Is 5:2 effective if you have been calorie-restricting previously?

This topic contains 14 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by HannahT 8 years, 4 months ago.

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HannahT

3:52 am
23 Jun 16
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Hi there,
I have just begun 5:2, I am halfway through my second week! I haven’t done a weigh-in yet to compare to my starting weight but I’m looking forward to it…
I was just wondering if anyone has had much success doing this diet after an extended period of calorie-restriction? I have been eating approx. 1400 calories per day for over a year, with a little success for a while but no shift in weight for the last couple of months, which is why I wanted to try something new. I’m just worried that 500 calories on a Fast Day is not actually a quarter of what my body is used to – it’s more – so the fasting may not be as effective?
Does anyone have any thoughts or experience in this matter?
Thank you!

Amazon

8:24 am
23 Jun 16
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Hi Hannah,

How much weight do you need to lose?

There are many of us here who’ve tried calorie restriction in various forms for long periods of time and then regained weight.

Having said that, the best way to reset your body is by doing intermittent fasting. Keep to 500 calories on fast days and eat plenty of vegetables, some protein and fat eg full fat natural yoghurt and avoid eating too much suger. You will also benefit from keeping your carb intake low by avoiding processed stuff and just eating a small amount occasionally. The average weight loss for women doing 5:2 is 1lb per week so don’t expect miracles. What it will do is help reset your system so give it a couple of months.
It does work, I’ve been yo-yo dieting for many years and it has worked for me. I’ve still got some weight to lose but I’m not far from my goal weight and more importantly it has helped me to rid myself of most of my bad eating habits and I feel better than I have for a long time.

It does work but you need to make careful choices about what you eat and be patient.

Good luck.

bigbooty

2:53 pm
23 Jun 16
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Hard to know how much below your TDEE 1440 cal is without more details. I’ll make the assumption that it is below your TDEE. So if your not losing weight you have successfully reduced your metabolic rate or your activity has reduced (maybe without you noticing). I suspect that you have been eating foods with sugar and simple carbs like bread, rice, pasta, potatoes. All these staples will produce blood glucose spikes which will spike your insulin which means everything you eat goes to fat storage. So I suspect your hungry and have low energy as your body is trying its best to save what your feeding it. You want to reduce your blood glucose levels. Eat up to your TDEE on non fast days and eat 500 or less on your fast days. Get rid of the cheap carb foods. Substitute in veggies for your carbs, eat cheese, high fat low sugar yogurt, avocadoes. For protein have tofu, tuna, chicken, walnuts, almonds.

K- Lo

3:02 pm
23 Jun 16
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HannahT, 500 calories is a lot more than a quarter of my TDEE, but I used that higher number as my guide, and it worked. Please give us an idea of what your non fast day food consumption looks like. What kinds of food are you eating?

Theo527

3:04 pm
23 Jun 16
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Hello,
I’m pretty new to this plan but before this I would keep my calorie count to no more than 1200 daily. My fasting days are under 500 and my non fasting days I try to keep to 1500-1800 calories a day. I’ve lost 5 pounds so far and I’ve following 5:2 since the beginning of June. I’m not sure if that is the type of calorie restriction you were talking about, but so far so good in my case!

Good luck!

HannahT

10:39 pm
23 Jun 16
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Hi Amazon,

Thanks so much for your response! I have about 10 kg to lose ideally, which I understand is about 22lb?

I really appreciate all your advice, I’ve been kind of enjoying the fasting so far 🙂

To be honest, I don’t actually have too many bad habits around eating (I think), I generally eat a lot of protein and vegetables and not much carbs or sugar. Bigbooty, I really appreciate your advice but in actual fact I don’t eat any of the simple carbs you mentioned, which is why I have been a bit frustrated by how ineffective calorie cutting has proven to be. I have been eating a calorie restricted diet quite consistently for a couple of years, and I haven’t put any weight back on, its more like I lost a bit (7kg) and then plateaued for a long time. I feel as though my body is quite resistant to change even though I eat well and exercise regularly, so I’m hoping that 5:2 might shock it into changing because it’s different to the consistent calorie cutting that it is used to.

My TDEE as calculated on this website is 2469 calories/day. On an average non-fasting day I would generally eat something like
Breakfast: 2 eggs, with some cherry tomatoes, baby spinach and mushrooms
Lunch: vegetable soup, or a big leafy salad with a can of tuna and some chickpeas in it
Dinner: baked salmon with vegetables, or a stir fry with tofu. I include brown rice or sweet potato in my dinner around 2-3 times per week

It’s worth noting that I eat fish, but no other forms of meat, that’s why I pick things like tofu and chickpeas to get protein.

K-Lo and Theo, it’s so encouraging to hear about your success! Thank you 🙂

I really appreciate all of your replies, thank you again!

bigbooty

10:59 pm
23 Jun 16
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Hmmm that is a puzzle?? Youre about 7000 cal per week down on your TDEE and your not losing any weight? Something doesn’t quite add up. Personally I wouldn’t have the rice and potatoes but everything else is really good. Try something a little different. Try a water only fast for your fast days and up the calories on your other days so that overall its about the same calorie intake for the week. See if that jolts your system. Give it a try and see if you can do it.

HannahT

2:39 am
24 Jun 16
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Exactly, this is why I have been a little frustrated! That’s a good idea, I will try it for my fast days next week. Just to clarify, for a water-only fast can I drink things like green tea? Also, is that a fast from dinner the night before the FD to breakfast the day after the FD – so 36 hours? That sounds difficult, but I’m willing to try it!

bigbooty

6:09 am
24 Jun 16
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Yes its a 36 hour fast. My last meal is Sunday night at 6pm, fast all day Monday, have breakfast on Tuesday at 6am. Tea is fine. I actually have a couple of cups of coffee with a splash of milk, so maybe 100 cals all up. It does not bounce me out of ketosis. Drink lots of water. See if you can do one day like this before trying 2 days. Took me about a month before I stopped getting headaches, albeit they were mild ones. Took about 7-8 months before they became really easy. I now have to “force” myself to eat as I just don’t get hungry. Its actually worrying me a little as I don’t want to lose any more weight but still want to get the other benefits of fasting.

ETJ

10:54 am
24 Jun 16
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HannahT – Your TDEE sounds really high at 2469. You must be very tall. Mine is at 1753 and I still have 18 kilo’s to lose. I just water fast and yes, you can have green tea. I do alternate fasting and fast for 36 hours every other day. I find hot tea helps a lot. Make sure to keep your water intake up as well and take a good multi vitamin. I have lost almost 20 kilos and counting :)You need to find what works for you. If you can’t manage on water fasting, then try a night time meal. And weigh yourself. A lot of people wish that they had, to know where they started!

Amazon

11:08 am
24 Jun 16
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I agree with ETJ, your TDEE is very high.

If I were you I would aim for 1800-2000.

As I suggested before, maybe add some fat to your diet, natural full fat yoghurt, nuts, maybe a little butter on your vegetables. Fat has been wrongly demonised and our bodies need it.

Water fasting is probably very tempting but try conventional 5:2 for a few weeks first and give your body a chance. I’ve lost over 30 kgs without resorting to it and as I said before I yo-yo dieted for many years.

HannahT

1:03 pm
24 Jun 16
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I just recalculated my TDEE on this website to double check – it still came up with the same. I am female, 24 years old, 175 cm and 78 kg and I exercise 5 days/week if anyone would like to check for me that I haven’t messed up anywhere!!

I really like the idea of a water fast, but I tried today and by 6pm (after 6 green teas!) I got a serious headache, so had a small salad with some beans, which alleviated that quite quickly. Thanks again for everyone’s advice! It is so encouraging to hear about the amazing success you have had.

Amazon, I will definitely try adding some good fats. I’d love to, avocados are my favourite! What purpose does the addition of fats have in the context of this diet? 🙂

Thanks again, Han

Amazon

1:38 pm
24 Jun 16
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Hannah, if you are interested do a bit of research on low carb high fat diets, it is very enlightening compared to the eat more grains and low fat info we’ve been given for years.
Try this article for starters
http://www.msn.com/en-us/health/weightloss/low-carb-diets-actually-work-and-are-good-for-you-study-says/ar-AAhxXL3?ocid=spartanntp

Fat helps you to feel full and as a result less tempted to overeat and I can vouch for that.
I have reintroduced nuts, cheese, full fat yoghurt, butter and avocados back into my diet on a regular basis. I’ve also ditched skimmed milk for semi skimmed as I don’t care for full fat milk in my tea and coffee.

As for your TDEE, considering the average woman is deemed to have a caloric requirement of 2000 and aveerage man 2400, it seems high depsite the result of calculating it on this site.
If you’ve been eating 1400 calories for a while it shouldn’t be difficult for you to stick to 1800-2000 5 days per week.

Let us know how you get on.

bigbooty

1:56 pm
24 Jun 16
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Its not easy doing water fasts. Takes a while to do them and not get headaches. Some salty water helps some people. I like my coffee. Take some vitamin B, it helps liver function. It takes a while for the liver to ramp up its fat retrieval processing ability. Its good at storing fat not so good at retrieving fat. Takes time. Took me a month before I stopped getting headaches. 8-9 months before I found it easy.

Eating a bit more fat serves two purposes. Fats are a lot more satiating than carbs so they will keep you full for a lot longer. The other thing you want to do is lower your blood glucose and prevent insulin spikes. High insulin means youre storing what you eat as fat. Fat is the only energy substrate that does not raise insulin levels. Carbs will make it spike as will protein (to a lesser extent). So not all calories are treated by the body in the same way. Since you say youre not losing weight maybe try and tweak what your eating without necessarily reducing the number of calories. Good fats will also help raise HDL levels.

HannahT

8:35 am
8 Jul 16
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Hi everyone, just an update! Just finished my third week of IF, and I’m fairly pleased with the results.

Weeks 1 and 3 I did 5:2 and the week in between I did 4:3, I like that you can tailor each week to what you are able to do/what fits into your life quite easily. I tried water-only fasts twice, but both times got terrible headaches in the evenings, so instead I have been fasting all day and then eating an approx. 400 calorie meal for dinner on fast days.

After 3 weeks, and 7 fast days, plus my normal exercise 5 morning per week, I have lost 2.2kg and either 2 or 3 centimetres each from my waist, hips and chest. The only thing is though, my body fat has actually increased over the three weeks from 33% to 36%. Does anyone have any idea why this might be? There is quite an emphasis in the book about how IF shouldn’t cause you to lose muscle, and should cause you to lose fat, but this doesn’t seem to be the case for me. Would love any insights anyone might have, if they have had a similar experience?

Thank you! Hope you are all doing really well!