Hi everyone,

I´ve been on the 5:2 diet for 10 months now. I am a male at 185 cm height. I started up in the beginning of march 2016 at 117 kg. After 3 months I was down 9 kg to 108 kg. Then I hit a plateau for 2 months. In august, I followed mr. Mosleys advice and did alternate day fasting for a month to break the plateau. It worked and took me down to 106 kg by september. The weight loss continued until early november (105 kg). After that I´ve just been dieting and not bothering to weigh myself too much. But when I weighed in 5 days ago I became shocked. The weight had increased to 107,5 kg. And today – 5 days after – I weigh in at 109,2 kg.

WHAT THE H*LL IS GOING ON??

I work out 4-5 days a week. I combine cardio (low and high intensity) and resistance training. I even do cardio on my fasting days with no discomfort. I eat 2000-2500 kcal on my non-fast days and 5-600 on my fast days. My fitbit tells me my daily expenditure is on an average of 3500 kcal per day. So even on my non fast days I should be losing weight. Some would argue that I should be eating more on my non-days, but it doesn´t make sense. I eat until I´m full and sometimes even beyond. In general my appetite is low after starting fasting. I could easily go for 2-3 days without eating and without feeling discomfort. But my sanity tells me I should eat.

I´ve had an issue with sleeping too little (sub 6 hours per night). Lack of sleep and weight gain is often correlated, but my sleeping pattern was the same during my initial weight loss.

Can anyone please give me some advice her? I´m getting desperate.

HI dykask,

Thanks for your answer. I am aware that muscle gain can obscure fat loss. But in my experience that is most significant when starting working out after longer periods of inactivity.
Thing is I´ve been doing steady workout since even before i started 5:2. As far as I can see there is no good reason why I suddenly should have a big increase in muscle gain during the diet.

Hei simcoeluv,

Thanks for your response.

About the Fitbit: I agree that the fitbit shouldn´t be fully trusted regarding calorie expenditure. Though the article you´re linking to doesn´t take into consideration that the newer models have a heart rate monitor as well, measuring your effort more precisely. But let´s say the article is right. My fitbit shows an average of 3500 kcal spent per day. Subtract 10% error margin and you´ll end up on 3150 kcal. As I also wrote, my calorie intake is between 2000-2500 per day. So there shoud still be a sufficient deficit to lose weight.
My exercise regimen consists of heavy weight lifting, steady state cardio and high interval training. In addition to this I walk 10.000 steps per day.

And still I am gaining. After my measure last friday I´ve paid full attention to logging my calorie intake. And still my weight is up 1,7 kg in 5 days. There is no way I´ve been overeating by 15.000 kcal the last 5 days. That is 3000 kcal per day in overeating. That´s more than I´ve been eating in total. It simply doesnt add up. Only thing is I´ve noticed I´ve been drinking a LOT of water. Like 5-6 litres per day. I should´ve been peeing like a race horse. But I don´t. So I suspect the weight gain to be water retention. Maybe I´ve been overtraining. Overtraining combined with a huge calorie deficit adds severe stress to the body, making cortisol rise. And cortisol leads to water retention.

Anyone experienced this before?

I should