Hey Carole! Welcome to our awesome looking forum 😉 Mutual support is what you WILL find here, I’m absolutely sure about that.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask! A lot of things have already been discussed on several topics though, so have a good look around the forums and use the search option – you may learn a lot!

Keep us posted on how you do, don’t be a stranger!

Well the first thing is to stop seeing them as “weeks” of such low calorie intake. It’s just two days out of the week! The other days you can eat to your TDEE’s content.

Whenever you start craving something, say cookies, ice cream, bread, whatever – just tell yourself “I can have it tomorrow.” And then not overindulge, but the next day just think “Do I still really, really need this?” And you might decide you don’t. But if you do, that’s OK and you can have a small piece! ^^

Oh and prepare for your day, so make sure you have the food ready to go for your fast day so you don’t have to torment yourself with thinking about food too much. Just keep yourself occupied with other things and you’ll be fine.

No problem 🙂 Let us know how you did!

@smithy158 – I posted this on another thread so I’m copying it here for you.

There are two lots of initials you’ll see appearing on this forum
BMR and TDEE
Both of these are calculated using your age/height/current weight and lifestyle
BMR is Basal (or Basic) Metabolic Rate – that is the amount of calories your body needs just to exist – i.e. the amount you would use if you lay in bed all day and didn’t move
TDEE is Total Daily Energy Expenditure – this is calcuated using your BMR and level of activity. It is the amount you need to maintain your current weight.
Ideally, therefore, we should eat NO MORE than our TDEE on non fast days. I try to stay below mine for the following reason
The maths are very simple – we need to use more energy (calories) than we consume
So output higher than input …we lose weight
input higher than output….we gain weight
When output is higher than input the body starts to use stored fat for energy
In the right hand column of this page, and all the pages, on this site you will see a link called ‘helpful site links’. Click on that and it will take you to a calculator where you enter your info and your BMI (Body Mass Index); BMR and TDEE.
There are also explanatory notes on that page to help.
Hope this helps a bit

@smithy …there is nothing to be ‘scared’ of. I don’t see 5:2 as a ‘diet’ – I hate that word as it conjures up the idea of a short term ‘quick fix’ which is not sustainable. 5:2 is sustainable for as long as you want it to be. I intend to do 5:2 till I reach my target weight and then move to 6:1 to maintain.

You asked what to eat on fast days – I found that to start with I had three small meals – totalling no more than my 500 cals. usually porridge made with 25g oatmeal and water and served with 50mls of skimmed milk (110 cals), home made veg soup at lunchtime (75 cals) and a small meal totalling around 300 cals for dinner.

I did this for the first 2-3 weeks until my stomach became used to the reduction in food. Now I have one meal in the evening and black coffee and water throughout the day.

On non-fast days you eat WHAT you like but not HOW MUCH you like – you should try to stay within your TDEE. There are a couple of apps you can use initially to record your fast day and non fast day calories so you can see exactly how many calories are in what you eat. You may be very surprised to see how many calories are in that small slice of pizza or cake 😀 My Fitness Pal and Lose It are good for recording calories (google them) – maybe try it for a couple of weeks or so till you get the hang of things.

You may find you have a really good loss in the first week and then not quite so much in the subsequent weeks …1-2 lbs a week is good!

Good luck…keep coming to the forums,there’s loads of help, support and advice here.