This topic contains 27,901 replies, has 831 voices, and was last updated by thinatlast 12 hours, 31 minutes ago.
Watched Dr M’s Horizon show again last night. It really was fascinating and renews the commitment we’re all making to this WOL. When you think the BBC first broadcast the show in Aug 2012, you wonder how much research has been done since then. I’ve been prowling around some of the other threads (while everyone’s been quiet here) and its amazing the positive outcomes that so many others have achieved.
Got it thanks CM. And I just posted some instructions for others on how to get to it without specifying the link itself and it didn’t post either. Why would the web authors not want that on here? Anyway here’s a cryptic version to try: daily motion (all one word) dot com and then type in the search box Eat Fast Live Longer.
Hi everyone, I’m a newbie from South Australia. Today is my very first fasting day! I’m an emotional eater so fasting will be as much a psychological as it is physical challenge for me.
I’m doing the 5:2 to lose weight, but also to remain healthier and leaner for life. And, as they say, every journey starts with the first step 🙂
Cheers,
Hi Teskat! Welcome to a new Way of Eating & Way of Life (WOE/WOL). Congrats on starting your first fast day (FD). This is the end of my 4th week. Down 3.3kg in total. I feel it’s been so easy, knowing if I’m on a FD then, regardless, tomorrow I can eat those things I miss most. The first week or so was the hardest, getting my body used to this new WOE. I really didn’t feel like gorging on my feed days either. It’s just been quite natural. Anyway, good luck & as Thin says we’re here for support & help. CM
Hi SHers!
Anyone around over the weekend?. OH and I have decided to do a trip over the ditch to South Is.to see what the Kiwis are up to. Just thinking about Kiwi food and thinking what I’ll use. Not too different to Oz of course, but wondering what Kiwis use as their staples on 5:2 ? Did a trip to the Nth Is a few years ago and self catered and I’m remembering mussels and whitebait etc, though we did have a few 2nd breakfasts!, but haven’t been to Sth for yrs so a bit out of touch there.
Loving this WOL, and now I’m nearly 4 monthis in it’s so easy to adjust what I eat after a special meal out( guilt free) and how I can choose more wisely when out and still enjoy it heaps. Am loving the psychological changes in our relationship with food that cones with 5:2! Definitely a Way Of Life that’s a keeper!
Cheers,
Merry
Hey Merryme, living on south is. Nz and you might be surprised at the food available here, the gf revolution has reallly caught on here, so lots of options there, i do find breakfast and dinner real easy on the 5.2 but sometimes struggle with some lunch options cos everything’s still bread and dairy, but lots of fruit and veg around, the farmers markets are good too, and really fresh with lots of organic produce, most meat is grass fed, but watch the portion sizes, may have to start sharing!!! :-):-)
Hi Southern Friends,
Boy have you lot been busy with your chatting, which is great to see, just took a bit of time to read through it all. Weight is still steadily going down, but at present food is not my focus, as my cows are calving, and some of the first timers have had a few problems, due to wet summer and now the feed drying off.
Have loved reading everyone’s posts, and great to see new ones taking to the sourdough revolution. I make one per fortnight, thank you Purple. I love it as I can slice it so thinly, but hubby is taking a while to get used to it. Indulged yesterday in a toasted cheese sandwich, that was the only thing I was missing on this WOL. Now the world is perfect. Keep on keeping on everyone, Cheers, Charlie.
Hello,
I live down south in lovely Dunsborough. Started 3 weeks ago, 2.5 kg lost. I do split days as I find that easier. I break my calories up in a small breakfast and the rest for dinner. I am trying to have the 12 hrs between the meals, but sometimes that doesn’t work out too well. I have also changed my excercise and try to do the interval running on the treadmill. Could do it more often so. I am doing it for some weight loss, but also for general health benefits as I am a breast cancer survivor. Feeling great so far.
Thanks Turnabout and Bay, thanks for the info, the GF thing in cafes etc and supermarket will work well, and farmers’ marketsare a good source of things so will use all of those, as well as meat etc. thanks for the heads up on portions too, and we already share a bit so will see how we go with that too. 2 things I remember vividly about NZ food are the kiwifruit (Chinese gooseberries?) and the ice cream and milkshakes are all the best in the world! Vanilla icecream with cranberries, and white chocolate on top with crushed pistachios,OMG. Only time ever in my life I went back and bought another one an hour later. The beauty of 5:2 is I now know how to have one ( that’s 1, not 1 every 2 nd day)and how to fit it into my life so it doesn’t add weight. So love this WOL! Tickets booked.
Merry
You are so right about the ice cream being the best in the world, I think the hokey pokey is sill voted the nation’s favourite, but down here in the south you can get real fruit ice cream at the roadside fruit stalls, now that is yummy!!!!! Choice of either ice cream or frozen yoghurt, not sure on sugar content, but the fruit is naturally frozen free flow so no added sugar there! I serve a lot of guests who share their meals, becoming more populated and accepted now, especially if portions are large, which I have to say the south Island is known for?!! Happy travels :-):-)
Hi everyone, great to see new faces still arriving. I haven’t been around for a while, I have started a new job and life has been a little crazy. I wanted to pop in this week as it is now six months since I started this WOL. Fasting feels very much like second nature to me now, I really look forward to my FD’s and I never thought those words would come out of my mouth!
I reached my goal weight just before Christmas and have been maintaining ever since. I still fast 2 days a week as it allows me to pretty much indulge how I want for the other five. It works for me so that’s what I will keep doing.
I just wanted to share my experience, hopefully it will help any newcomers know it is doable, it’s not easy but it gets easier. There is so much excellent help and support on these forums when you need it.
Happy Monday fasting
Jenny
Will you lot please stop talking about yummy NZ food & ice-cream…& hokey pokey & fresh berries no less!!! That’s one thing I can’t get tomorrow after my FD! You guys over the ditch do it so well.
Bay – Good idea about sharing breakfast – hadn’t thought of that before. Not sure if OH would agreed though.
bhasenoehrl – Welcome from a fellow 5:2er in Fremantle. Glad it’s all going well for you. I’m also in it as much for health benefits as weight loss. Going 4 weeks (mon & wed) and down 3.6kg, so its working & I feel great too. Lots of experienced 5:2ers on here, so ask away if you have any questions at all. They’re a great bunch.
jenklar – Great to hear from another long-term faster. I’m also starting to look forward to my FD’s (quite bizarre) and glad you say it gets easier the longer you go. It’s almost what I’d call addictive – but not in a bad way. Just goes to show how little food we really need to keep us going and still feel good.
Have a great week everyone. CM
Hi peeps, Start of week 4 fast day today and my to do list is popping on this forum to catch up. OH is still with me on this journey although we have both only lost just over 1 kg.We really don’t bother policing what we eat on the 5 days as we eat relatively healthy but OH definitely snacks a wee bit too much and loves his beer. However according to the book the theory seems to be if you don’t over compensate on feed days your weight will drop. Me thinks if it takes O/H forever to loose 10 – 15kgs all the better it means he has no alcohol 2 days a week if nothing else. and he doesn’t over compensate as it bloats him now. I really don’t need to loose much more than a kilo or two so it’s a lifestyle choice more than anything, and I now have 2 sugar free days.So all is well and positive. For some reason we have our weigh day on Wednesday in between the 2 fast days (Mon./Wed) so it’s a more balanced view of any weight loss. Two things I have discovered last week…the sugar hit is a real thing as well as the drop afterwards and I almost vomit if I indulge in the same amount of sugar laden goodies as I did B4 this WOL as was the case over the weekend. Also I seem to bang on a bit about the virtues of this WOL as the first thing everyone says to me is you don’t need to loose weight SO I just have to waffle on about why I am doing this…..Anybody doing the same flag flying for the 5:2???? Enjoying everyone’s succes YAY. Go everyone
LOL Sorry CharliesMum, and thankyou, you’ve just remimded me about fresh berries!
Forgot about them, but a great addition to holiday self- catering.
Jenklar, so great to hear back from someone doing maintenance, and how you’ve accomplished it for a few months. Thanks.
Fast day today, and made it right through to dinner before any food or liquid calories,yay! Also had a 375 ml bottle of diet ginger beer, 15 calories. Which brings up the question of artificial sweeteners, because it really did make fast day finish off with a normality of a drink with a lot of flavour.
Cheers,
Merry
Hi All,
Newbie here too from Sydney.
On my 3rd week first FD of the week. I’m down 1.4kg and feel so much better. Not so bloated and blahhh. Finding the 5:2 definitely is a good WOL for me. I’ve tried so many things, but really liking this. Happened to catch Michaels’ doco on fox and I am so glad I did.
Have a great week peeps.
Hey everybody,
I’ve started this program today and thought this blog looked like a great way to stay motivated 🙂
My husband and I are doing this together and so far, haven’t found our first fast day too tough! I’ve read that the second fast day is harder though so I’m jumping in early on this community incase I need the support.
We both love our food and have huge appetites. We mostly eat good food and we exercise reasonably regularly but our weight has climbed over the years and we want to nip it in the bud now.
Looking forward to becoming a part of this community 🙂
Hi Melbourne Kiwi,
Welcome to a great new WOE/WOL, that’s way of eating, way of life. Great that you have your husband doing this with you as it will make fast days easier. If you have the time read back through some of the earlier posts as they have lots of helpful tips on how to deal with fast days. Best advice is measure yourself everywhere for at times you will not loose on the scales but the measurements will reduce.
Drink lots of water on fast days and set your TDEE total daily energy expenditure by your goal weight, this makes it much easier for the weight to come off, and you fast at one quarter of that.
Good luck with your new lifestyle choice.
Charlie.
Hullo all. Sorry I have been a bit quiet. A friend passed away on the weekend. I’ll feel better after the funeral tomorrow. Cancer, diagnosed a couple of weeks before Christmas. So quick.
Anyway, I am in my fourth week and I have lost 3.2ks. I am happy with this, and I have much more energy.
Enjoy today ~ and all your days!
Thank you so much Charlie G for your welcome and your great tips!
I read your message earlier this morning and got researching right away (I didn’t even know what BMR or TDEE were!) so now I know what these important factors are and I’m happy to have worked out that with my goal weight entered, I can eat 527 calories on fast days. That extra 27 calories makes a difference! Thank you 🙂
Transcend, I am so sorry for your loss. I hope you feel better after the farewell, good on you for sticking to the program throughout such a tough time.
So sorry to hear about your friend, Transcend. Always a hole left when someone goes.
May I join in welcoming newbies, and of course, extolling the wonders of NZ ice cream. Well done on all the losses.
It’s good to have OH on the journey with you, MelbourneKiwi. Mine started, but then has moved on to a regime of supplements to try to improve his various chemical imbalances, so decided doing both wouldn’t give us a clear idea of what was working.
Hi Melb Kiwi
Welcome to your new way of life.
With regard to TDEE, did you use the calculator on this website to work out your TDEE? If you enter sedentary as your activity level, and enter your weight as your goal weight, then the TDEE will reflect your future food intake. Any exercise undertaken is a bonus and contributes to your overall fitness.
it is good to get used to a fasting routine, and then to aim to reduce your calories on fast days to under 500, and from there to 400 calories. Take it slowly and you will find it easy to do.
I began 5:2 in January 2014 and lost 17 kgs. I’ve been maintaining ever since and enjoying this way of life.
Cheers, Bay 🙂
Nice to see you back Charlie G and jenklar. Sorry for your loss Transcend. I agree with you Charlie G, that was my very first thought too. Hope you’re having fun in Q CharliesMum.
Welcome all newcomers. I recommend you read Michael Mosley’s book if you haven’t already. It’ll be the best $11 you’ve ever spent in your life. I re-watched Horizon’s original Eat Fast Live Longer and found it even more compelling (see my 5 March post to find out how to view it in Oz).
Enjoying my fast day, started with a lovely walk at the river, catching up on a few posts, hoping this peppermint tea will keep me going until after lunch. Tomorrow’s OH’s birthday so I’m sure there’ll be some indulgences but, for today, I’m basking in my 66.3kgs weight knowing that tomorrow I will start the day at “65.something”. Like you bay, I’ve lost 17kgs, I’m so happy about that 😆
Wow what amazing success stories, it’s so inspiring to read back and see how far so many of you have come.
Thinatlast, thank you for the book recommendation. You are roughly my weight so it’s great to know that this WOL works for all shapes and sizes 🙂 enjoy your fast day!
Bay, thanks for the advice, I did do my calculation on this site but I entered ‘moderately active’ so i will adjust that and try to keep my fast days under 500. Damn!
Barata, I am going home in June for a week and plan to stop in Pokeno for a hokey pokey ice cream!
Thank you again everybody and well done on your success so far!
MK
…..Barata…. are we going to start talking NZ icecream again!!!!
Hi to the newbies MK88 & ElizG. This will be the best thing you’ve ever done for yourselves. Good luck – we’re all on this amazing journey together!!
Thin – yes, have arrived in Brizzie. All good. FD today. Haven’t eaten all day & enjoying my mandatory FD flat white right now. Yum. Early congrats on dropping a number. I was 67.0 yesterday! Was hoping for just another .1 to break into the 66s. Even so very happy with 3.8 kg in 4.5 weeks. Not weighing in while away…..my excuse is different scales!! CM x
Good to know you’ve arrived safely CM! Well done fitting in the FD on your trip, I knew you could do it. You’ll be rewarded with the 66s tomorrow even if those eastern states scales can’t tell you!
It’s 4.30pm and I’m just now getting around to thinking about food – my neighbour and I were on our way to deliver a petition to an MP, (won’t bore you with details) when I blew a tyre. Bus ride (driver kindly let us ride for free as we both had only $50 bills!); another walk as we’d alighted too soon; made it to MP’s office very late but before she’d closed; waited for OH to come to the rescue (figured he’d be faster than RAC), changed tyre, drove to purchase new tyre and, phew, the fast day has vanished! Not recommended but it does prove that keeping busy takes your mind off food. We’re having prawn, chorizo & kale stir fry 270 cals.
Thin, what a day! Amazing how distraction can keep your mind off food. Glad you got home safe, your stir fry sounds amazing! I was wondering if you lot had some recipes or good low- cal foods you might be able to share with me? My husband and I found it was nice to reward ourselves on our first fast day with a hot meal at dinner time so we are happy to eat less through the day and have a 200cal dinner. Any ideas?
CharliesMum, I can’t wait to see those figures on my scales soon! Good on you for sticking with it while away, a flat white certainly makes it easier 🙂 Be careful with that wild weather over there.
MK88
MK88 – thanks. I’m working on some recipes – stir fries & soups (some thick & filling, others with broth & bits). Focusing on keeping cals around 200-250 for generous serves with heaps of flavour…..& a hit of spice, chilli or fresh herbs. Happy to share if anyone is interested.
Thin – you’ve been into some trouble haven’t you! At least her office hadn’t closed…..that would have made your day….AND you had an adventure on public transport too! Dinner sounds yummy….I think OH deserved it after coming to your rescue! Didn’t realise he & my mum have the same birthday…..obviously both made of good stuff. Wish him a happy day from us. CM
Hi, yesterday was a non-fast day, and in the evening I had a low blood pressure incident that lasted a while and I ended up with ambulance and emergency at hospital. I do have compromised health, am 64, with forced sedentary lifestyle, so a couple of things needed checking out while I normalized fully. Have appointment with my GP this arvo. Seems to be a combination of not enough fluid during the day, including because I slept in the afternnon, so no fluid then, just having eaten, getting up and down a few times, and probably BP meds needing to be lowered as I lose weight. Lost 2 kgs on my own then7.5 kgs on 5:2 over5 months, so 9.5 kgs total. GP had been happy with my progress on 5:2 but said BP tabs would come down over time. Most of my life I have had low BP, had to keep hydrated for blood volume, and was used to compensating when getting up etc. but this caught me by surprise. I had not felt great yesterday ot the day before, but that is not unusual in my situation. I have ME/CFS and small amount of intermitant tachycardia.
Any advice from the 5:2 veterans that they may have come across re low BP and 5:2 would be appreciated. Ive read over the few short threads on BP, but they don’t really cover what happened. Nobody has mentioned stopping 5:2 yet, and advice from emergency Dr was to look at lowering BP meds. I put on weight over several years with ill health, and getting it off is very beneficial for me long term. Not even thinking about quitting 5:2 at this stage, but not doing a fast day today, but not pushing the food either.
Any thoughts or infor appreciated,
Merry
Poor Merry! Hope you’re feeling better. My husband had an incident involving an ambulance ride when we first started 5:2. Turned out he’d been playing around with his BP meds without telling anyone and he’d collapsed unresponsive which was scary (and in a whole litre of sticky OJ he’d been opening at the time which is funny looking back on it). All turned out alright. I wouldn’t like to offer any advice on this subject, I’ll leave that to the medically qualified but I do wish you all the best. Please report back.
MK88, thanks, the stir fry was tasty, filling and easy to make. I have collected some great, tasty recipes that I rely on a lot for fast days and have them in files ‘meals under 100 cals’; ‘meals 100-200 cals’ and meals ‘200-300 cals’. This makes them easy to mix and match. I’d be happy to share these files with anyone but not sure that this thread is the right place to list a load of recipes. Please advise. I could do with some new ones myself.
CM: Thanks, passed on. And Happy Birthday to your Mum!
Have a great fast day all.
Hi Merry.. Not really a veteran, only 6 months in but I’ve had a history of low blood pressure which is my current ‘normal’ state (it’s manageable without drugs and hasn’t been a problem lately .. A caffeine hit usually fixes it) I also found I was having episodes of dizziness, etc blah blah … Seems I have a little Bradycardia (opposite to you?) but a 24 hour ECG found it wasn’t really chronic … This had only appeared since starting 5:2! Interesting how I was ‘healthy’ (no symptoms of any kind had surfaced though I knew being bordering obese it was only a matter of time) …I think I need more hydration than some people.. I make sure now I have at least 800 ml of water before 9am then another by 2pm then another by 7pm (not counting other drinks!) this seems to help tremendously .. If my health is compromised in any way (ie virus) I get the symptoms back..it’s really genetics I think as my Dad was the same…and I’m really an elite athlete caught in a post-menopausal woman’s body!
Happy Friday everyone 🙂
Week 9 and hubby has lost 8 kg (exactly) and I’ve lost 100 gms short of 6 kg!!!
We’ve invested in some really good scales that measures our water, fat and muscle percentages – so even when we haven’t lost much – we can see our fat percentage decreasing and muscle mass increasing. We are both within the healthy range for our BMI – but we are still wanting to lose another 7kg each to be at our goal weight.
Biggest thrill so far – last Saturday I finally fit into a beautiful Ted Baker dress that I haven’t been able to wear for 5 years! Only worn for special occasions so it’s still looking good after 9 years – the side zip had a gap of 10 cm so could never fasten it. Absolutely delighted to be able to zip it up and remain comfortable in it all night – woo hoo!!
This WOE/WOL really works 🙂
Mates, I was discussing with my trainer the other day on my weight loss program and mentioned that I have dropped 3kg in weight. Still it seems I lack the muscle mass. He said I was actually losing the muscle mass instead of the fat! Darn!
Here are some articles I found: http://www.pacifichealthlabs.com/blog/could-you-be-losing-muscle-instead-of-fat-heres-how-not-to-do-that/
http://www.livestrong.com/article/447634-how-do-i-know-if-im-losing-muscle-mass-vs-fat/
Anyone facing the same?
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