This topic contains 6 replies, has 8 voices, and was last updated by Lisa Heckbert 7 years, 1 month ago.
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Hi mariem and welcome:
I don’t know what the 2:5 program is, but I think you are suffering from unreasonable expectations.
A person that water fasts (eats nothing) will lose about a pound a day at the beginning of the fast. A material portion of that is water weight loss. As you are eating food at some pace, you should expect to lose much less weight than that. You say that after 17 days you were down 8 pounds, or you were losing about a half a pound a day. That comes out to cutting about 1700 cal. per day out of your diet if your weight loss was really all fat. But it was not, because much of it was water weight. Additionally, your increased exercise might very well be slowing your weight loss because of water retention needed to repair damaged muscles.
The average weight loss on 5:2 is about a pound a week over time. You seem to be right on schedule. Just keep on going and you will continue to lose weight, but perhaps not as quickly as you think you should! Here are some tips: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-basics-for-newbies-your-questions-answered/. You might check out the TDEE and exercise links in addition to the basic ‘Warnings’ link.
Good Luck!
Your body isn’t stupid!! By 2:5 Im assuming you are fasting for 5 days and eating “normal” for 2? The trick with 5:2 is that your body doesn’t think its dieting and so your metabolic rate and storage of excess calories is “normal”. If you are doing 2:5 your body now thinks its in trouble and will attempt to store fat every time you eat. It will do this by reducing your metabolic rate to save as much energy as it can. You are making the situation worse by exercising.
Losing about 1 pound per week is about average and is sustainable. You didn’t reach your current weight overnight so losing it in a matter of weeks is unrealistic. I lost 44 pounds last year at an average of 0.7 pounds per week. My fear is that if you attempt to lose weight faster than about 1 pound per week your metabolic rate will slow and as soon as you stop “dieting” you will suffer a rebound weight gain. If you do 5:2 properly and are patient you will not get that rebound. I reached my weight goal and I now do 6:1 since March and the weight doesn’t budge.
Be patient and set realistic weight loss goals.
@mariem – I don’t think you meant you are fasting 5 days a week, I take it that you are trying to do the standard 5:2 diet.
Our weight is really a range and you could be looking at just different points in that range. I sometimes weigh myself three or four times a day and it is amazing how much my weight can change throughout the day.
Now you throw in exercise and that is a real wild card when it comes to weight. It depends on a lot of factors but exercise can cause your weight to increase, often for good reasons. There seems to be a strong belief pretty much everywhere that exercise should only cause one to lose weight. It isn’t true as exercise can build up the body and muscles can hold a lot of water weight.
So in the end I don’t think anything is wrong. You body is just responding to what you are doing.
Sounds as if you are doing fine, mariem. The IF/5:2/Fasting Diet is about losing weight slowly enough that your body and skin can “catch up” with the weight loss. This isn’t the “Lose 10 pounds by Saturday!” sort of diet you see on magazine covers. My husband lost 40 pounds over a year and then the magic comes when you keep it off.
Good luck.
Good attitude, Doris. Keep at it and you will reach your goal.
Shipra, isn’t it odd how different we all are: I eat cheese every day and still lose weight. And some people avoid it as if it were antithetical to dieting. Oh well.
Mariem, just keep at the 5:2 and things should even out. Sometimes I’ll eat a pair of meals on a Fast day and lose and pound. And some days the same food will gain me weight. Don’t get hung up on little changes.
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