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Hi!
I have just joined, after months of reading i finally did my 1st fast yesterday!
i plan on fasting mon and thur, yesterday was ok, i did find it hard, but im so pleased i did it!
Please would you be so kind in helping me understand how many cals i can eat on NFDs, i cant get my head around TDEE, do i deduct cals from this too?
Thank you xxx
Your TDEE is what you should be eating (ish – you don’t have to be exact, as long as you are about or slightly under that figure) on non fastdays. Your genuine fastday calories should be a quarter of your TDEE (2000 devidid by 4 = 500) but as your calculation could come to less than 500 I’d just stick with 500 on fastdays if I were you and reduce non-fastday calories a bit further to compensate if that is the case.
Good luck with it 😉
first fasting day was yesterday and wasn’t really that hungry…but i had the full amount of calories but i spread them over 3 meals which was egg and toast veg and fruit for lunch and veggies and quorn in the evening. but in the book it states you have to have 2 meals…can you split the calories throughout the day??
thanks for your help x
moonpig – According to your figures you can eat up to your TDEE (1618) on non fastdays. Your fastday allowance would be 404.5 calories, according to my calculator (1618 divided by 4). If that doesn’t sound too horrendous to you, you can do that. If it sounds too low (it would to me) you can have the full 500 calories on fastdays and reduce your non-fastday limit to 1598 calories instead. But don’t get too hung up on the calorie counting for non-fastdays, this has to be a sustainable lifestyle, so just stay roughly but definitely under that limit. You shouldn’t ever eat less than your BMR on non-fastdays though – do that regularly and you risk pushing your body into ‘starvation mode’.
CARLYMCD1980 – You can split your calories throughout the day however you like. There are lots of people on this forum doing all sorts of different splits. My preference is to go as long as possible before eating (every day – not just fastdays) and then have my allowance (fastdays = 500+ a piece of fruit if I feel the need, non-fastdays = less than 1800). I just find it easier that way now but I started out on 2 small meals at 1pm and 6pm respectively. Whatever works for you – experiment.
Good luck to all.
what a great idea!
i would like to join in with welcoming all the new starters, as the forum has become very busy posts can move down and off the page very fast, so if you dont get a reply right away dont be put off, people here are very suportive and friendly.
good luck to you all in your journey keep posting as we all love to hear how your getting on x
Bumping really but for those who are finding fastday evenings a chore, don’t fret too much. It is very hard to begin with but it does get MUCH easier over time. You get to the point eventually where you’re just not feeling ‘real’ hunger pangs at all any more. Once you start eating on a fast day though, it does get exponentially harder to deal with, so I would recommend, for those that can face it, put off eating anything for as long as you possibly can and save your calories for the end of the day.
Just to put my towpennorth in, I now don’t eat anything until evening on fast days. At first it was fine having breakfast then evening meal, but it got harder and harder to wait until dinner. It got to the point where I missed 2 Monday fasts because I just couldn’t cope. Don’t know what happened, so I tried doing without breakfast and it’s worked fine up to now. Back to normal. Hope it all goes well for all newbies.
Hello there, I have just resigned from Slimming world to do the 5/2. This is my first week and I am just finding my way around the rules. I have lost three stones with SW but so slowly and I have been taking the scenic route for too long. So a new year and something different. I am interested also in the other positive effects that intermittent fasting causes, the cell repair and anti-aging .
Hi I also find it better not to eat first thing and keep this going for as long as possible, usually have two small meals. Also stay away from carbs on fast day they make you ravenous !
One question do you have to do exercise with this diet obviously this helps and is beneficial for your health but can you lose weight without exercising.
Thanks in advance x
Hi everyone and I will add my welcome to the newbies! 🙂
I have been on holidays for 3 weeks so haven’t been posting or even reading the forum – so much to catch up with (haven’t started yet apart from looking at this thread).
Hanrev, the TDEE is “total daily energy expenditure” and is the amount of calories a person of a given age, sex, weight, height and activity level can ON AVERAGE consume and maintain weight.
You can calculate what this would be for someone with the same stats as you via the “how?” page above.
As mentioned by others, the idea of 5:2 is that on the 5 non-fast days you can eat whatever foods you like BUT only as much as your TDEE.
The regime known as ADF – alternate day fasting – is supposed to allow you to eat as much as you like on the non-fast days – but that is built around the premise that people don’t grossly exceed their TDEE on non-fast days.
Please get back to us if you would like more explanation.
Best wishes on this journey – the 5:2 way of life does work!
Sassy 😀
Second fast day, I found day one ok – just hoping day two will be straight forward too. I have decided to do my days on work days, I have limited access to food so no temptation and as I am busy so less likely to think about food (I hope!) I made the mistake of weighing myself two days on the run, 2lb loss first day 1.5lb gain the next so I am going to go back to weighing once a week. I have an underactive thyroid (recenlty diagnosed) so I am hoping this will kick start my weight loss. I have done SW and WW losing weight with both of them albeit it very slowly on 0.5lb to 1lb per week but find them difficult to maintain so fingers crossed for this plan (don’t want to call it a diet)
Good luck to everyone today 🙂 xx
hanrev – you raised an interesting point that should be reiterated for all the newbies:
“I thought you could eat however many calories you wanted on non-fast days!?”
Nope! You can eat 500/600 calories or a quarter of your individual TDEE on a fastday.
On non-fastdays if you’re well over weight or quite a tall/ above ‘average’ sized person anyway you can eat WHATever you want but not however MUCH you want, you should still be going for a healthy balanced diet with the occasional treat.
If you think you might be close to being, what a doctor might term, ‘average’, do your TDEE calculation and try to stay on or slightly under it on non-fastdays.
You don’t have to be calorie obsessive but you do need to have a fair awareness of what you’re taking in. 5:2 is great for health benefits, whatever and however much you eat on non-fastdays but it’s not ‘magic’ when it comes to weight loss – that aspect basically comes down to it being a calorie controlled diet in disguise (if you will).
If you look at that ‘average person’ who would usually eat 2000 calories to maintain whatever weight they are: Over a week they would be taking in 14000 calories, on 5:2 with 2 500 calorie days that number comes down to 11000. They’ve cut 3000 calories from their weekly total, which in weight terms will equate to almost 1lb. That’s how the weight loss aspect of 5:2 works. Non-fastdays should not be thought of as ‘feast’ days unless you personally can afford to ‘feast’ – ie; you’re not about or below average, size-wise.
Sian35 – sorry, I don’t know how I missed your question before. Yes, you can totally do this with zero change to your normal exercise level if you want to. I used to flog myself to death trying to exercise every day after work (I have a rather sedentary job) in the bad old days pre-5:2. I never really expected it to help me lose any weight, as exercise never ever has made the slightest difference for me. I was just trying to stay healthy and at least stop the wobbly bits being quite so wobbly.
I’d totally thrown the extra exercise out of the window before taking up 5:2 and the entire first year of 5:2, all i did was my normal walks at the weekends (not 20 mile hikes or up hills or owt) and 1 1hr weekly swim. I’m making a conscious effort to do a bit more now because I think it will help, now that the weight loss is on its way already (plus I just feel like it more now) but you can just follow your TDEE numbers. They’ll get you there.
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