Help please on working out my cals

This topic contains 4 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by sylvestra 10 years, 3 months ago.

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julieg

1:00 pm
3 Jan 14
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Hi everyone, Ive been on the fast diet for about 5 weeks before Christmas without hardly a loss. I didnt have a problem fasting for the 2 days but on the non fast days I binged so on an average I was only losing a 1/4lb per week if I was lucky. Over Christmas Ive been off the diet and gained 4lbs, (not good). However this diet appeals to me if I could just control myself 5 days of the week, I have 2 stones to lose Im only 5’3 and my tdee is 1610, but Ive worked out that if I eat 1610 5 days and 500 the other 2 thats 9050cals a week (obviously! sorry guys) but my worry is that the only other diet thats ever worked for me is 1100cal a day diet which comes to 7700cals per week so would I still lose if Im going over by 1350cals. Or would 2days@500, then 3days@900, then 2 days at the weekend @ 2000 be better if it does indeed come down to overall calorie intake, any advice would be appreciated 🙂

TracyJ

1:17 pm
3 Jan 14
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Hi jlieg, 1/4lb per week is fine isn’t it? If it’s consistant? Don’t forget this is forever, not the next 3 weeks. I’m pretty happy with that level of loss myself, although I do try to eat slightly less than my TDEE where I can, in order to up it slightly. I still have about 1 1/2 stone to go and I expect it will take more than a year (it’s taken a year and a half to lose 3.5 stone so far and the 1st 2 stone was gone by the 6 month point, so it’s slowed gradually over the past year).

Slow is good – slow gets you to treat it like a proper lifestyle rather than a diet, slow is sustainable and doesn’t leave you with saggy empty pockets of skin.

If you are determined though, then you do need to take into account that your fastday calories are ‘officially’ too high. If your TDEE is 1610 then your fastday allowance should be 402.5 calories. I do not suggest that you lower it from 500, as I certainly wouldn’t want to myself but you might want to take it into account and ensure that you are always under your TDEE on non-fastdays by about 50 calories to make up for it.

julieg

11:21 am
4 Jan 14
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Hi TracyJ, yeah I agree, I was just hoping for at least 1lb per week, but I guess any loss is good and I would like this to be a way of eating for life, slow and steady wins the race but just need to keep an eye on my appetite on non fast days still trying to get my head round the whole TDEE thing, how accurate it is, trial and error I think till you find what works best for you 🙂

TracyJ

9:34 am
6 Jan 14
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Yeah, it’s trial and error. The exercise categories are pretty vague really and might not represent what a person does week in week out. Just try to always be comfortably (but not too far) under the recommended TDEE and do exercise whenever you can. Anything that gets your heart rate up counts. Damn it…. I need to hoover more 😉

sylvestra

11:10 am
6 Jan 14
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Hi julieg……

my TDEE is 1607 so I eat a max of 25% of that (400 cals) on my fast days. My BMR is 1193 so I eat around 1200 cals on my non fast days. As long as I stay around those figures it works for me. Any exercise I do (I.E. extra cals burned) is a bonus. My exercise mainly is walking which doesn’t use huge amounts of cals anyway.
I use My Fitness Pal to track my cals …I’ve been doing this for a year now and it has just become second nature but I appreciate not everyone wants to do this.

You have to find the levels that work for you but stay above your BMR on non fast days.

I use this method because I lost the first 35lbs calorie counting at 1200 cals per day and I knew if I ate all of my TDEE on non fast days I would be more likely to gain than lose as – 7 x 1200 = 8400 (on calorie counting) and (5 x 1607) + (2 x 500) = 9035 (on 5:2)- I have lost another 10lbs on 5:2, making 45lbs in 10 months.

This is just my personal take on 5:2 so perhaps you could try different combos until you find one that works.