Hi Amy, congratulations!
I wish I had got onto 5:2 when I was 33 years old and 2 stone overweight (instead of 58, and 6 stone to lose!).
I hope you find 5:2 works well for you. It can take a bit of work to sort out which days to fast, what is best to eat on fast days, and when. You might need to adjust as you go on.
And then the even bigger task, often, is to work out how to eat normal healthy portions of normal healthy meals on the non fast days.
It is a good journey to be on and will set you up for the rest of your life.

My biggest tip: work on making it a sustainable part of life.
All power to you!

Hi Amy,
I started this about 5 weeks ago. The first few fast days were pretty hard, however, hang-in there, it gets easier! I’ve found that I feel better about myself because this eating plan has helped with my self-control. I also don’t feel like I need food as much on my non-fast days. I have not been particularly careful on my non-fast days. I haven’t limited my carbs or alchol, or anything like that. Because of it I probably didn’t loose as much as I could have early on. However I have started to loose weight & cm’s in the past week or so. It’s all about learning about what motivates you. Personally I really enjoy my porridge & fresh, home-made bread the morning after a fast day (and a glass of wine in the evening)!
Enjoy being more in control of how much you consume.

5:2 works even if you don’t really change what you eat but just reduce it 1/4 TDEE for 2 days per week. It will work VERY well if you also decide to modify what kind of food you eat as well. Avoid sugar and simple carbs like bread, pasta, rice, pizza, potatoes etc. Avoid fruit juice at all costs. If you have fruit make sure it is whole fruit and have mostly the berry type fruit. Not juice and not dried fruit!! Avoid breakfast cereals at all costs. Avoid any grain based foods at all costs.

Get rid of chocolate, cake biscuits etc. Limit your alcohol to one or two glasses per week. Get most of your carbs from veggies.

Don’t be scared of butter, cheese, high fat low sugar yogurt.

I lost 20kg. It works. Good luck.

Hi Marina, it is really tricky with home cooking. I hope someone can give you a good way to judge the biscuits calories. The main thing to know is that they will be much healthier than packet biscuits, but they still are ‘sometimes’ food, so only have a couple a week for a special treat!

Marina there is no quick way to work out calories in home baked goodies, just adding and dividing!
You will need a calorie counter (book or on line) Then simply write a list of the ingredients, and work out the calories for each individually.
Multiply the calories per oz (or gram) by the amount in your recipe to get the total for each item. Then add all these totals together. Finally, divide by the number of biscuits in the batch.

You will probably get a shock as anything with butter and flour and sugar is really high in calories. I love baked goodies, but have lost 23kgs by largely avoiding them and as Cinque says, just having them as a treat. If you can wean yourself off them (apart from treats), your weight will come off much more quickly and your health will improve so much. And your ‘sweet tooth’ will be retrained and things will taste so much sweeter – try it! Good luck.

Marina I have been following 5:2 for almost 2 years and lost the weight over the first 10 months. I have dieted all my life (now 63) and had success with Weight Watchers etc but never able to keep it off. Fasting works really well because after several months, you really do change the way you eat. By having far fewer calories on your fast days and being sensible on non fast days, overall you will eat far less calories and you will lose weight. But it takes a while to get used to, so be patient with yourself. Keep reading these forums and asking questions. Just concentrate on basic 5:2 at first, then gradually tweak it to suit yourself. Remember to drink lots of water on fast days and have a bit of salt if you get a headache.
Home baking is one of my pleasures, I just do it much less frequently now and give any leftovers away. If they are in the house (or freezer!) I can’t resist them. Also, I don’t add as much sugar, my tastes have definitely changed. I never ever would have believed this and it didn’t happen overnight. On fast days I keep out of the kitchen! But I had to do something as my (arthritic) knees were so painful and I was needing painkillers all the time. Finally saw a surgeon and he told me I needed two new knees. By losing weight I feel 20 years younger and the pain and swelling in my knees has vanished, no surgery and no drugs!! I have taken up swimming (because I love it and hate any other exercise!) and can now swim laps for an hour and enjoy it. But all this took months, so be patient and start gently. Enjoy your home baking, but only on non fast days, and try to limit it! Once you calculate how many calories is in each biscuit or piece of cake, you will realise it is not worth if if you really want to lose weight. I am sure your weight took years to pile on, it wont come off overnight, but you will feel so much better – especially when you need to buy smaller clothes!

Oh Marina that must be so painful! I am not surprised you eat for comfort. I am certain fasting will help you regain control of your eating. Thats the beauty of 5:2, we mainly only have to be ‘good’ for 2 days! Psychologically it does not feel so restricting. Eventually you wont want to eat so much on non fast days because you will see it as ‘undoing’ your good work on fast days. Anyone who can give up cigarettes can lose weight!! I am in Australia and its very late now (11.30pm), so goodnight! And good luck, keep in touch. (This forum is international, so there is always someone awake to talk to!)

Hi Marina! I quit smoking about 5 years ago and it was sooo tough to do. Congrats to you on making that huge step towards good health. Hang in there…you got this.

Happy baking!

Hi again Marina, I am in Australia and it is morning now, so I am reading all the things that were written here while I was asleep!

I’m going back to your question about your yummy home made biscuits, where I said they are best as occasional treats.

It is true that 5:2 is all about fasting on just two days a week and then eating normally on the other five. But eating normally means different things to different people! What is a normal meal? A normal amount of snacks?

In Australia we have these guidelines https://www.eatforhealth.gov.au/guidelines/australian-guide-healthy-eating that you might find useful.

I’m a home cook like you, but I am putting my time into cooking really good meals on my Non Fasting days, and avoiding those high fat/ high sugar treats. I can say that 5:2 has worked really well for me, it is so exciting to be slim and look young after years of being overweight.

Best wishes

Hi Marina,

So have you picked your two days and actually started a fast yet? There is a saying, Tomorrow never comes. The best time to start something is now. So have you started yet your first fast yet?

marina, can you just get rid of the winegums, which are totally empty calories? The nuts are at least nutritious!

Marina I agree with K-Lo, just don’t have the winegums in the house. Good luck for Monday, don’t forget to drink plenty of water. Sometimes when you feel hungry a big drink of water will fix that! Sometimes I get busy and forget to drink and get a bit light headed or ‘headachey’ – water fixes it immediately.

First thing I do when I’m at a restaurant is to stick to the starters/appetizers. I do NOT order a larger main course. One, fewer calories to tempt me. Two, I find I have a smaller appetite. I just CANNOT eat as much as I used to.

I worry less about calories than nutrition. I look for proteins and vegetables … no rice, no potatoes and (except for last night!), no pasta.

When you go out for Chinese, order fish and steamed veggies.

Bigbooty, winegum = gummy bears. I had to look it up.

Marina, well done so far! Your willpower muscle will get stronger with practice!
One thing though, the reason 5:2 works so well for lots of us is that we don’t feel like we are deprived EVERY day. So still allow yourself a few things you like, eg have one glass of wine with your husband on the weekend. If you are relying on willpower every day, research shows that usually lasts about 6 weeks until it all gets too hard. Try to be sensible on non fast days, no binges if you can, but still enjoy them. Well done on avoiding the biscuits, twice! We find it is much harder to stop at just one if it is a carb loaden treat we have always loved!

Cheers to you Marina! What a great start!
I also agree with Nama. 5:2 works if you can make it a sustainable part of life. I love to plan a treat and enjoy every minute of it while I am eating (or drinking) it, and then get back to healthy eating for another week (or whatever), until it is treat time again!

Welcome JanRose21! It is exciting to be involved in this WOE. I am starting tomorrow. I had done JUDDD in the past and it worked but 3 days a week left me with some serious diet fatigue (which was the culmination of 30+ years of trying different diets). I have done a reset and tried to change my relationship with food, no dieting for about about six months. I have definitely seen a good change in how relaxed I am around food. I wish I had learned this when I was 20.

From past experience, I recommend not weighing every day. It can be very discouraging even when you are doing everything perfectly. There will be fluctuations to be sure. If you go up a day, will you “punish” yourself? We need to be patient and kind to ourselves is what I have learned. And more importantly over weigh ins, take and track all of your measurements. Some weeks will see no change in weight but you will see inches lost. That helps my motivation. Best to you!

Hello cactusrose, what does WOE mean?

cactusrose: oh I see, makes sense because that is the aim of the book, that we change our WOE. I can use it now that I know what it means :-).
Tomorrow will be the proper start of it all. This week I started to count calories as practice but I haven’t started to leave everything out yet. Mind you, I have not binged at nighttimes apart from last night I allowed myself some chocolate. To give up my sweet things will be the most difficult for me as I have done this for many years. So, I have to see how I manage tomorrow. I am nervous, I must admit.

Hi Marina,
I agree with everything cactusrose says. From my experience. I used to have a very ”sweet tooth'” but 5:2 has tamed it considerably. I still love sweet things but find most things ‘too sweet’ now and am very discerning. A moderately sized piece of home made cake is more than enough, once or twice a week. Previously I would crave sweetness, especially in the evenings after dinner and only the fact that this WOE allowed for it made it possible for me to start losing weight without feeling miserable. Initially I was still attracted to the sweet stuff (thought I always would be), but honestly over a period of months it lost its allure. Obviously, by having less, the taste buds slowly changed and became more sensitive to sugar – things I previously would gobble thoughtlessly became intolerably sweet. But it took months, so be patient. We are breaking life long habits remember. At first, as your weight comes off, you will be so happy that you will avoid carbs (sugars & starches) just to minimise calories, but eventually you just wont crave them as much. I would never have believed this if I had not experienced it. But don’t expect it for several months. This is a WOE for good health for the rest of our lives. Remember when you first learnt something, eg driving a car? That certainly took many months to become easy! This is no different. Good luck with your first week, you can do this, great decision!

Hi Bigbooty.
Just curious, how does the dopamine get released with the Victory salute? I always thought this was just a show of pride, an innate behaviour that all types of athletes use… I also understand that self talk in a mirror can be effective, just not sure of the connection of the physical stance and the release of a neurotransmitter… I enjoy your posts, you always get straight to the point and make sense, just wondering if this is research you have found?

Sounds stupid but it works. I was listening to someone on the radio describing this phenomenon. Apparently it is innate in all of us and is not learnt from others. The person was saying that even blind people will do this posture when they have achieved/won something. Something they couldn’t have seen others do. I also recently had a person that coaches people in public speaking do a workshop for some students. And guess what she told the students to do the same thing.

Do it and see for yourself. Get in front of a mirror raise your hands in a big V, and shout out loud. YEEESSS I can do this. If you don’t immediately have a sense of euphoria flood your whole body I would suspect that youre actually dead. You don’t need chocolate and sugar to get a dopamine hit!! You can get it without consuming a single calorie. Exercise also releases dopamine and it doesn’t have to be strenuous exercise. A nice upbeat walk will produce the desired effect.

Well done Marina! Great to hear you so motivated. This forum has been a great support for me, as well as an endless source of information and fasting experience. Lucky Tommy! I do some ‘doggy day care’ now too as my son and his fiance recently got a puppy, then realised too late that they felt really bad leaving him alone all day whilst they work. I only mind Jack one day a week as he is a handful, he has not quite learnt to walk on a lead yet, he is only about 4 months old. But I love dogs and my old one died 3 years ago and we have not gotten another as we are enjoying the freedom of retirement. So I get a lot of pleasure from Jack and he gets a lot of pleasure from my big yard and all the attention! It will be wonderful for you to start walking Tommy a bit more, good for you both!
Re exercise, I generally hate it but I do love swimming. After I had been fasting a few months some forum members encouraged me to get more active and I firmly resisted, knowing if I started something I did not enjoy, it would not last and I would feel angry with myself. Then I remembered that I did love the water, so eventually took myself off to a public pool to see if I could still manage to swim some laps. After a few sessions, I realised that this was something I could do and would enjoy, so I bought a gym membership at a private gym with a lovely heated pool. Initially I could swim about 6 laps without feeling I would collapse, now I swim b/w 30 and 40 two or three times a week. It is great aerobically and my joints dont get any stress, plus if I am getting sweaty I don’t know about it!
Let us know how your first fast went, keep up the great work!

Wooohooo Marina. Big victory V and walking the dog!! Way to go.

Great job Marina! I had my first fast day on Sunday, second one today, and today is harder. We just keep keeping on! Weigh in and measurements tomorrow.