The eating all you can eat on your non fast day has me worried. There is no magic involved. Eat too much on your non fast day and in all reality you wont lose weight and could even put weight on. Eat up to your TDEE on your non fast days, and not any more. With respect to your fast days there is probably a marginal gain to be had in eating your 500 cal in one meal as opposed to spreading it out with lots of small snacks throughout the day. Your aim is to reduce your insulin spikes so that you don’t store excess glucose as fat. But the difference is marginal. Do whatever is easier for you and you’re more likely to sustain that eating pattern.

Hi SweetPPP,

You can eat your 500 (or less). however you like on your FD. Some people eat 3 tiny meals, some 2, some find eating all the calories in 1 meal. Some people find that when they are not hungry on a FD till they eat their first food, then it’s like Waking The Hunger Dragon and FD get’s harder. This group of 5:2ers eat/drink their calories at the end of the day, and some have nothing till the next morning. At firstit’s best to record your calories for FDs because we tend to underestimate calories if we don’t, and since we all come to 5:2 without a proper sense of portion size, it’s easy to eat an extra few hundred calories. Counting is tedious but beneficial for those first few FDs while you work out the FD regime that works best for you.