Eating ‘normally’ means different things to different people. If your ‘normal’ eating includes chocolate bars, M&Ms, loads of snacks etc etc then you are probably well over the calorie level that your body needs (your TDEE/Total Daily Energy Expenditure).
If you exceed this on non fast days you will negate any benefits of fasting.

For example if your TDEE is 2000 – you eat 500 on each fast day = 1000, you eat 2000 on THREE of your non fast days =6000 and then eat loads of high calorie food and snacks on the other 2 days that could equate to 3500 per day easily =7000
So your total calories for the week would be 14000 just the same as if you’d eaten your TDEE of 2000 calories on 7 days. So what is the point of fasting?

Using fast days to compensate and allow yourself to over indulge at weekends is self defeating.

Your slow thyroid may affect the time it takes to lose weight but it won’t stop you losing weight altogether if you follow the 5:2 plan.
Weight loss isn’t an exact science and while we would all like to say we will lose x amount per week – it doesn’t work and weight can fluctuate by a couple of pounds in a day. It’s the overall trend that matters – not whether we have a gain in any one week.

xx

So this all makes sense , but as a newbie I must say that all the hype that got me going and buying the book kind of oversold the concept. Eat what you want on your non-fast day isn’t, of course, really true. Not counting calories on non-fast days was supposed to be the psychological reward that keeps you fasting!

Not everyone counts calories on non-fast days and they lose weight – but they might have a very good idea of what a normal day should be for them. A few need to count meticulously or they lose nothing.

Others don’t lose anything for a couple or 4 weeks, and others lose rapidly, plateau quickly and then start losing again.

Some women gain/lose some fluid bloat with their monthly cycle (putting my hand up for 3-3.5kg) and others don’t.

Everyone’s experience is different. So you need to give it a couple of weeks to see how it’ll work for you. Remember this is a way of life, not a fad diet so having a long term goal is really helpful.

MMmmmmmmm, chocolate…. now I’m thinking about it, but it’s a fast-day today 🙁

@strar ..altogether now SING…..

Tomorrow, tomorrow, there’s always tomorrow.
It’s only a day away!!!

There…that’s better. 😀

xx

Hi, Yes, this is the conundrum, isn’t it–if you don’t want to feel like you are on a calorie restrictive diet all the time and want to feel more “normal” on eat days then some of that “normal” can be too much and impede your weight loss from the fasting days. I have said from the start six months ago that I could do this indefinitely if I didn’t feel like I was on a DIET most of the time. That feeling that five days a week are normal is part of it’s charm. But, on fasting days I start to think of the things that I can eat the next day and then I sometimes let down my guard a bit too much when that eating day arrives. I did well for the first four months and lost 18 pounds but in the last two months haven’t felt that I am losing at all. I don’t weigh; I am better off judging my progress from the way my clothes fit and have only weighed twice in six months on the plan. So much dieting over the years (and so much failure) has convinced me that success losing weight is largely a mental thing. That means I have to stay away from the scales for fear of getting discouraged. But, the real challenge now is to eat a normal amount on eat days and accept that that is all I need and think a bit less about food all of the time. That is one drawback of this Fast Diet–it does have me thinking more about food most of the time. But, I am still a very enthusiastic faster and am extremely grateful for this way of managing my weight. I’m fasting today and already thinking about TOMORROW!!!