Hi fastinglou! and welcome ☺

I’m just a couple of weeks in myself and I have done a 4:3 this week instead of 5:2 but I don’t know the result yet as I haven’t weighed myself.

From what I have read of people’s experiences on here, some people find it enhances their weight loss more than 5:2 and others find it makes little difference. So really it’s down to your personal preference and the results you get from giving it a go.

Good luck xx

Hi there
I am usually more of a forum observer than a poster.
However, I have been blown away with the results that my hubby & I have achieved by doing the 4:3.We started at the end of January (this is week 8).
Hubby has lost 27.5lb and I’ve lost 25lb. (about 3lb per week on average)
We fast M/W/F and find it so easy because we are in it together. We’ve probably only cheated about 4 times since we started.
We bought the Fast Diet book and use the mealtime recipes for all of our evening meals (fasting and non-fasting days) Luckily the recipes are exactly the kind of food that we love and also feed it to our kids. They do get some added carbs with it and are NOT following the diet!
Also, many of the recipes are slow cooker friendly (perfect if you’re busy)

I’d definitely recommend the 4:3 especially if you’re impatient to see results.

I am 66 and my husband is getting close to his 70th birthday and we were both carrying a fair bit of excess weight and had reached the danger point of thinking “Well who cares”. On the 1st March this year, we first heard about the 5.2. diet and happily it coincided with us taking over the care of a labrador dog who needed a good walk each day. We decided not to leap in at the deep end and we set about tailing off our bad habits and emptied the fridge and cupboard of most of the temptations.

Luckily we were both determined to give it a go and within sixteen days, I have lost 4.0kg and my husband has lost 2kg. His slightly elevated blood pressure has returned to normal and the patches of psoriasis that he has had for years have faded. We have plenty of energy and can honestly say that we have not felt impossibly hungry at any time.

We keep our calorie intake well down for most of the time and try really hard to stick to around 550 calories on Mondays and Thursdays. We walk for a good half hour
every day and have been staying in a house with a lot of steps and stairs which has probably helped a lot. The first thing we bought was a flat automatic food scale
and the second thing was the kindle version of the 5.2 Diet Book. I firmly believe that knowledge is power and by understanding WHY the diet works, it is much easier
to stick to it.

I do a lot of cooking and freezing into portions so that there is always a meal available and we keep stocked up with fresh fruit and salad ingredients. We avoid
anything processed and keep a wary watch on the calorie content on whatever we buy (which causes a lot of merriment in the food aisles of the supermarket!) Our total cost at the checkout has dropped like a stone and we are both feeling a great deal healthier. The bathroom scale can be a bit of a tease so we don’t pay too much attention to it on a daily basis, but we are getting back into clothes that haven’t seen the light of day in a long time.

A few hints:
Never go out for the morning without a plastic container of carrot and celery sticks.
If you feel hungry, have a glass of water first and try and wait five minutes.
Eat light in the evening and not after 7.30pm if you can manage it.

Work out some easy treats:
Half a pot of fat free plain yoghurt with a teaspoon of your favourite jam or a teaspoon of honey stirred in.

One triangle of low fat cheese won’t break the bank.

A slice of Ryvita with low fat cottage cheese is another good one to get you over the 4pm hump. Sprinkle on a bit of Herbamare herb salt or top it with some thin
slices of cucumber or celery and you have got a really tasty snack.

It’s never too late to shed those pounds and if you do it together and make it fun, then it can go really well. Good Luck!!