My 5:2 journey starts here

This topic contains 2 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by TracyJ 10 years, 4 months ago.

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Churmy123

7:38 pm
24 Jun 14
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Hi
I have decided to give the 5:2 diet a go! I started yesterday but forgot to weigh myself. Bit of background about me. I am 38 and a mum of two. I have been overweight since my teenage years and have a pretty bad relationship with food! Last August I decided enough was enough and I needed to lose wait and get fit. I was a size 22/24 and weighed 22 stone. I joined Slimming World and started going to zumba classes. I continued with Slimming World until December when I decided to go it alone as I would rather spend the evening doing exercise that going to a slimming group. I have consistently lost week every week (apart from Xmas and holidays) and I got to just over 15 stones and a size 14/16. Over the past couple of week I have become a little complacent and have put a bit back on. I’ve just weighed myself and I weigh 224lbs (16 stones). So thought I’d give the 5:2 a go. My figures are as follows:

Your BMI is: 31.2
Your BMR is: 1792
Your TDEE is: 2778 calories

I do on average 5/6 hours of exercise a week – kettlebells, zumba.

I am going to weigh myself weekly and record the results on here and am going to log my calories on My Fitness Pal.

I look forward to reading your stories and tips 🙂

canukus

9:35 pm
24 Jun 14
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Good for you Churmy123. Try not to skimp. I found that I got depressed when I did that. I found that if I kept with the calorie count religiously and didn’t go under or over, I would have few urges and achieved good, slow, weight loss. People hardly recognise me after 15 months!

Onward!

TracyJ

12:49 pm
25 Jun 14
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Hiya Churmy123, I started out almost 2 years ago now a 14-16 and a bit (I didn’t weigh myself at the start either so I have to approximate) over 15 stone. That had been pretty much my level for at least 10 years and I’d been at least 2-3 stone overweight since puberty. So similar starting position to you.

I’d recommend that you stick to 500 (600 if you need the extra to stay happy & comfortable) on a fastday and try to eat on or a bit under (if you can) 2000 calories on non-fastdays. That’s what I did for the first 10-11 months on 5:2, as I’d never heard of a TDEE calculator before and hated the idea of exact calorie counting (I just do it roughly now that I have a good idea what levels of calories my favourite foods are anyway). I lost 3 stone or so that year, so it should work nicely for you too, especially as you sound like you’re doing a fair bit of exercise too (I didn’t change my exercise regime at all from before 5:2 until very recently).

If & when you start to plateau on the 500/2000 plan, then start looking again at your TDEE and working more closely to those exact numbers. By then, you may be close enough to your ‘goal weight’ that your TDEE number for your ‘goal weight’ is actually slightly more than your ‘actual weight’ BMR, so you can work to your ‘goal’ TDEE and shift weight while getting yourself comfortable with what you’ll be doing for maintenance once you’ve shifted all the excess weight. That’s the point I’m at now and it’s taking some discipline but at my (and your) starting level I had no problem dropping at least 1lb per week (although I’ve only ever weighed myself monthly).

Best of luck with it all 😉