Hi Jenny:

The average weight loss for a woman on 5:2 is a little under a pound a week. Your 8.8 pound loss in 10 weeks is right on average. As your weight on any given day can be up or down up to two or more pounds depending on your water retention/dehydration and food in transit weight, your weight on any given weighing day will be variable and fasting for four days will not automatically mean a large weight loss when you get on the scale, though it will show up sometime. As an aside, to figure out how much fat you might lose with four days of fasting, take your TDEE, multiply by four, subtract the number of calories you ate each day and divide by 3500. You might find it will be less than 2 pounds. This will help you understand how much additional weight loss you might expect if you do 4:3: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/tdee-for-the-curious-or-why-dont-i-lose-weight-faster/

Just think of the bright side – if you do normal 5:2 for 52 weeks, you should be down around 45 pounds. Would that be unacceptable?

Good Luck!

I do an alternative to alternate day fasting that works very well for me. I fast on Mon, Wed, and Fri and feed on the other 4 days. I have evolved this into complete fasting on fast days and complete eating on feed days. By complete I mean absolutely no restrictions on what I eat or how much I eat on feed days.

I started this to address a problem with night sweats and frequent urination (20 to 25 times a day and 3 to 8 times a night) The 3 day fast completely eliminated the night sweats and frequent urination challenges.

I only have water and green tea (basically warm water) on fast days. I have no stress or other problem like headaches that apparently some others have from fasting. I have found it is just as easy for me to do 0 calorie days as 600 calorie days. That may be that I have got used to fasting as I have been doing at least 2 days a week since August 2013

Just out of curiosity kbooks, how much weight have you lost since August 2013? I like enjoying the success of others. : )

Hi I’ve just joined this site. I have the book and follow the recipes. The ones I have tried are fab. Delicious, quick and easy to do. I’m 5 ft 9 female weighing 176 lbs. I’m doing the alternate day fast. Eating 500 cals fast days. Been ok, drink lots of water. Been doing for 2 weeks now and lost 8lbs. Expect to slow down weight loss. Had a bad cold so haven’t done much exercise mainly walking. Be interesting to see if I can break through the168 lb as haven’t managed to do so on other diets for years.

Hi all,
I have been doing Varady’s “every other diet” since December 20 (only coincidental with the holidays, 2014 has been a year of diet experimentation, this is another). I chose even-numbered days so that I could tell whether I’d be fasting or not for any time in the future. 25% of normal daily calories for me is about 600, so that’s my limit on fast day. I wait until 6pm to eat them all, so it’s “six hundred at six” for me. I’ve dropped from 207 to 203 lbs (maybe even more at tomorrow morning’s weighing, *crossfingers*) so far. Fast days are still tough, despite Varady’s assurances that it gets much easier after 10 days.

I’m hoping to push this until I hit about 185 lbs, then go to every third day (I’ll fast on days evenly divisible by 3, : )

My blood sugar is really low at the end of a fast day, but shoots up a fair bit by morning, which, based on a little reading, is not a good thing. I hope that improves.

Anyway, hi!

@52lookingtolose, my low-carb/high-fat diet probably qualifies as “paleo”, but I’d have to fight you if you accused me of being paleo. 😉

I got my dates wrong. It’s actually 7 weeks today.

I’m now having tofu in a bit of soy sauce as my self-imposed 100 calorie limit on fast days just to take the edge off.

Hi fellow ADFers. First time posting. Started Nov 6. Been doing it since. Today is my 12th fast day. Fast days are, in the main, manageable. Have lost 5lbs. My problem with ADF is that I gorge on the feed days, despite promising myself that I will stick to 1800 cals. It’s as if my mind is preparing for a famine and I go stockpiling. From what I have read, this is not too unusual and should sort itself out after a few weeks. Anyone else find themselves gorging?

Simcoeluv, thanks a million for your reply and link. Am reading my way through the thread.

Hey Sally. I do ADF and just enjoy my feed days. I eat and drink what I like but I certainly don’t binge (though I could undoubtedly eat a little less).
The fat is vanishing at a reassuringly steady rate.

If you’ve lost 5 pounds in 23 days you’re doing fine and I doubt you’re really ‘gorging’.

There are one or two threads on the forum where chatting about fasting is seen as a replacement for actual fasting so they’re best avoided if you really want to lose weight ?.

hi there – i have just finished my 8th day of ADF. i have 600 cals on down days and clsoe to 3000 on up days. yes i know that is a lot, but averaged out it’s 1800 for 2 days which is 6-800 less than i burn according to fitday. i weigh 100 kgs. and exercise a good amount.

i figure the extreme hunger of up days will mellow out but for now that’s what i’m doing. i have low carb high fat highish protein both days, down day being lots of broth with gelatin added (filling!), lots of psyllium husk in loads of water (also filling!) usually 2 eggs, and a piece of chicken or some tuna (some kind of meat, anyway, is my plan) with veggies, spread throughout the day. i have the first egg fairly eary, the meal late afternoon, and the 2nd egg in the evening. net carbs on these days is below 10. up days are high fat, good protein, but the carbs have been around 60-70 (net), making my 2 day average for net carbs at 30-40, which is losing level according to the protein power plan. this makes it easier for me, as i have a treat on up days, which would usually make me feel riddled with guilt (like, say, my beautiful lemon cake), but now i figure (hope) it all averages out.

this too, i hope will mellow out a bit (the treat). i track every day, as i’d like to stick with this plan for a couple weeks to see if it works. if it does, sweet! if not, i’ll stop having the treat on up days for a bit and see how that goes. i think i’ve lost a pound this week, but my scale is a dial, so it’s hard to tell 🙂 – maybe next week it will be clearly on 99…we shall see:)

i have a lot of hope for this ADF WOE. ive been sabotaging my LCHF plan for years now, although i know it works, so i hope this works, as it means i can have that bit of treat if i want, but if overall i’m within the right range for protein/fat/carbs, then that would be, well, amazing.

good luck to all 🙂 🙂
t

Hi Tracyred, welcome to the site. You’re mixing the same things as I am, I find Dr Michael Eades’ Protein Power diet and blog very useful. You may need to rethink that 3000 cals though, as averaging to 1800 using a fast day may not work long term, especially if you sabotage your Protein Power diet too with sugars and carb. You’ll probably find you plateau quite soon.
Why not try having your sweet treat only one day a week, perhaps on a Sunday, and increasing your protein, veg and fat on the other days? Dr Eades discusses in his blog a client at his clinic who used his diet but lost nothing and when he looked at her food diary it was way over in terms of quantity even though she was eating the right things. And sugar plus starch plus fat (cake!) exacerbates this as it spikes insulin and blood sugar as well. Since he wrote his plan, more evidence has come out about sweeteners/sugar substitutes causing insulin release because of the sweet taste, but even so that’s probably preferable to real sugars. I sometimes make a sweet soufflé omelette if I’m craving something like that. If you use stevia or sucralose and grate lemon zest and a bit of sweetened lemon juice into it it’s nice. Or grate some very dark chocolate onto it. Postpone the cake!