I also find I can go all day without food on my fast days but have no constraint the next day. The body is a very curious thing and I do believe science has yet to crack the code of how it operates. I have successfully lost 8 pounds in 8 weeks and have never counted calories. It is very liberating to know I can have that piece of cheesecake and still lose weight when before I would just feel deprived. Dr. Bert Herring introduced the fast diet in his video Fast-5.org back in 2005 and Dr. Mosley has just put a little spin on it for us to make it easier. Thanks Dr. Mosley for your documentary

Hi Toms mantis x

I am no expert but have seen several people on this forum adopt exactly the approach you have and are having great success with it. I would do what feels right for you and what *work* for you, even if it isn’t in print 🙂

Aud x

Haha sylvestra I have a similar problem usually. Seeing how I eat one meal a day every day, it can be difficult to eat my allowed number of calories on normal days! Try to stuff 1400 calories into one meal whilst eating healthy foods… it’s quite difficult! I usually end up baking some bacon, this is high in calories, fat and protein ^^

Toms, I have a similar problem to you. I also discovered some while ago that it was easier to hold off eating on fast days til as late as possible, and I generally manage this – but even if I can’t wait that long, I still am able to keep within the ‘allowed’ calories. I find fast days easy to stick to, especially after having been on 5:2 for a while, because the requirements for the day are so strict so there isn’t any question of having a biscuit, several choccies, a piece of bread, etc.

Non-fast days are much more difficult – the freedom to have what I want can cause me to eat things that I don’t really want, but eat because I can, if you follow! I have no problems at all in consuming my TDEE’s worth of calories on any non-fast day, and have to do a rough calorie count of what I eat, cos of this.

I was on 16:8 for a while, but I just felt hungry all morning every day, and still had to watch what I consumed in the 8-hour window. And I do eat lots of salads, veggies, protein – foods that are supposed to help make you feel full – and drink lots – but these don’t satiate my hunger.

What has happened for me with 5:2 is that I am better able to manage my hunger and not give in to cravings as often as I used to. This is mainly cos my weight loss has been fantastic with 5:2, I am the slimmest I have been in my adult life, and I don’t want to put any weight back on!!

Not sure if any of this is any help to you, but I can totally empathise with where you are at! 🙂
Best wishes
Sassy 😀

Horrible as it may sound, but eating nothing at all on a fast day might be easier for people who have problems when eating early gets the insulin mechanism in gear.
It’s half past three in the afternoon and I have not missed eating at all – been out for 10 mile walk on a very beautiful mild sunny December day – but, if I’d eaten first thing, then the insulin response would have made my body scream for more fuel about 2-3 hours later.
Having said all that, I’m off to an Xmas party at 6pm – I cannot deny that I am somewhat looking forward to cancelling my fast and indulging in yums and slurps 🙂
Just need to make sure that fast day cancellations do not repeat too often – especially during the, very aptly named, festive season !!

Hi Toms mantis – I totally agree that the fasting all day until evening meal approach is better than trying to spread out the calories.

I think I tried the ‘spreading out’ approach about twice back in September when I started 5:2. Firstly I found that I struggled to eat anything that made a difference to my hunger – without putting a lot of time and effort into preparing food (and I had very little time available as I was working long hours). And secondly I was just ravenous all day afterwards until I could eat again.

I was 100% convinced that I could never go all day without food – but although I have felt hungry on fast days, I have found it really simple to do. In fact most fast days I have just had beans on toast for tea – and doing that twice a week is about the least complicated diet you can have!

I am a real foodie – I cook a lot and don’t have a sweet tooth or really eat any junk food at all – but I do have LARGE portions and like a drink (or several!). Hence ending up about 3 stones overweight 🙁 The main thing I have learned to do on non-fast days (most of the time) is to try to stop eating when I am full, and because my TDEE is woefully low (now around 1600!) this really helps.

I do hope your change of approach works and you continue to lose weight.

Cath x

“Stef, don’t think I could do 3 days fasting. How do you find it? ”

Actually it is not a problem at all. I do Monday/Wednesday and Friday and I have no problems eating nothing during the day and then have <500kcal in the evening. On the other hand though, in the medium run I will do 5:2 and eventually 6:1.

I have two more kilos to go to reach my ideal weight and as I am inpatient…I do 4:3 to get if off before the new year- hopefully.

What bugs me most (this is the first time that I am doing any kind of diet) is that I am spending a lot of time calculating kcals and thinking about what to eat. This is not so much because I am hungry but because I am trying to do other lifestyle changes, such as for instance I gaveup drinking Coke nearly six weeks ago (and I DID drink about 3 cans a day…and the full sugar ones). I also stopped drinking coffee in fact any coffein.

As I have never done a diet before I have no idea how many calories are in what kind of foods, so I spend quite a lot of time reading labels, calculating my intake and so forth.

I hope that in the long run this really just becomes a life style where I do not think about these things at all as at the moment this new way of life seems to run my life 😉

Best of luck to all of you, particularly with xmas coming up!
Stef.

Hi, Both my husband and I have successfully lost over 3 stones between us on the Fast Diet. I don’t eat til dinner time on a fast day, my husband has breakfast and dinner, both successful ways to loose the pounds. I was wondering if anyone has tried fasting overnight, whereby you have a light dinner and nothing til lunch the next day?

One thing I remember from eating low-carbohydrate meals on other diets is that once I get carbs ‘out of my system’, after a few days, my appetite drops away to almost nothing. I think that’s what the menu/recipes for fast days is all about in the book, is having that blood insulin level drop off some so the appetite is not so strong. With this, I’m looking for some sort of balance between the two – low-carb gets too strict and I fall off the wagon and go back to my old ways, but with this, I seem to reach a more balanced point where I can enjoy a little of this or that without ruining all my progress. It might be worth trying to cut back on the starchy foods and sugars for a few days – fasting or not – to see if the sense of craving things goes away? If I’m off-base, just ignore me – I am only speaking from my own experience and it may not really apply to you. 🙂

Best,
-catinhat

Hi all,

I also take all of my calories in in one eal on fast days. usually for lunch as I would hate to exclude myself from having lunch with my team members. One should not underestimate the impact of that.

But I also can relate to what you mentioned: having breakfast is no good at fast days for me either. And I also do not like the “spred the 500 put” approach. It just seems wrong to me. I mean, this diet is about fasting. It is not the “eat 500 kcals two times a week” diet but the “fast” diet and the periods of me fasting are just much longer if I take in everything at one single meal. And I do not just want to restrain of weight but also benefit from all the other impacts of fasting.

Cheers,
Julia

Would appreciate advice if I am on the right track on a slight change I am making.

I started 5:2 before buying the book. What I would do is have 100 calories of egg whites at 7am, then measure out 500 calories of food for the day – 300 chicken breast, 100 celery, 100 blueberries and/or apples – and basically graze on those 500 calories somewhat evenly throughout the day.

After reading the book, I realize that is probably not the best approach. So, what I am now planning to do is 200 calories of egg whites at 7am, and then a 300 calorie dinner at 7pm, which is essentially what the book suggests. But, I plan to still graze on the 100 calories of celery (which is a LOT of celery) to take the edge off between 7am and 7pm. It is just the celery, nothing added to it.

I think that is okay, as celery has a glycemic index (GI) of zero, so even though it is making me not as hungry during the 12 hour fast between 7am and 7pm, it is okay, because celery is so fiberous and has no GI impact.

Any thoughts on whether the 100 calories or celery – which is about 20 oz – throughout the day has any negative impacts on the results of the fast period ?

BK

I don’t suppose that it will make much difference, but it is missing the point.The idea is to have a long fasting window between food when you are awake, which in turn teaches the brain that you are not going to collapse in a heap if you don’t eat for a while, amongst the other benefits of fasting for a period of time. The idea is not to graze.

I miss breakfast, then have lunch of either 200 or 300 calories and then have the remainder about 4 ish when I am hungry……then nothing else until the morning.I eat my evening meal at 6 then fast for 16 hours until 12 noon when I eat again, then have another 4ish hours and then another 13 hours until breakfast.

Why not miss breakfast and try lunch and evening meal? I wouldn’t want to consume that much celery, it would put me off and wreck havoc with my digestion.Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

Hi I’m new on this forum. I began the fasting diet on Monday 28h April.
I’m another who has to miss food out altogether til my evening meal. If I eat anything I then want more. Unleashing the beast is a great description of how it feels.

Before I ventured into doing this my weakest times of overeating was always evenings when I needed to snack.

Somehow with this way of eating my mind has automatically disciplined itself to not want food after my evening meal.

I’m also now very reluctant (worried) to begin to eat normally on non fast days incase the beast is unleashed and I can’t reign it back so I’m finding that I’m eating just the one main meal in the evening. I’m needing to know if this is okay as I haven’t read the book.
I’m 67 years old and don’t need the food so much for energy these days! I don’t have much weight to lose at 10st 6lbs but need to get it down to between 9st and 9 1/2st. My height is 5’4″

After 3 days of only eating in the evening I’m finding it quite easy up to now but need to know if it’s safe for me.