I just got it, don’t know why.

My Mac seems happy with the site today, so I guess we can forget my post of yesterday.

+1 to the bloke count… Here’s my story:

I started the diet (read: “eating strategy”… sorry, I’m a consultant…) about 6 weeks ago on March 16. At 34 years of age, I weighed in at 131.2kg – the heaviest I can ever remember being and physically, probably the worst I’ve ever felt in my life healthwise. Bending down to pick up my almost 9 month old was becoming increasingly difficult and I was religiously ignoring to look at my naked self in the mirror, any reflection really; I knew that things were not good. At my last visit to the doctor’s, he told me I was borderline diabetic and on the fast train to get myself there – this was just double cream on top of the thick serve of chocolate fudge he served up about 6 years earlier when he said I had some pretty bad fat building up on my liver, and I needed to lose weight, and fast (ie. very quickly.. no pun intended!).

At this point I’d like to apologise for the lengthy post but I figured extra details might help the right person click into action like I did after watching Moseley’s transformation at the end of the documentary.. so I’m sorry, but bear with me 🙂

I recruited my wife (32) as a partner in crime and we’ve now been on the 5:2 diet for just over 6 weeks. We weighed in last Friday and the results were phenomenal: I dropped 7.5kg (16.5 lbs), and am now at my lowest weight since I was a teenager (add in the bonus that I now fit into a $100 shirt I bought a few years ago that has always been too small and I reckon I’ve tried and failed to put it on about 38 times since then), and my wife (started at 80kg) has dropped 4.5kg – her lowest weight since giving birth to our son last year.

My approach is pretty straightforward, but I’ve chopped and changed it a fair bit to suit my schedule as needed: Mondays or Tuesdays and usually Thursdays, usually going from 7pm the day before the fast, until breakfast on the morning of the day after the fast.

I usually go to bed hungry on a fast day, but NEVER wake up on the following day screaming with hunger. In fact, I can very easily hold out til lunch on the day after. I have also done about 25-30% of my fast days as 24 hour fasts, but now know the better approach is 36 hours (see FAQs).

I am pretty sedentary in my daily activities, and haven’t exercised more than 3 or 4 times since starting the 5:2 diet (and even then it’s usually been a 30 to 40 minute brisk walk – I’ve been carrying a lower leg muscle injury since the start of the new year), and have absolutely NOT shied away from junk food (ie. a bakery visit or two), chocolate (through the easter period), a couple of big meals at restaurants, and some hefty alcohol binges. I guess I just wanted to push the boundaries…

I had the angry man come out a few times in the first few fast days, now it’s much easier, and angry man doesn’t usually come out to play. I’ve found that skipping breakfast works best for me, and I have 2 x ~300cal meals for lunch and dinner. On one day I was doing renovations at my house and went all day with no food, just black coffee, diet cokes and ate a massive bacon and egg 600cal meal at 8pm, which went on to make me feel sick. Go figure.

My appetite has definitely shrunk since starting the diet, I am much more conscious of everything I am eating although I am much more forgiving of myself for having any junk food. My biggest challenge is training my eyes to not convince me that I am large pizza hungry when I actually end up only being small or at worst medium pizza hungry (I hope that analogy makes sense to people!). Having said that, I am definitely finding myself getting more and more in control of the desire to overportion and can see this as a long term, if not life long eating strategy.

I’ll admit to being very boring with my food choices on the fast days: usually a combination of tuna in springwater or hard boiled eggs with cottage cheese on water or rice crackers with a dash of hot sauce, or “Delicious eggs” as I like to call it: a handful of chopped onion, mushroom, ham cooked off in a dash of balsamic vinegar then combined with a couple of scrambled eggs with chives and finished off with a dusting of grated parmesan. So these are our two go-to dishes when eating together at home – we will usually vary them by taking out one ingredient in return for more of another. I’ll get more inventive as time goes on no doubt.

Finally, I am interested to see what will happen when I recover from my leg injury – and add the “7 minute workout” (which I have in the past been able to enjoy doing regularly and easily, even as a big man), and see where the weight loss gets to from there.

For those that bothered to read this far, I really hope you got something out of it (my wife was hanging shit on me the entire time, asking whether I was writing a book), but if it triggers one person into taking action, it’s all worth it. Here are a few of the compliments I’ve had:
‘Your face looks a lot healthier/skinnier’
‘You’ve definitely lost weight’
‘Your skin looks much healthier’
‘Your mood is so much better’
and probably a few more.

Good luck!

Six months ago I had a conversation with Simcoeluv about water loss and energy levels. I said that whilst fasting, and immediately after, my energy levels were very high and exercise was good. Simcoeluv warned that whilst I would feel good, I would not be able to sustain continued high intensity exercise. I wasn’t entirely convinced. Monday – Tuesday were my fast days. This morning’s weigh-in showed a satisfactory weight loss. My routine does not normally take me to the gym immediately after fasting. Today it did and the session was not good – after 45 minutes in the weights room I hit the wall, low energy and no enthusiasm. So either Simcoeluv was correct, or my 70 years are beginning to show. I prefer to believe the former.

This was the day after – two days of 5-600 cal, then breakfast of a small bowl of porridge with a teaspoon of honey and skimmed milk, short break and off to the gym. On a fast day I can walk 4 miles, do Pilates or paddle a kayak but none of those are particularly strenuous (as long as I paddle downstream). It might have been better if I’d waited more than an hour after breaking my fast – give the porridge time to get into the system.

Well bugger me, just had the results of a fasted blood test and my cholesterol and triglycerides are now both within the desirable range for the first time! The threat of statins / fibrates is no more.

And I appear to have lost another 2 pounds in less than a week! I suspect being able to ride the bike again is helping.

As a UK cyclist I tend to go out whenever the weather’s OK, rather than thinking about whether I’m fasting or not. I seem to be able to manage an hour riding at a decent tempo on a fasting day without feeling any different. I suspect being 16 pounds lighter than I was after Christmas is helping me cycle uphill!

Hi Brisket guy – a little late to the party, I read your long post. I totally get what you mean by having the appetite for the small or medium pizza – often my wife will ask me how hungry I am asking to know how much food she will prepare. Often I’ll tell her I’m quite hungry but haven’t a large appetite.

It sounds like you’ve made some tremendous progress, keep it up!

Hi JP and Penguin… I have to share my raw data. Last week (6 week mark) i weighed in at 7.5kg lost. Yesterday I feasted on pulled brisket sandwiches, beers and doughnuts. Today after eating a hearty brekky of a couple of softboiled eggs on sourdough with smashed avocado and goats cheese this morning (followed by a latte and 2 more doughnuts (they are the little ones about the diameter of your clenched fist) before my weigh in (7 week mark), I tipped the scales at 8.8kg lost.

I’ve purposely tried to see what happens when I really ‘don’t care’ what I eat on the ‘feast’ days, without trying to actually overeat, and it seems to be working.

I saw the doctor last week to get a comparison on my bloods and I know that 2 indicators saw reductions that he was very happy about: triglycerides and fasting glucose. I also think he said that LDL’s levels remained the same but he expected these would naturally take a longer time to see any results. Either way, I will go back and see him to try and capture more detailed data points in case anyone is interested, sorry I couldn’t include them now.

This week I am adding in a (minimum) 3 x 7-minute workout sessions (google it, i think it’s the best thing after the 5-2 diet…), and am hoping to crack the big-bag-of-potatoes mark (10kg) next week.

I have to also admit that part of me sometimes feels that this diet is obscene.
Not that that’s going to stop me….

Well, what a shock to the system and kick in the pants
Relaxed a bit at end of last week allowing myself a few whiskies in the evening and non-fasting food though nothing ridiculous and healthy TBH. Saturday evening was a write off though as ‘accidentally’ supped a whole bottle of red wine in and around a few bottles of lager. Aside from feeling decidely rough on the Sunday was dreading getting on scales
Around Wednesday of last week my weight was hovering around the 86.5kg mark so going reasonably well. Wasn’t looking forward to checking weight on Sunday because I knew it would have increased slightly. Shock, horror, increased back up to 88.2kg. So a gain of around 2kg in a matter of days and the chief culprit = alcohol
This is clearly my achilles heel and has dented my progress significantly. Urgent review required
One unrelated question, I’m reading on here that people are doing stints of 18 hours of fast with nothing. Does that mean you are not even doing the 600 cals allowed, therefore going a bit more extreme? I’m trying to make good my shocker of last week so am considering this option for this week on 1 or 2 days

Thanks, that’s reassuring. Have been tracking my weight since it started and it spikes back at weekends. You are right, you build confidence that you can get the weight back off
I’m checking almost daily at moment to keep me ‘aligned’ but once I get the weight off it will be weekly checking to allow myself to relax and not feel guilty on the days off

– annoyance at my own weakness yes, but I knew that anyway

A good way of putting it and probably more apt in my case too
Now on a booze moratorium for two weeks until I can learn to control the beast

McPop, only getting to your question now about the not eating on fast days. I fast Mondays and Thursdays.

For Monday, my last meal prior is a normal Sunday night meal at 18h30, then I have a ~400cal meal at 12h30 on Monday, and then my next meal is Tuesday morning breakfast at 6h30. This gives me two 18hour fasts.

For Thursday I follow the ‘not eating is easiest’ and go straight from Wednesday night normal meal at 18h30 to breakfast Friday morning at 6h30 with no eating between and only water consumed.

I’ve been at this for four weeks and have gone down from 69kg to 65kg. 63.5kg is where I’m headed so as you can see I didn’t have far to go to begin with.

I tend to check my weight every day, it usually fluctuates by a pound or two depending on fasting day or not, or what I ate on the non-fasting day, but the weekly trend has been downwards.

Hi Phil. Monday and Tuesday are my fast days. So far today (now 1610 hrs local) I have had a grapefruit, an apple and so many cups of coffee and tea (no sugar, semi-skimmed milk) that I have lost count. Tonight I will have 70 grammes of pickled herring and a small amount of home made potato salad. (Catriona potatoes, celery, radish, spring onion, zero fat yoghurt, cayenne, turmeric, some salt). Followed by rhubarb and yoghurt. This is more generous than normal; when really trying I would have only two more pieces of fruit in the evening. However, I have spent the last five hours working on my vegetable plot so I should have burned a few calories and I am experimenting with different regimes. I have been on and off 5:2 for a couple of years and when on it I lose the usual average of 2lbs a week. When off 5:2 I don’t put back all of the weight, so the overall trend is down.

I think you may be. This is a change of life style rather than a diet and after a while it becomes easier. I have kept coming back to it because I have a very efficient digestive system that turns calories into fat. I also like whisky. I suspect I’ll be doing this for ever.

52 y.o. 2nd time fast dieter but this time I am sticking to it. Now week 12 and have lost 14lb fasting Mondays and Wednesdays. Suits me not having to count calories and don’t much care how long it takes the weight to come off as long as it does. it is not a race. My target is to lose three stones but more importantly not to start putting weight on again whatever I get to. Lucky to be pretty healthy as far as everything bar the weight goes. My exercise regime consists of playing drums several times a week for about 45 mins each and it seems to be enough (see bit in the book about micro exercising). My experience on fasting days so far is it is best to keep very busy. I skip breakfast and have a 300 calorie lunch and evening meal (mostly loads of veg and a little protein). My fasting days are zero carb ones and this seems to work for me. My advice for other blokes out there is not to treat it as a challenge or competition. I know that is how I have always approached every diet (and there have been many) that I have been on and I always ultimately fail. I keep telling myself that this is something that is natural and fits in with how we were meant to be from an evolutionary standpoint. I look forward to my non fasting days but I don’t go mad either. I reckon that alone has deducted a couple of thousand calories a week off my food intake. Good luck to all you 5:2 ers out there.

Well done from me too
I started just after Easter at 92kg
I got this down to 84.8 last week but has popped back up to 85.8 due to a very boozy Saturday and BBQ fodder
I’m not so down when I see it go back up slightly as now have the confidence I can correct it
I’m doing this in a slightly non-conventional manner which incorporates fasting Mon-Fri between 8am and 5.30pm
I’m probably doing elements of this diet, Atkins and the recently invented ‘clean’ diet all rolled into one
What I’m doing is working though and I’m not suffering as it demands no great will power, just a change of habit

I am a 58 year old guy who has been faithfully on this method since Feb 4th, 2013. I have only missed 2 or 3 days in that time. I am a bit unusual in that I am on the plan for health reasons only, since I am pretty lean already. I was 157 lbs at the start. I fast Mondays and Thursdays and I don’t eat anything until late evening when I have a huge salad consisting of all types of non-starchy raw veggies. With a lite dressing this is only a couple hundred calories but tastes great. I then have a grapefruit and that’s it.

Here’s my homespun theory for what it’s worth: You probably have heard of carbo-loading for running marathons. First you starve yourself of carbs for 3 or 4 days. This induces your body to produce extra enzymes needed to store glycogen (a form of sugar used to store energy in your cells that is made from carbohydrates). Then you load up on carbs the night before the race. Your body literally swells up with glycogen providing additional energy for the long race.
I’m betting that the same theory works with other foods so after depleting I load the most healthy foods that I can find.

After this length of time on the 5:2 it is quite a bit easier but I am still hungry. My willpower has strengthened so I’m no longer tempted to cheat, or get depressed about not getting to eat. I look at it as, the way life was supposed to be, before civilization put all this food in front of us constantly. I am also a semi-vegetarian but eat meat if I go to someone’s house for dinner or out to eat with other. I believe the benefits of fasting and protein restriction go together and work the same way. I lost a lot of weight quickly the first year dropping to 144lbs. My family was a bit concerned and I was pretty gaunt. However, after that, my body must have adjusted and slowly crept back up to 155/lbs at present. I still have very low body fat. I eat less on my non-fast days than I used to, since I don’t feel panic about lack of food like I used to. I don’t know if gaining back the weight was just because I was so thin or if it would also happen to people with normal body fat.

I have lifted weights and done cardio regularly starting in 2011 and have not missed any weeks. Often I do this the same day as fasting and have had no problems. Although I remember the first 6 months or so I did feel a little weak or dizzy occasionally. This no longer ever happens. You may be wondering about losing strength due to the fast. I have steadily, yet slowly been able to increase my weights despite the fast and the protein restriction. Surely, I would have increased much faster without the restrictions, but the main point is that this one day (36 hour) fast does not cause any loss of muscle mass at least if you exercise. I am not serious weightlifter and never will be, or want to be. I am doing it for maintenance. However, I am benching 15 reps at 150lbs and 8 reps of curls with two 50 lb dumbels. The muscle that has gotten the strongest is my back and I have slowly increased on the back machine to 235 lbs. However, last winter I decided that once per month I would go on a 60 hour water only fast. Those were the most miserable 2.5 days of my life. I only did it 2 times. I quit for the misery reasons but the biggest concern was that I did lose muscle. My lift weights dropped significantly after the fast and it took about a month to get back to where I was each time. I see no reason to quit doing the 5:2 fast, since all the scientific studies that I have found have shown positive health benefits. My blood pressure and cholesterol are in the good range and are down some from their old pre 5:2 levels. Good luck to you all and enjoy how great that food tastes when you’re hungry.

I started at 152lbs and am down to 142lbs, at 5’8″ and 41yo my goal is to go down to 140lbs as below that I will get too thin. I’m not exercising much; simply haven’t much time to do it with three young kids in activities that take me all over. I eat a small meal on Monday at 12h30 and nothing on Thursday, both days I eat last at 18h30 the night before and start eating again at 6h30 the morning after. I’ve been on the 5.2 since about the beginning of April. I have found it fairly easy to eat little or nothing on the fast days.

We did have installed at my work place a pull-up, chin-up bar and I’ve noticed it has gotten somewhat easier to lift myself up.

I agree it is great to hear the stories of the other guys in this forum to see what we’re all up to and how things are going. Tomorrow is my next fast day, so tonight at 18h30 I have a normal supper, and then only water until breakfast Friday morning at 6h30. My weekly weigh in is Thursday morning, so we’ll see if I get down to 140lbs tomorrow morning.

Not really guilt, but sometimes worried that it will set me back, yeh I get that.

Hi JP
That’s massive progress you’ve made, make no mistake about it
I think we all need to give ourselves a slap on the back from time to time and not be too hard on ourselves. As blokes it’s very much ‘set a monolithic target and get on with it business like’
For me though this is reversing years of delusion and after hovering at 92kg just after my Easter binge I’m now 83.7kg
Much to my chagrin on occasion I’m weighing daily as I do not want to be derailed!
Another weekend to negotiate, all the best gents

14 weeks, 30lbs gone. Down from 176 to 145.5 as of this morning.

I keep track of calories burned in exercise – 92,091 in that 14 weeks 🙂

down 5 kg in 6? weeks (including a week with surgery) started 87.5-88 kg now about 82kg. 176cm tall. Happy with that!
Hope to get back into my weights, + parkour Mondays (1.5 hours) and yoga Thursdays (1.5H.
Wouldn’t mind hitting high 70’s, but now not concerned. Especially if I can get back in the habit of a regular strength training.
Keep it up guys; This shizzay works!