5:2 Fasting

Intermittent fasting is fine if you like it and it works for you. As an aside, 950 calories per day isn't healthy to do everyday, at least generally speaking.

Read Eat Stop Eat and Lean Gains for a full understanding of how IF works.

Now as for the 5:2 I do it mostly because it suits my lifestyle. Some fasting days are harder than others. You'll be colder on your fasting days and sometimes it takes me a lot of coffee (black) to get through but mostly its fine. You just need to distract yourself.
One piece of advice is to have a breakfast planned for the next day. If I wake up hungry the next day and have something good to go it prevents me going all out. Most f the time I don't wake up hungry but it's there just in case.

It's working for me.

5:2 helped me break a 10 year cycle of EDNOS, whilst reducing my body fat percentage but keeping my muscle mass, without being all over the place.

Now I'm just trying to lose my last 7 vanity lbs, it's coming off between 0.5 - 1lb a week. Couldn't be happier.

The fast days I find fairly easy - I find if I have a super hectic day working day then 5 small bananas throughout the day and a bunch of black coffee gets me through. If it's not too hectic, I'll eat my main meal at lunchtime. It's flexible.

I also work out on fast days, but in the morning because a heavy cardio workout leaves me not hungry until much later in the day. Working out in the evening I find too tough.

NB - I don't do fast days on the two days before and the first two days of my T.O.M because my energy is usually pretty low anyway and leaves me faint and dizzy these days if I restrict under my TDEE.

That's my experience anyway.

There's an interesting BBC Documentary that I watched recently called "Eat, Fast and Live Longer" and while I don't 100% buy into everything they say about IF giving a longer life, there are some fairly valid points in there that make sense to me.

If you had asked me about 2 years ago I would have whole heartedly recommended 5:2. I managed to lose 2.5 stone incredibly easily (within about 7ish months) On the 5 days of normal eating I was still having takeaways, treats, pints in the pub and doing no exercise. The weight just kept dropping off no matter how bad I was on my non fast days. HOWEVER, I didn't learn anything about healthy eating and so once I stopped 5:2 the weight piled back on....and then some I am now on MFP to lose weight the old fashioned way - eat a bit less, move a bit more and using MFP to track calories etc. To me this is a much healthier way of losing weight because it is teaching me things like portion control and really the importance of keeping things for treats. And I KNOW I will be able to keep this up for life because I am not really on a diet - I am just trying to take care of myself and why would I not want to do this forever? Incidentally, I am currently losing slightly quicker than when I did 5:2. Up to you though - I know a lot of people manage to do 5:2 and keep the weight off by doing 6:1 once their weight was down. I would seriously recommend fastday.com - they have a great weight loss tracker and loads of forums specific to 5:2 which helped me a lot.

eldamiano wrote: »

Don't believe in these diets. They are designed to make money. They tell you ' it has worked for millions ' and then forget to mention the amount of people who put it straight back on when they have left their new unsustainable lifestyle

Unfortunately that applies to all weight loss approaches. Long term success is rare.

Me 6 weeks I did 4:3 4 days 500 calories 3 1500
I lost week 1 4lbs
Week 2 2lbs
Weeks 3,4,5,6 0lbs was 100% logging weighing measuring so gave up
In 6 weeks counting calories I lost 11.5lbs lost every week
Fasting a good for us but didn't really work as I need to lose weight and 4 weeks at 6000 calories is low not to lose
I don't think eating what you like in non fast days is good for people if they've had weight problems

I just don't eat after 1800 and breakfast is 10 am. Still manage my 2300 cals. Going to bed on an empty stomach I found was essential.

hopeandtheabsurd wrote: »

abbietaylor1 wrote: »

If you had asked me about 2 years ago I would have whole heartedly recommended 5:2. I managed to lose 2.5 stone incredibly easily (within about 7ish months) On the 5 days of normal eating I was still having takeaways, treats, pints in the pub and doing no exercise. The weight just kept dropping off no matter how bad I was on my non fast days. HOWEVER, I didn't learn anything about healthy eating and so once I stopped 5:2 the weight piled back on....and then some I am now on MFP to lose weight the old fashioned way - eat a bit less, move a bit more and using MFP to track calories etc. To me this is a much healthier way of losing weight because it is teaching me things like portion control and really the importance of keeping things for treats. And I KNOW I will be able to keep this up for life because I am not really on a diet - I am just trying to take care of myself and why would I not want to do this forever? Incidentally, I am currently losing slightly quicker than when I did 5:2. Up to you though - I know a lot of people manage to do 5:2 and keep the weight off by doing 6:1 once their weight was down. I would seriously recommend fastday.com - they have a great weight loss tracker and loads of forums specific to 5:2 which helped me a lot.

I've heard of 2 different kinds of 5:2. In one, you can eat what you like on the 5 days, on the other you stick to maintenance calories for the 5 days. It sounds like you were on the first plan. With the second, a person has 5 days a week to practice maintenance level calories, so transitioning from 5 to 7 days of maintenance level should be pretty smooth as long as the maintenance calories had been adjusted along the way to reflect current weight.

I agree, however, the real appeal of 5:2 for me was that I only had to count calories 2 days a week and it did not change the rest of my week at all. I'm in a different place now and happy to track all the time so maybe the maintenance version would appeal now!

I did 5:2 a couple of years back then went on to 4:3 I lost almost 2 stone. I've put some back on since stopping but no where near as much as I lost. I found it resonably easy. Keep saying I'll go back on it but finding it difficult since I moved in with my oh.

jemhh wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

I found it very good - far easier for me than every day calorie restriction.
Also supported a very heavy exercise routine very well.
Side benefits were being more creative with food choices / recipes and recognising what real hunger signals are - as opposed to habitual eating, boredom or just plain greed.

It's not for everyone but was great for me.
By the way you don't have to do it for life, as you are eating at maintenance five days a week you should know your maintenance calories pretty well and be used to eating at that level by the time you get to goal.

@sijomial, if you don't mind sharing, how did you schedule your lifting sessions when doing 5:2? I just took a short diet break and am considering 5:2 when I start cutting again. I'm just not sure which days I should use as fast days. I do a 4 day upper/lower split and 2 of those days I'm lifting in the morning. I worry that if I fast the day before, my lifting will be off.

@jemhh
My exercise routine at the time was normally 3 days cycling (or other complimentary cardio) and 3 days weights on alternate days, 7th day mostly a light activity day but wasn't unusual to make it 7 days a week exercising.

5:2 main advantage for exercise in a deficit is that 5 days a week you are fully fuelled, that's when I would schedule my more extreme or long duration exercise. I trained for and completed my first Century Ride while doing 5:2.

Normally I do my weights in the afternoon or evening, on a fast day that would be after a roughly 300cal meal - never caused me any issues in terms of energy or performance. Ditto in fact when I lifted before eating.
Cardio was different and at first I would start to get symptoms of glycogen depletion ("bonking") after even moderate exercise. But I adapted over a period of months until fasted cardio really didn't feel any different to fed cardio and I could do intense/fast rides for an hour with no issues, even to the point of negative calorie days occasionally.

Suggestion for you - as weights isn't a large calorie burner if you are lifting before breakfast following a fast day just a small carby snack (banana?) before training should fuel you adequately.
The reaction to fasted exercise does vary from person to person but also you adapt over time.
A lot of it is mental, people are conditioned to believe they "need" pre and post workout supplements for even the most moderate exercise routines although they are carrying huge energy stores in their body anyway.

sijomial wrote: »

jemhh wrote: »

sijomial wrote: »

I found it very good - far easier for me than every day calorie restriction.
Also supported a very heavy exercise routine very well.
Side benefits were being more creative with food choices / recipes and recognising what real hunger signals are - as opposed to habitual eating, boredom or just plain greed.

It's not for everyone but was great for me.
By the way you don't have to do it for life, as you are eating at maintenance five days a week you should know your maintenance calories pretty well and be used to eating at that level by the time you get to goal.

@sijomial, if you don't mind sharing, how did you schedule your lifting sessions when doing 5:2? I just took a short diet break and am considering 5:2 when I start cutting again. I'm just not sure which days I should use as fast days. I do a 4 day upper/lower split and 2 of those days I'm lifting in the morning. I worry that if I fast the day before, my lifting will be off.

@jemhh
My exercise routine at the time was normally 3 days cycling (or other complimentary cardio) and 3 days weights on alternate days, 7th day mostly a light activity day but wasn't unusual to make it 7 days a week exercising.

5:2 main advantage for exercise in a deficit is that 5 days a week you are fully fuelled, that's when I would schedule my more extreme or long duration exercise. I trained for and completed my first Century Ride while doing 5:2.

Normally I do my weights in the afternoon or evening, on a fast day that would be after a roughly 300cal meal - never caused me any issues in terms of energy or performance. Ditto in fact when I lifted before eating.
Cardio was different and at first I would start to get symptoms of glycogen depletion ("bonking") after even moderate exercise. But I adapted over a period of months until fasted cardio really didn't feel any different to fed cardio and I could do intense/fast rides for an hour with no issues, even to the point of negative calorie days occasionally.

Suggestion for you - as weights isn't a large calorie burner if you are lifting before breakfast following a fast day just a small carby snack (banana?) before training should fuel you adequately.
The reaction to fasted exercise does vary from person to person but also you adapt over time.
A lot of it is mental, people are conditioned to believe they "need" pre and post workout supplements for even the most moderate exercise routines although they are carrying huge energy stores in their body anyway.

Thanks for the info and advice, @sijomial. This is helpful. In the past I trained first thing in the morning without eating anything and was fine but then got to the point where I just wasn't doing all that great so I started eating a bit as soon as I got up. However, I was eating in a deficit full time when doing that. With 5:2 there's the possibility that being fully fueled most days (even if the overall weekly deficit is the same) would change how I feel overall. Plus, like you said, I could eat something beforehand like I do now. I think I may commit to doing this for 8 weeks to see how I like it.