This topic contains 17 replies, has 17 voices, and was last updated by Ris 2 years, 6 months ago.
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Hi. I seem to be doing something similar completely by accident. I hate eating breakfast so I never eat in the mornings and only have coffee or tea. I normally have dinner on say a Sunday then fast all of Monday and the eat lunch around 1pm on Tuesday followed by dinner at around 8. Rinse and repeat (im doing alternate day fasting as i have a LOT of weight to lose). I’ve only been doing it for a week so I don’t yet know what the results will be but if you want a buddy to do this with you i’d love to compare notes with someone
Hi all,
I’ve just been reading up on the 16:8 concept and was thinking if starting to combine this with the 5:2 I already do. I’ve been on the 5:2 for just over a year and lost nearly 5 stone so very happy but still 2 stone to go so think it’s time for a boost. The past few months have been tough as been gaining/ losing so really want to try something new.
Smartmart, 16:8 as I understand is where in a 24 hour period you fast for 16 hours & have a feed period of 8 hours. So say on Monday night you eat dinner at 7pm you then don’t eat again until 11am the next day then complete feed period after dinner at 7pm again and so on. That’s the same everyday if on fasting day or normal day.
Would be great to see how you all get on with it too
Hi, I’ve been on 5:2 for a while now, and have lost almost 75% of the 6 stones that needed to go.
I only eat dinner on FDs and on non FDs I have two meals, the first at lunchtime and then dinner early in the evening. Sometimes I’ll break my fast with granola, fruit and yoghurt, and other times I’ll have a sandwich or a salad, or my main meal if I’m out for lunch. I am not in the habit of eating snacks. I would add that if I’m not very hungry at lunchtime than I don’t eat until I am.
16:8 should increase the health benefits as it means you are fasting for a longer time in every 24 hour period. It is also more difficult in theory (!) to overeat if you are just having two meals.
It works for me as I go to the gym in the mornings and prefer to exercise on an empty stomach. If you’re someone who often skips breakfast, it isn’t very difficult to wait until lunchtime to eat. When I was working full time I used to take my breakfast to work as I’ve never been keen on eating first thing.
It doesn’t suit everyone, but it is worth a try.
Hi all ! This is my second week doing 5:2, currently on my 3rd FD.
It has been interesting to notice how during my non-fast days I seem to be overeating, in a panicky “today I am allowed” kind of way.
I thought about incorporating 16:8 to non-fast days, to reduce the window of opportunity to sabotage my fasting weeks. Does anyone have any results doing this kind of combo? How do you manage binging during non-fast days?
Happy fasting guys!
@khajiit, I’ve been doing this about six months now. I started off by-the-book 5:2, but I’ve started to hack the system a little. Also, I’ve observed some general tendencies from postings by other old-hands on the forum.
1) Fast days seem to get easier and easier to manage for many people (I’m one), and urgency to eat on non-fast days decreases for many (Again, me too.).
2) Over time, many seem to migrate to a single fast-day feed later in the evening. Eating earlier seems to produce pre-sleep hunger, and to make sleeping more challenging on the second night of the fast.
3) Even on the morning following the 36-hour fast, many are not ravenous, but do get hungry soon after breaking the fast.
Personally, one of the ‘hacks’ that I’m playing with is low-carb/high-fat combined with 5:2. This has led me to checking my ketosis status with ‘ketostix’ (which you can buy at most pharmacies/chemists for not a whole lot of money). I have found that even after eating adequate carbs (not low carb), on non-fast days, I will be detectably ketotic by the middle of the morning on my subsequent fast day.
I didn’t experiment with, or test this, during the first few months. So, I can’t say when this started to occur. However, I’m speculating that the reason for the general observations that I enumerated above is that the repeated cycling through fast days encourages your liver and pancreas (mostly), to switch more quickly from glycogen to ketotic metabolism.
People who first go on nutritionally ketotic diets from ordinary eating, typically take a week or two to make the switch. I have measured myself making the switch back to ketosis in less than 12-hours after eating a carb heavy meal.
My guess is that if you stick it out, you’ll find the urge to binge decreases naturally as you exercise and strengthen your body’s capacity to tap your fat reserves for energy when your glycogen stores are running a little low.
You might be able to help this along by breaking your fasts with high fat, low carb meals, with modest quantities protein (less than 15 grams), in order to keep your insulin levels as low as possible when breaking your fast. For example, you could have a couple eggs with avocado, or very high-fat nuts, like macadamias, or even walnuts. If you’re really adventurous, you could even experiment with something like “bulletproof coffee”.
Try waiting until evening to eat carbs on your break-fast day, if you’re able.
I’d be very curious to hear whether this seems to work for you. Unfortunately, I can’t roll back the clock on myself to try it from the start.
Good morning. I seem to be combining recently too as it is so cold here in South-Eastern Australia at the moment and after a Fast Day, I tend to be bingeing on a Non-Fast Day, which I hate doing! Yet, doing 16:8 is no problem at all.
Just for clarification though: am I able to eat normally within my personal requirements, during the 8 hours? And although I find I do not require them, are the usual 500 cals for FD still able to be consumed within the 16 hours?
I’ve been following the Forums for weeks now but I have not seen any comments nor hints regarding big beer drinking males. My husband needs to lose considerable weight before an urgent back operation – he is not a big eater (just 2 normal small meals) but he cannot give up his drinking which helps with his terrible back pain. Any hints? Thank you in advance.
Hi, so posting on a forum is a first for me….
I’ve been a member of slimming world on and off for the past 7 yrs now, some success and lots of ‘bad times’. It’s so true that it’s impossible to follow a restrictive diet 24/7/365 etc.. Since reading about 5:2 recently, I decided to give it a go. So shocked at how I really am not hungry at all and can happily eat one small meal a day. I’ve been under the belief for years that you need to eat constantly and certainly not skip breakfast all in order to keep energy levels up. What a huge misnomer!!!! – although I still make sure my kids go to school having had breakfast.
I’m interested in trying the 16:8 approach for the non fast days as I’ve found my weight loss has slowed in the past week because I’m not really watching how much or when I’m eating on non fast days. So far I’ve lost each week the following: 5lbs, 3.5lbs, 1.5lbs and this week I gained 0.5lb.
I’ll keep you posted on my progress…..
Upon further investigation within the forums and posts, it appears that when combining 16:8 and 5:2, I must still have the two Fast Days consuming only 500 calories (within the 8 hour period) – that makes complete sense, I don’t know why I couldn’t see that before!
Now to try and convince my husband to reduce his beer consumption considerably, and essentially for two Fast Days….
Can’t help those who won’t help themselves.
@nofone, I keto myself and so many people without even realising it. It can take only hours to start producing ketones. Being keto adapted, where you lose less ketones through urine and such, takes weeks. I really enjoy Keto and have been doing so since the beginning of this year.
@rosecourt, not intentional but I do end up doing 16:8 most days of the week. It could even be 20:4. Not something I specifically pay much attention too. Since I track my calories and meals I do know when I am eating. Breakfast was never my thing and I avoid eating for at least 2 hours before bed. Watching my calories and Keto means I don’t really have an option to mindlessly snack on anything all day.
It can be convenient to do most of your cooking, eating, and clean up all close together too. Whatever works for you. There isn’t any one right now to change up your diet in my humble opinion.
Sharing our experience: We were finding 5:2 difficult earlier in the year so started 16:8. Although weight loss was negligible, we weren’t gaining either and the idea of 2 meals a day was easy to adapt to and cater for. We have been keeping to a low-ish carb diet too – with the exception of those carbs which come in bottle-shapes and which are the reason for excess weight gain over the summer. This week, as of yesterday, we’re back to 5:2, with Monday and Wednesday the designated F-days, controlling food to about 1600 max on Tues, Thurs and Fridays and aiming not to restrict anything at the weekend,- and following the 16:8 pattern everyday whether fasting or feasting. As for those wine-shaped carbs, certainly 3 days a week will be alcohol-free (Mon-Wed). 16:8 is great for maintenance but I believe combined with 5:2 will see results. And the 16:8 eating pattern has really helped restart the fasting: yesterday’s fast was super easy and it was the first F-day in months. I’ll post how we get on as this is Week One of, what I hope to be, an easy-to-maintain and manageable routine.
I’m male. I’m doing a combo too with pretty good results. On FD I do under 500 cal. (lots of salad!)and then wait to eat for 16 hours. I keep the Feed Days to between 14-1600…sometimes closer to 1200, but at no time do I exceed 1700. I’m losing just under a pound (2Kg) a day now that I’ve been doing this. Just a little hungry occasionally, but my wife is more hungry and swears she can eat an entire cake if she lets herself. I do not crave sweets in the least, which may be helping me The trick will be not to become the invisible man when I hit my target of 169.
I do some variation of 16:8 (usually eat between 4p and midnight, will its best for me) most days.
I find it’s an easy way to maintain without having to do a 1 day 500 Cal fast. (Which is what Mosley said he does for maintenance)
If I want to lose more then I add in 5:2 but still in the 16:8 sched.
That’s just a good formula for me to not eat during the day.
I’m a newbie (I’ve lost about 4% of my starting weight so far). I started with 16:8- or moreso, with the idea of eating two meals a day in the afternoon/evening, and not eating between meals. Plus 5:2. So far with total (only 0 calorie beverages) fasting on those two days, which has been easier than I expected as long as I space the days out (I tried doing fast/feed/fast and that did NOT work).
This basically results in eating 10 meals a week. I’m trying to eat in the range of 1200-1500 calories per day spread out over a week, so 8400-10500 a week. Which means 840-1050 calories *per meal* on average. That’s a huge amount of food. My average lunch is probably around 500 calories and my average dinner around 700. However, if I want to go to Costco, try all the samples, have pizza and ice cream, which probably runs something like 1500 calories? I can do it. I can do it weekly if I want. I just can’t do it every day.
This is extremely helpful and something I was doing years ago (had a baby and +two stone since and we’re 7 years later!) after flirting with it over the years, I’m going back to fasting long-term as a lifestyle. I’ll do maintenance fasting when I reach my goal but you have reminded me that this is pretty much what I did before and last a stone and a half without suffering too much.
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