Have been on the 5:2 diet for three months and not losing any weight

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Have been on the 5:2 diet for three months and not losing any weight

This topic contains 2 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by  Chris5252 1 year, 6 months ago.

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  • I had a pretty physical job before and have always been slim but the last two years I have worked from home and have not been moving as much as I used to and gained weight, I’d say I would like to lose about 12 kg. I started the diet late last year, but did take a break during the holidays, resumed it in the beginning on January and I have been strict since then. I did not weigh myself for the first months because I had some eating disorders while younger and I could get quite obsessive about weighing myself. I thought I would see a difference in clothes, but I didn’t so I finally bought batteries for my old scale a couple of weeks ago. First of all I had no idea I had gained that much weight, it was quite disheartening, but I have been weighing myself since then and NOTHING happens. I suspect nothing has been happening for this whole time because my clothes fit just like before and it’s difficult to fit into the jeans I used to wear the summer before last.
    I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I eat the calories I’m supposed to on the non eating days, focusing on getting as much protein in as I can. On the other days I don’t eat unhealthy food. I work out quite a lot, lifting weights four times a week. I lift quite heavy and have been doing this for a few years, so I know the importance of a high protein intake for muscles. After weighing myself the first time I made some smaller changes. Stopped drinking Coke Zero altogether, as well as stopped drinking protein shakes with sweetener in them, in case the sweeteners messed with my body, since there are studies that say it can happen. I have also reduced my carb intake slightly and reduced my breakfast with some 200 cal. Since winter is over and the snow is gone where I live I also take a one hour walk a day now. So about two weeks with these new tweaks and still nothing. I have no idea why I’m not losing weight and am feeling quite despondent.

    Hi UpsidedownAlice,

    I’m sorry to read about your lack of progress so far.

    First of all, the two links below may help with the overall approach and what to expect:-

    https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-basics-for-newbies-your-questions-answered/
    https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/warnings-to-newbies/

    Reading what you’ve said carefully it seems you’ve only actually been weighing yourself for 2 weeks so you don’t know for sure what weight you were at when you started and you may be quite a bit lower than that without knowing it, even though, as you say, your size hasn’t changed at all so far. You haven’t mentioned how often you’ve weighed yourself over the last 2 weeks, whether it’s daily or weekly or something in between. Let’s take the optimistic view and assume you have actually lost some weight since you started, then the last 2 weeks could simply be a plateau which most people experience at least once during 5:2 – I had it 3 times I think in my first 6 months of 5:2’ing. It could also be that the frequency of weighing is such that it just so happens it hasn’t shown any weight loss, but there has been some loss between those weigh ins. I weigh myself daily and see quite a lot of variation from one day to the next, frequently going up or down 0.5kg from one day to the next, whist at other times having pretty static day-day weights. It certainly sounds as if you are doing everything right from what you have written.

    I can’t think of anything obvious to suggest at all other than to try sticking with it for at least another 3 or 4 weeks whilst weighing yourself to see if it has simply been a plateau and you do start to lose weight in the future. I’m sorry this isn’t more helpful. My own experience, over the last 10 years of doing 5:2 is that it has worked for me in the long run with a reasonably rapid weight loss in the first 6 months and then being able to keep the weight off after that. (My own stats are in https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/5-years-or-more-on-a-fast-diet-regime/ in case that helps at all.)

    Very best of luck with it and I hope things turn a corner for you very soon.

    You also mentioned that your scales were quite old.

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