ChrissieinBrittany & 2 all

i was the same especially bread. all bad carbs really

on fast days i reduce 2 25% all recipes below

now if i want a white pizza

i get shredded wheat & bran the little squares 1 cup
(which is the highest whole grain and the least expensive of all those organic whole food products & has no salt)

in a pot below medium low heat heat
i melt
fat free ricotta 1/4 cup
1 tablespn parmesan
1/4 low fat part skim mozzarella
add the basil oregano garlic

pour cheese in bowl and top it w/ shredded wheat squares add spinach or cayenne or kale or chicken sausage tomato paste etc. i like it better than pizza it is so nice & crunchy & delicious.

same thing instead of nacho cheese doritos (still working on the spices anyone have suggestion)

shredded wheat & bran the little squares 1 cup

grate all below

baked kale chips
romano dry
mexican cheese blend
chili powder
cayenne pepper

shake in covered bowl

hot dog

shredded wheat & bran the little squares 1 cup

mix all below

chicken sausage cut w/ scissors into small pieces
dijon mustard
onions

pour all and top it w/ shredded wheat & bran

if u do nut top the shredded wheat & bran it will be soggy if on the bottom

if i want bread and that crunchy bite

add no salt butter to shredded wheat & bran

my best fastday breakfast now

is
1-3 little squares shredded wheat & bran

use scissors 2 cut all up

1 med egg no fat or salt
3 cups of romaine or mixed salad
1/2-1 tablspn of fat-free caesar (still trying 2 do a good homemade)

fills u up

and the new thing is freeze-dried stuff

as u can c i luv crunchy things & not really crunchy celery as much

wish u success

please if anyone have creative ways of replacing those cravings

in a healthy way
please input

Chrissie…that appears to be the beauty of his programme. Food is back to being viewed as energy for your body and not pigeon-holed into all the good and bad labels. When I read your initial post and saw the “pile of eggy bread” comment…it is sad that through all the various diets/programmes we have been brainwashed into thinking food is our enemy. I am hoping to rest and wish you the best of luck, too!

Hello, Quick – I think a lot of the people who investigate their TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) may fall into the category of ‘I’m keeping strictly to the 500/600 cal limit on my fast days and yet I’m not losing any weight! What am I doing wrong?’. I get the impression, too, that some people start out with very little idea of the calorific value of their everyday eating and don’t have any accurate understanding of what quantity and what type of food constitutes a healthy intake compared to the excess that you refer to as pigging out. Others just know that their eating is ‘out of control’. For individuals who feel they fit these sort of groupings, then, I think, learning more about their food, monitoring their habits and counting their actual total of calories over, say, a whole week can be really valuable, otherwise they’re running blind.
You are following this eating plan primarily for the health benefits but it seems clear that, for many others, weight-loss is crucial and is the thing that most motivates them to adopt the 5:2 approach. I am struck by the number of people who have had good results in this respect for their first few weeks or, perhaps, a month or two but who then plateau, get ‘stuck’ or even have their weight yo-yo-ing up and down by a few pounds from week to week.
Some of this might be explained by the natural human tendency to ‘ease off’ and get too casual in one’s efforts after a while but I’m not convinced that’s the whole picture. I’ve recently been studying things like insulin resistance and the effects that our eating habits have on the numerous hormones which control the complex balance of our biology and it seems evident that the usual mantras of ‘balancing calories in and calories out’ or ‘eat less/exercise more’ are far too simplistic.
Quite a lot of contributors to this forum already have diagnoses of conditions like under- or over-active thyroid or diabetes, etc. I think it likely that some others of us, without knowing it, may already be experiencing hormonal disturbances – things like insulin resistance or leptin resistance – which effect one’s capacity to lose weight. (Leptin is the hormone that tells your body it has had enough to eat.)
As I understand it, from my limited reading so far, one of the prime causes of such systemic disturbances is an unhealthy diet: most especially excess sugars (including artificial sweeteners), starches, and un-natural fats – one simple phrase: too much processed food.
Just reducing the quantity of one’s food is not enough – there needs to be a change in the type of food consumed.
Happily, many people on the 5:2 Diet do report that, because of their positive experiences of fasting, they are turning, quite naturally, to healthier options and they no longer enjoy the heavy feeling they get from certain stodgy foods.
Whilst I have no wish to scare anyone into thinking they may be ill, it bothers me that too many people are not getting the weight-loss results they were hoping for and expecting, having done ‘all the right things’ and they are left with no idea why it’s not happening. I think it is reasonable to say that, at the moment, the ‘eat whatever you like’ simplicity of 5:2 Intermittent Fasting is failing them.

(For information, here are the names of some of the health practitioners whose works I have been reading: (from the USA) Dr Mark Hyman, Dr Ritamarie Loscalzo, Dr Joseph Mercola; and (from the UK ) Dr John Briffa)

Thanks Jeanius…your response was so much nicer than anything I could formulate to Quick.

Quick…I am happy that your approach to the 5:2 is working for you. There are many reasons that many of us are counting calories on both the fasting and non-fasting for a while. But I daresay none of them is about “eating piggish” or trying to slip in extra calories. And it was rude to infer as much.