Just thinking, maybe we are eating too little? the body might go into famine mode or something. Hope someone out there can advise us?

I’ve tried the diet for two weeks. In the first week I lost one pound, and in the second week I lost nothing. Not good enough! I’m an impatient chap who likes food, and such a pathetic result after so much suffering and discomfort just won’t do, so that’s the end of that. Perhaps it works for some metabolisms but it certainly didn’t for mine.

I’ve come to the conclusion that only two types of diet would work for me. Either the diet needs to be slow and comfortable, with a gradual reduction in weight while I feel few, if any, hunger pangs, or it must be rapid, with a weight loss of several pounds each and every week, in which case I’d be prepared to put up with feeling hungry for much of the time. The fast diet gave me considerable discomfort on the fasting days but I lost weight far too slowly to make it worthwhile.

Encee, eating only 500 calories day after day really isn’t healthy. That isn’t that much more than my friends who have suffered from eating disorders used to eat. I would imagine it slows your metabolism down quite a bit. Try reducing your number of fast days (and eat reasonably on those nonfast days) and see what happens.

I watched Michael Mosley’s TV programme on the BBC and I thought that the whole point was not to do the diet on more than one day in a row? Surely, if you do it on continuous days, you risk going into starvation mode and changing your metabolism? Moderation in all things, as some ancient Greek said, is surely the best way?

Symba7 You say that on non-fast days a woman should stick to 1800 calories. Where in the book does it say that ? It surely just says to eat ” normally “.I am quite amazed that so many comments contradict and/or conflict with each other !!

Banana21,

My TDDE, is 1877 which is what I eat to keep my weight as it is, so I need to go lower to loose my weight.

The two fast days help me to loose the 1 lb, if I keep eating above my TDDE I might as well not bother to do the 5.2!!!!

Everybody is different, some people are just doing it for health reasons but I need to lower my weight, if you are eating above your TDDE I believe the weight won’t come off.

Depends on your own TDDE!

And what excercise or no excerise you do, your age, height etc. 2000/2500 is a general guide, but I am less than that.

Look at the chart at the top right hand side of page, it may give you a more better idea for yourself.

Everybody is different.

@nic2014 Are you saying you are fasting for 5 days and eating normally on 2?

That isn’t what 5:2 means….it means fast – i.e. eat UP TO 500 cals on TWO non consecutive days and eat MORE than your BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate) and UP TO you TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) on the other five days. If you don’t know what your BMR and TDEE are there is a link at ‘how?’ at the top of this page.

If you are fasting on 5 days you are probably not eating enough and this can stop you losing weight.

It’s also not the best idea to weigh every day as your weight fluctuates and obvious will be lower after a fast day. I find that weighing once a week on the same day gives me a better idea of how my weight is going.

have a look at the ‘how?’ and ‘faq’ links on this page for more information.

xx

Oh for goodness’ sake this is getting silly. Can someone please write in BIG BLOCK CAPITALS across the homepage that this is not a faddy ‘see results straight away’ kind of diet.

Sorry Nic2014, it’s just frustrating answering the same question over and over again.

If you’ve only done 4 fast days then it’s WAY too early to see any kind of real trend. Some people come on and post “I lost 5lb on my first fastday” or similar and everyone else expects to see those results too but we’re all different and some people just wont see the scales move AT ALL for weeks, sometimes people actually put on a little weight to start with. It’s all fine, we’re all different.

This way of eating attacks your visceral fat first, if you have any. This means that quite often people will lose weight without seeing any external change. It also specifically helps with the conversion of fat to muscle (which weighs more than fat) so sometimes your weight will stay the same or even go up slightly at the beginning but you will notice yourself firming up or slimming down. And then there are those who have a bit of both going on at the same time.

If you’re happy with the lifestyle and you think you have a pattern down then just lock the scales in a cupboard or something for a month or so and weigh yourself once you’ve given it a chance.

This is not a ‘quick fix’ diet, you’ll do it for the rest of your life, in one
form or another, once you’ve perfected your own version. So spend the next month experimenting and getting comfortable with it and forget about how many pounds you have or haven’t lost.

Oh Tracy & Angie
Yes! Needed to be said. When I started in january 2013 I watched the site for a few months, then when I got to 12 weeks and had great results posted. It is not a quick fix, and all this agonising over first days and every calorie consumed is not productive, and especially not for the person starting out.
Please newbies, give it a few weeks and then judge or start to query what might not be working.
Vicki

You said what I was going to say Tracy!

I know it is disheartening if you don’t see results when you have tried hard and you hear about others losing but, like it’s been said before, everyone is different and it takes a while to get your head around the concept and you have to try and find what works for you.

The bottom line is that if you are eating less than you did before you should see a weight loss at some point. If you don’t manage to do a fast day on the 500 calories but have eaten less than you usually do, you should see a loss, maybe not as quickly, but it all helps.

The main thing is not to give up too easily. I lost a stone in 3 months but am now finding it harder to lose. I did put some on over Christmas and have now lost that but it’s a bit slow going at the moment but I am going to carry on.

Linda

Been reading all contributions here with great interest. Been following the diet religiously for 6 weeks after my sister raved about how it helped her (she’s looking great!) . So far not a single pound lost and struggling to keep the faith! It feels like my jeans are a little looser but am wondering if that’s my wishful thinking. I am keeping up same gym levels as previously (twice weekly) so am not sure where going wrong. I am BMI 28 and around 1.5 stones overweight, aged 42. Please tell me something good will happen soon…!

Hi simcoeluv,
An interesting and informative reply, thank you, will proceed eating fewer calories on non-fast days and hopefully it will right itself 🙂

I meant fast 3 days eat normal for 4 days ( 4:3 diet )