Well done, fastdiet.

Oops, lottielastic – Yes, it sounds like it does. Maybe you’ll just have to see how it goes, working out a trade-off between your fast day calorie intake and your rate of weight-loss. If anything makes you too miserable, then you can’t keep at it and an essential factor of the 5:2 regime should be its sustainability. So, within reason, don’t get too hung up about the upper limits and, hopefully, you’ll be able to relax into a steady routine that suits your individual needs. Go well on it!

Thanks Jeanius, I lost 3lbs in my first week despite drinking lots of wine at the weekend – will find out tomorrow how my 2nd week has gone – I imagine it will slow down a bit. I do try to follow the slimming world plan on my non fast days (apart from the wine blips!) so that may help. If I’m losing weight on 500cal fasts I’ll stick with that. I wonder if I will still get the health benefits though?

Hi, wiltdnrUSA – Good to hear from you. You do sound like you are having fun. Your statistics read wonderfully and your personalised scheme obviously works for you. The ‘min-using’ had me going for a while, until my eyes and brain finally stumbled into ‘minus-ing’ and comprehension arose. I like your poetry. Keep well and happy.

Hello again, wiltldnrUSA – I don’t think I understand why you would celebrate being able to reduce your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) figure, as most people would see that as a deprivation, a reduction in one’s daily allowance of food.
However, searching on the Wondrous-www this morning, I found this posting (from http://www.reddit.com/r/xxfitness/comments/1cqbdf/this_cant_be_right_calculating_my_tdee_and_bmr/) which may be the kind of adjustment you’re referring to:
“You burn calories all day long just breathing and typing and peeing, etc. the accepted formula if you want to lose weight is to eat at a 500 calorie deficit from your TDEE….
Edit: don’t pay attention to the whole BMR thing, from what I’ve learned over the past few years, the TDEE formula is where it’s at….
Edit 2: I should add, if an immediate 500 calorie cut is too difficult or daunting, or does for some reason put you under your BMR, then just calculate a 20% cut of your TDEE….”
This, of course, would relate to a 7-day-a-week calorie reduction, rather than the 5:2 plan.
Also, at a quick glance, I’m afraid that, so far, I can’t follow your calculations when comparing the figures in your comments of yesterday and today. All very interesting but I will have to get back to you on this, as I don’t have time right now. (I must seize my window of best opportunity to do my daily exercise routine. Really, ‘Virtue’ is my middle name, don’cha think?!)
Enjoy your studies.

Eek! I used the calculator and it says I’m only supposed to eat 1300 calories on a non-fast day? How come I’m not really, really fat, then? I’m sure I eat (and drink) a lot more than that – and even when I wasn’t on a diet at all I never put on more than half a stone in the year.

I am about 8 and a half stone, size 8 – doing the fast diet (in a pretty relaxed way) in a vague attempt to be healthier, offset piggy weekends, cut booze intake and make sure I don’t put on that half a stone. I dont exercise much except yoga once or twice a week as I’m in a full-on job and I loathe gyms – but I’m not unfit – used to be pretty sporty and can do a couple of weeks demanding skiing or cycle 50 miles without trouble on the odd days I decide to do something like that.

Surely 1,300 calories is more like a diet than a normal day!

I am keeping a food diary in a spreadsheet for a few weeks so I can keep myself accountable. I also have a food values spreadsheet. Both show Kj, calories, protein, fat & carbs – on the food values it is per 100g of any food, and on the diary I calculate the individual mounts using the food values and how much I ate. I use the food values panels on bought foodstuffs to add special things that I like.

The workbook (diary) has a sheet for my weight record and automatically calculates gain/loss and BMI. I have it in both lbs and kgs. All calculates automatically in Excel. I have a random daily weight chart too as I often have a ‘peek’ in the middle of the week, but the official record is weekly.

Bearing in mind I am in Australia so the brand name things are Australian, if anyone would like copies, email me at analog6@onthenet.com.au and I’ll email them to you. You can just change the height and weight values to your and away you go. You’ll have to edit the BMI as the formula is for my height squared.

Cheers, Odille

Hi, Mitch – If you’re sure you’ve input the right details into the calculator, then, yep, I’m afraid it does sound like a lesser fast-day figure is recommended. But if that doesn’t sound do-able to you, better to keep it as near as possible and then be patient about your perhaps- slower weight-loss, I reckon.
I hope you’re keeping well and find a solution to the headaches. All best wishes to you.

Hi Jeanius, thanks for good wishes. A bit too soon to say whether the headaches are fixed but I’m trying to drink more water and see how I go.

Yes, my TDEE was 1901 cals so this would imply I should eat fewer cals than the recommended figure for men. But… I’ve been losing weight on this diet at a steady 500g/week for 9 weeks and my BMI is down to 22.2 so I wouldn’t want to eat even less. In fact I will soonish need to get to a maintenance regime where my weight can plateau, if I’m not to eventually become underweight.

But thanks for clarifying the intention of TDEE.

how do I figure out what amount of calories I eat on non fast days ,is it 25% less off my TDEE? I have been fasting with you since dec 21/2013 ever since I seen the show on tv .

I am trying to access the calculator, and I keep getting a message that I must be logged in to do so. I am logged in.

Now I’m getting a message to update my goals. They don’t need updating. Can I get this as a mobile app?