Hi Mandie. I use Enbrel etc too but have lost over 3 stone in 10 months. I spoke to my rheumatology consultant about 5:2 and he was very encouraging just said ‘don’t go too mad’ but that basically he didn’t feel fasting would have a negative effect on the arthritis.

On my fast days, I weigh all food carefully and then write it down and work out the calories so that I never ever go over 500. I never ‘guess’, I don’t eat ready made items on fast days but keep things really simple – porridge, fruit and veg (including home made low calorie soups). I like to spread my 500 calories over breakfast. lunch and dinner.

If this all sounds too much ‘faffing’ about, I got used to it really quickly and now it is just routine.

I don’t lose weight every week (mainly because I still like bread on my non fast days) but I don’t put weight on either.

I did read in an article that if you eat less than 500 calories a day, your body goes into starvation mode and that will prevent you losing weight.

Now, I’ve just got to learn to like exercise:(

Stay positive and don’t give up.

Exactly, Amazon. The ‘starvation mode’ is totally irrelevant as far as intermittent fasting goes because we are nowhere near starving and ‘starvation mode’ simply slows the metabolism a little anyway. If we were really starving we would be losing weight.

I do zero calories every other day and, strangely, the weight is dropping off! Who’d have thunk it?