Without more information on the video you watched (I’m not prepared to watch it just to answer your question!) it’s impossible to say if the explanation (whatever it was) is true.

In terms of breaking your fast, if you are just doing 5:2 by the book then you can pretty much break your fast with anything you want.

However, if your aim is to lose weight and/or you are diabetic/ prediabetic/ insulin resistant then avoiding foods that spike blood sugar (and insulin) would clearly be beneficial. And not just when you break your fast, but all the time!

@pjames for a short fast of less than a couple days, it really doesn’t matter how the fast is broken for most people. The best why is just to have a healthy diet and to resume eating that. If you fast for more than a week, then you probably should ease into eating and that really means different things to different people. The reality is most people can get by doing whatever. Refeeding problems aren’t common.

@pjames and all,

I’m just joining up here and have been fasting, 16/8 style for quite some time on an intermittent basis (figured any time I did this was good and didn’t let myself be hungry, so sometimes ate). Now, I’d like to add 5/2 to this.

I’m wondering if I’m pretty used to not eating until 2pm most days, whether I’ll be able to just keep on doing this. Has anyone found themselves mixing 16/8 and 5/2 routines ?

I’m figuring that the more fasting hours the better, as long as one stays healthy. For me that means not staying truly hungry, i.e., hypoglycemic, weak, empty, feeling badly etc.

Looking forward to hearing from you, glad I found this forum : )

Ah-tee

No, never mind, we are playing a mini-gig tonight, so there will be beer and probably dinner tonight.
Will try this Tomorrow !!!!
Ah-tee

Merryme there is a large number of people here that stick to water fasting. I do allow myself black coffee and unsweetened tea, but those only account for a few calories.

Merry’s contribution is most sensible. She summarises the way people approach 5:2 in different ways, but the crucial aspect of eating less, while being satisfied.

For me and my OH, we have discovered that we do not need three meals a day as fairly sedentary retired people. We were eating by the clock before, plus the more than occasional treat – no wonder weight crept up.

Putting a size 12 in a charity bag and zipping up a size 10 feels great! 😄. ( UK sizes, of course )

dykask , lol, it’s Merryme, not Marryme, Merry for short – I’m usually the queen of typos – but I’m not on the market for a spouse🙃

“A lot of us find hunger is stimulated by eating”.

– what you’re describing is ‘The Hunger Dragon’, a term used on the forum for several years, which you’ll see I included in no1. In my original post. So called because hunger comes flying in, roaring to life, seemingly out of nowhere. Like you, I have the appetite roaring to life as well.

Doing a water fast or non-calorie fluid only fast is one of the ways people handle the phenomenon known as The Hunger Dragon. Those who can’t stop eating at all after eating anything on a FD usually either quickly give up 5:2 or any sort of intermittant fasting, or, like you, find the solution is to not eat at all and only have water, or water + no- calorie drinks.

The other approach, which a lot of those with a Hunger Dragon do, is to leave all their calories till right at the end of the day, eating all their calories in one meal. If that meal contains some low cal protein, low cal vegies, often in the form of a soup, with a fairly strong flavour eg with some chilli or curry, + some low cal fruit like strawberries or rockmelon/canteloupe. This suits them, they’re full, don’t have sleep being affected and they get their FD happily done and effective.

Distraction, keeping busy, drinking extra water, and a few other tactics all get used by people with a Hunger Dragon.

Peoples’ choices in this situation are very personal and it sometimes takes a little while to work through things, to experiment a bit.

People who do eat on a FD don’t do it because they can’t make it through a FD without eating, they do it because they choose to, some because they need food with medication, some because medically it works better for them.

Most people don’t start 5:2 by trying to get through a FD without eating anything. It’s the allowance of a little food on a FD that usually attracts them to the 5:2 form of Intermittant Fasting in the first place.

The wonderful thing about 5:2, in my opinion, is that it can be so varied to suit so many different people’s needs and wants, which includes those who want the science and those who don’t. It makes the forum very interesting and so many varying people can find others like-minded. I’m very appreciative of having a really well moderated forum to assist us all.🙂

Onwards and Downwards,
Merry

Oh, the 800 calorie FD. Not for me. I was a bit surprised about upping the < 500cals or < 1/4 TDEE to < 800 calorie change that Dr M made to the new version of 5:2. Many of the long term 5:2ers that I’ve come to know seem to stick to the old version.

You’re right – technically most people do what is in effect a low calorie or very low calorie day, because that’s what 5:2 is; where the 2 non-consecutive very low calorie days produced enough effect to not need total fasts. 5:2 was never set up as 2 total fasts per week. Two total fasts were an option if you wanted to interpret < 500cals or < 1/4 TDEE that way.

There are some other 5:2 forums out there on the web where people are not welcome unless they’re doing 5:2 exactly. This forum set up by Dr Moseley, and very well moderated by JJ, allows discussion of various versions of Intermittant Fasting and gives us an area to experiment with what suits us individually while being supported and discussing with others.

I’m getting close to 4yrs on 5:2 now, TDEE of 1440 cals/day despite being 5’6”. So for me a FD is < 360 calories. My FD goes from dinner the night before(Sunday) through the FD, 360 cals or < 360 dinner (Mon) then through to after 12 noon the day after(Tues). Technically that may not be a true fast, but it still works. FDs of 800 cals would be useless for me. I’m not hungry on the morning after FD, and last year tried back2backs but they were unhealthy for me. I had that thing where I could have kept going through more days, but fasting became too attractive, and I would have ended up with an eating disorder. I managed 2 b2bs over 2 weeks. The 3rd week my body let me know it was not right for me. I started having adverse physical symptoms.

The original version was what brought 5:2 to the publics’ attention. After looking at the research behind various Intermittant Fasting regimes and considering them too strict for the average person to stick to, Dr Moseley promoted the < 500 cals for women , < 600cals for men, on 2 non-consecutive days a week. He promoted it as being do-able for most people most of the time, more so than the more rigorous versions far fewer people can stick to. He was right. People got healthier and normalised their weight as a byproduct.

My situation is less then normal. I have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, commonly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. You may have heard of it, (and if you’re English or Swedish, it’s not so much accepted as a real disease). It’s a complex neurological disorder affecting multiple systems in the body with no known cure, and yes you can die from it. It’s why my TDEE is so low. I’ve had it for 20yrs with the onset literally overnight with a very severe virus. I spent the next 2 yrs mostly in bed, mostly asleep, with enough cognitive dysfunction to be considered a minimal brain injury. I have no diurnal rhythm, my language in word recall and sentence structure was damaged, I lost all maths and arithmetic, short and long term memory damage, my inner thermostat was damaged, so I don’t regulate body temperature as well, and various other symptoms. My energy level was at 5% of normal with almost no ability to store energy. I was lucky to survive, and to survive without very severe damage to heart, brain or liver.

My energy production is still not normal but now, 20 yrs on, with the aid of a private trial of a research drug I’m at about 50% of normal. To make things weirder, my natural state is medically diagnosed as hyperactive, a different process in the brain and body. So, I live in no man’s land, in between hyperactivity and what resembles a mild mitochondrial dysfunction and hypothalamic dysfunction. Weird, but I manage.

I have been through those different hunger states you talk of. Unfortunately, because of my damaged energy production and damaged energy storage, it’s unhealthy for me to do total water fasts. I also can’t use exercise to get through hunger waves. For me exercise is having a shower, getting dressed, cooking a meal, grocery shopping, driving a car etc. in other words I can’t go for an exercise walk, a swim, a bike ride etc. In my former life I had to burn excess energy off, but now I don’t produce enough and produce it slowly, never putting me in that endorphin phase, but ce la vie, such is life.

I second the sugar thing – deadly and definitely increases appetite. An experiment was done on food that had equal quantities of sugar and fat, and that combination was found to promote compulsive eating. There are other things that cause compulsive eating as well. But…..

…, time for me to get to bed. Nice chatting with you dykask. Goodnight from Australia.