Xmas is a pain for ANY diet and 5:2 is no different. It’s probably best to accept that you’re going to indulge before hand and just set yourself a date to get back into it ‘properly’ once the big days are out of the way. It’s a good idea to look at your plans over the holidays and try to pick 1 or 2 days per week that you CAN do your fasts on and STICK TO THOSE. On the ‘off-days’ just accept that you will be eating more than your TDEE but mitigate it by skipping breakfast, so you at least have 1 less meal to overindulge at and prioritising your indulgence to the foods that you’re REALLY going to enjoy and politely turning down anything that you’re not that fussed about. If you do that you will hopefully also find that you’ll fill up faster when you DO eat anyway.

You will probably find that you ‘maintain’ or only put on a very tiny amount anyway (like you would on a holiday) and lose it pretty quickly, once you get back into the swing of 5:2, after the holidays. I only weigh myself once a month and for my first Xmas on 5:2 I think I still lost 2 lb between the December and the February weigh ins (I thought weighing myself on the 1st of January would be a bit harsh and unlikely to kick the year off in good cheer). Over the same period on my second Xmas on 5:2 I maintained the same weight between those 2 weigh ins and lost 3lb before the next one in March (which was the most I’d lost for a month in ages, so I was pretty happy with that as it gave me an average loss of 1lb a month for those 3 months together – which was my ‘normal’ average at the time).

“cutting calories in half 2 days right?”

Nope, sorry velvet206, I suggest you look at the ‘How’ tab and the frequently asked questions and some of the threads for newbies. That is not 5:2.

5:2 (for weight loss) is: 500/600 kcal 2 days a week and your calculated personal TDEE (or less) on every other day.

Sorry,Tracy J. I meant 500 calories for two days and my TDEE on the other days. For me, that was cutting my calories in half. Thanks for responding.