Hi runningrunning!
Finally someone else that despite running marathons can’t shift the weight! I have done triathlons and marathons and was convinced I am the only person to not lose an ounce in trainjng! I do eat too much though. I am on a half marathon plan at mo and am in a mileage heavy week this week so have a 7miler falling on tomorrow’s fast day… Plan is to have small brekkie, banana and black tea and then run around 6.30 pm before a fishcake for tea. Will see how I get on….
Please stay in touch as would love to hear how you plan round longer distance training

I am a over weight marathon runner, well actually i am not massively overweight, i’m 158lb and want to be 125lb before my next marathon on October. Currently training for July Half. Would really love to hear how training goes and whether performance has suffered as a result

I am also one of the those endurance guy with a problem keeping the weight.. As a cyclist I tend to eat too much or not enough and in the off season, going to the gym doesn’t help keeping the weight down. I am trying this 5.2 for the first time. I have tried others but it has not worked after a while, so i am really hoping this might.
So far, the 3 fast days i have experienced have gone smoothly. However I do miss ” fuel” on the long rides during fast days. Any suggestions for that from the forum’s members who might have the same experience and have found a solution?
Also I am still struggling with what constitute a ” fast day” is it 24 hours between normal meals or actually 36 hours from last normal dinner to first normal post fast breakfast? I really like to know that

yeah. Thank your for your comments. So, exactly Runninggrumming. How obsessive do we have to be with the time elements? Does an hour actually makes a “real” difference or it’s all about tailoring the schedule to personal realities and constraints.
By nature, I am not a strict follower. Like you i tend to be capable to adopt and bend the rules. I must say today on 40 miles with stronger and faster guys, I was able to sustain the efforts for 36 miles and then I did bunked. I think i could have used a gel at the 20 miles round about, but that really may defeat the purpose of forcing the body to fuel on fat reserves, doesn’t it?

I’m a cyclist, but I haven’t tried to ride on my fast days, which are Monday and Thursday. I don’t know that I’d be able to get through one of our typical group rides on a 600-calorie day.

I still stick to my usual amount of exercise the other five days of the week, with rides of 55 and 75 miles on Saturday and Sunday. Last Sundays’s ride was 83 miles at an average speed of 20.3mph, and I doubt I could do that without eating.

I might try an indoor ride on rollers just to see how far I can go without keeling over, but even that isn’t the same as having to do 30+mph sprints to catch people on a road ride.

it might just be water weight from inflammation from increased training. If your clothes still fit and your body fat % is down, I wouldn’t worry.

In September, I’ll start training for my 4th marathon – hopefully at a much lower weight. I’ve been on 5:2 for 6 weeks (one 36 hour fast and one 24 hour fast per week) and have lost 10 pounds. I have 10 more to go for a goal weight of 110 pounds (I’m a 49 year old woman, 5 foot 4 inches).

I took up distance running in my mid-forties to try to keep my weight in check, but the pounds kept creeping on. I am taking 3 months off from running to heal an ankle. In the meantime, I do an hour+ of mixed cardio on fast days and weights 2x a week on feed days.

I’m hoping to adjust my fasting when I start running again – maybe two 24 hours fasts a week. One huge benefit of this diet is that now exercising in a fasted state is easy – actually it feels great! I used to get tired if I didn’t eat something before and sometimes during cardio workouts longer than an hour. I’m hoping I can scale back the gels during my next marathon and avoid the G.I. issues I’ve had in the past.

Thanks for starting this thread. It’s good to hear from other people trying to work IF into their endurance training. Here is a great article with links to several studies I hadn’t seen before: http://greatist.com/fitness/why-you-should-exercise-on-an-empty-stomach

Hi Kate,
I took up running at 52 and have completed x5 half marathons, but I am slow, not a natural runner. You cannot outrun your fork! You will get a better shape and increase muscle mass which will burn more fat, but really run because you want to get better at running rather than expecting to lose weight. During the last Half in Sept I consumed 3000 calories but actually used half that during the run, but I still didn’t actually put any weight on and I looked so much better in the race pictures than I did the year before! I can do 2 or 3 miles on a FD but generally run on a NFD. If I am doing more than that then I plan running first and then fit the FD around that. I usually stop the FD in the last 2 weeks just because I want to give myself the best chance of getting round uninjured and not last! It may be psychological but it’s what I do.

I started a sort of 4/3 in Jan, I am an OG road cyclist, but most winter riding is indoors and the protracted winter meant than I have only been riding outside for the last couple of weeks, solidly. I found that as long as I am riding for about 90 mins I am fine on a fast day (fast days are probably better as I am topped up from the day before). Indoor rides didn’t worry me at all, outdoor rides are more challenging as I live in an area with a lot of climbing, so if I am planning on a long ride I will have a banana and a mandarin before I ride. I do carry emergency calories though. I would estimate that I ride off about 4000 calories at a min most weeks.
FD’s are usually about 800 calories in for me, as I refuse to give up my homemade lattes. I often ride post FD on minimal calories in, because I would have just eaten something later morning, maybe a couple of eggs on toast and coffee and tea. I have lost about 16 pounds in 3 months (from 145, so not super heavy in the beginning). I think as long as we understand that should we actually ever get to the point of glycogen depletion (which I have to say is unusual for most of us, assuming we probably have at least 2K of calories in stored glycogen) that we just continue at a slower pace. I am finding the FD riding outdoors is totally fine, I feel energised, the post FD rides in the morning feel more sluggish. The net gain of the net loss is that the hard uphill riding is so much easier and I am faster this year than ever (low bar LOL, but it is me vs me). I will probably do 5:2 once I hit under 125 and building up to 3/4 hour plus rides as the weather breaks. Like many cyclists I am happy to eat way too much so I think 5/2 with 800 cals in on FDs isn’t onerous. I definitely overeat on non fasting days, now I ride outside I don’t count calories at all on NFDs. I did keep calories in on NFDs in the indoor riding winter period to 2K, and 800 on fast days. Now though, I won’t worry about NFDs calories but keep an eye on weight. Hopefully the 2 days a week will work well for maintenance.

i’m about to start training for a triathlon in July, and plan to use 5:2 to lose/keep weight off. I do think that running distances up to around 7 miles are quite possible for me, whilst fasting. And I think that the short term loss of not being able to do longer runs or intervals on fast day will result in longer term gains. If I’m lighter, then I’m faster on race day and I absolutely HAVE to beat my friends on the day.

Hey there,

I hope any of you is still reading this 🙂 I signed up for this forum just to join your discussion, as I am really happy to have found it!
I am female and regularly run half marathons. As some of you mentioned as well, l have problems maintaining my weight, although I run 40 – 60 km per week. I always hate it when people say “you just have to exercise and eat healthy to lose/maintain weight.” I DO eat healthy, but I just LOVE to eat 😀
Before intermittent fasting, I always struggled to keep my weight below 60 kg (I am 165cm) and found myself getting a bit too obsessed with counting calories. So when I saw a documentation on the TV, in which a scientist talked about intermittent fasting and all the benefits for brain and heart, I was extremely interested. I am a molecular biology, so first I looked up scientific publications and was amazed by how much literature there is! Especially compared to all the other diets that do not have any scientific basis!
I was convinced tried it out. I am now doing intermittent fasting since April and feel great!
I do one to two fasting days per week. On fasting days I eat about 300 – 400 kcal, mainly from fruits (Yes, I can easily eat 1 kg of fruits a day 😀 ). If I happen to do sports on fasting days, I eat something small, like a banana, before and a small meal afterwards, roughly balancing the calories I’ve burned. On non-fasting days, I do not restrict myself at all (as my goal is to maintain my weight and muscles, not necessarily to lose weight). In the beginning, I counted calories to see if I end up with too many or too few calories over a week. The result: On NFDs, I eat about 3000 kcal (but also usually burn 500 – 1000 due to running) and the net balance over the week is mostly 0, sometimes with a small deficit of about 1000 kcal.
I am not so much afraid about training in a fasted state, but more about regeneration during fasting. I usually fast Monday and Friday which are either rest days or I do only easy runs. However, when I have a competition on Sunday, I wonder whether it is detrimental for regeneration when I fast the next day? Similar with hard interval trainings on the evening before a fast day? Any experience with this? Is there anyone who is doing fasting and endurance training for a longer period of time already? Would love to hear your stories 😊

Hi, I am starting today with the 5-2 Fasting. As its Sunday I thought this is a good relaxed day to start. I want to do a 2 hour cycle on my racing bike (as I like to do on Sundays), about 40 KM, steady state, relaxed for me. I wonder whether I should add on calories today? I should burn about 600 cals extra. Depending on how I feel I would add on 600 cals of food. Would I loose the fasting effect if I eat 1200 cals today. It seems so much more.

I’ll go by how I feel and will add food if needed.

Has anybody go tips for me regaring fasting days and endurance training especially cyling? Thanks for tips. Good luck with fasting.