Hi

I’ve now been on 5:2 for two weeks and it’s been interesting to discover how this WOE works best for me. I’m mainly doing this for the health benefits but also wanted to get rid of an extra couple of lb I’ve put on recently. I started at 9st 4lb and today I’m 9st and three quarters of a lb. Ideally the lowest I would be is around 8st 10lb but as long as I’m around 9st I’m happy.

My first Fast was OK and I easily lost a couple of lbs. Over the next few days I had to learn how much I could eat of my TDEE. If I ate close to my TDEE I went up and finally settled nearer to my BMR. This meant that I was happily losing about 1/4 lb per day. Obviously this will slow down as the weeks progress.

After the initial couple of lbs I lost a further lb over the next few days. But, I have found that if I don’t keep an eye on the number of calories I’m eating, I can drastically under eat. I did this on the day before my last fast (only 850 calories), so I started my fast feeling hungry and unsurprisingly it was the most difficult fast so far. As a result I was absolutely ravenous the following day and I ended up eating everything in sight – way over my TDEE. I’m not particularly bothered about having a real Feast day as it was what my body needed and I felt so much better afterwards.

So, my lessons so far are:

1. Make sure I eat enough calories to satisfy my body on non-fast days.
2. Don’t do a fast if I’m feeling hungry already as it will only make things worse in the long run (although this should be reduced if I do point 1).
3. Make sure I have a hearty, satisfying meal the evening before a fast day.

I now feel confident that I’ve ironed out the blips and can look forward to my next fast day.