Hi everyone! I am (re)starting 5:2 today, and I think this time having a support network will keep me motivated!

I am 25 years old and 5′ 0″. I previously lost 55lb over the course of 4 years, but then put most of it all back on over the course of the last 3 years because I had completely shot my metabolism with over-exercising and under-eating. Once I started eating “normally” again and cutting back to 3 days of exercise per week, I gained all the weight back.

I’ve read that IF can help you lose weight without falling into that metabolic pit, so here I am!

Hi abitunGraceful and everyone,
Thanks for you answer Frida. I’ve actually started doing 36h water fasts now. This is my third week and I’m still getting used to going 0-calorie for 36h – but I can feel it’s definitely getting easier. I like the fact that I don’t have to calorie count on a FD.

I try to eat healthy on NFDs but hasn’t been easy. I try my best to keep to the TDEE at least. Cakes and biscuits are the bane of my diet! I’ve been thinking about going completely sugar-free for a month, but want to settle into 36h fasts before I do that. So, I’ll give my self another few weeks.

Apart from that I do my exercise 3-4x per week – running, TRX and also started hot yoga. My weight loss is as slow as it has always been – only lost 1kg since I posted last, 3 weeks ago?

Frida, I had the same thing! I used to have a 30 min hilly bike to work, but then my office moved to a new location which is only 10 min away on a flat road… I mean, I shouldn’t complain, it’s a great commute! But now I can’t really count it as exercise for the day.

I haven’t been to the gym in a little over a week, so I’m really looking forward to getting back to it. I don’t think I should have my first fast day in a while also be my first workout in a while, so I’m gonna wait until tomorrow.

Also, I had my bouillon broth around noon, and now it’s 3:40 and I’m VERY hungry. Can’t wait to go home and eat!! I have homemade vegetarian chili (250 cal per cup) and I’m going to make some sweet potato fries (150 cal for 1 small potato + 1 tsp olive oil). Seriously I’m like fantasizing about it hahaha.

Hey Frida, my first fast day went great! Well, aside from being super hungry from 3pm until I finally ate dinner around 7. But it was manageable, I kept myself busy.

I didn’t have troubles falling asleep, but around 5:30am I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep until after 7, which meant less than an extra hour of sleep.

I actually haven’t weighed myself in a while because my scale is broken and I’m lazy, but about 3 weeks ago I had a doctors appt when they took my weight and I have a follow up on Thursday so I can compare.

Hi everyone. New to fasting. I’m 30 yo from the US. I’m at 180 and want to be below 140. I’m not tall (5’4″) so that’s not a very ambitious goal. I did my first fast day yesterday. Pretty much stayed right at 500 cal, 510 to be exact. It was definitely challenging but totally do-able. Made it so much more bearable to think tomorrow I’ll eat as normal. My plan is to do a 4:3 schedule with M, W & F’s being fast days.

Hi Guys

I’m in my late twenties living in London and trying to shift some weight I’ve carried since high school. I’ve tried the 5:2 diet before and have managed to keep off the weight I lost off but couldn’t get back into the diet after my christmas break.

I have been back on it for a few weeks now and feeling good. My fasting days will be monday, tuesday and thursday (usually).

I’ve tried a bunch of crazy diets lately – worst being the dukan! – but I think 5:2 is the best fit for me. However, I struggle the most with hunger pangs when I get home from work before dinner, feel starving and find it incredibly difficult not to snack out!

Anyway I hope you don’t mind me joining your group. I feel that hearing your stories and posts will really help me stay motivated. Thanks in advance!

Good luck to all of you and hope to speak to you soon! 🙂

Hi Frida!

Thank you so much! It’s going ok but I think I’ll be a couple of calories over today unfortunately. Meeting a friend on thursday and so will try and fast tomorrow as well. All the best for your fast too.

That’s very cool you’re a vegetarian. I stick to low calorie microwave meals on fast day so I can count everything to the last calorie. There doesn’t seem to be too many vege options. What do you eat on a typical fast day? Apologies if you have covered this before!

It sounds like your metabolism is as sensitive as mine! As I’ve got a bit older all the weight seems to go directly to my stomach which is impossible to hide! It’s hard getting back into a diet after a relapse but loving this forum and reading up about it helps.

Thanks again for sharing!

Hiya!

Wow, I’m impressed you managed a fast on the weekend. I’m the same and find it much easier at work when I’m distracted. Although I’m still struggling with picking at little things when I get home. 🙁

5 pounds is amazing!! Congratulations! I think that’s one of the good things about this diet is that the consistent weight loss makes it all worth it.

I’ve managed about 4 pounds over the past three weeks. Weighing myself again tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Hi everyone,

I have now dropped all my vacation gain and I now only have 1 kg (2 lbs) left until I’m in the healthy BMI again! I really hope that with a good weekend and good week I’ll be there next Friday! After that I have my next goal to be under 60 kg (132 lbs) and depending on how I feel maybe a few more kg to be on a safe distance to the overweight BMI scale.

For the moment this feels a little too easy, but I know that at one point or another I’ll hit a plateau, hope fully that won’t bring me down!

I hope you all have had a nice week!

I just finished my second fast day yesterday and would love to join in! I gained about 20 lbs over the summer due to some health issues and my goal is just to fit into my clothes. Anything more would be wonderful. Thankfully I work from home as my yoga pants are getting a LOT of use. The first day was so much easier than the second fast day and I actually had a lot of trouble staying under my TDEE. I know it’s meant to be easy, but I found it challenging on one day especially.

Hello again everyone, it’s been a while since I posted here. Lots of progress and new additions I see 🙂

Frida and buzzkill – well done on your losses!
Welcome to the newbies – Healthyish.casandra and Chapelhillgirl

Weight loss is still slow and gradual for me. I’ve also been struggling with FDs lately. I only managed 4 x 36-h water fasts. So, I decided to take a step back and take ~300cals on a fast day. It’s worked so far – I lost >1kg in the last week and a bit!
My bust, waist and hip measurements have gone down again by a couple more centimetres as well as %fat – now on the cusp of being ‘ideal’. I try to rely less on the weight on scales and more on the B/W/H measurements and also how loose some of my clothes are now.

Chapelhillgirl – it this process was easy, I guess we won’t be here 🙂
What I learnt from experience is – listen to your body. If you’re struggling on an FD, take a step back and check with your self. I found that I’m much more in tune with my body since I started 5:2.
Though I’ve been fasting for more than 3 months now, I still have challenging days. BUT it does get easier and as you see results, you’ll be more motivated to keep going.

All the best and have a good week everyone!

Hi everyone, can I join? Also a girl, in my twenties and have lived in London before (now in Copenhagen) 🙂
Loved reading all your posts, seems like you’re really committed to this ‘diet’ and that you’re seeing a lot of progress. Wanna join because you all seem so inspiring and motivating! And having someone to share the diet with is just immensely comforting.

A bit of background: I started fasting in 2014, lost 10kg and went to uni that same year where I came to ditch the diet… (Stupid). I stumbled upon lots of new healthy ways of eating (quick fix diets as well), and as I went vegan (for ethical reasons though), everyone told me it was only a matter of time before the weight would come off…. Lol. They were wrong. I gradually gained weight – despite my best efforts, and even doing intermittent fasting at times – and have now reached my highest weight (that I’ve ever seen on the scale at least, think I’ve been heavier before though). I want to drop 30 kg in total, but my first goal is 7 kg – or 4 cm in my waist (whichever comes first) 🙂

So I’m back. I started fasting on 15 September and have done 4 fasts in total since starting again. Next fast will be either tomorrow or Thursday. Saw someone else in this thread doing Mon-Thurs, so might just stick to that 🙂

How long before you saw results? First time around I dropped 6kg within the first month but have lent my scales to a friend who’s desperately trying to gain weight (ironic), so can’t track that, and seem to have gained (?!) a cm in my waist, despite sticking to my TDEE and doing a bit of exercise.

Today is a NFD and I just have food on my mind, which is not unusual, but I do feel hungrier than normal.
Have you ever tried feeling so hungry it physically hurts? (I feel ridiculously privileged in writing that, as opposed to people who are actually starving, but you know…)

Anyway, I’ve chatted enough. Hope you’re all doing well, and to anyone fasting today – happy fasting!
A x

Hi Everyone

I’m on my second fast day of the week and weighing myself tomorrow. I’m really hoping i have achieved my first mini goal – to get below a certain stone!

Finding it pretty tough as usual but definitely staying under 600 calories and so better than nothing! Also been doing 10,000 steps a day for a while now. I’m not sure if anyone else on the forum does that too? I really recommend it because even though it’s light exercise it really makes a difference physically and mentally and more practical and achievable for some people than the gym targets.

Alexa5 – thank you so much for sharing your story with us. It’s hard not to look back at past mistakes and wish I’d started this diet earlier. I have a horrible habit of comparing myself to other people which can get me down but it’s important to stick to the diet and remember we’re doing this for ourselves.

I haven’t had any dramatic weightlosses through the diet – usually a pound or two a week but it’s nice to have a steady decrease on the scales. I really need to start measuring myself though!

Frida – don’t worry! We have all been there and still doing 2 fast days this week is exactly what the diet is. You never know what the scales will say but don’t be too hard on yourself if you haven’t had a loss this week. As you say, if this week didn’t work out, let’s look forward to next week.

healthyish.casandra and Pissupoosa – congrats on such great progress! I really am impressed by your with water fasts and exercies! I hope when I feel a bit healthier I might be able to step up my game too.

Thanks again for all your messages really is nice to talk to you all and not feel alone in this! 🙂

Hi everyone!

Thank you for the support! I had a good fast yesterday, managed my first water fast since August, which felt good! I stepped on the scale this morning and it shows a 100g loss, but that’s still a loss!!

I’ll try to eat sensitive for the rest of the week and hopefully I’ll manage better this week! I think the fact that I’ve had great weigh losses every week until now, in my mind I’m still hoping for them every week, which I know will not be possible!

Good luck to those of you fasting today!

Hi alexa,

The health benefits of oatmeal are way overhyped. Try and avoid any grain based foods if you want to lose weight. No bread, pasta, pizza, ANY breakfast cereal including oats etc. The glycaemic response of oatmeal would be very similar to sugar. The “complex” (I use the term very loosely) carbs would have already been broken down into maltose (two units of glucose) before you have even swallowed that oatmeal. If you want carbs go for veggies. But avoid potatoes.

What aspect don’t you think is correct? That said, no problems, everyone has their own way of getting to their weight target using 5:2. Just indicting what has worked for me. 46 pound loss over the course of one year. Been in maintenance since March. Slow and steady wins the race. Good luck 🙂

I never said to avoid carbs. Its where you source the carbs that’s important. Watch some youtube clips by Dr Jason Fung. Carbs locked up in cruciferous veggies is perfect. Tried finding the article by Dr Clare Baily (Michael Mosley wife). Do you think I could find it? She was saying the exact same thing Ive been saying since I found this forum. If I find it I’ll post the link. However, if what youre doing is working then no problem keep doing it. Good luck with it, 5:2 works.

Hi, again – let’s agree to disagree 🙂 have a nice day!

Hi Frida,

Ive got no problems with pulses. I eat them all the time. I tend to avoid baked beans though as most are in a sugar sauce. Most of the rest of what was in that list is 100% OK. When most people say they eat grains what they mean is they eat processed grains as in bread, pasta breakfast cereal. Oats, as most people have them, is a processed grain. You mention bulgar wheat in that list, no problem with that but I would be pretty confident that the vast majority of forum members wouldn’t be eating it as their breakfast grain intake. The vast majority of forum members on here are after weight loss. Agreed? If that’s the case all Im saying is that eating processed grains would be making that goal difficult to achieve. Can you eat processed grains and lose weight? Of course you can, but its going to be a lot harder.

Just read a study (full paper not a news report version) on the difference between brown rice and white rice with respect to blood glucose response. Nothing!! They produce the same response. Now if you follow the advice of Jason Fung about obesity then this is an interesting result. Not saying anything with respect to the extra nutritional value of brown rice over white rice but if your objective is weight loss then having brown rice over white rice achieves nothing.

Hi all,

Even with a really bad last weekend and Tuesday I manage to get down 0,5 kg this week, so I’m really happy about that! This weekend I have tons of plans thus I won’t have the time to indulge in sweets which is very good (or I have a dinner and a brunch planned, but better 2 meals of “cheating” than constant nibbling on chocolates, biscuits etc for 3 days!

Buzzkill, the water days are not as bad as they might sound! I started doing them in the beginning when I fasted on some really hot days and did not really care for eating, but with that said, some fast days I manage to do them and some I don’t, but I don’t beat myself up in case I can’t do it. Normally clock into 300 cal max on fast days, but with a tdee of 1600, I should only eat 400 cal on FD thus still under that (I calculated my tdee without any exercise to make sure I’m not over eating, even if I don’t calculate anything on NFD, just trying to eat sensitive which works in 75% of the cases which is still pretty good) With a 5 weeks of active fasting and 3 weeks of holiday (where I re-gained most of the first 2 weeks of loss in the middle) I’m now done 2,5 Kg, so this is working great, I just need to remind myself of that sometimes 🙂

Have a great weekend all of you! x

Hi Buzz,
Oh, no, I wouldn’t feel safe biking around central London either!! My flatmate used to bike from West Norwood to the Royal Albert Hall as his daily commute to work and he was convinced he was going to leave this world by being run down by an angry cab driver one day… that hasn’t put him off from doing it anyway, though! Mental!
And I would recommend Bridget Jones – it’s a good laugh and nice to see she’s grown a little bit older, although Renée Zelwegger is almost unrecognizable. There are elements I didn’t like as they came off as though they were trying a bit too hard. But all in all a nice film. 🙂

Frida, well done! 🙂 And I follow you on the nibbling… and I would really like to do water fasting, too, but whenever I try, I end up eating my full allowance anyway! Maybe because it’s getting colder?… But it is definitely working for you, I’m sure you’ll hit a bmi of 24.9 any day now!

As for me, I’m struggling a bit. Did my Monday fast all right, but went over due to massive hunger, a few dates and a tangerine (ended at 600). Feel like I’m just hungry all day, every day at the moment! But that might also be because it’s getting to be that time of the month, I just realised. Either way I’m really struggling with my FD today; it’s cold, I’ve got a million errands, no energy, and a friend is coming to dinner. Also, I’m considering major career and study changes, so the stress of that is clearly getting to me.
Considering moving the FD to either tomorrow or Sunday (my friends are having an engagement party on Saturday, so I need to get a bit of food in me before the wine…). It is highly frustrating as I wasn’t even very hungry yesterday so could have done it then. Still no measurable loss, but getting my scale back today! Yay! Finally I get to measure my weight. I can tell in my face that I’ve lost a bit at least, but the measuring tape is NOT cooperating…
X

Hi alexa,

No fasting for me today, but I understand what you mean by struggling, last night I wanted to eat everything, but managed to brace myself in the end and only had some homemade soup for lunch at work, I’ve started a new job and there are new people joining the project team each day, thus everyday there are lunch plans, so can’t get away with the water fast at the mo.. At least I’ve made it clear that I’ll bring my own lunch and won’t go out every day, imagining all the calories otherwise!!!

When it’s hard try to think that tomorrow it’s over and you can have a nice breakfast! I do that, and many times I’m not hungry when I wake up thus wait until lunch to break the fast!

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you that you’ll finish your fast day today!
x

HI kmcall19,

Welcome back! I’m doing both, have a spreadsheet where I track all my progress each week as well as noting what days I’ve fasted during a week. I’ve decided to manage this journey as i would track a project at work to see if that helps me to reach my goal weight more efficient. It also allows me to see trends in how I’m loosing weight/size.

Good luck with your fasting tomorrow!
x

Hit 590 calories yesterday – and essentially fasted from noon yesterday until noon today, only interrupted by a small tomato and a Coke Zero (330 mls) in the afternoon. Hurrah! Just had to document my success here as I have no one around me in real life, who’s doing the fast diet… So happy that I don’t need to sacrifice my weekend in order to get in the fast days!

Hope you are doing well. Enjoy your weekend! Xx

Hi all,

I’m 29, 5’8″ and 152 lbs. I’m getting married next summer and I want to loose at least a stone but I have always been TERRIBLE at dieting so I am very glad to have found you all! I’ve started the 5:2 this week and am in the middle of my second fast day (my first was Tuesday). Friday is proving really difficult as all I want to do is go home from work and have a glass of wine which I clearly can’t do! In the future I will try to stick to Mondays and Wednesdays I think…

My main problem is how boring I find the fast days – I love food and cooking, and spend the whole day thinking about food but eating really boring things like raw cauliflower and baked beans. Any tips to keep motivated and/or distracted on fast days would be appreciated. I used to smoke when I felt hungry, but I gave up smoking 3 months ago, so I no longer have that as a distraction technique! I have tried gum, but I think that makes me hungrier! Any bright ideas?

xxx