Hello!

Is it Spring yet? I will be able to have a short break from all the snow this weekend – heading to Florida :).

Today is a fast day for me. I may do M / W this week. Anyone else fasting today??

Congrats with the weight loss LacerX & Mom! Isn’t it great to have found something that works for you?? I can’t believe I’ve stopped yo-yo dieting. It became my “sport” these past 5 years. I’m really not even tempted to stop doing 5:2. I also don’t beat myself up if I only get in one fast a week, I’ve been able to maintain/lose regardless.

I’ll try to check in later on. Keep it up USA 🙂

-Em

Hello – I am in MA, but am a Brit. Been here 4 years and struggling with the below zero temps we had this morning!! I would love to join you in your challenge FastTimesintheUSA – I have lost 6lbs in 5 weeks on the 5:2 but would love to lose another 10lbs and Memorial Day would be a great target. I think 10lbs may be a bit ambitious as haven’t been there since my teens probably!! I do find the FD pretty hard as all I can think about is food but I THINK they are becoming a bit easier to bear and on the other days I definitely think about what I am eating more and enjoying it more too! Next FD is Monday so I am going to enjoy the weekend! Oh and I need to lose the scales as I weigh every day and I know that is a really bad idea but I just cant seem to help it – how often do you weigh??

Good luck all, happy weekend

I am also traveling with work next weekend and following week so could be tricky as work dinners etc! Where in MA are you MassPoodleWoman?

All right Janey263! It’ll be great checking in with you and anyone else that wants to join the Memorial Day challenge. I don’t weigh daily as my weight tends to trend up and down too much and can be frustrating to me when I’ve done that in the past. I only weigh every two weeks, but if the scales are still stuck at my previous weight, I don’t fret too much. It sometimes takes me a whole month just to see a drop in weight. It’s like I have a loss then a stall, and sometimes another stall, before I see another loss. So I go by the way my clothes are fitting me. My jeans are a lot loser now and I’m having to rummage in the back of my closet for my “skinnier” jeans that I’ve held onto all these years. It feels so good to be able to try them on, although they’re not as loose as I would like them to be, but still being able to zip them up is wonderful.

Happy Friday all! So I am in my 3rd week and just finished my 6th fasting day. I am down 7 pounds so I am happy with that, but still have a long way to go! I think this is a lifestyle that I can maintain even though I do get hungry on the fasting days – it isn’t that hard. I like that I can enjoy the weekend! MassPoodleWoman – I have been making your fish steamed in the miso broth with swiss chard on my fast days and I love it! I weigh once a week on the morning after my second fast day – I have been fasting on Mondays and Thursdays.

That’s terrific Mom2coledevin! Congratulations on the 7 lbs. lost! Happy to have you along on the Memorial Day challenge. Let’s keep checking up on each other on this quest, OK?
My fasting days are Tues. and Thurs. and find it’s easier for me not to eat until my evening meal on my fast days. Waking up my hunger with just 100 or so calories earlier in the day just makes me even hungrier. Then my tummy is rumbling the rest of the day, and all I can think about is food and how soon can I eat again. When I don’t eat anything, just drink black coffee and lemon water through out the day, stay busy, I can wait to eat until about 7pm usually. About 4pm I might have a cup of heated chicken broth. It’s just a few calories and helps me make it until my dinner time. Best of luck to you on our Memorial Day challenge!

Hi KimInMA – you sound like me, get over excited on eating days – impressed you are doing 4:3!! I am in Metrowest too – Newton. How cold is it today?? Enough already!

Excited to join this group -good luck and well done to everyone!!

Hi. It is my first day today on this diet too!
I am 55 years old and menopausal, which means I am having a heck of a time losing weight. I need to lose about 22 Kgs. In previous years, I lost all the extra weight using different diets, but then piled it all back on and then some! This is the heaviest I have EVER been, even heavier than when I was pregnant.

I read the book and decided to start this diet as it seemed very doable to me. I do not have a problem fasting.. and frankly, this does not really seem like a fast. I have just completed my Day 1 – fasting day today and feel great.

Fingers crossed!

Hi everyone! I’m chiming in from Oregon (Hi LacerX!). I actually read about this diet yesterday on NPR, but I’d heard about IF a little while ago and tried it before falling completely off the wagon. Interestingly, there’s a lot of information out there but I had a hard time finding any support until I found this website. And now I’ve found the forum, so I’m looking forward to the camaraderie I hope to find here! Today was my first fast day and I’m interested in figuring out how the rest of the week will go. My husband travels for work and I have no problem cutting back when he’s away, but when he’s home we get all crazy, drinking wine and eating delicious meals out and cooking extravagantly at home. Does anyone else have this problem? Anyway, I have about 25lbs to lose, but I’m taking it a day at a time.

Today is a non-fast day, but I’ve felt fasted all day, which is a PITA. Because I’m a grad student, I have to get up super early for a class on Tuesdays, didn’t really get a good breakfast in, and then today had conferences with my own students for two hours right after class. I finally just ate something of any substance after fasting most of yesterday. I’m not sure I could do two fast days in a row. Has anyone tried and had success? LacerX, I also like LaCroix, but am sad that my Costco doesn’t carry it anymore. I was so spoiled. Anyway, I drank a LOT of tea yesterday, which seemed entirely appropriate due to the weather. Holy cow, that was some rain. And I know what you mean about it being hard to avoid the beer and wine. We’re members of two wine clubs here in the area, usually have at least a case at home, and a fully stocked bar. It’s not so much that I drink a lot, but I sure know how my inhibitions go all non-existent on me when I do partake. I spent a good part of last night awake and thinking of how I’m going to structure my fasting days. I’m thinking a Tues-Tues schedule to factor in my husband’s work travel… we shall see. Because I’m only on campus twice a week, it’s tough for me to stay out of the kitchen when I’m home all day the other five days and grading student papers that are sometimes less than scintillating. However, I have promised myself that I’ll give it a full 2 weeks of 5:2 before I change anything. No 4:3, no 16:8, no nothing. That will be the challenge, as I tend to get pretty overzealous and then burn myself out early on. Good luck to everyone today, fasting or not!!

– Hi – I totally can relate to the
glass of wine (or two) in the evening. (I live in Nor Cal wine country)
I find that if I just have tea I can do it, but when my hubby comes home and pours a glass it’s so hard !
I am fasting today – really trying to stick to this way of life and hoping it
helps drop at least 15 pounds. I am active, but I am 57 and the fat just sticks to me !!

I’m also a big wine fan! In fact, before 5-2 I would have a glass or 2 almost every night! The only reason u cut down was becauE I didn’t want to waste the calories although I crave often! So today is a non fast day I started off pretty well. Steel cut oatmeal for breakfast. Then 2 sushi rolls for lunch. By 430 I was ravenous! Think I ate 1000 cashews! (Not literally) but feels like I ate a ton. Then I had a hand of red hot candies that someone brought in. Ugh. I am but disgusted. I’m determined to go home and force myself to get on the treadmill with no more food. Tomorrow will be another fast day but I have lunch with an editor so guess will need to be only meal. Yikes!

Viginialu, I think that’s what’s so appealing. The idea that if you adhere to the fast days, the other days can be a wash or not and you still can lose weight, in theory at least. I love that I don’t have to watch myself so carefully EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. This really is the first diet I can see doing as a change to my lifestyle. I have always believed that exercise was the first, if not only way to lose weight, but have realized after going through periods of intense exercise and and being burned out and gaining back every pound I lost, that I need to alter my relationship with food, then exercise for health.

Kygirl44, those seven pounds are gone!! Relish it! It’s bound to come off quickly and, when you think about it, it’s like you did seven weeks of 5:2 in one week. Don’t worry, your body has to catch up with itself!

I’m fasting today, so far so good.

Question for you folks: do you find yourself needing to actually introduce so-called “bad” foods into your non-fast days? Like, do you ever go out of your way to indulge a bit in something that is a problem for you, whatever it may be? I’ll totally admit to eating to eating a loaf of zucchini bread in a day, just because it’s there. I definitely struggle with a carb/sugar addiction and when I do go off the rails, it’s usually because I’m tired of feeling deprived.

So, I’m wondering if I should actively include these foods in my diet and not try to limit myself. Rather, I will try to keep myself on track with a food journal, not feeling deprived, and knowing that I can have those foods anytime. My hope is that instead of a loaf, I’ll be able to settle comfortably with a couple of slices.

Or, do you actively and successfully practice control over your diet, including the exclusion of whatever your trigger food is, every day?

Thoughts?

HI everyone! My notifications got turned off for this thread so I just though everyone was being super quiet!

penguin – that’s too bad about your Costco not carrying them anymore! What a bummer. I noticed that my Fred Meyer doesn’t either but the New Seasons does. Not sure where else does though. Also, I actually have to tell myself it’s ok to eat taboo stuff on my non fast days. I don’t want to go too far in the other direction of limiting myself all the time or else I won’t stick to this way of life. The reason it appealed to me so much was because I could not worry about it too much except on my fasting days. I still try to be mostly good, but I think I need that occasional muffin or cookie (or beer!) to think of this as a really way of life and not just a diet I’m trying out.

I’m on my fast day today and really like the Mon/Thurs combo. That way I get two days in between fasts – I think it helps gear up for it mentally. Not that I’m finding them too terribly hard, but sometimes I can really talk myself out of things if they’re even slightly inconvenient.

Hello FastTimesintheUSA – good to hear from you, I did the exact same thing, had 3 small glasses of wine as we went to a basketball game and were in a suite so the bottle was just there for me to help myself to!! Think I was just over my TDEE for the day, 2nd FD this week today and I have been so good as have been starving all day – saving up for tonight. I still cant help weighing every day which is driving me crazy as I go up and down all the time of course! I am off to NYC on Sat for 3 days on business so no scales but will be hard to stick to FD – just need to remember to have things in moderation! I haven’t really lost since the first 4 weeks so I am hoping things start moving in the right direction soon – should probably measure to see where that’s headed

Mom2coledevin – 6lb loss is amazing – well done you!

Hi Kygirl44 – good to have you on the Memorial Day challenge….right now this seems an impossible task for me but wont give in!

Good luck with weigh in tomorrow!

Janey263, you should do fine if you stay under your TDEE while in NYC. Will you be trying to do a fast day while you’re there? The beauty of this plan is you can move your fast day to another day in the week if you need to, such as a special occasion or in your case, going out of town.

Just did my weigh in for today and decided I need a digital type of scale. I got on and off 5 times with the weight going between 154 and 153, either a no loss or a 1 pound loss. Decided to take it as half a pound loss and go buy a digital scale today so I can keep a better record of my weight loss progress. Decided to take my measurements too, finally. I had been just going by how much looser my clothes were fitting to let me know I’ve been losing inches. Pulling out the smaller jeans from the back of the closet and being able to zip them up was a great feeling. But if the scale isn’t moving as much now perhaps I’ll be able to see changes in my measurements on my weigh in day. Now to go do some online research on a digital scale. Hope everyone has a good day and a good weekend. Personally, I’m going to try not to overdo it on Valentines Day.

Congratulations Lacerx! that’s fantastic! I’ve been doing 5-2 since Jan 2nd–about 6 weeks and only down 5 or 6 pounds so far. Someone in the thread mentioned that their notifications shut off. Same with mine! I’m never notified now but I was when I started…any suggestions?

Hey everyone! Back on the forum after spending yesterday soothing hurt college student feelings and sitting in the library for 6 hours straight. If nothing else, it kept me out of the snack food!

Yesterday was a non-fast day and today is the same. Wednesday was my last fast day for the week and I am totally understanding what people say about the non fast days being the hardest. I slept well but woke up early at 5:15, lounged around in bed for a while (I don’t work on Fridays) and then had an apple, a bowl of oatmeal, and a cup of tea. Unfortunately by 9:30 I was starving again, so I just ate what should have been my lunch—a flour tortilla with cheese, tuna, and a big mushroom sliced over it. I’m really trying to restrict my restrictions, if that makes sense, but it’s disheartening to be so hungry and feeling so conflicted about eating. I hope (like we all do!) to see a number on the scale that reflects the hard work I’m putting in.

LacerX – awesome job on the 10 lbs! And the Valentine’s dinner sounds fantastic. My husband is out of town so I’m going to a sparkling wine event at Anne Amie vineyard tomorrow. Booze and chocolate, what could possibly go wrong???

Sending lots of good thoughts your way, MPW! When you feel weak, come here and we’ll support you!

I hope all of you have the Valentine’s day you want!

Oh, I meant to also say that sanguinepenguin – I read your blog and it’s so well written! I’ll bet that having that avenue to track and blog will be so nice and helpful. 🙂 I enjoyed reading it.