This topic contains 36 replies, has 10 voices, and was last updated by Katab 8 years ago.
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Good morning, I meant to reply yesterday but lost track of our conversation. I will be bookmarking so that I can reply more often. I live in the US in the state of Georgia. Like you, I am not into the slang and worrying about non-fast days. Also, I believe I am in menopause and it’s difficult. Middle weight is definitely the most stubborn! How many days do you fast? I have read where some people are fasting more than two days. I did a fast yesterday and it went well, although by the end of the night I was thinking about all the foods I would love to eat today. I work 2nd shift at a school in the custodial department so I am up later in the evening and that is when I am tempted to gorge. I also did Weight Watchers and got bored with it a couple of years ago. The meetings were the same every week. Each person would have the same thing to say and the same struggles every week and I really didn’t like being stuck like that. I did lose weight on Weight Watchers though, I lost 10 pounds couple of years ago. It sounds like we have several things in commom, I’m so glad I found your post! Tell me more about the foods you eat on both kinds of days. I like some of the ideas I have read in the forum.
Well toodles for now.
Hi Katab,
This is a fasting day for me. Started out with a cup of green tea. I love the different flavors of green tea it really helps on fasting days. Then for lunch I will be having an apple with a slice of cheese and a small salad. For dinner I will have some vegetable soup. I am hoping that I am able to fight off the cravings tonight. I think I will take some green tea with me to work and hopefully sipping on that will help.
How was your day?
Good morning, although it may be evening for you? I just finished reading the posts in the November challenge. Today they were pretty uplifting, but sometimes they are a bit heartbreaking. Many of us beat ourselves up for eating a few calories over or having a bad day.
Congrats on the weight loss! I feel better with each fast day, what about you?
Hello ladies. I don’t count calories at all so it is possible to lose weight and not count. However in my opinion if you don’t want to count then youre really going to have to eat healthy the vast majority of the time. I lost 46 lbs (21 kg) over one year and have been in maintenance mode 6:1 since March this year. In my pinion grain based foods are not healthy for you and should be treated as very occasional treats. So foods like bread, pasta, pizza, muesli, breakfast cereals should be avoided or limited. Basically any processed grain product. Your carbs should come from veggies, but not potatoes!! Cut out refined grains and you don’t need to count calories. Good luck with it.
Hi dg4, I’ve only done one fast day so far, though I stick to 16:8 every day – fast day or not. The fast day itself wasn’t that tough for me, but I had an extra busy day, so I think it helped. Unfortunately, that means I don’t have any hot tips, although I am thinking of starting some needlework projects that have been neglected recently. Surely the need for focus and inability to eat at the same time are a good combination – plus homemade gifts for Christmas = bonus 🙂
Hi Katab,
There is nothing magical about 5:2 and Michael Mosley’s take on it. Its based on the scientific work of Luongo and Vardy and its something Mosley thought most people could at least do. Luongo in fact advocates a 4 day water fast once per month but Michael tried it and didn’t think he could do this long term. When I first started 5:2 I was water fasting for those two days. I actually found this easier than eating 500 cal. I still water fast every Monday. Every one finds their “happy place” with their 5:2.
If youre wanting some tips, this has worked for me, it should work for the majority of others. I know that some totally disagree with some of what I have listed below, try it for a month first. You may experience withdrawal symptoms and some discomfort for about a month. Wont “sugar” coat that aspect of it. It does pass and you do come out the other side. It will take your liver that long to actually start working properly.
OK my tips are:
Cut sugar to an absolute minimum. You need the equivalent of one teaspoon of glucose circulating around in your blood at any one time. Anymore than that and it MUST be processed by the liver and stored as fat. So no cakes, biscuits, fizzy drinks, chocolates, lollies etc.
Cut down your alcohol consumption. Same deal as for sugar.
Eliminate processed grains, bread, pasta, pizza, “health” cereals (big joke). If you want to look up the origins of health cereals google Dr Kellogg. A very disturbed individual.
Try and have a large (raw) veggie salad as your main meal. It will satiate you for a very long time.
Eliminate potatoes, as far as insulin spikes goes this is worse than bread!
Try and make it a goal to eat most of your food so it hasn’t come out of a packet or a can.
Eliminate fruit juice. Its NOT healthy. Its liquid candy. You want fruit eat a whole piece of fruit.
Smoothies are not healthy and they destroy any sense of portion control.
Get the majority of your carbs from veggies, beans, lentils.
High fat dairy is OK. Go for good cheeses, high fat yogurt
If you must snack have nuts like almonds, walnuts and brazil nuts.
Good luck.
bigbooty it is wonderful that you found what works for you. Some of your post I can agree with, but I totally disagree with a lot of the information in your latest post.
dg4 I find that sipping on green tea helps with cravings. I also don’t eat until lunch time. There are a lot of great recipes online. Katab gave me the good idea of making veggie soup. Hope this helps!
No problems Yvonne, like I said everyone has their take of what is a healthy diet. Out of interest which parts don’t you agree with? Im assuming its the processed grains and fruit juice?
Buy yourself a glucose meter as used by diabetics. I use a freestle optium neo but there are lots of them on the market. Measure yourself before a meal and then 30 minutes after a meal. You’ll soon figure out what foods spike your blood glucose and what foods have a minimal impact. If your aim is to lose weight then you want to keep these spikes to a minimum.
Hi All,
I’m copying a favorite post from another thread. This was written by ‘Merryme’ in response to a question about whether it is better to follow a high or low fat protocol. Here are the sage words ‘Merryme’ wrote…
“5:2 doesn’t specify anything about fat, just calorie allowances for FDs and TDEE for nonFds. There are people successfully doing 5:2 on full fat, and low fat products. There are people successfully doing 5:2 on high fat, low fat, meat eating, vegetarian, vegan, paleo, lots of fruit, not much fruit, grains, no grains, potatoes, no potatoes, dairy, no dairy, sugar, some sugar, no sugar etc etc etc. Everyone does their own thing. There are people from all over the world and every continent on here. People eat according to their culture, religion, food philosophy, some have medical issues, allergies and need to eat specific ways, and so on………. So, what you eat is up to you. Probably the one thing everyone agrees on is added sugar being very bad for us. That said some say that but have honey whereas others wouldn’t etc so again what people eat is very individual.
“I would encourage you to eat food that you are familiar with to start off. Some people find starting 5:2 morenchallenging than others, so starting with familiar foods makes it easier for you. As you go along you will find that you naturally start to change how you eat to include some other foods and discard some that you’re not happy with. The forum is here for you to get adivce from and for you to give advice too.”
P.S. I hate calorie counting so only do so on my fasting days and I’m now at maintenance.
One of the things that has best helped me with hunger on fasting days is to wait as late in the day as possible to eat any food. Early food consumption on fasting days tends to trigger my hunger dragon!
I also find that eating plenty of protein on fasting days really helps. I started out consuming minimum of 50 grams on fasting days and that made all the difference in my success.
Hello all -new to this and loving this thread. Starting tomorrow and find advice useful. Tried the 5:2 when it first came out -didn’t work then but am much wiser now and kids not as young and I’m back at work full time I think it will be much easier to fit in with life. Am at slimming world but finding it very very hard to lose weight right now since starting menopause
Kata, I do like your idea of simplicity. To be honest, I’m not much interested in debates and I am especially not interested in telling others what to do. There’s a debate section for those so inclined, and if someone asks me what has/has not worked for me I will share, but not presume that I know what’s best for them. I have lived in this body for more than half a century, and though I hope I still have a few decades left, I have learned a few things in that time. But of course, it’s all through my eyes and experiences. Even the things I knew about myself have changed over the years as I have aged and the world has changed around me.
Twenty years ago I would have been up for drastic lifestyle changes and major upheavals to my diet and exercise routine, I did it often enough back then, but not now. Now, I find the small, barely perceptible changes spread easily through my life like tiny ripples. You don’t notice them at first and they are so small, they are easy to ride without falling off.
I know a lot of people would be frustrated with what I am doing and want to lecture me about how I’m doing it all ‘wrong’. But I spent too many years making drastic changes that I couldn’t maintain. What I’m doing now may be simple, but it’s working. And it’s so simple and fits so well in my life I have no worries about maintaining it for a long time to come.
So, if it’s okay, I’ll assume you all have figured out what is best for you, and are just looking for some support and encouragement along the way, and try to be here for that. Even if it is at a totally opposite hour from quite a few of you 🙂
As Albert Einstein once said. Madness is when you keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting the results to somehow be different. So change something that you’re currently doing, be it either slightly different foods or eating slightly less (i.e. 5:2) and see what happens. If it goes in the right direction for you, great. If it doesn’t at least you know what doesn’t work. I reduced the amount of processed grains and increased my dairy (cheese and yogurt) fat intake and it made a massive difference. So change something and see what happens.
Yep, Katab. Same here. What I’m doing right now couldn’t be any more ideal, so I don’t have a need to change anything right now.
I actually *like* what I’m doing now, although I did tell someone yesterday and she warned me that I shouldn’t skip breakfast – ‘it’s the most important meal of the day’. She seemed so concerned about it, I told her I still eat breakfast – it’s just a couple of hours later 😉
She, on the other hand, was starting some diet she didn’t tell me the name of, and learning what she ‘could’ eat and what wasn’t ‘allowed’ for those 6 times a day that she would be eating.
I never would have guessed how much I prefer not eating constantly.
Hello. Here is another 50+ girl. I guess I could call myself “experienced” for the fasting diet or “way of life”, but I definitely cannot call myself very successful.
I started 5:2 from January and lost 23 lb during 8 months, then add 10 lb during the next 2 months, now I am trying to be back on horse.
Some people there said that fasting comes easier with time. Not for me. Every fast requires a will power, and a lot of it.
I do 36-hour-no-calories fasts because if I cannot stop on recommended 500 cal and will binge. Somehow it is easier not to eat at all for me. Another point – plan your activities for your fasting day – get away from kitchen – take a walk, go to gym, go to window shopping (not food though). Plan to de-clutter any room that is away from kitchen, work in garden. Anything to keep your hands and brain busy will work.
Every time when I fail fasting – it happened in kitchen, and with nothing to do.
The diet is very flexible, and everybody usually finding the way that fits. But bigbooty is right – almost all of the successful ones ends up with the same advice – no sugar, and less carbs. Wish everybody a blessed day. 🙂
ColdPizza, you are certainly on to something when you say ‘almost’ everyone. Because nothing fits everyone, and I’m a definite case in point. I absolutely cannot do low carb – not even a moderate low carb. Physically it is not good or healthy for me at all. I’ve tried it several times, but the result was always the same, so I finally accepted it. In fact, I eat sugar. On purpose. It’s excellent for promoting sleep and reducing stress hormones. Most people know this instinctively, hence the stress cravings for sugary things, but they refuse to ‘give in’ and if they do they feel guilty. Not me. I have some fruit a juice, a piece of chocolate – and stress calms, cravings are gone and I move on.
It’s not easy to get others to accept it, though. Too many people assume that what worked for them is best for everyone, or that the things they have trouble with affect everyone. I generally avoid those kinds of conversations, though, because most people, though they mean well and just want to help, and often will help some people – to be honest, I’m getting a little tired of the assumption that I must be lying about how much I eat, and that I must live on junk food and need unsolicited ‘healthy eating advice’. The idea that someone could be active, eat small amounts of ‘healthy’ food and yet still be overweight just doesn’t figure in their world, yet there are many of us out there. They probably don’t like talking about it anymore than I do 🙂
I suspect those who have made a study of fasting would not be surprised at all by my story and my results, so I intend to keep up with it, but perhaps this is not the forum for me.
Hi everyone, I’ve just found the 5:2 site and registered! Your comments are very encouraging and positive. I’m in my mid 50’s and can’t drop those extra pounds which now add up to 42. Despite dieting I still gained weight, partly due to medication but often taking in too many calories. I think I’ll start my 1st fast day tomorrow and look forward to reading your posts. I’m in Ireland.
Hi everyone, I’m new to this forum and this group discussion looks great for me as well.
I’m a guy, (so at least I don’t have to worry about the menopause!). 57 years old, British, but since 2002 I live and work in south-east Asia. I work as an English teacher in the country of Myanmar (Burma). This is the second-poorest country in all of Asia (after Afghanistan), but the Burmese people are lovely and very keen to learn English to try to improve their lives.
I’m not that overweight, but I am definitely out of condition, with wasted arm muscles (following 2 falls off ladders onto concrete). I recently took up cycling to work, (which almost killed me when I started), but I’m certainly feeling fitter now. So along with the exercise routine, I need to improve my diet and lose some pounds to get that six pack that I never had (and WILL never have at my age!).
Many people think that the Asian diet is very healthy, but that is not always the case. Most people eat white rice at every meal, or food fried in the lowest grade of oil. I try to avoid rice and fried foods, unless it is quick-fried in a wok.
Because I work in very remote and unsanitary regions, where it is difficult to find ‘clean’ food, I regularly pick up stomach and intestinal bugs, such as Dysentry, Giardia, tapeworms etc, (and other nasties like dengue fever). I usually stock up on medications when I can find a pharmacy in a larger town, cos I know that I will need them sooner or later.
So I’m going to start this fast diet next week, when I start a new job at a rural high school. I’m thinking about what drinks or food I should eat on my fasting days, because I’ll be standing in the classroom for about 6 hours each day, and don’t want to scare the kids by fainting 🙂
Very good to meet everyone in this group – Mingalaba from Myanmar!
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