Great advice on getting past a plateau. I found 1 and 2 helped me a lot when I hit a sticking point. I found I’d slipped into drinking a few too many pints on feed days, a lot of empty calories there!

I totally agree with Jeanius, this website urgently needs a forum!! There have been some excellent discussions here containing lots of useful information to 5:2 fasters, unfortunately those discussions seem to slip off the website when they are displaced with new discussions.

It would be a shame if people were drawn to another site to carry on their discussions as Michael and Mimi have such a wealth of knowledge to offer, and a great skill in presenting the facts.

I am struggling to find anything about improved lipid results as there seems to be no thread for this; I need to know if this is working for others.
I too find it all hard to follow, please update the site with substantial news from Michael & Mimi about their progress or otherwise but in the meantime I shall persevere as it is definitely working. My problem lies in the fact that my GP hasn’t called me back for a retest or offered any advice so I need all the outside help I can get.

Been on the diet for one week now and am on my 3rd fast day. I have already lost 2lb so far which is amazing because I’ve tried so many diets over the past few years, which work while you’re on them but as soon as you stop the weight just piles back on. Looking forward to adopting this as a total lifestyle change!

Hi. I have been doing to 2.5 diet since January, but I don’t seem to have lost any weight at all. My weight just seems to go up and down by the same unshiftable few pounds over and over again. I currently weigh 12st 8lbs and I am 5’7″. I don’t feel I eat excessively on non fast days, so where am I going wrong? It is very depressing – I seem to have recommended the diet to lots of people who immediately lose weight and start celebrating. Any suggestions please?

Looking forward to it!

Hi, Ive been on the fasting diet for over 8 weeks now – my first week was brilliant, I lost about 4lbs. But since then I havnt lost any! Im at a loss as to why this is. My husband, however, has lost 22lb. If you have any advice, I would welcome it. Thank you

If your clothes are hanging off you it sounds to me as though it’s working 🙂 At the end of the day, isn’t what we’re aiming for a better body shape & composition? If you’re losing inches (try measuring, it can be really encouraging!) but not pounds you may be converting fat to muscle (do you move around/exercise much?) which weighs more but makes you more trim! Are you also drinking more water on your fasts than on normal days? If you drink more in general, your body will retain less fluids. If you drink more on a fast but then go back to less water intake on your feed days your body may hold on to the extra water. It may be worth investing in some scales which are able to measure body fat and water %, this can give you a bit of an idea as to whether you’re gaining muscle mass, losing fat or retaining water 🙂

Another thing to bear in mind is female hormones – things like time of the month can affect our loss as can menopause. Then there’s the possibility of underlying medical conditions which can have an effect such as diabetes, thyroid problems and others.

Certainly the first thing to do though is to keep an eye on your TDEE & calorie intake for a week or two to see if you are indeed overeating. If not, try adjusting your fasts (eg, just one meal on your fast days to maximise on fasting time) or consult your doctor if you think there may be another reason for the lack of loss.

Hope that helps!

Real shame Dr M that you’ve not joined forces with the 5:2 fast diet forum. They’ve been up and running for some months now and membership has grown to 6000 in about 3 months. An incredible amount of knowledge, support and friendship there already and willing to welcome you. Real shame not to participate and join forces.

Thank you for your support and comments. Im going to carry on with this diet, as I cant think of a good reason to stop. Thank you.

Michael, the potential redesign all sounds like good news. Many thanks.
I really would recommend that you study Kate Harrison’s website for its clean looks, clarity and wealth of technical features.
Good to hear news of you again. All best wishes.

I was just looking through The Alternate Day Diet book and was thinking that perhaps you’d like to invite Dr. Johnson (the author) to be part of your community.
Your plans are so similar and complimentary. Oh, and might I add, if nobody already has, that your generosity in acknowledging other authors in this field is very refreshing. Banish competition, be it websites, forums or books. We’re all in this together in this new, emerging field! So exciting!

Hi Michael and Mimi, I’ve just started the 5:2 lifestyle after buying the book. As I train 3 times a wk at the gym im wanting to shift that last 10 pounds round my middle that is difficult to shift. After speaking to a friend who is a fitness instructor he worried me by saying that i will loose muscle mass before i start to burn any fat ergo undoing alot of the hard work i have just done over past months.
Is this strictly true or a false perception of 5:2 diet ?

Hi been on 5.2 for 6wks now , lost almost a stone but not lost for a couple of weeks, myfitnesspal gives my daily calorie count as 1200 does this mean my fast day calories should be 300

@joychaston: I believe the official line on this is that you should stick to 500 cals regardless, although most of us actually go with 25% of our daily ‘maintenance’ needs. Is the 1200 given by MFP for loss or maintenance? Don’t go with their figures provided for weight loss as your weekly calorie deficit comes from your 2 fasting days. So, eat to your ‘maintenance’ calorie amount and cut back to quarter of that on your fasting days.

@imhungry: You don’t get extra calories on a fast day regardless of what you burn 🙂 So, stick to your 500/600 calories whether you do exercise or not.

When doing the 5:2, what you are actually doing over a week is for a man reducing your overall average daily calories to about 1900. This is the level that cronies work to and I assume was Dr M’s calculation figure after he met Joe. This assumes that you are doing about 2500 on non fast days. You cannot get around the laws of thermodynamics. Does the body, however, become more efficient as you do more fasting? That would also make sense evolutionary speaking. Plateaus are common with lots of diets. Even people who did low carb found this out, including me. You will always find that diets work faster (sorry for the pun) at the beginning because your body gets more efficient with famine over time. It is also why a lot of people give up. What would be a good discovery is something that makes your body a lot less efficient at processing calories then you could eat what you like whenever!!

Michael, if we accept that the body can “adapt” to long term fasting by reducing its needs (better energy management) will we need to keep increasing the number of fasting days? I think we are battling against millions of years of severe famines that we as humans have conquered – that’s why we are still here and breeding ever more. The sad part is that this increase in efficiency when we stop dieting means we pile on the fat very quickly, an empirical result we who diet have all noticed. Having said that I agree fasting will have good effects on the essential hormones IGF1, insulin, SIRT1 etc. and hey even maintaining a stable if slightly higher weight than normal is better than letting go all together…

Michael, you are so right about healthy eating generalising to non fast days. What I would have not thought twice about, e.g. my favourite vanilla slice cream cake, becomes an occasional treat to savour! I joined Slimming World some years ago and whilst I lost the desired weight, such treats were a no-no and it was harder to sustain the ‘lifestyle’ and the weight crept back on, whereas cutting calories twice a week is no problem. I do not count calories on ‘normal’ days but am definitely eating more healthily. I have ‘gone off’ bread and potatoes and eat many more veg than previously when I believed I ate quite healthily.My husband has been inspired to lose weight, too. He doesn’t follow the fast diet but does his own thing, however that is better than nothing at all. So good health being achieved all round. The weight is dropping slowly but surely but my body shape is so different, 3″ off my waist plus my thighs no longer rub together! It feels like it is working from the inside out. I am so much happier and more confident, too. Nothing bad to say at all. I am eating out tonight and really looking forward to it because I know I can easily compensate if I over-indulge. Good luck, everyone. It is worth sticking to.

I am so grateful for this methodological 5:2, which differs very much from all the previous information .. During the first month my weight dropped to 2 kg. Forum is a very welcome too. Dieting is a very difficult and stressful, but I believe that by continuing to press forward in this to succeed.

I definitely found I was using my non-fast days as absolute feast days, and overcompensating. I have decided, just for a week, to count calories on non fast days, just to give me a head start. I am really enjoying the programme, and feel really good after a fast day. I even find I have the energy to do a strenuous Zumba class on a fast day! Never would have thought!
Despite not having lost a great deal of weight, I will carry on and I will get there.

I have been fasting now for 3 weeks and i actually really enjoy it, my only problem is i am not loosing any weigt or inches. Can i really eat what i like on non fast days or is it possible to over eat?

In my experience if just eat a normal amount of food every day, then I’ll lose weight without the need to fast 2 days a week, and honestly find this easier than doing the 5:2 method. Having read the book and seen the programme, it seems that alternate day fasting was the only scientifically tested method, and I can certainly believe that it’s near impossible to compensate on the non-fast days as your stomach ‘feels’ smaller. I think for most people struggling on the 5:2 method, it is the day after the day after the fast that they really load up on the calories – especially when they know that they’ll have to deny themselves the next day.