to stick with it or not but hope so.

JAT74 · February 2015

By the way where are you all from? I noticed Jo that you're probably somewhere in the UK from the entries in your diary today! I'm from London but now live in Spain. I think most people doing 5:2 are UK based as not sure it's really caught on much elsewhere yet.

katherineclarkson · February 2015

I have tried the 5:2 diet, I suffer from migraines if I don't eat and it just made me ill. My partner nearly passed out one time as well.

aprilparker181 · February 2015

I started it last week and doing my forth 'fast day' today, I think as long as you don't excessively over endulge on the 5 days then it works fine! Yesterday was meant to be my fast day but I ended up having a bit of a binge but it's good cause can just start again the next day:)

JAT74 · February 2015

Hi Katherine, sorry to hear that. I think it probably depends how you go about it and also what you eat and when you eat on fast days.

I've done juice or liquid fasts before and I've tried to 'detox' by cutting out caffeine too. I found that I had terrible migraines for days while doing that, but with 5:2 I don't get those kind of side effects.

I don't treat it like an extreme detox, more like a way to cut my calories by a significant % on fast days so that means I still have my teas/coffees and eat using a similar pattern ie. try to get in breakfast, lunch and dinner at the very least, though on a much smaller scale. Some people like to eat all their calories in one go in the evening, or skip a meal but that wouldn't work for me as I'd get much too hungry. The way I'm doing it I don't feel like I'm lacking anything at all and as it's only twice a week there is plenty of time to eat more!

Earlier this week after my first fast day I tried to do weight training the following morning and found I just didn't have the energy for it so I did feel al little drained afterwards but by then I was on my feast day so could eat plenty afterwards.

I think that from now on I'll avoid doing weight training immediately after a fast day and instead do weights workouts either on feast days or in the morning on fast days so I still have energy from the day before.

JAT74 · February 2015

April I am a little bit worried about that happening, especially as some days I go out for unplanned lunches but I am going to try and get my fast days out the way by Wednesday or Thursday so I don't have to worry about them after that.

I would prefer to do Monday and Wednesday ideally but Monday nights I now have a Pilates class so don't think Monday would be the best day to have a fast day!

Are you counting calories on your feast days? I think the only way this will work for me is to be conscious of my calorie intake on feast days and in my case I want to stick to 1400-1600 maximum depending on my activity level on those days.

mkakids · February 2015

I follow 5:2 as well. I've lost about 8# in 8 weeks, with a very noticeable difference in my clothes.

I love it! To me, its a very easy way to create a 25% defecit.

Joolsmd...is your tdee really 1500? I eat 2200 on normal days. If its not and your eating under tdee on non fast days, you really should eat more. Don't double diet. Its not safe or healthy.

JAT74 · February 2015

Mkakids, my TDEE is also 1500, but that's my TDEE without exercise added on top as I'm very sedentary. If you go to the 5:2 group, there's a post asking what someone's TDEE is and one of the other members has added a really useful calculator to work out what you should eat on non-fast days depending on your weight loss goal.

I already knew my TDEE without exercise was 1500 but if I put in an average of 400 extra exercise calories I still need to eat no more than 1500 to be able to lose 1.5lbs per week. For me that would be an ideal number in terms of loss as I want to lose another 25lbs so I am going to try not to eat over 1500 or maybe 1600 at the most on days when I burn off more through exercise and that way hopefully I can lose at that rate.

Before joining MFP I didn't exercise very regularly for quite a while and ate above my sedentary TDEE quite often, though probably not much more than 1600 per day as my weight gradually crept up so I would feel very uncomfortable eating 2200 as I've not eaten that amount since my 20s and my student years (when I was much much bigger).

It's not a case of 'double' dieting, just a case of creating enough of a deficit per week to be able to lose your goal in terms of lbs per week. I was already creating enough of a deficit before 5:2 to lose 1lb per week so the way I'm looking at it now is that it's a way to get some extra health benefits, give my body a break 2 days a week and also increase my rate of weight loss a little.

joolsmd · February 2015

mkakids wrote: »

Joolsmd...is your tdee really 1500? I eat 2200 on normal days. If its not and your eating under tdee on non fast days, you really should eat more. Don't double diet. Its not safe or healthy.

Probably not, but if I ate 2200 cals on my feast days then I would put on weight. I feel there is no point in fasting two days a week if I am just going to eat it all back again. I am currently 20lbs overweight and losing 1-2lbs a week so happy with keeping my feast days to around 1500 cals at the mo.

katherineclarkson · February 2015

JAT74 wrote: »

Hi Katherine, sorry to hear that. I think it probably depends how you go about it and also what you eat and when you eat on fast days.

I've done juice or liquid fasts before and I've tried to 'detox' by cutting out caffeine too. I found that I had terrible migraines for days while doing that, but with 5:2 I don't get those kind of side effects.

I don't treat it like an extreme detox, more like a way to cut my calories by a significant % on fast days so that means I still have my teas/coffees and eat using a similar pattern ie. try to get in breakfast, lunch and dinner at the very least, though on a much smaller scale. Some people like to eat all their calories in one go in the evening, or skip a meal but that wouldn't work for me as I'd get much too hungry. The way I'm doing it I don't feel like I'm lacking anything at all and as it's only twice a week there is plenty of time to eat more!

Earlier this week after my first fast day I tried to do weight training the following morning and found I just didn't have the energy for it so I did feel al little drained afterwards but by then I was on my feast day so could eat plenty afterwards.

I think that from now on I'll avoid doing weight training immediately after a fast day and instead do weights workouts either on feast days or in the morning on fast days so I still have energy from the day before.

Thank you

It's ok some diets work better for some and not well for others. I am happy now using this app, I feel much better for knowing what and how much I am eating. I almost feel lighter already and in a happier mood.

karen_fitzgibbon · February 2015

Hi! I've been doing the 5:2 diet thingie for the last month and I've slowly lost weight on it. Feel free to add me if you like. Also check out this awesomely amazing group http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/100058-5-2-fasting
They are supportive and there's recipes and stuff

Cath2907 · February 2015

I do the 5:2 diet. Started a month ago and have lost 4kg (about 8.5lb). I stick to 500 - 550kcal on fast days (Mon and Thursday) and about 1500kcal in between. I have found it really has helped me to accept that being hungry is ok. It has also started to change my eating preferences I think. Today is not a fast day but I just couldn't fancy buttered toast for my breakfast and had a scrambled egg instead (normally a fast day item!) Monday is harder than Thursday but I have yet to flunk out on a fast (probably because I'd then have to do it tomorrow instead!)
I am not a big exerciser - my daily activity levels have increased a bit just because I feel less tired but the weight loss is all about the food not the movement.

5:2 diet and fat loss results?

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