Hello, I’m hoping someone might be able to help me.

3 years ago I lost 2-3 stone doing straight 5:2 intermittent fasting and eating pretty much whatever I wanted on the non-fasting days. It was my new normal and the first diet in a life time of yo-yo dieting that worked and I could stick to.

Then I became pregnant and decided I should probably forget the fasting and just eat healthily through the pregnancy.

After the baby was born I wanted to shift the weight I’d gained through pregnancy (which really wasn’t that much) and went back on the 5:2. But it didn’t work.

I tried increasing fasting days, it still didn’t work. I assumed breast feeding was causing the problem so decided to delay 5:2 till he was weaned. Once weaned I tried again but it still didn’t work. I went through a few months of panic, switching between loads of other diets desperate for anything to work. Gained loads of additional weight over this period and was finally diagnosed with a thyroid condition caused by a problem with my pituitary.

I’m now on medication and stable and back trying 5:2. I’m trying to be realistic with weight loss but when I did this before I’d see noticeable weight loss weighing in every day. Then it didn’t matter if I “gained” a little back on non fasting days. Now I’m finding I will not really lose anything on the fasting days and if anything 5:2 is maintaining my very heavy weight!

Again, back to panicking – I decided to fast 5 days and non fast at the weekend. I wanted to test I could lose weight. I’m having 500 calories on FD and around 2500 on non-fasting days. I’m losing about 1/2 lb a week. If that.

I’m really feeling lost and unsure what to do. This worked so well for me before. I’m feeling resigned to being fat forever.

Does anything scream out as to what I’m doing wrong? Any advice? Thank you!

Thanks Cathy. You’re right, 2500 on non fasting days is probably too high for me. The tool says 1800.

I have been trying not to count calories on non fasting days so it feels like a bit of a break from watching it all week, so this was just a guess, but I think is fairly accurate.

Do you think it’s too high even with having 5 days out of 7 restricting to just 500 calories? I was hoping it might average out. If not, I will try to keep the calories low on the NFDs too to see what happens. Thanks for your reply!