question about 5:2 diet
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mybicknell
Posts: 26 Member
I started the 5:2 diet about a month ago (today is my 7th fast day). I realize it is slow but I just seem to be losing and gaining the same 2-3 pounds over and over. I do get hungry on my fast days but have managed to stay at 500 calories without issues and am staying under my TDEE of about 1600 on NFD. Has anyone else had success on this diet and was it slow and frustrating at first? I plan to stick with it at least a few more weeks and see what happens but didn't expect to keep seeing gains- I was hoping to at least maintain on my NFD.... maybe I am weighing myself too much? I really like to weigh daily.
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Replies
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Depending on your logging accuracy and your guess on your calorie needs - AND how much weight you need to lose, it may be slow going.
5:2 is just a way to regulate calories, it doesn't confer any special weight-loss benefits or shortcut.
How are you logging food?
Where did you come up with 1600 as your TDEE?
Have you lost any weight?
How many pounds do you need to lose to be at 25 BMI or lower?
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There is nothing wrong with weighing yourself daily, as long as you can deal with the head games that your mind may/may not play with you.
Looking at the numbers, your daily TDEE is 1600 calories, so by eating 500 calories 2 days a week and 1600 calories 5 days a week, you are creating a weekly deficit of 2200 calories (roughly). It takes a deficit of 3500 calories to lose 1 pound a week, so a weekly deficit of 2200 calories will yield less than 1 pound of loss per week - about 2/3 of a pound total. At that low of an expected loss, it could be really easy for any weight loss to be camouflaged by daily weight fluctuations. You would need a long term chart (more than a month) to really see your weight dropping.
Question - how did you come up with the 1600 for your TDEE? What are your stats (height, weight, activity level, etc)?2 -
I need to lose about 10 pounds to have a BMI of 25 and have a personal goal to lose about 20-25 pounds. I have been using MFP for a long while but lately was finding it difficult to always stay under 1200 calories every single day so I think this will be a better plan for me so I can be a little more lax on the NFD (but I still don't eat 1600 on those days)- usually closer to 1400 or 1500. I used a TDEE calculator from Mayo Clinic and put in basically sedentary bc I have a desk job although I do exercise at least 3 times a week. Overall since starting I may be down about 1 pound and this is my fourth week. I started out a little over 161 and this morning I weighed 160 exactly. I am about 5'5" tall.0
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TDEE calculators expect you to input your purposeful exercise as part of the calculation. Did you do that?
In the past did you use the Myfitnesspal method of asking for a weight loss of one pound per week, entering your Activity Level as Sedentary, and then adding in your purposeful exercise and eating more?
I still feel like we don't have enough info....how are you logging food? Are you consistently logging every day in that past month?
Can you open your food diary for us to see if you're making some common errors?
It's at the bottom on this page: https://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/diary_settings0 -
Yes I put in that I get moderate exercise 3 times a week. I did put in to lose one pound per week previously. I started logging consistently again the day before I started to fast which was April 9th. I have logged everyday since then. I opened my diary. Thanks for your time by the way. I am just frustrated.0
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I did 5:2 to lose my excess weight.
After a few weeks I could see my weight loss was a little slower than expected so I adjusted my 5 normal eating days down to take approximately 1,000 cals off my weekly allowance. My weight loss then preceded at the expected 1lb a week all the way to goal. Slightly sloppy food logging (I went for consistency rather than absolute accuracy) plus slightly exaggerated exercise calorie burns on the 5 days were the suspects.
Having looked at your food diary I would strongly suspect your use of measuring cups and spoons is introducing a significant degree of inaccuracy. They measure volume and not weight and calories are in relation to weight. Using kitchen scales instead (at least for a trial period) could be very revealing and also educational about serving sizes.
I don't see any issue with daily weighing but when you have an erratic eating schedule you need to take that into account and expect erratic weight variations too. It's the trend over weeks that matters and not the day to day "noise".2 -
mybicknell wrote: »Yes I put in that I get moderate exercise 3 times a week. I did put in to lose one pound per week previously. I started logging consistently again the day before I started to fast which was April 9th. I have logged everyday since then. I opened my diary. Thanks for your time by the way. I am just frustrated.
I'm sensing you are confusing systems - MFP and this external site for TDEE.
And that you think undercutting everything is better.
MFP does NOT use TDEE, unless you happen to do no exercise - then a correctly selected daily Activity level happens to be TDEE.
But you do exercise.
And you said you told the external site you were sedentary - obviously not correct.
I'd suggest using the tools correctly.
The 5:2 diet is based on eating at TDEE for 5 days - then 2 days 25% of TDEE, for an overall diet of 22% deficit.
If you do it right - you can remove a lot of stress on the body. Stop it from adapting, increasing cortisol and water weight, hormones level, ect.
You aren't - Great way to stress body - diet every day and then extreme diet 2 more days a week.
Go back to the Mayo TDEE calc - be honest and put in the exercise - get the TDEE figure based on perhaps Lightly Active.
Or use this:
Just TDEE Please spreadsheet - better than rough 5 level TDEE charts from 1919 study.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G7FgNzPq3v5WMjDtH0n93LXSMRY_hjmzNTMJb3aZSxM/edit?usp=sharing
Manually set your eating goal to that TDEE figure - not under, eat to that goal 5 days a week.
Figure out 25% of that TDEE figure.
Round it out - and 2 days a week eat to that figure.
You could also create a food item that is the difference between the 25% eating goal and the normal eating goal (75% of TDEE) - call the food item Fast day.
Just calories, no macros.
Pre-log that food on the planned fast days.
Now your remaining eating goal is correct.
If you need to do that anyway to see it.
Usually the fast day is so small you better have the food planned out.
It's a good method if you can do - I could never adjust it with my workout days properly. Either hitting on a recovery day from a good workout or day before a planned hard workout - always seem to effect things.
2 -
I did 5:2 to lose my excess weight.
After a few weeks I could see my weight loss was a little slower than expected so I adjusted my 5 normal eating days down to take approximately 1,000 cals off my weekly allowance. My weight loss then preceded at the expected 1lb a week all the way to goal. Slightly sloppy food logging (I went for consistency rather than absolute accuracy) plus slightly exaggerated exercise calorie burns on the 5 days were the suspects.
Having looked at your food diary I would strongly suspect your use of measuring cups and spoons is introducing a significant degree of inaccuracy. They measure volume and not weight and calories are in relation to weight. Using kitchen scales instead (at least for a trial period) could be very revealing and also educational about serving sizes.
I don't see any issue with daily weighing but when you have an erratic eating schedule you need to take that into account and expect erratic weight variations too. It's the trend over weeks that matters and not the day to day "noise".
I will definitely try weighing everything. Thanks for the info!1 -
mybicknell wrote: »Yes I put in that I get moderate exercise 3 times a week. I did put in to lose one pound per week previously. I started logging consistently again the day before I started to fast which was April 9th. I have logged everyday since then. I opened my diary. Thanks for your time by the way. I am just frustrated.
I'm sensing you are confusing systems - MFP and this external site for TDEE.
And that you think undercutting everything is better.
MFP does NOT use TDEE, unless you happen to do no exercise - then a correctly selected daily Activity level happens to be TDEE.
But you do exercise.
And you said you told the external site you were sedentary - obviously not correct.
I'd suggest using the tools correctly.
The 5:2 diet is based on eating at TDEE for 5 days - then 2 days 25% of TDEE, for an overall diet of 22% deficit.
If you do it right - you can remove a lot of stress on the body. Stop it from adapting, increasing cortisol and water weight, hormones level, ect.
You aren't - Great way to stress body - diet every day and then extreme diet 2 more days a week.
Go back to the Mayo TDEE calc - be honest and put in the exercise - get the TDEE figure based on perhaps Lightly Active.
Or use this:
Just TDEE Please spreadsheet - better than rough 5 level TDEE charts from 1919 study.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1G7FgNzPq3v5WMjDtH0n93LXSMRY_hjmzNTMJb3aZSxM/edit?usp=sharing
Manually set your eating goal to that TDEE figure - not under, eat to that goal 5 days a week.
Figure out 25% of that TDEE figure.
Round it out - and 2 days a week eat to that figure.
You could also create a food item that is the difference between the 25% eating goal and the normal eating goal (75% of TDEE) - call the food item Fast day.
Just calories, no macros.
Pre-log that food on the planned fast days.
Now your remaining eating goal is correct.
If you need to do that anyway to see it.
Usually the fast day is so small you better have the food planned out.
It's a good method if you can do - I could never adjust it with my workout days properly. Either hitting on a recovery day from a good workout or day before a planned hard workout - always seem to effect things.
Good information. How do you manually change the calorie goal on those 5 days??
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You'll change your overall eating goal to be correct, which will be for the 5 days.
Change MFP - Goals - Change Goals - Custom - Continue
Change NET Calories consumed to the better estimated TDEE, not what you got so far.
Do NOT log workouts - you are not using MFP as designed - therefore you have to not use it as designed.
2 -
You'll change your overall eating goal to be correct, which will be for the 5 days.
Change MFP - Goals - Change Goals - Custom - Continue
Change NET Calories consumed to the better estimated TDEE, not what you got so far.
Do NOT log workouts - you are not using MFP as designed - therefore you have to not use it as designed.
Thanks0 -
mybicknell wrote: »I did 5:2 to lose my excess weight.
After a few weeks I could see my weight loss was a little slower than expected so I adjusted my 5 normal eating days down to take approximately 1,000 cals off my weekly allowance. My weight loss then preceded at the expected 1lb a week all the way to goal. Slightly sloppy food logging (I went for consistency rather than absolute accuracy) plus slightly exaggerated exercise calorie burns on the 5 days were the suspects.
Having looked at your food diary I would strongly suspect your use of measuring cups and spoons is introducing a significant degree of inaccuracy. They measure volume and not weight and calories are in relation to weight. Using kitchen scales instead (at least for a trial period) could be very revealing and also educational about serving sizes.
I don't see any issue with daily weighing but when you have an erratic eating schedule you need to take that into account and expect erratic weight variations too. It's the trend over weeks that matters and not the day to day "noise".
I will definitely try weighing everything. Thanks for the info!
If you're new to food weighing, learn the tricks: I predict you'll find it faster and easier than cups/spoons, in addition to more accurate, not to mention fewer dishes to wash.
Despite the joke-y clickbait title, this thread is about tips and tricks for weighing food, for people who choose to use that tool:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10498882/weighing-food-takes-too-long-and-is-obsessive#latest0 -
Ha ha 😂 I will check that out0
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