i tend to do this anyway on fast days i save my cals for an evening meal, my feed days i eat when hungry not at set times, mostly between the hours of 2 pm & 7pm.( so giving the same 5 hour time frame) also i do a combination of 4 3 and 5 2 depending if ive hit a platue or not. xx

Steph i havent read the book but read the first post as being every day then fasting the 5 2 or 4 3 on top. i could be wrong though xx

It sounds a bit inflexible to me, in which case it has the potential to fail somewhere down the line like so many other eating plans. My commitment to the 5:2 plan as outlined by Doc M is very much attached to the fact that I only have to ‘diet’ two days a week. No doubt there will be plenty of differing opinions out there, but that is the beauty of this forum – the diversity is huge!

Hi Vet272. I think you can combine the two. From your profile I know that you do a lot of exercise. You should see quit large weight effect on your plan.

I think the key points of the “fast to 5” are: 1) fasting is healthy so do it as often as you can; 2) you need not count calories: in the LONG run (it may take months) MOST people who fast regularly will change there eating behaviors and loose weight.

My learning from reading the book is that fasting ability should come first then calorie restriction. Starting on the 5:2 diet I was really struggling with hunger, bad mood, insomnia in addition to eating less. Should I start all over I would follow the fast to five instruction on how to adapt to fasting. When I could fast for at least 18 hours I would then switch to 5:2