Hi Jim, sympathy for your frustration.
I do agree with Simco that the issue seems to be not so much the way 5:2 is working for you, but more your anxiety about losing weight quickly. I hope you can find a way to look at 5:2 as a life change in the way you eat, that should (in its own time) lead to a healthy weight and long term better health.
Think sustainability, entrenching new habits, and what your life will be like next year and next decade, rather than what the scales say tomorrow or next week. This is hard in the modern world, and especially while you are working hard and maybe feeling hungry and irritable (if you are anything like me) but I have been doing 5:2 for nearly three years, and got to the lower end of my healthy weight range about 15 months ago. Slow and steady wins the race!

JimB, I have found that as I’ve aged certain foods promote weight gain. i have now learned to avoid eating rice and drinking beer. these did not used to be an issue, but they are now. When I avoid those, I keep the weight off. Simco, Cinque, and dykask all have good advice too. You have to find out what works for you.

Hello and welcome to the forum @portchie

First of all work out your TDEE using the calculator available in Resources above – I would advise putting in your target weight and inputting lightly active only (no matter how active you think you are as we all tend to overestimate how active we are!!!!) If you put your goal weight and start eating to that level you then don’t have to readjust your intake as you lose weight and you will lose weight faster as well!!!

I have lost 22kg in less than one year and have now been in maintenance for 14 months – I am a 59 y.o. female – 164cm and weigh around 53kg and it gives me a TDEE of 1511 cals to maintain my weight! I believe that I am fairly active doing 2 x 1.5hr yoga classes, 1 x 1hr pilates, 1 x 1hr aerobic and 2 hikes of 2hrs each week. I have found that my eating pattern has changed and even though I still enjoy my food and drinks 🍰🥂🍷I just don’t eat it all everyday and in the same quantities that I used to – I follow a more mediterranean style diet these days!

This WOL does work and I found joining the monthly challenges a great motivating factor, logging in daily helps and there is great support and advise from the people who join, there are folks at all different stages of their journey and they are always willing to provide great advice and support – I hope you find a way that works for you.

I would encourage those of you experiencing slow weight loss to stick with it. It does work long-term, as it is working for me (21kg down and 21kg to go) and it has worked for lots of people!

I have found over the months that what I eat on Non Fast Days is what makes the difference in terms of weight loss. That is assuming you can do the 500/600 cals on the Fast Days! Over the last year I have done a lot of reading about ‘healthy eating’ – I thought I knew a lot about it and I didn’t really. I began in July 2017 following the Mediterranean Diet, then converted it to plant-based and now follow ‘whole-food-plant-based’ and have the highest benefits on this approach to eating. This is an eating pattern I hope to follow the REST of my life, using fasting to help with weight loss (and hopefully disease prevention too!).

I have ALWAYS gained weight on the standard Western Diet and I have come to the conclusion it is basically unhealthy for most people. So if I change my approach to health by eating mostly plants (no calorie counting for me!) this may be the final solution to my weight problem.

Its all about the Non Fast Days – stick to it and find the healthiest pattern of eating you can enjoy long-term.

Fasting_me: I read what you told JimBuckley ands I think you are spot on! Since I am almost 70 yo, I have found that very thing to be true. I can eat brown rice but not while and OMG I can’t eat bread, let alone drink beer! If I even look at bread or beer, I swear I put on weight. So sad! LOL

Hi ccco:

I have been watching you posting on one thing or another since you arrived on this forum, and admire your quest for information and knowledge on diet and nutrition. Very few people are as interested as you seem to be – most just want to lose weight. And your enthusiasm is infectious!

What I see with you is you are understandably becoming confused by the many theories that float around on this web site and in the publications/internet sites you are visiting. The set point theory you mention is one of them. It is just that – a theory, with no scientific support whatsoever. One of the problems that ‘supporters’ have with that theory is that if there really was a set point in everyone’s body, not very many people should gain weight. If they got above their set point, the body should bring them back down again. But it does not seem to do that.

But if you lose weight, and gain it back, the theory kicks in and you gained it because your set point was high and your body ‘fought’ to regain the lost weight. Sorry, but a set point needs to (always) go both ways. You mentioned you checked out the maintenance thread. What you saw were people that set a weight range that, if they exceeded it, immediately went on a diet (whether it was just ‘eating less’ or going back on 5:2 or 6:1 or whatever) to lose the excess weight and get back within their desired weight range. There was no ‘set point’ that magically kicked in and brought them back to ‘normal’.

I mentioned in one of my first posts responding to one of your questions that the initial diet you described that you were following when you arrived on this site was an every day reduced calorie diet. You used the ‘language’ of 5:2, but were not ‘following’ 5:2.

My suggestion to you is to try, at least for awhile, to forget all of the many things your are running into in your studies and just do the real 5:2 for a month or two. First, focus on doing two diet days a week correctly. Go to bed, get up, eat 500 cal. during your waking hours, go to bed, get up, and eat ‘normally’, which I guess for you is now a Mediterranean diet (certainly nothing wrong with that). Do that twice a week, for at least four weeks. If you fail and do not get two correct days in during a week, start over with the goal of at least four consecutive weeks doing 5:2 correctly. And see how things are after you have achieved that success.

Don’t worry about doing 24 or 48 hour water fasts, or doing any other ‘eating pattern’ like 16:8. Just do 5:2 correctly for a month, and see what happens.

I actually can anticipate what you will learn, but telling you is meaningless. I do know you might be very surprised!

Good Luck!

Hi ccco:

You probably should count calories for your two diet days to make sure you don’t go over 500. But I have never counted for my non-diet days and don’t suggest you do, either, unless you go for a month or more without losing any weight. I suggest you work on your diet days first, and go from there.

Good Luck!

Sacre Bleu, Emma — you have given up vin and chocolat and bleu cheese is next?! Not being sarcastic. I eat and enjoy all those things on SLOW DAYS, but not chacque journee. What one eats on Slow Days makes a world of difference. See if the white rice [or lack of it] does the trick. Bonne Chance.

Emma, I always call the 5 normal eating days NFDs, but some people have taken a literal opposite of “fast” and started calling them “slow”. It just means the days when you aren’t fasting, call them what you like. (Although as someone who has struggled to stop binge eating behaviours I object to “feast” or “feed” days as the description implies overeating to me.)
I don’t eat rice either because it’s one of the lowest fibre options when it comes to grains. I find I can eat some wholegrains as long as it’s modest amounts and only the highest fibre options such as freekah or barley. They take quite a bit of cooking but I find my gut does well with them. These days they are an occasional food for me rather than an everyday food.

I’ve read the posts on this intersting thread. My challenge is that I’ve apparently hit a plateau. The diet has been working so very well for me since but now, over the past 6 weeks or more, I have stalled.

I am a 62 year-old male, 6’ tall, and weigh 180 lbs (US). I’ve consistently lost a pound a week since I was close to 200 lbs. My goal is to achieve – and stay within – the rage from 170 – 175 lbs.

I am more aware of staying away from simple sugars, carbs and the like. (Used to do Atkins so I’m very clear about such things.) most fora suggest that people who have stalled simply wait it out and they will begin losing weight again… but I’ve become frustrated. I’ve also started jumping rope. I am a very cheerful person who is full of joy. But this gives me no joy at all. Any ideas?

Thank you, ccco. As I’ve counted calories for years, that makes absolutely perfect sense! I WAS, hoping, though, that on the 5:2 I wouldn’t need to count calories, so I’m a bit disappointed. Maybe I just need to count them for a few weeks to get a new idea of quantities I can eat now, as opposed to even a few months ago. Thank you.

@mishnihor, I do think counting calories is really helpful. Often, many of us miscalculate when we gauge (gage?) what we eat, so I have to write mine down. I am always shocked at how fast those small bits of calories add up. Being a woman my TDEE is quite low, and I get to 1400 calories very fast. It turns out we really don’t need as many calories as we think we need to function/

Thank you @ccco and @fasting_me for the explanation. I thought it inside my head but forgot to say it 🙂