The increase is probably not weight as such but just that you have more food weight stored in your body (without wishing ot be indelicate!) after non fast days than after fast days. You eat more and that food weighs a certain amount more until you get rid of it! I have decided just to weigh myself on the morning after fast days for this very reason 🙂 Don’t get disheartened! x

Maybe yours will take longer to start? Not sure. Have a read of the posts Michael has done about not losing weight, there are some good things there. Are you losing inches? This is not really about weight loss (which is a bonus of the diet) but about good health and if you lose inches you are losing fat! Try measuring yourself waist, hips, bust, top of thighs etc weekly.

Sorry but you have lost, you said yourself you loose 2-3lbs so i think your answer is certainly in what you are eating on non fast days. This isn’t a criticism but i think you have to be honest with yourself.You proved the fast works as you lost weight but the issue is keeping it off in the non fast days. Take a long hard look again.

Hello All

I am also struggling to lose weight at the moment. I tend to eat too much on my Feast Days, How do you stop this? Also, I enjoy my drink in the evening, I have actually started having passoa and orange juice, Could anybody tell me how many calories this would be? I normally like a port & brandy, which is very high in calories!!
I can’t find it out on the my fitness pal website. I would appreciate it very much if someone could give me some sdvice soon

Thanks

a read

They aren’t feast days, they are eat healthy and exercise days. This isn’t feast and fast, its fast and be healthy.

Have a read of the book again as i think you may have misunderstood the whole idea.

Good Luck.

Irritatingly my husband who only had a little bit to lose has lost it all with a bit extra. I’m still battling to lose any significant weight but find the following helpful –

Drinking plenty of water on fast and non-fast days
Eating plenty of probiotic yoghurt – plain, fat free on fast days and Greek, plain on NF days. I also take a probiotic supplement.
Making sure that I eat enough on NF days – it sounds counter intuitive but if I reduce normal calorie consumption I think my body goes into starvation mode and holds on to everything!
Eating healthy, non-processed food and reducing starchy carbs on both NF and F days
Exercising – 30 mins before breakfast 6 days per week on elliptical trainer, some weights, 30 minutes brisk dog walk every morning and anything else I can fit in.

Inches are going and clothes are much looser but the scales won’t budge much! I wonder if those of us who have struggled with weight for years and tried other diets have bodies that adapt to calorie restriction far more easily?

K.I.S.S… I love that! And yeah… Just wanted to reiterate the lifestyle thing… I’ve cut my alcohol consumption right down, from 3-4 of bottles of red a week (I know, very naughty) to social drinks 1 or 2 nights a week (maybe equivalent to just over 1 bottle of red a week). Lots of hidden calories in that lovely stuff!
It hasn’t been hard either, I find I just don’t need it with a meal or as a way to destress once the littleun is in bed anymore, which is as much a result of a choice I’ve made as it is a real shift in what my body now craves.
I think the misnomer of ‘feast’ day is a problem too…if eating habits were abnormal before one started the diet, changes need to be made to normalise those too! I think once you start making those small changes, your body really thanks you and simply steps in line!

Don’t get me wrong… Still got things I very much need to change about my lifestyle, the fact that I smoke being the main thing, so I hope I haven’t come across as preachy!!!

Maybe it is a lack of calories on NF days that is causing the problem?

Hi all,

I’m two weeks in to the fast diet and making slow progress (losing a pound on each fast day and then gaining back one over weekend) but happy with the way it makes me feel mentally. Feels like I’ve taken back control. I’ve spent last year in weight watchers where I slowly lost 21 pounds while feeling very hungry all the time. I have ten pounds to lose and I was wondering if I am eating too much on non fast days considering that I have been eating at weight watchers points level for so long.. approx 1400 cals a day. My TDEE comes up at 1900 cals but clearly if I eat anything like this amount I will gain weight given my recent dieting history. Can I presume that my non fast days have to be weight watchers 1400 calorie days and fast days the recommended 500 cals. I walk 5 km four times a week. Any help would be gratefully received,

Liz

Thanks for that Alex,

There really is a mental difference which I really enjoy having spent last year facing the dreaded weigh in and being told that it was a bonus not to have gained weight when I had spent the previous week walking and doing everything ‘right’ diet wise. The dreaded hangover from a life long battle with weight is that I weigh myself every morning and find this a difficult habit to break. I resolve to do my best to break it as I progress on the fast diet. This week I am experimenting with Mon Wed and Friday fasting to see if it will move things along.
Liz

Something very similar has happened to me on a number of occasions. I’ve been doing the 5:2 since the beginning of February and have only lost between 3 and 3.5 kilos, of which 2 have often been regained only to disappear a day later.

Although the very slow weight loss is discouraging, the loss of inches (clothes fitting much more comfortably and in some cases now too big), the increase in energy, the drop in BP to 115/64 and generally looking better is encouraging. I intend to help things along by preparing some of the more calorific but still very healthy recipes in Mimi’s fabulous cookbood on non-fast days.

Having been grossly overfed as a child – not junk, just good home-cooked food but far, far too much of it – I have always had problems losing weight despite healthy eating and regular exercise. I’m sure that if I wasn’t as careful as I am I’d weigh 25 stone! The modest success of the Fast Diet is something of a triumph for me.

I personally think you need to relax a little on your non fasting days, eat normally and not be obssed with eating 1300 calories and not eating breakfast.

If you are eating too little your body will cling onto the weight as it thinks it may not get food. Eat healthy and in moderation but dont count calories obsessively and allow yourself to eat that treat here and there, including some carbs. I think its a balance and you need to fast on fast days but ease up on non fast days. Also sometimes you need to confuse the body to keep it on its toes if it knows what its getting everyday you can plateau.

I am having a good response to the fasting, 2 weeks in and have lost 3.2kg, almost half a stone. I am also excercising (which I have always done). In the past I have barely been able to shift weight off at the start of any diet programme, any weight loss I had was extrememly slow.