This topic contains 124 replies, has 106 voices, and was last updated by NorthGeorgia 4 years, 4 months ago.
Vron, you have my sympathy as I’m the same age (am a male of the species) with the same rate of weight loss (I’ve been on 3:4 for 8 weeks). Throughout my life I’ve never lost more than kilo per month no matter what the dieting strategy adopted (including regular exercise), severe or moderate. But I accept that rate of weight loss now — it’s clearly down to my metabolism and ‘already-corrected’ healthy-ish diet; and yes, I suppose it’s slower than with other people but it is tangible progress when all is said and done. I need to lose a stone so it’ll take me 7–8 months at the least.
You mention your fasting days are ‘water-only’. Why not have salad instead? I’ve just had my lettuce/tomato/pickled onion special. Hardly any cals there. Mostly water!
After two weeks of the fast diet, my weight has changed dramatically. From 87kg to 82.7 today. It’s so dramatic I wonder if I weighed myself correctly at the start.
I haven’t measured my girth yet though. It doesn’t look too different to me. I’ve probably lost all that weight from my brain…
The diet’s not too hard really. You do need a bit of motivation, and although that’s easy to come by in the beginning, I hope it’ll continue. I certainly miss the booze most of all: I have fantasies of blowing all my 600 cals in a large whisky and soda!
I came back to this after 18 month absence – have lost 10.5kg although not all shown on the tracker (did not find the site until recently). I am setting my goals as small ones to start with. Currently weigh 73.2kg, my next goal is to get to 65. I am only 1.5metres tall! This is an amazing way to live – when young this was the way I lived I never used to eat on Fridays or Saturdays and I was fit and very light. It was not until I saw that program that I realised that it was a perfectly sensible way to live. Both my partner and I are on this regime, much easier if both are doing the same thing at mealtimes. I am 63 years old my partner is 74. We are very active in that we both work full-time still. 5:2 great for energy.
Bayleafoz. I beat you by one year, I’m 69. What a fantastic weight loss, you must be so proud of yourself. I have 6 stone to lose (84 lbs) and I know it’s going to be a long hard slog as I don’t lose weight very easily and believe me, I have tried over the years. Having arthritis in my knees doesn’t help my cause any but I will persevere and hopefully I can catch up with you. Once again, well done.
Hi galexinda! I wanted to ask what your height is? I am hoping to get to 129, and we sound similar as far as our goals. I’m 139 currently and would like to lose 10 pounds. Today is my second fast day, so I’m looking forward to the results in a few weeks. I’m just curious about height to see if we’re similar, since I’m 5’6″. Thanks!
The 5:2 worked wonderfully for me for over 18 months. Then I switched from smoking to vaping, since when my weight has gone up. I still do the 5:2 for the health benefits, but it is no longer effective as far as my weight is concerned.
On a side note – where does one find Dr Moseley’s email address?
Michael Thank you for all of the information you have provided on this site. I am a 51yo male in Australia and been doing the Fast Diet since May 2 when a friend of mine put me on to it. I was 126kg and I am now 92kg. When I started I thought it would be good if I could lose 10kg. I have found it relatively easy to maintain and I think it is a lifestyle I can live maybe going to 6-1. The main reason I really like the 5-2 is because I have the freedom to eat normally for the rest of the week. I am now back running regularly for the first time in 15 years. Feeling great cannot thank the team at Fast Diet enough. Regards Chalks64
Adore this eating plan (refuse to call it a diet) It is the best thing i have ever done.
Started in Jan and have now lost 4 stone. I’ve never lost so much weight before, and i feel great and still feel like i can carry on with this plan. I actually enjoy it. I’m so happy. I’d tell anyone wishing to lose weight to to do the 5:2. Its magical! 🙂
NancyDrew, my husband and I feel the same way you do! We too started in January, but have only lost about one stone (or, about 12 pounds for my husband, and 15 pounds for me)…but, then, we didn’t have much more than that to lose. Thus, it’s taken me this entire year to lose that much, but I feel fabulous, and am officially no longer overweight (as of 7 pounds ago, actually). We’re still staying on 5:2, because I’d like to get a little lower…at some point, I’ll know when I’m done. At 57 years old, I don’t feel the NEED to be skinny, but if it happens, and I feel good, I will be happy with it. I started gaining weight in 2003 with our move to another state and a new life adventure, and ever since have had to “diet” in order to stop gaining weight–but I never actually lost weight! With 5:2, I finally can eat what is normal for me on five days a week, do what feels remarkably healthy and refreshing and cleansing on two days a week, and lose weight in the process. It’s a miracle, and I recommend it to everyone I know, but they all look at me like I’m even nuttier than they thought, LOL!
It’s my first year fast anniversary and I am thrilled with how I feel. Lighter and brighter.
I have lost between 12 and 15 lbs (weighing oneself is not an exact science) and 4 inches from chest, 2 from waist, 5 from hips.
I give myself time-off if I feel rotten, or if it’s Christmas etc, but have adopted it as a lifestyle relatively easily. Thanks to Horizon and Michael for the information in the first place.
So I’m on my one and half year 5:2 birthday, having lost about 30 kg and now down to 85 kg (as near as dammit!). All my health signs are showing good, glucose levels down to average of 5,3 and blood pressure levels anything between 115 / 70 up to 132 /78 which I feel are all very acceptable too. I’m exercising regularly (virtually every day with average of 7 k t0 8k steps per day), so I’m very pleased with myself.
Good luck everyone with your AWOL!
ArtEURO
Hi Canadiankim, I have been on 5:2 now for a good 2 years and am at a constant weight. It is indeed extremely useful (imperative)to track what you eat! There are many apps out there, but I use FatSecret (on my iPhone but also for Android). The beauty of the app is that it gives you also recipes to follow or try out. It also has a food tracker and exercise tracker too. One thing I find extremely useful is the saved meal possibility especially for a Fasting day!(Also for your PC and one can Sync the two).
I am so pleased with this AWOL (not a diet but A Way Of Life), that it is really good to do and to monitor all your information on this site.
All my health signs; Blood Pressure are normal with a normal and healthy Glucose index too. (I measure these also every day and take the results to my Dr on visits; I’m then take seriously)!
Do keep going everyone as it is really excellent at maintaining and cherishing your own health! I’m now at 35 with 40 years of experience (75 ha, ha.!!) So that can’t be bad eh?!!
10:56 am
25 Jun 16
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Hi Canadiankim, I have been on 5:2 now for a good 2 years and am at a constant weight. It is indeed extremely useful (imperative)to track what you eat! There are many apps out there, but I use FatSecret (on my iPhone but also for Android). The beauty of the app is that it gives you also recipes to follow or try out. It also has a food tracker and exercise tracker too. One thing I find extremely useful is the saved meal possibility especially for a Fasting day!(Also for your PC and one can Sync the two).
Hello everyone!
I’m putting the link of my image is the progress made in two years of effort in the battle of weight loss.
What is encouraging all to not lose heart.
I think that these photos before and after, are inspiring because it was the same picture to the one that encouraged me to invest in my health and in consequence lost weight.
I started pulling out all sugar and gluten-, over time also picked out the grains and traded vegetable oils for lard, butter and olive oil and coconut oil, but the important but nothing industrialized.
I’m 56 years old and do not need any more medicine, was hypertensive, had serious circulation problems and more a series of conditions, today only use two supplements: melatonin and magnesium.
Part of the weight lost with diet and then with fasting, joined this forum in April and were 7 kg in total are gone close to 25kg.
Still weight 104 kg, but I feel pretty! I am quite high, have a long way to go in losing weight, the forum has helped me a lot, you guys are wonderful people, difficult does not write in English, I have to use google translator.
http://g15.picoodle.com/ltd/img15/4/7/26/anaide/f_gfi4_975_ueon4.jpg
Sold! Been on 5:2 for 6-7 weeks now. Dropped 14 pounds! I know I am new at this and have a ways to go but this is the best success I have had with any other approach to wt loss. It is getting easier and I am generally less interested in junk food than I used to be, as the book suggested could happen. Not all easy but really doable and it is working. I need to lose wt for health reasons so happy to have come across 5:2. Best to all involved
I finally decided to take it in hand and lose the weight I’d gradually built up over the twenty years since I gave up smoking. I should have had a scales in the bathroom all along, and a full-length mirror in the bedroom, but only got the scales a couple of years ago and still can’t face the idea of the mirror! I’m not exactly sure of my starting weight because I’d been reading the scales in stones and watching it go up to over 17 stone. I’m a 63-year-old female, 5’6″ and office-job sedentary. Size UK 20 had gotten uncomfortably tight, so I was buying size 22 – out of a catalogue of course.
The only time I ever lost a lot of weight was when I went on a calorie restricted diet at the age of 14, and I haven’t been a slave to yo-yo dieting since. Last year I lost over a stone by cutting out sweetness and savoury snacks over a couple of months, but it was going back on.
I decided to give in and go on an actual ‘diet’. I started 5:2 in early July at about 105kg, and I downloaded a calorie counter to my phone that set my ideal ‘dieting’ intake at 1700 per day. I enter EVERYTHING I eat, which is easy to do because I always have my phone handy. If I think I’ve eaten more that a ‘cup’ of something I enter it twice. I pretty much have whatever I want, as long as it doesn’t push me over 1700 calories a day. Very occasionally (twice since starting) I skip lunch and have a regular bag of chip shop chips and a quarter pounder with cheese. You can do that because you get to know the high calorie items to restrict. On Mondays and Thursdays I do my two fast days and limit intake to 500 calories.
I think we just have to stop being so fixated on food, and get into the habit of eating fewer calories. On fast days I put off eating anything at all until I’m really hungry, which doesn’t actually happen until lunchtime. I don’t eat anything after dinner anymore, and you just get used to it after a while.
5:2 plus generally restricting calorie intake is certainly working for me! In five weeks I’ve lost 6.5kg, surprising myself with a 1.5kg loss this week. I weigh-in weekly on the morning after a fast day. My size 20 clothes are ultra-comfortable, and I’ve bought a couple of size 18 outfits for holidays in October. Some of them fit me now, albeit snugly 🙂
I have every intention of keeping it up until I reach a comfortable size 16, and then I’ll switch to normal intake of about 2,000 calories a day with one 500 calorie fast day (6:1). I’m looking forward to buying my clothes in a shop along with everyone else!
Hi good for you!! Indeed, I’ve been on the 5:2 now for a couple of years and like you I was really fed up with my weight, size and self esteem. For me it is now a AWOL and having lost 30 kg (3 stones + in old ‘currency’)I am now also very pleased indeed. I had also lost 18 cm girth!! And that I found extremely good, more so than the actual weight loss.
You are very right!! Get your mind off of eating and ‘having’ to have a meal. The more that one does it the easier and better it becomes!
The true ‘profit’ is actually also in your health ‘characteristics’ such as Cholesterol, Glucose levels and Blood pressure levels. Mine now being as though I were 20 years of age (in reality 35 but then with 40 years experience!! ha, ha.)
So do carry on and enjoy your new YOU! It is very much worth it! Thank you for sharing and for being so brave to getting started! All the best.
Hi Rachel32,
Sounds grand; I live myself in quite a hilly area and often go up into the woods behind my house (difference of about 250 m in height from where I live). I used to also struggle, I’ve now got a Polar fitness band (have a HRM watch but the fitness band works much better for me now with synching etc.) I often walk or hike, trying each day to do some walking even if it’s to do some shopping. I try also to do a HIIT session at least once a week (about 30 to 40 minutes including warming up and cooling down). My resting heart rate is now between 50 to 55 and my average blood pressure is anything between 115/70 thro to 125/78. So all going very well. It is very much worth it, maintaining a healthy regime not only does your weight and size get into better proportions, but your health too. Good luck! And thanks for sharing.
I’m beginning the 5-2 plan today. I will eat Mediterranean style without grain and 25 gms of protein per meal, 5 days a week and fast with bone broth, green tea, miso soup, lemon and water – 2 days per week. My goals are to improve my metabolism, prevent inflammatory disease, improve my BG levels and age better. My goal weight is 140 lbs and I aim to build cardio & muscle health by increasing core, weight bearing and cardio exercises. Friends and family suffering from Type 2 Diabetes and obesity are interested in my results.
Happy to be here!
Sophia Elizabeth, please keep us posted on your progress! Your fast days sound pretty extreme, and may be tough to maintain after the discipline you’re planning to follow on the other five days, so we’ll all be happy to encourage you. The thing I’ve found (I’ve lost fifteen pounds on this plan) is to be gentle on the “5 days” so that the 2 days aren’t impossible to get through. So, after your initial success (which I’m sure you’ll experience!), if you find yourself struggling, perhaps you can lighten up on your discipline so that you still may progress, but just not quite so fast as you will to start. My husband does this also, and no one would ever know we’re “dieting” when they see us on the five normal days, but because of those two fast days, for the first time in five years, I’ve gained control of my weight…this is a GLORIOUS approach to the rest of our life.
Bottom line: Good luck to you!
Dafne, your body could be freaking out at how few calories it’s getting, and has gone into starvation mode–a real thing. Back off on the strictness of your approach: if you do 1500 calories on 5 days, and 500 calories on 2 days, you should start to see some serious results. Be sure your foods are purchased from the periphery of the grocery store: fresh fruits and veggies, meats/fish/chicken, whatever dairy you’re comfortable with, and frozen veggies/fruit. The packaged products on the shelves are the things that our bodies have a harder time processing as efficiently as fresh foods. Good luck!
Dafa,
Im assuming you mean you want to “feel” full while running a caloric deficit? Avoid sugar at all costs. Avoid fruit juice all the time. Avoid refined carbs especially grain based carbs like bread, breakfast cereals, pasta, pizza, biscuits, cakes etc. If the food was derived from a grain avoid it. Fill up on veggies (but NOT potatoes), beans, cheese, meats like chicken, tuna.
Hi everyone. I started 5:2 Dec 28/16 and in 8 days, lost 4 lbs. Very encouraged. I’m 67 and have always been a slow loser. I’m determined to stick with this and have a slim summer to look forward to. I’m using the tracker. I also use My fitness pal to get the calorie count. I also have Lean Cuisine for my lunch. They average 230 to 290 cals and taste good. I cut up veggies to munch for snacking. I also make a green salad and use seasoned rice vinegar for dressing. It’s not really suffering too much and I can wrap my head around only 2 days a week. I’m heading to Hawaii at the end of the month so may switch to 4:3 till then for faster results. I was a die hard Weightwatcher, but I felt like I was paying out a lot of money for long running weightloss. This you can enjoy food without worry for 5 days a week, not overdoing it though. I try to stay at about 1500 cals although allowed 2000 daily. There was that guy on one of Dr. Moseley’s docu that had been eating 1600 cals for 20 years but looked like he was in his 30’s but in his 50’s. It’s all about the calories for sure. Happy fasting everyone!!
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