This topic contains 7 replies, has 7 voices, and was last updated by knittinghippiemom 9 years, 8 months ago.
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Hi Sakina, Yes you can eat what you want, just not as much as you want. You need to be sensible though in your approach to what you are actually eating and it makes sense to have a more healthy approach. That doesn’t mean that you can’t have a “little of what you fancy” on non fast days but it depends if you can stop at “just one” if you know what I mean.
You also need to keep between your BMR and TDEE (see the calculator and explanation in the how section)on your non fast days so that you don’t undo the good work you have done on the fast days. Good luck, Linda
I had a few issues with this when I first started because I was eating too much, which is no surprise after years of over eating. I had no concept of portion control. What I did was work out my daily allowance and counted calories on non fast days for a couple of weeks to give me an idea of how much I could eat without undoing the good work done by fasting.
I hope this helps.
Hi Sakina,
Are you into cooking? If so, do you have either the Fast Diet Recipe Book or Fast Cook? You could probably buy used copies on Amazon for a very modest price. You can even try BBC Good Food http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/ which has a lot of 5:2-friendly recipes, a fair number of which are under 300 cals, so you have plenty of choice for fast and non-fast days.
As for me, I’m a non breakfast eater. I’ve tried and it just makes me feel horribly ill. Lunches usually consist of lean protein and salad with either a very low cal dressing or just balsamic vinegar on fast days. On non-fast days it will be similar, maybe with a more generous helping, perhaps including an egg, a bit of cheese, or some olives, and I will use a proper oil and vinegar dressing.
If you’ve got either of the Fast Diet cookbooks, you could experiment with the recipes at the higher end of the calorie scale. Even these a quite low in calories, but a little bit too much, at least for women, on fast days.
Likewise on the Beeb site there are lots of great dishes for 400-500 cals. I’ll also eat potatoes, pasta or rice on a non-fast day, possibly several pieces of fruit and now and then maybe some dark chocolate or something else sweet, but in moderation. I’m not a wine drinker but if you are, you can probably afford a glass or two on your non-fast days. And if you go out on the town on a non-fast day eat or drink a wee bit too much, you can always be extra careful over the next day or two to make up for it.
BTW a lot of posters, myself included, have discovered Zero Noodles. These are very low in calories – 4 cal per 100% – and not particularly nice eaten on their own. But they can easily be added to fast day dishes with a lot of flavour – for example as part of a lovely recipe for chili fish on the LOACA recipe thread (plenty of ideas there, too) or added to soup, making it feel much, much more filling.
Hope that helps. Other posters will have different ideas but hopefully between us we can answer your question.
Hello Sakina!
Yes, this is my understanding of 5:2. You may eat up to your TDEE but NOT OVER it–even by 50-100 calories! I discovered this the hard way and ended up not losing weight (even gaining) for awhile because of it! Basically, you are EXTREMELY strict on fast days and on non-fast days, you are watching things also but without the extreme calorie cutting as you do on fast days. It helps for your non-fasting days to download a calorie/exercise app to your smart phone such as ‘Lose It’. This app(free) encourages you to enter in what you eat/drink (it determines approx. calories for brand name food items but you may have to play around with it on some things) and any exercise you do and figures out how many calories you have eaten for the day. If you exercise say for one hour of brisk walking at 3mph, you can add back in approx. 178 calories for your food intake. Hope this helps and good luck!
@sakina I second the recommendation for using an app like Lose It! (I use that one as well – it’s also online – http://www.loseit.com). Loseit subtracts exercise calories from food calories (so if you exercise 150 cals worth and eat 1600 cals, it will count your daily intake as 1450) – for now I am under-counting my exercise and trying to keep my gross calorie intake (vs. “net” after exercise) below the TDEE. This is only my first week on 5:2, so for now I am being really dedicated about counting and measuring so I have an idea of how much I can eat while staying under my TDEE. In a few weeks, I will probably relax on the obsessive counting on non-fast days.
As for what to eat – I just eat totally normal foods on non-fast days (like linds says “eat what you want, but not as much as you want”). For me this means lots of healthy fats like avocado, coconut oil, pastured butter, cheese, eggs; organic protein (usually chicken, sometimes turkey) and some carbs. I’m a baker and make all our bread at home and there’s no way I’m turning down a slice or two of fresh organic home-baked bread and butter on non-fast days. 😉 Good luck!
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