Hi there Lottie! Huge congratulations on what you have achieved already! Great way of life eh ?! Just thought I would share my experience as I have been doing the 5:2 since April& have experimented lots of different ways! In my experience I feel it’s important to use your 2000 cals on feast days & especially as you’re so active!!! I’m now 51lb lighter& do ensure I eat my 2000 cals as I’m now very active too thanks to this new way of life! You could always compare your weeks& see what works best for you!!! Good luck, be great to hear how you get on!!

I signed up specifically because I had the same question. My first fast day was yesterday, and today I’m not very hungry at all. Out of curiosity I’ve counted my calories, and may not go over 1500 today… I don’t want to hinder my results, but at the same time I don’t feel like eating. I’d like to think eating less will help me, so long as I’m not starving.

Don’t know what to do… Force myself to eat, just for the sake of it?

i try to b nutrient dense on fastdays & nonfastdays

however, i might add a treat on nonfastdays & sometimes i don’t want 2
which is surprising but this fastday lifestyle
somehow ur brain & body wants
healthy food cooooooooooooooooool

c what the harvard health team said

For one thing, the “percent daily values” featured on food labels are based on a 2,000-calories-a-day diet. Many of us can’t eat that much without gaining weight. What if your energy needs are closer to 1,500 calories a day? What if you’re dieting? Can you eat enough to take in the recommended micronutrients without falling back on a multivitamin?

The Good News

It’s not an issue of food quantity, but rather food quality. Even a low-calorie diet can deliver all the vitamins and minerals you need, with one exception — vitamin D. So plan to take a vitamin D supplement. Getting the rest of your nutrients through diet requires some planning and some knowledge about food. The focus should be on nutrient-dense foods such as legumes, Brussels sprouts, kale, eggs, seeds, almonds, and fish, which are packed with vitamins and minerals and have relatively few calories (see examples below).

Some nutrient-dense foods*

Avocados
Chard, collard greens, kale, mustard greens, spinach
Bell peppers
Brussels sprouts
Mushrooms (crimini and shiitake)
Baked potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Cantaloupe, papaya, raspberries, strawberries
Low-fat yogurt
Eggs
Seeds (flax, pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower)
Dried beans (garbanzo, kidney, navy, pinto)
Lentils, peas
Almonds, cashews, peanuts
Barley, oats, quinoa, brown rice
Salmon, halibut, cod, scallops, shrimp, tuna
Lean beef, lamb, venison
Chicken, turkey
*Foods that have a lot of nutrients relative to the number of calories.

What you can do

One way to set up a plan that precisely meets your nutritional needs is to work with a registered dietitian, who can take into account your food preferences and allergies or other health issues (such as lactose intolerance). Many dietitians have access to computer programs and databases that ease the most difficult calculations, such as nutrient analyses of menus. You can ask your clinician for a referral (check to see if your insurance covers the cost of nutritional counseling), or ask at a local hospital or medical center.

But if you have the time and the inclination to do the work yourself, there are free tools and calculators on the Web that can help. We’ve also provided a 1,200-calorie sample menu below.

1,200-calorie sample menu that meets the daily DRIs* for a woman 51 to 70 years of age

Breakfast

8 oz nonfat yogurt

½ cup sliced papaya

½ cup sliced kiwi

1 oz (14 halves) walnuts

4 oz skim milk

Lunch

1 small whole-wheat pita

Green salad:

1 cup dark green lettuce
1 red or orange pepper
1 cup grape tomatoes
½ cup edamame beans
1 tbsp. unsalted sunflower seeds.
Salad dressing made with 1 tbsp. olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and pepper

Dinner

4 oz broiled wild salmon and yogurt sauce (1 tbsp. Greek-style nonfat yogurt, 1 tsp. lemon juice, 1 clove chopped garlic)

¼ cup cooked barley and ¼ cup cooked lentils with spices to taste

1 cup steamed baby bok choy

*Dietary reference intakes

Source: Ellen di Bonaventura, R.D., clinical dietitian, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA.

http://www.health.harvard.edu/healthbeat/HB_web/can-you-get-all-your-nutrients-from-food-alone.htm

hope this helps u even more 2 succeed 🙂

I restarted the 5:2 last week but am finding that I don’t eat the calories that my TDEE said I should. I was worried that this would stop my weight loss but my friend who has had an op to loose weight pointed out that she has lost a dramatic amount of weight just eating around 600cals a day.

So that go me thinking (although I could not live on that amount for a sustained length of time) does your body really go into starvation mode and if it does – does it come out the other side and start loosing weight again.

This is just a thought

I want to know how many calories to eat on my feast day. I have lost 11 lbs intermittent fasting, but I hear some say I should reduce my calories 500 under my BMR. I have anywhere from 1400-1800 calories. But I would prefer to have a target number. I have 96 lbs to lose. Thank you! Deborah

@deborahg38 Hi – basically on your 2 fast days you should eat 500 calories or less and on your non fast days you should aim for somewhere between your BMR and TDEE – if you haven’t calculated these, you can do that here http://thefastdiet.co.uk/how-many-calories-on-a-non-fast-day/.

On your non fast days you can eat WHATEVER you like, just NOT HOW MUCH you like.

The only days you should be below your BMR is on the 2 fast days. It may help you to track your calories on an app like http://www.myfitnesspal.com for a couple of weeks or so until you get to grips with the size of portions you need to keep within your ‘allowances’.

Once you have got the hang of portion sizes how you continue is up to you. You can have your 500 fast day calories throughout the fast day or save them all for one meal. e.g. having a ‘normal’ dinner on your non fast day and then only water, black coffee or tea or herbal tea until dinner on the fast day when you have your >500 cal meal. Ifyou don’t like black, sugarless tea and coffee just make sure you count any milk and sugar as part of your 500 cals.

You do this way of eating the way that suits you best. It has to fit with your life not the other way round. So if you need to change your fast days for any reason you just do that.

If you also read the ‘faq’ link at the top of the page it will answer many questions. You might also like to read http://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/some-notes-on-the-fast-diet-for-newbies/

Good luck

xx