Hi all

Just back from the Central Market in Adelaide where I caught up with people I used to work with for lunch. Given the array of fresh produce available at the market stalls, I also did my grocery shopping while I was there.

I had a Nonya curry for lunch, which was planned, but in my meandering around the market after lunch I found a Hungarian bakery and bought a bun filled with ricotta & sultanas. That was definitely not in the plan for today – it was very yummy though.

Yesterday’s FD went well. I am back into the routine of 2NFD+1FD.

Tori67 – don’t panic about the weight loss being slow. When you think about it we are only actually dieting 2 or 3 days per week, so it’s not realistic to expect to lose weight as fast as a diet that restricts you to 1000cals every single day. It took me a while to get my head around this, because I think it’s human nature to always want weight loss to happen fast. My first month was a big weight loss but since then I’ve settled into an average of about 1kg per month. On a normal diet that restricts calories every day I lose about 2kg per month so that rate for 5:2 sounds fair to me. It’s coming to terms with the fact that it will take a while and I’ll actually have to learn patience that’s the hard bit.

Oh Thin you make me smile. I have well and truly fallen off the wagon lately and been trampled by the oxen. So much cake, biscuits and sweets. Had an FD Tuesday and another tomorrow to reset. Surprisingly not too much damage but now setting my mind into losing a few more kgs.

Dad seemed to enjoy his day and I bought Mum home on Monday so that she could celebrate as well but she doesn’t remember any of it.

Tori67, it does take awhile for it all to sink in and sometimes maybe longer than we would like but if you listen to the old timers like a Thin, Cinque and Merry it is a constant work in progress. This is a way of life for life and I guess we all need to remember that when we think it is not working.

Knew that would get you Thin.

Not sure about the 60, still have trouble getting my mind around that but definitely another 4-5kg.

I still have trouble with the seniors thing. I get embarrassed to ask for pensioner discounts because I don’t want people to know that I am that old, because I certainly don’t look it after losing all that weight 😉😉

Haha Thin, beautifully put.
Enjoy your journey Tori. You are going fine!

LJoyce, what a lovely market day.

It is Fast Day for me today and since I don’t have the excitement of losing weight 😉 , I am going to try to make it a mindful meditation of a day and concentrate on how much pleasure it adds to eating tomorrow.
Note to self, don’t forget to buy chicken! I’ll have my last homegrown zucchini in my soup tonight. The plants have been pulled out and replaced with chard, lettuce, rocket and hopefully coriander (seed sprinkled everywhere).

Gday, I hope some of your rain might come down here!
So happy for moggy, and so sad to hear of your bad experience for your pub meal. Best wishes to your dad, I hope he is breathing easier.

Intesha, you will enjoy getting back to everyday eating after all the feasts. I hope you are enjoying your mentee.
I am glad your dad had a great day, and your mum too. It is a pity she can’t remember it, but that doesn’t stop it from being a good day in her life.

Hi Fasting-me, good luck with your blog.

One small thing to share before I go. I was so saddened, like so many, by the death of John Clarke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clarke_(satirist) But the positive, that I have been thinking about since, is what a beacon for good his legacy is, in these worrying times. His compassion, intelligence and humour, and the ability he had to listen, and chat and act with kindness, is a blueprint for how I want to be in the world, and what humanity is all about.

Hello SHs, I’m new to all of this and have finished my 4th FD today. I’m lucky in that I’m considered to be a healthy weight, but my waist was too big so I decided to give this a try in the lead up to my 50th birthday in July. My H is doing this with me so it’s both easier and harder. He really needs to lose weight and reduce his waist size and I’m hoping this will work for him. H hasn’t lost any weight yet, but I have lost 1.5kgs and 2cm on my waist. Any advice on what I could do to support my H more while he’s going through this tough start? We haven’t started doing exercise with it yet but I worry that exercise plus 5:2 might slow his weight loss.
Any advice is welcome!!

Cinque, your words about John Clarke are so true. He will be missed but he gave us so much.

CraftGirl, I’m glad your H is along for the ride as you Fast together. It is easier to prepare just the one meal for 2 people, rather than watch someone else eat food that you can’t consume that day. My husband joined me in Fasting with very good results, so it should work for your H too.
Some pointers: 1] Go for walks together, rather than ‘forcing’ him to go to the gym. Unless he really wants to go there… Walking one Km/day, then 2, then 3 can be a painless way to exercise as well a building up to going to the gym. Any exercise helps! 2] What is being eaten and drunk on a Slow Day? I find that beer causes me to retain weight, so I rarely drink it anymore. Neither does my H, although if we are at friends and one is offered, he’ll take it. Lots of protein is the key. 3] Are you 2 drinking on a Fast Day? Don’t. Save your calories for real food.
Usually men lose weight at a greater rate than women, so he should catch up.

We had a lovely Greek Chicken Salad for our FD dinner tonight, and the H said it was very good.
Good Health to you all.

Welcome Craftgirl. Congratulations on your early success.

In answer to your question about your OH, my advice is to get a copy of Dr M’s book, if you haven’t already, and read it before doing anything. It’s easy reading, provides the science and answers all your initial questions. If followed correctly, your OH should have lost weight after 4 fast days. It could be something simple like not realising when a FD starts and ends or that absolutely everything passing the lips (including milk in coffee, etc) must be counted on a FD.

There’s a lot of support available on these pages, however, 5:2 is very flexible and we’re all different so what works for one may not work for another. If you’ve first read the book, you’re in a stronger position to make your own adaptations and avoid bad habits.

If you haven’t already, calculate your OH’s TDEE and measure absolutely everything. Invest in a good set of bedroom and kitchen scales.

I recommend your OH first masters the basic premise of two strict 600 cal FDs (which I assume you’re both following correctly since you have lost weight) and then make sure he doesn’t go over his TDEE on non-FDs. Whilst you can eat what you like on non-FDs, this doesn’t mean as much as you like. No-one likes counting calories but, when you’re not losing weight, it’s a good idea to get an estimate. Your FDs will help shape your portion control over time and help you make healthier food choices.

Daily exercise is essential to maintaining health and strength but is unlikely to assist in weight loss. It’s important to remember that you don’t offset estimated calories burned on a FD, it’s 500/600 cals regardless of output.

If all this is done correctly, it might then be a good idea to examine the foods consumed on non-FDs. Many people on these pages (myself included) have found that cutting down carbs helped kick-start additional weight loss. These foods can gradually be re-introduced once goal weight is achieved but try cutting down on added sugar, pasta, bread and rice and see if it has any effect. Alcohol is nutrition-poor and very high in calories. Consumption can lead to increased nibbling on undesirable foods.

You don’t want to make 5:2 like ‘any other diet’ but you also want to see results so you need to determine what works and what doesn’t.

Post regularly for support. Good luck!

Craftgirl, when I said ‘measure absolutely everything’, I should have made it clear that I was referring to your husband’s body parts, not the food! He may have lost cms somewhere unexpected. It’s advice I wish I’d heeded because, when those plateaus arrive, it’s comforting to note some measurement changes when the scales don’t shift.

LJ, thanks for adding the tip about learning to eat for the weight you want to be, not the weight you are. Not doing this is the reason so many of us have failed on ‘diets’ before – we sometimes forget that, at our new weight, we require a lot less to eat.

Joffy, glad you’ve enjoyed the time with your children, indulged in everything you wanted which didn’t include easter eggs and are now back on track. I hope your pyjamas didn’t fall off your skinny waist while you were hopping around the hotel room.

Glad you had a good FD Cinque. I might be moving some FDs around too as we are going camping next week – the last frontier of travel options I haven’t yet tried in my nearly 3 years of practicing 5:2. It’s been ages since we last did this and we seem to have enough ‘stuff’ to mobilise a small army.

Good afternoon. Wet and grey here. Still. Happy garden though.

Very nice op shop scoring LJoyce!
And look: you are helping the environment too!
https://scontent.fadl1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/18010070_1400766396656011_112981743120143744_n.jpg?oh=77c5eec57b26107526523ae1432e01d9&oe=5984699E
This week I found a really good pair of shoes (leather upper and sole, not worn, exactly my size and lovely design) and two silver teaspoons with the right sort of handle end that is great for peeling eggs!

I got the munchies today, I was so hungry when we finished shopping. It was 2pm. Had a good lunch but just kept being hungry. Starting to have worrying thoughts that my beautiful homemade bread for breakfast could have set it off. Anyway I kept eating good things until I was satiated in my head, but a bit overfull in my tummy. Hopefully I won’t be hungry later and can just call it a small eating window. That’s the positive spin I can give it! I have certainly eaten my evening meal’s worth already.

Camping Thin! Ooh I miss camping! Are you going far? The open air living always made me very hungry, so I am interested to hear how it affects your eating structure.

Best wishes everyone for a good evening.

Hi Everyone,

Thank you so much for your advice. I think we’ve got our FDs ok (staying under our limits) but I think the NFDs might be an issue. And thank you Thin, I think your idea of focussing on body measurements might be the perfect answer for H.

You’re all so welcoming and helpful and I’m so glad to have found this forum. I can’t express how wonderful it was to get all your advice.

Hoping you all have a wonderful weekend.

Good morning all. Have looked back over my daily calorie intake for the last few months and surprised to see my non FD intake has averaged between 900 to 1300 most days. Only 3 times have I hit 2000 so quite pleased with that.

Enjoying re-reading MM Fast Exercise book. Lots of tips that I had forgotten about from my first read.

Oh Op Shops I just love them ! My first weakness is buying beautiful old crockery. Some of the patterns and designs are exquisite. I much prefer to serve food on mis-matched crockery that is interesting and quirky rather than a matching dinnerset. Miss D cringes when we go op-shopping as I spend ages sifting through the plates, bowls etc.

I also follow the local facebook buy, swap and sell pages and regularly buy and sell. This morning I am going to collect 7 pair of ‘only worn once’Just Jeans jeans of various colours for $80. They are a mix of size 10, 11 and 12’s so will be perfect for my current weight and for where I eventually want to end up. I looked on the JJ website and a single pair sells for around $80. I normally buy my jeans from Target Country for $20 which are ok but dont really give the original Levy jeans look.

Have been so busy catching up on posts time has gotten away from me this morning. Better have some brekky and get stuck into my morning exercises.

Happy weekend everyone 😆

Minka, I saw Stan Grant’s interview with Robert Lustig last night too. I usually like his work but thought he was very rude asking a question and then repeatedly cutting RL off as he tried to answer. (The reason I can’t stand Leigh Sales). Nevertheless, the message that sugar is not a food but a food additive was strong as was the motivation for governments not to do anything about limiting consumption.

Fingers crossed that all your tests come back as hoped, Minka.

Great op shop haul Cinque, LJ and GDSA.

Cinque, I replied to your question last night but it didn’t post. I think it timed out and gave up. We’re just going down south on a nostalgic trip to a place where 7 families frequently went camping when DD was in primary school. Our group comprised 6 of DD’s classmates, all their siblings and the 14 of us boozy parents preparing increasingly impressive gourmet camp feasts. Plus our dingo. Back then I was eating and drinking for Australia. This time it will just be the three of us and we’re hoping our timing will mean complete silence and tranquility in the woods. These days, one must book and we can see that ours is the only booking!

LJ, unfortunately it’s not remote camping as it’s in a National Park and a drop toilet is provided (eeew). OH and I spent 12 months camping round Australia back in the day and only went in a campsite once – worst ever experience. The rest of it was brilliant, experiencing the real Oz. As you say, our joints are a lot creakier now but we have good gear. Minka, we have a three room tent! OH is chopping firewood as I write.

I was going to do my Wednesday fast as usual and I have planned a good family ‘fasty’ meal for the Dutch Oven. But then I realised I’d have to miss out on the cooked camp breakfast that morning so I’m thinking of fasting on Friday, the day we return. So, LJ, we’ll be able to compare notes on ADF as I’ll only have one NFD before my next FD. I wonder how tempted I’ll be to shovel in food on Saturday. Oh dear, that’s not setting a very good example for our newbies, is it?

Craftgirl, I believe others here have reported similar problems so hopefully you’ll get some tips. I was the opposite when I started fasting – a long-time insomniac who fell asleep early in the evening on FDs and slept soundly throughout the night. Nowadays, I’m used to fasting and the days/nights are like any other except that, if I’m hungry, I find it very difficult to sleep. I allow for a little protein before bed if my fast meal didn’t include any (just a spoonful of cottage cheese, for example). Exercise also helps me sleep. I’m interested in the sleep app though!

Thanks for your good wishes for the camping trip – the crazy thing is that we need as much gear for 3 nights as we do for 3 months. I hope you get warmed up over there! It’s a beautiful 28C in Perth today.

Thank you Thin and LJoyce. I particularly like the idea of saving calories on FDs for a cup of white tea before bed. I love tea and drink heaps – with milk on NFDs and black on FDs so that idea particularly appeals. I’m also going to check out the forums as suggested.

The sleep app is by Andrew Johnson. Search “With Andrew Johnson” online as he has a variety of apps on different topics. They’re available in different formats also. I started with the free one but ended up buying Relax + which allows you to pick different topics. I swear by it now and haven’t looked back since a friend told me about him in October last year. I even requested and received a pair of sleep headphones for a Christmas present. They look weird but are excellent and very comfortable to use.

Thanks for the info CG. One reason I’ve never tried anything like that is because I sleep on my side and change sides frequently so I’d wondered how I’d keep the earphones from tangling up/pulling free. I’ll check out the sleep headphones. Funnily enough, I’ve slept really well the last few nights.

Thanks Cinque. Fasting with you today. Looking forward to it. Anyone else joining us?

Yay! 😆

Happy Sunday all – a lovely day here in downtown Brizvegas 🙂 I have restarted 5:2 and after reading up on it once again and reading your posts I am motivated to give it another go. I have Osteoarthritis in nearly every joint (I think) had a hip replacement last year and looking at replacing my L knee in the not too distant future. I need to strengthen muscles and lose weight. Off to play in the garden – my fast days will be Tues & Thurs – looking forward to using the tracker. Catchya all later.

Hi

I haven’t been on for a while. So since Jan 3 I have lost 15 kgs. I am a little shocked about how fast the weight has come off. I have gone from a size 20 to a size 16. I can now get into a dress I wore straight after I had my first child. I am feeling great! I haven’t managed to start exercise much. I’ve had some on-going issues with childcare, studying and managing a family of 5. However. I’ve not fallen off the wagon. Trying to get a girl friend to do Fasting Diet – she’s done Weight Watchers but the weight has piled on and she’s now the biggest that she’s ever been.

Currently, I am doing a 4:3 particularly over Easter which is working well for me. Requires me to be extra organised for those 4 days where I am eating. As long as I stick under my calories I’m all good. The only consequence is that my hair is falling out and when my hair is already thin it’s a bit of a worry.

KGF

Hi everyone, and thank you again for all the great ideas. Fortunately after yesterday’s FD I fell asleep in just over 20 mins despite feeling wide awake and very alert when I went to bed. Hopefully the insomnia was a short-term problem and won’t be an issue again. I’ve also been busy reading the forums on hair loss while fasting because this seems to be a big issue for me so far. Hopefully again it will be a short term problem, although I think I’ll see my doctor about my thyroid levels. Kiwis I’ll let you know if I find any useful info on this.

I haven’t had any issues with waking during the night since I started using the app even if my tea at night contains caffeine, although I often have a rooibos tea at night (which doesn’t contain caffeine). I’ll keep an eye on this though as I may need to change my habits. Thanks for the heads up, Minka and Cinque. My FDs so far are only one meal at night (about 7pm after H gets home from work). Even though MM and MS talk about only needing 50g of protein on FDs our meals so far have been 50g of smoked salmon and 2 poached eggs along with a large salad. I also ended up having dessert of raspberries, blueberries and strawberries last night. I was still under the 500 calories, but only just. From about 4pm I start to feel hungry but I have water first and then find I’m not so hungry until it’s nearly dinner time around 6.30pm.

Has anyone here tried Fast Exercise by MM? I’ve tried to get the app but it’s not in the App Store at the moment. I want to start using it as I have Jujitsu grading coming up and I think it would be very useful in the 5 weeks I have to prepare. I’ll let you know how I go with the Fast Exercise as well as 5:2.

Hope the camping is going well for you Thin. I too find that camping for 3 days requires as much stuff as a week’s camping. 🙁

LJ I too like Yorkshire tea and agree about the other brands. Some are no more than dust and taste like it too.

Good to hear about your successes, KiwisGoFaster and hello JenWren. I hope to hear more inspiring stories of success over time.

Merry I’m glad the normal headphones work for you. I found my ears really hurt using them which is why I found the sleep headphones. The flat pads for the speakers suit my ears much better.

Happy Monday for tomorrow, everyone.

Good morning everyone,
I haven’t decided yet whether to have a FD today or not, it is meant to jump down rain tomorrow so it may be a better day to not be eating whilst stuck inside, talking myself into it now.
I have caught the cough and sniffles that’s been around, I didn’t think I would as this will be the first illness caught whilst doing fasting and feeling immune to all things. Maybe I won’t get it as the man cold that renders men into children with the carry on about it.
Craftgirl, I find eating late around 8.30-9.00pm on a FD helps knock me out but I do end up getting up a couple of times through the night for the dunny due to the amount of water drunk the day before.
I reckon I could develop a sleep app. with a recording of me speaking of my FD meals since December 2016, “1 x white coffee, 500g minestrone soup, 100g kidney beans in the soup” on Monday 12th December and then on Thursday 15th December I had “1 x white coffee, 500g minestrone soup, 100g kidney beans in the soup” the ears would prick up when I mention I add a coffee in February but otherwise I think it would work.
Anyway off for a non FD now.

Haha Joffy, what a fun sleep app that would be!

Wow KiwisGF! What a lovely result. Well done! Enjoy those size 16 dresses!
I just hope you find a solution for your hair!

Welcome JenWren! Cheers for starting again and good luck! It will be such a relief to get that extra weight off! Glad to have you here!

Another rainy day here. I hurt my wrist yesterday and what with that and fasting, I didn’t do anything else. Feeling very behind with things. But it was a good fast day, and I am now making chickpea pancakes for breakfast. My daughter and grandkids are going to visit, and I am hoping to fit in a document I need to write before they come. (Wrist is much better today).

Thin and Intesha, and anyone else who fasted yesterday, I hope it was a good one, and that you enjoy breaking your fast today!

Craftgirl, a food diary is one of those things some people find a really useful tool, and other people wouldn’t even think about. I am sure someone will have good tips to make writing one easy.
So glad you got a better sleep last night. I did too!

Minka I am going to try that morning light trick (she says, sitting at her computer in the dark corner of the living room!). Next!

Gday, so glad the bloating weight is going. Oh yes, uncooked cake mix! How we fought to scrape the bowl as kids, and loved our Aunty Edie who let us eat half the cake before it got cooked. No wonder I never liked packet mixes!
If you don’t want to eat it today, promise yourself the treat when you get to your next milestone!

Merry, well done with that sorting! I hope this is a good week for you.

Must ring up and organise my flu shot!

Now it is pouring rain again, I’ll go out and peep at the morning light at least!

Hi Craftgirl, I use myfitnesspal and would love to track my NFD (Non-Fast Day) calories there, since I would find it helpful to know exactly what my TDEE looks like divided up onto plates and into bowls! I’ve thought of tracking calories even for a day or two to get an idea …Though like you point out, it is fiddly especially when we consume so many home made meals. I’m chuckling as I sit and write, thinking how long it would take entering the long list of ingredients that went into the kangaroo curry recipe I cooked last night, especially since I usually end up putting in whatever vegetables I have in my fridge at the time when I make it, so one batch to the next is never the exact same calories! In the past I have kept an exercise book type record of what I’ve eaten (minus caloric values) and looking back, I remember how much that helped me remain more conscious about what I consume.

I have to laugh Joffy, since even my morning sunlight trick doesn’t help me when next door’s building materials are randomly flapping and banging in the wind and waking me. Your sleep app would be a perfect noise cancelling device for those! It also may subliminally encourage me to eat healthy minestrone soup on my NFDs!

Cinque and Thin, glad your FDs went well!

Intesha did you end up adding in extra FDs? How did they go?

Happy fasting to any who are joining me today.

I’ve noticed just how much stronger my appetite has been as the weather has cooled. On warm days I rarely feel hunger before early afternoon. Lately I’ve been hungry by 11am, so I’ve started making soups regularly so I can use them as the basis for lunch each day, including FDs. I’m also finding that the piece of fruit that usually sufficed as afternoon tea and also as dessert with dinner is not satisfying me so much – I definitely feel like more food now. Last year in winter I had so many issues with afternoon hunger that I switched my meals around and had my main meal at lunch time so that my appetite was better managed through the afternoon and evening. I might have to think about doing that again soon – it seems to be the eating pattern that works better for me in cold weather. First I’ll try the big bowl of veggie soup with toast or a sandwich and see if that solves the problem for now.

I’ve made a soup with sweet potato, carrot, onion, celery, cauliflower, oregano and red lentils, cooked with chicken stock. It’s thick and filling and it’s one of my favourites. I try to eat legumes about 4 times per week as my digestive system behaves better if I do. In winter I find adding them to soups is the easiest way to achieve this, although they do find their way into most casseroles and curries as well.

Craftgril – As Thin mentioned I have been a long time food diarist, but am gradually reducing the amount of recording I do. In 2013-2015 I lost around 50kg, initially with mild calorie restriction and then with a VLCD. From the beginning I used an excel spreadsheet to plan meals and I updated the spreadsheet where I made choices that were different to the plan. I tracked kilojoules accurately in the same spreadsheet and at various times I’ve also tracked certain macro or micro nutrients if I was trying to understand something. (For example I used this to determine how many grams of fibre per day I needed to control IBS symptoms. For me this is 40-50g which is well above what the average diet provides.) At the same time I was weighing daily and also recording exercise hours and intensity. I found it enormously useful at the time as it helped me see eating patterns (like late night eating) that needed to be addressed and I found that if I had to record everything eaten I was less likely to eat as much. It’s a lot of work but it was a safety net that I hung onto for a long time, even after I reached my goal weight, as it also helped me figure out how to maintain my new lower weight and it helped me work out what my TDEE really was. My dietitian has been slowing trying to ween me off of my reliance on this and over time I have also stopped weighing daily (now it’s monthly). More recently I’ve also stopped counting kilojoules and stopped working out how many kilojoules there are in everything I cook. I mentally have a rough idea of the kilojoules in just about everything so that’s enough, I don’t need more measuring and recording than that.
Food diaries aren’t for everyone. I found them helpful but they have served their purpose now and I’m reducing my recording as I want my approach to food to be “normal”, where I’m eating to my appetite rather than to a plan. I still use the spreadsheet as a planning tool as I find it helps me work out what I am going to cook when, and what needs to go on the shopping list this week.
I guess I’d summarise my feelings about food diaries as follows:
– Use one if it’s helpful and only for as long as it’s helpful.
– If you don’t understand whether your normal eating on NFDs is close to your TDEE it can be useful, but I haven’t had the impression that this is an issue for you (although it might be for your husband, given the lack of weight loss).
– If you are someone who snacks or grazes, it can be helpful to highlight just how many calories you are eating mindlessly (I was getting 50% of my kilojoules this way until I took steps to change this pattern.)
– If you don’t understand your hunger patterns it can help you to see them clearly and it can also highlight whether there are certain types of foods that are usually connected to overeating.

It’s a FD for me and despite the cool weather I’m going OK so far. I have a friend visiting for afternoon tea tomorrow so I get to have fun baking without consequences as she’s always happy to take home the leftovers.

Have a good day everyone.

Minka, I’m a retired statistician and my first impulse to just about any problem is “collect more data”. I also did much of the more detailed analysis shortly after I retired – I think it filled a gap with the elements of my work that I missed. I know most will think I’m nuts, but I love playing with data – for me it’s fun to take a huge pile of initially meaningless numbers & words and find the patterns and correlations that have meaning and have something useful to say.
As couscous mentioned, I also found it useful to have an area in the diary where I could link mood, situation, feelings etc to what I ate and when.
As for looking up kilojoules every day – I spent much of 2014-15 on a VLCD diet where I was initially only allowed 800 cals per day and then that rose to 1000cals – both hard targets to stay below. There really wasn’t much choice but to know the kjs in a serve of the meal I had cooked as it was too easy to underestimate. I did it for so long, that I now have the kjs for 100g of most raw ingredients in my head permanently.

I know the type of detailed approach that I took would not suit many people. For me it helped me not only understand both my normal eating and also bingeing patterns it helped me work out what foods alleviated digestive problems I was having. I used to have so many problems with IBS and now I have virtually none – due, I believe to my high fibre and high legume diet. I don’t think I would ever have figured this out without the records. I think it also helped me accept my TDEE for what it was as I had proof month after month of what I needed to stick to if I wanted to maintain my weight loss. Initially I was disbelieving and then angry, but once the evidence was strong enough I couldn’t fight facts anymore and had to find a way to work with reality.

Hi Minka – as to your question, I’m going to give you an honest answer which may or may not be appropriate for this website. Nothing I’ve tried has actually moved the weight as fast as the VLCD did – but it is really hard core and I never ever want to do something that restrictive again. VLCD diets involve meal replacement products which provide 100% of the micro nutrients need daily. They are only intended for those who are morbidly obese, either as a diet or as preparation for bariatric surgery. They are intended to move weight quickly. I needed to lose the weight fast so I could have knee replacement surgery, so at the time VLCD was a sensible solution. My GP was encouraging me to have bariatric surgery at the time, so as severe as a VLCD was it seemed the less risky choice to me. I ended up losing 52kg by May 2015, had the joint surgery, and then had the enormous challenge of trying to maintain my new weight.
I came to 5:2 after regaining a small amount of weight late last year. I had been struggling to keep my weight stable for 18 months. I did mange it farily well until last Christmas, but it was a constant battle. As I had a low TDEE and I was always tempted to eat more than I actually needed. I wanted to find a way to lose the few kilos I had regained and I also hoped to find something that would help me maintain my chosen weight long term.
So far 5:2 has been very helpful at getting the recent weigh gain off and I think it will take the sting out of a low TDEE long term for maintenance – I feel quite hopeful about this. It is a very different approach to a VLDC, and I also think that it is appropriate for a largely different group of people. 5:2 is so much easier to stick to and it lets me actually have a normal life. Because the level of overall calorie restriction on 5:2 is much more modest, so is the rate of weight loss, but it fits really well with my current and future goals. It was also a really appropriate approach for the small amount of weight I had to lose. To be bluntly honest I think 5:2 is an approach that works best for people who are up to approx 10 BMI points above the “healthy” range – perhaps up to 25-30kg overweight. (This just my opinion and is a generalisation.) Some people may cope well with slow long term weight loss, but I know how I react to weight loss, and if it was going to take me several years to shift the weight at 1 or 1.5kg per month I know I’d get disheartened and frustrated too often for my own good. VLCDs are designed for those who are morbidly obese or worse – most of those who I communicated with online for support while on that program needed to lose 50-150kg (very different numbers to most of the people who are on this site). These VLCD programs are so restrictive that they must be done under the supervision of a dietitan or GP. For the first 3 months on the program I had only 3 VLCD meal replacement products and 2-4 cups of veg per day (and 3 cups of tea). I lost weight quickly but it severely curtailed my life – it was almost impossible to have anything resembling a normal social life and the family nagging & sabotage felt like it was unrelenting. In the last 2 years my main goal has been to keep my weight in the range I’m happy with and to develop a more normal and healthy approach to food – this is a long slow process for me as I have many self-destructive habits that led to the obesity in the first place. I actually feel pretty good with the progress I’ve made toward my long term goals and am so much more hopeful than I’ve ever been that I will be able to maintain my weight long term – I certainly didn’t feel like that before 5:2. It has been the right approach at the right time for me, but I doubt it would have been the right approach a few years ago when I weighed 127kg and had to get my weight down to 78kg (BMI 35)quickly before the hospital would admit me as a patient.