Hi everyone, did my three fasts for the first week, and managed three good tde days with a loss of 1 kg off the three gained over the three weeks holidays. Only two more to go. The recipe for the protein bars is from thegraciouskitchen.com Cinnamon and chocolate chip protein bars.

Fast day 3 of 9 Checkin:

All the excellent advice people are sharing is definitely sinking in, looking forward to today – a little chicken breast a some veg tonight for dinner. Drank my last soda 3 days ago.

Rowing today, and doing some weight training.

Bill.

Morning all from NZ, a bit gloomy here today however I have to put in a few contract hours of work today so looking out at cloudy skys isn’t too difficult after such a great day yesterday, shot 87 at golf, walked 17,800 steps, keep well within my TDEE for the day and straight into a FD today so planning all in place.

RIANA: Just read yesterdays post from you, very open and honest. If your Planning skills are strong then start your weekly/monthly Fast Day Calendar, it will help you focus on those days that you set aside for fasting. Also set a really strong goal for each month with a meaningful reward that will drive you to succeed for the month. Break down your long term goals into weekly/monthly small goals so you are always in touch with your progress, I’m picking you need to assess your situation and progress one day at a time to stay on top of the temptations that come along during your day to day life style. Once you get a very strong reason, or the WHY you want to achieve your goals then the means to achieve them, or the HOW will become easier. It’s the old story about “how do you eat an elephant” and the answer is “one very small piece at a time”. All those small pieces add up after a few weeks and once you see your progress this then is the incentive for not going backwards after all that hard work. It’s also great to have someone from SA on board in our group, coming from George you must be a rugby fan too, do you still host the annual Sevens tournament at George each year?

And just to finish this sad day in rock history:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGQo6zpVzt8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM0Pl80Zf00

Bowie and Gilmour in one of the classic duos, such a shame it won’t happen again

RIP DB

ps re the homemade protein bars, I found that 1 tbs cinnamon was too much and took it down to 2 tsps, hope this helps. Yes, its a shame that David Bowie died, his was a great talent, but he did live a long life, considering his earlier excessives. Its sad when stars you grew up with kick the proverbial, makes you realise time is getting short and to make the most of every day.

Hi Mrs:

Yup. This will show you what can happen: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/really-no-weight-loss/

Good Luck!

Morning all hope everyone is well. I started back last Tuesday and at my weigh in today I am showing a 1.5lbs reduction – long may it last! I have 3 weekends away and 2 birthdays coming up over the next couple of months so need to keep focused. Only 7 fasts and 3.5lbs to go to achieve my accountability for January 😀

Hi folks,
I have a “stretch goal” fast day tomorrow, following by my usual Thursday fast day, does anyone see a problem with having 2 fast days back to back. I’ll definitely be glad to get this over with 😉

As a newbie, I’m not jumping on the scales until the end of the month, I get the feeling reading some of the postings on the forum, that it can be a roller coaster of emotions.

Incidentally, my wife came home rather late last night, she found me reading a book on the couch with a woolly hat on my head, and blanket wrapped around me, the look on her face was priceless. I told her I was cold because of the fast day, even though the house temperature was 22 C. She’s going to do a fast day on Thursday, so that will help me a lot.

Bill.

Good evening all from a very soggy Edinburgh. It’s been not too cold a winter here so far – have only counted 2 frosty days and no snow as yet, perhaps had a bit more rain of late but not nearly as much as our neighbours in the north of Scotland who have experienced terrible floods.

Great to read all the recent posts and welcome to all newcomers! Action, great to have you back and in great form – but just one little caveat – the cry on the golf course is “fore” and not the number “four” as you have related! (I assume autocorrect took over?) Good!, put that to bed … Onwards …

Today I celebrate my first anniversary of this new way of life and have been looking back on an interesting year of reaching – and exceeding my overall goal. Given Simcoeluv’s earlier reference and Coda’s follow-on comments, thought some of you might be interested in hearing a little of my year-long journey to skinny (as Action puts it) so here goes:-

I started on 12 January 2015 at 148 pounds which for my height and small frame made me about 20 pounds overweight. My first goal was to lose 15 pounds by my holiday in Egypt on 6 April – this gave me a time-frame of 12 weeks so I knew it was doable as the expected weight loss, if keeping to the programme, is 1 pound a week, plus in the first few weeks can expect to lose 2 pounds a week. By my holiday I was 1 pound short of goal at 14 pounds (a whole stone!) After a fabulous Nile cruise consuming 3 meals every day I gained back 6 of those 14 pounds. However went straight back on track as I had another goal – to lose the gained 6 plus some before my next holiday in Spain in four weeks time. Result: I set off for my Spanish ‘boot camp’ golf school holiday having lost 7 pounds. This was an intensely active holiday and, despite eating three full meals each day and liberal amounts of wine, I actually lost one pound! So, by mid May I weighed 132 pounds – just 6 pounds short of my end goal of 126 pounds (9 stone). I had set up and was leading the Little Voices May Challenge and was spurred on to lead by example so, set the date for this final goal for my birthday on 30 July – all of 11 weeks away – easy-peasy I thought. Turned out not so easy as I hadn’t factored in my ever decreasing TDEE and the multitude of summer social events and numerous long weekend breaks! My tracker graph went up and down like a yo-yo and then straightlined (the dreaded plateau). I do admit to a bit of despairing from time to time, but with the force of Little Voices behind me I stuck to it … and by my birthday I weighed 125 pounds (into the magical eights!) – I had not only achieved my goal but exceeded it! Next thing was to assess where I wanted to go from there – I was now comfortably wearing size 10/12 clothes but my “waist to height ratio” was still above the recommended 50% at 51%,
and my weight was on the upper end of the recommendation for my height and frame (110 pounds to 130 pounds). I reckoned 110 pounds much too light for my age so decided to aim for the halfway point of 120 pounds as my ultimate goal and planned to achieve it by Christmas and “be in maintenance by New Year.” Well! … here we are at New Year and with yo-yoing and plateauing from August to December and a Christmas festivities 3 pounds gain, I am exactly where I was on my birthday 5 months ago!! Do I feel gutted? … No!!! I feel great!!!! Yes, I am still 5 pounds away from my recalibrated goal of 120 pounds but I am happy to have reached (and maintained) my initial goal of 9 stone – have even reached 122 pounds on a couple of yo-yo ocassions! I have already lost 1 pound with getting back into fasting this past week. I happily open my photo album and see a slim younger looking woman at my 65th birthday, at a summer family wedding, at golf prizegiving and at numerous Xmas parties. I am happy with my body and in a place I have not been for many, many years. I have learned a lot over the past year and now make sensible choices on food intake, do not fret if I go up a couple of pounds (it will be water weight), if I default on a FD I know I can make amends the next day. Most importantly I feel I have given my body the best chance to see me through my senior years!!!

I hope this is helpful and reassuring to newbies and those of you who are experiencing the frustrations of ‘being good, yet no weight loss’. You have to be patient on this regime !! My mantra is “This is not a race – it is a way of life”.

Love to all my Little Voices and best wishes for a great (slimline) 2016. xx Up

Hi Nirvana, here’s one for you to ponder, it doesn’t now reflect our WOL but sort of reminds us all what it was like before 5:2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb8I7UvvFz0

Hope it makes you smile 🙂 🙂

UpaGumtree what a great read, we have similar starting weights and end goals. Yesterday I weighed 151 pounds and my goal is to get to 122 pounds, the middle of my healthy weight range. It’s great to read a story like yours that I can relate to. The way we reach that goal will vary but the result will be the same, thank you for giving us such a good account of your experience so far.

Action I don’t know where you get them from, that made both hubby and I smile 👏 and I have a song for you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you…. I hope you have a good one 🎂

BillyB maybe if you include low calorie cup of soup or hot water and lemon juice in your fast day they might warm you up. Both options work for me, I don’t drink tea or coffee so I drink both of these a lot in the winter.

Hi All,

Congratulations to JFitzy, JayneLizzy and UpaGT on your successes. Those of us who are waiting to until the end of the month to weigh hope to join your ranks. TTL and MrsP don’t despair, keep focussed on the good decisions you make each day and have confidence it will come out right.

Tommy thanks for the tip about cinnamon in the protein bar recipe. I have to go get some whey powder and I’ll be ready to make those.

BillyB, it’s good to have company on a FD, and very kind of your wife to join you. Lend her your toque if she needs it!

Action, UpaGT beat me to it. I was going to razz you too, but for different reasons. It seems to me that last weekend, you were only entitled to yell Twoooo. And only after completing THIS week’s fasts could you yell Foouurrrr! 😁

Finally UpaGT, thank you so much for your lesson in persistence. At some time between now and my goal, I’m sure I’ll struggle and I have your story to re-read for encouragement. Thanks!

And if I eat on all my nFDs like I did today, that struggle is going to happen sooner than I care to think about. Tomorrow is another day. Up and away to pool first thing.

Good wishes to all the Wednesday fasters tomorrow! We’ll all get we’re going if we keep encouraging each other. ST55

Hi SweetTooth, I usually use low fat milk powder instead of whey powder, a dietician told me theres very little difference except whey powder is four times the price, it is here in Aus anyway. Rommy was the name of my georgous German Shepherd who died when he was only seven, so everytime I log in anywhere, I always think of him. I am an Aquarian and we dont like change or letting go, except for my extra kilos, they can take a hike and Ill be cheering each one along!!

I managed through my first fast yesterday. It felt empowering being able to get through the hunger. Fast two tomorrow.

Fast day 4 of 9 checkin:

Today is my Coda inspired “stretch” goal fast day – depending on how good I feel after today I might do an additional fast day next week too.

As many of you know, I’m a newbie to the 5:2 WOL, and I’ve taking some great advice from many who have shared experiences – I really appreciate that so much.

Additionally, I’ve been doing a lot of background reading on fasting, and researching the background to Dr Mosley 5:2 book – presently I will finish reading the book by Dr Krista Varady (the lady in Dr Moseleys’ BBC documentary – doing research on alternate day fasting – the basis for the 5:2) and wanted to share a counter intuitive tip from her book which i found very interesting(summarizing the highlights):

She states in Tip 1;

Weigh yourself every day:
In her study she encouraged participants to weigh themselves every day, and to average the most recent Diet Day and Feast Day weight. The scientific studies showed, after one month of weighing, participants had 3 extra pounds of weight loss compared with participants who didn’t weigh themselves daily.

She cites a 2 year study from Marshfield Clinic, which concludes daily weighing doubles weight loss – i.e. over the 2 years participants who weighed themselves daily lost more than double the weight of people who weighed themselves monthly.

People average 347 fewer calories per day when they weighed themselves that day.

If people didn’t weigh themselves regularly, 4.5 times more weight was regained.

There is a lot more information in the book, but I wanted to share this interesting tip.

The book is called “The every other day diet” – Dr Krista Varady.

Bill.

BILLYB that really is interesting research and it is great you are getting so serious about your goals and doing the work and learning more about it all. How did your wife manage her accompanying day?

I will stick to my guns and save weighing in til the end of January and maybe try every day weighing in February and see if it makes a difference. It’s good to change it up!!

Thursday here and I’m on day 2 of back to back fast days for this week (4th fast day of the January challenge). Yesterday was easy, not sure how today will run!

Billy – It makes sense because weighing yourself daily is a reminder of what your goals are and where you are in the process of getting to your goal weight. Also, any slip-up and unintentional gain is noticed right away and can be remedied.

Personally, I know that when I know I’ve been bad, I avoid the scale (ignorance is bliss!). But I should actually do the exact reverse – and use the numbers on the scale as motivation to get right back on the WOL.

Since I just got myself the fitbit, I committed all the way and got the weighing scale that automatically syncs your weight to the app everyday. It should arrive this week and I plan to weigh daily. So I really hope the results of this study will benefit me too! double the weight loss yay! lol!

First week loss was disappointing – 1 lb. Better than none, I suppose. Completed 2 fast days this week already and have one more tomorrow.

Morning all, blue skies and sunshine with 24 degrees here in NZ this morning, life is beautiful….

Thank you all for rectifying my golfing terminology blooper, more haste and less speed sometimes bites one on the bum.

I managed to negotiate my day of birth celebrations yesterday without too much damage to the goals. Thank you for all your kind wishes on here, much appreciated. We had a very nice family birthday dinner last evening and was totally spoilt with pressies and other stuff.

My body is feeling very second hand today however as I took the plunge and signed up with a local gym and had a first session with a personal trainer to set up an effective tone up plan. I can understand now how gym members build up a “hate relationship” with their PT’s. My PT, while nice and polite, has a definite sadistic streak in her and is determined to make every muscle in my body tell me about the years of neglect I have imparted on them and that’s just after the first day. No pain no gain I suppose….

Well done everyone with maintaining your FD plans, I’m doing my 2nd for the week today and it will go well.

Take care all and thanks for the inspirations with all the different insights as to how your journey to skinny is progressing and the methods used to get there. You are all amazing people

Hi – those of you that have done water only fasts – how did you get on in the first few? I wanted to try one to see how I got on. I’m also getting a bit complacent and if not mindful, in danger of turning things into just another calorie controlled diet. I like the idea of the fasting health benefits. Maybe water only is just too soon for me as I still have a lot to lose but did it Monday and felt really unwell by early evening so gave up. Overcompensated but quickly felt better and although now back on track, its put me right off. Stick to what’s been working methinks…

Water fasting only isn’t difficult on 5:2 or dangerous if you are otherwise healthy. I don’t recommend water only fasting before having adhered strictly to 5:2 for a minimum of two months.

Get your body used to the 5:2 pattern of eating and make the pattern a habit before you start tinkering with it. I don’t recommend water fasting for longer than 36 hours (normal 5:2 time line) without talking with your Dr. There are dangers with extended fasting beyond 3 days and for some people it can be less. I do one 5 day water fast per month but I slowly worked up to that over 6-7 months and I had my Dr as an observer daily for these as I progressed.

I don’t recommend water only fasting before having adhered strictly to 5:2 for a minimum of two months. Get your body used to the 5:2 pattern of eating and make the pattern a habit before you start tinkering with it.

The first few are difficult mainly mentally. There are all sorts of “reasons” that your mind will come up with for breaking the fast. “I’m so hungry I’m going to die” to “I have a full carton of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey that might go bad if I don’t eat it NOW.” Persevere mental hunger doesn’t last long and passes.

The physical symptoms of a normal 5:2 water only fast are really not a lot different than a normal 5:2 fast. You may feel colder than normal. As your body is not producing heat through digestion at all, all digestion stops at some point close to 12 hours without food. You may have the rumble tummy but this is normal and isn’t hunger, “true hunger” doesn’t set in until doing fasts beyond 2 days. Day 3 usually. The mental hunger is something different.

You may think on food more than normal. So you can have it after your fast is over tell yourself that and get on with it.

If you are feeling unwell and don’t have underlying health conditions it most likely is due to not enough water during the fast. At least 2 litres a day and I probably have more than 3 litres. Your urine should be clear and you should be going frequently, if your urine is in any way dark you need more water.

Another cause is excess stomach acid, as your system is used to pumping in acids at certain times of the day if you eat regularly scheduled meals. This will pass if severe and if it continues, consider having a light broth of less than 80 Calories and very low in salt. Ie A cup of reduced Sodium Campbell’s broth has about 25 calories.

You may get headachy. This may be due to dehydration or if you are a coffee/tea drinker it may be having no caffeine. If two regular aspirin don’t reduce the headache I would recommend breaking the fast and consulting a Dr. before going forward, there may be some other condition at work.

I don’t recommend pain relievers other than aspirin as some can be very hard on the kidneys and liver especially if you are in a dehydrated state. Aspirin will help thin your blood and may help regulate your body temp (there is no proof of this only anecdotal reports)

Many find water only fasts on 5:2 easier than trying to limit calories to 400-600 during the day. Me for sure. It’s far easier to have no food than a miserly amount and it’s a lot easier to make. Open tap fill water bottle.

It’s not for everyone. Do what works for you. Make the 5:2 pattern your own. When it’s a natural habit to you then you are the new you. Good luck and keep on keeping on.

I am a wind bag aren’t I. Takes me forever to say a little bit

Hi all
Thank you for sharing your stories and comments, I’m finding this forum really helpful

Rommy; Coda- another dog lover here. I too have kept German Shepherds for years. We lost our latest last year due to brain tumour and due to work pattern changes, decided not to get another dog at the moment. I still miss them and they are wonderful.
Sweettooth55 and Rommy5163: haven’t tried the protein bars myself but passed to a friend who’s says to give you a huge thanks as she was able to adapt the milk powder and ingredients to make for her young daughter who has allergies and its now added a lovely treat to her quite restricted diet
Quiet one: thanks for sharing- inspiring and informative,h lots of tips taken
Action: just uplifting and loving the upbeat tone. Sorry if I sounded despondent, just hitting a blip and remain determined – really- I know I can do this. I’ve done this so many times – lose a decent amount, feel better then somehow self sabotage or get lax and its all slips back on plus some. It is different this time – that’s why I’ve been tinkering to remain mindful but will keep it simple for a while.
In short ( and know this post has been anything but) – thank you everyone. The thread is definitely apt and keeping me accountable.

Some artificial sweeteners such as @Splenda (and there are others), will cause the same insulin reaction as if you use sugar. Not a good thing for many of us.

I use fresh or dried stevia and make my own extract or put the dried ground stevia in a tea ball to add sweetness. The commercial stevia I get in stores has been so processed that there is no telling what it actually is or what it does to the body. Tests with natural Stevia leafs do not show an insulin reaction.

A wedge of lemon in a glass of water is better for you though there are calories involved. 2 per wedge (1/8 of lemon)

Way to go chipmunk staying on track can be difficult after splurging during holidays. Congrats and keep on going.

I truly wish I could go a few weeks without weighing myself but due to the health thing I have to weigh daily, I’d like to not weigh myself for a month and be pleasantly surprised at the end of a month. Though it’s shown people who weigh daily while “dieting” tend to lose more weight. 5:2 isn’t a diet it’s a pattern of eating, I truly wish Dr. Mosley hadn’t called the book The Fast Diet.

Just the word diet makes me feel anxious as every diet I tried, and I tried lots, eventually failed and I always gained back more than I lost which was totally disheartening.

Diets don’t work! Changing my eating pattern to 5:2 is working and will continue as long as I continue doing my part. Plus I get to lose weight and I can have Chunky Monkey ice cream if I want. (and I do want it frequently)