Next gear…

This topic contains 17 replies, has 5 voices, and was last updated by Patricia86 9 years, 5 months ago.

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Patricia86

5:02 pm
8 Jun 15
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Hi everybody,
I just joined the forum, very inspired of all the success stories. I started with 5:2 last week, this is my 2nd week. I really kicked-off my exercise routine, started 6 weeks ago, doing minimum of 5km, 5 times/week (but once or twice I’ll do 10km or 15km just to mix it up)+ one spinning clas a week, and strength training (usually after my 5km runs). On average 6 work outs a week. The reason why I run so much is because it has shown to be the most efficient way for me to lose weight in the past-also because i get a kick out of it. But..no weight loss (need to lose 10 kg) although I definitely feel/see the difference. I am tired of stressing about the scale all the time, I’ll be sticking to the running 5-6 times a week, because the only thing that I know works for a fact is consistency! so no matter what, I’ll keep doing it. Sooner or later (together with fasting) it must, it just must, result in weight loss. (right??)

But now it’s time for the next gear…the diet.

I’ve been calorie counting for a a while, but now I’m getting much more precise with it, because exercise is not enough for weight loss (evidently). So 2 days of fasting (500 kcal) and 4 days of regulated (1000-1200 kcal) and 1 day of “normal” eating, although not binging. And 5-6 workouts/week.

Anybody out there that has tried the 5:2 with calorie restrictions on the other days and seen good results? I could really need some inspiration…

simcoeluv

5:13 pm
8 Jun 15
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Hi Patricia and welcome:

You might want to check out the most recent posts on this thread to explain why exercise does not help (and may hinder) weight loss: http://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-dreaded-plateau/#post-96113

Your post is ‘classic’ – please check this one out, too: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/exercise-is-dangerous-for-your-diet/

Good Luck!

Amazon

6:43 pm
8 Jun 15
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Hi Patricia and welcome.
All diets work on the same principle, eat less calories than your body needs and you will lose weight, so if you restrict your calories on other days that will increase the speed of loss. Having said that the average rate of loss for women on 5:2 is 1lb per week so it is a slow steady loss rather than a quick fix. Some lose a few lbs in the first weeks and then it slows and other don’t lose anything for a few weeks, so be patient and the weight will start to come off soon enough.
I’ve lost 68lbs and increased the rate of loss by doing extra fast days, and I exercise for fitness, flexibility and toning.
I’ve seen a difference in the way my clothes fit many times when the scales haven’t budged and I don’t weigh myself very often, once a week maximum as I am more interested in the long term trend which is downwards.
Good luck.

Patricia86

8:36 am
9 Jun 15
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Thank you for your feedback simcoeluv and Amazon.

Amazon, that is fantastic results! wow! good job! How many extra days did you do per week?

I completely understand the logic that workout doesn’t really help that much with weight loss but not sure I get the logic of why it would prohibit it? Unless you eat more of course 🙂 I mainly work out to keep my activity level normal, as my everyday life has become very inactive nowadays (long days at a desk, driving back and forth to work, and then mostly inactive at home). I mean, giving this and no workout, I can only imagin how low my TDEE would be…Also when I work out a lot I have much better dicipline with regards to my eating habits, because I get reminded somehow on how difficult it would be to burn that energy off.

I’m trying to figure out how many extra fasting days I can do without going overboard. I don’t want it to become too much of a pain and then quit alltogether. And I don’t want to go hungry that many days that I overeat on the non-fast days. Not looking for a quick fix, but getting results makes it so much easier to stay motivated.

Any advice on this would be appriciated!

fitnfast

9:01 am
9 Jun 15
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Just to jump in here real quick before work, your tdee is 90% living, breathing, digestion, body heat production. Exercise is a very small part of that. Simcoluv is 100% right.

I exercise for the muscle tone, cardiovascular health, and because I enjoy it! It makes me happy! But it is 15 minutes, 3 times a week. Weights one day. No more long hours at the gym.

What you put in your mouth and when you eat (or not…And this is where simcoluv and I agree to disagree!), is where your weight is controlled. I won’t go into it but only refer you to 2 things, which helped me and others understand what goes on in our bodies:

The book “Good calories, Bad calories”

And http://www.intensivedietarymanagement.com . Start at “Calories I”

Hope that helps!

Patricia86

1:15 pm
9 Jun 15
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Thank you fitnfast. I’ve been reading and reading (a looot of good material there). I’m a big fan of IF, been for a while, and I’m completely onboard with the insulin-theory (lack of a better word). I don’t snack and I don’t eat breakfast, so mostly on the 16:8, also because I’m never hungry in the mornings. On my fast days, I try my best to do one meal with 20-24 h fasting window, to be in the “burning” stage a bit longer.

I must say I did enjoy the quote:”exercising is like brushing your teeth, should you do it? yes, of course! is it going to result in weight loss? No.” 🙂

So let me ask a question which I’ve always found intresting: if you are on a calorie restriction on a daily basis, according to this article, your TEE adjusts (very fast) to this, which will result in you loosing a bit of weight at the start (if any) but then no more, with the risk of regaining the loss and more. Makes sense- survival is the primary goal, it always will be. so this means that JUST eating less calories is not a long term solution, right? why fasting is more efficient, due to the effect it has on your hormons, mainly on insulin.

Now for me (and please note I don’t have any basis for this, and I’m not saying that this is in anyway the right way), it makes more sense to fast for 24h, let’s say 3 times a week with very low calori intake, and have one free day where you can eat whatever you want. The remaining days will be normal calorie intake with low/none “bad carbs” (I’m a big fan of LCHF, at least my body responds to grains and sugar by immediate weight gain, not so much with fat). There might not be any truth to this at all, but it just makes sense to chock the body – keep insulin levels extremly low on fast days, but to prohibit your TEE to drop down dramatically, chock your body with good amount of food once a week (or so. I know there are some supporters of this, some even claiming that it helps/accelarates weight loss. But on the other hand you have the calorie in vs calorie out hypothesis..

so it all comes back to why does 5:2 work? is it because of the calorie restriction, is it due to the fasting, i.e. lowering insulin levels dramatically compared to the other days of the week…or is it a combination. Even if it’s a combination it would be intresting to know which part of it is more efficient, allowing one to do “more” of it..restrict calories more on the normal days, or eat more on the normal days and fast an extra day..

sorry for the looong essay..it’s just intresting to me.

fitnfast

3:04 pm
9 Jun 15
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Very interesting! At work now but will write more later….it all boils down to insulin. Insulin drives weight gain. Carbs drive insulin drives weight gain.

Fasting lowers insulin long enough toallow your body to burn calories but yes, I agree (and take advantage of, as well as others…www.leangains.com) to “refeed” one day a week

talk later!

diverdog

6:51 pm
9 Jun 15
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I’m a firm believer in having one day a week as a re-feed day. Actually I usually do one meal that’s designed to spike my blood sugar and insulin with lot’s of high GI carbs and sugar. The reason being is that it raises the fat burning hormone Leptin. Leptin is suppressed by constantly reducing calories and particularly if you are not eating many carbs. It’s also a great way to combat deprivation and have things on the no no list.

I also do not believe that lots of steady state cardio is an effective and sustainable way to exercise. Studies have shown that it makes your body more efficient at using calories. So you have to eat less or exercise more over time. I’ve lost 70 lbs of fat and kept it off for 20 years and I’ve never done more that 30 mins of cardio twice a week. The HIIT “cardio” on a spin bike I’m doing now takes 14 minutes. Most of my exercise is in the weight room done in a circuit. It’s 30 minutes of hell but totally worth it.

fitnfast

8:45 am
10 Jun 15
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On that note, and again, more info from Gary Taubes, the longer your body is in a fasted state, the more it will use stored fat for energy. It supposedly does this very efficiently also, and as it becomes used to it, it actually “prefers” stored fat to ingested energy. He goes in depth about how the cells do this…It is crazy, and so interesting, and the more I learn, the more respect I have for the human body!
The tdee thing always confused me a bit also. Maybe diverdog can expound on that for us. I know that the “typical” method of every day calorie restrictions dropped tdee, I think if I remember this correctly, because it still kept insulin levels higher, therefore the body still wasn’t using stored fat. The body just knew it wasn’t getting enough energy and so, like the power plant analogy, it slowed down production.

Like Taubes and others have said, these systems in the body are so finely tuned and unique and complex, that we can only understand so much of what happens. What matters to me are the basics, and the results (or not, as the case may be). If I change something up in my routine, and I start gaining, I change it back or tweak something else. And when I see the weight move, I try to continue that, naturally.

And we are all so different! What makes me gain or lose may not apply to the next person, and vice versa. I believe that is why all these eating plans and fasting schedules and exercise methods have to be tailored for each individual.

fitnfast

8:46 am
10 Jun 15
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Also, I was going to ask you how that measuring device measures water weight. Is it a separate number? Just curious. An how expensive way It?

fitnfast

9:10 am
10 Jun 15
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Another interesting thing I have found (and frustrating), is that it seems to take about 2 days for my body to respond to any changes I make. Or maybe 2 days before I notice?

Patricia86

10:09 am
10 Jun 15
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yes! complex is the word for it. I mean some things are facts, carbs equal insulin spikes equal fat accumulating (over time). But I read in the same study you suggested fitnfast, that only 23% of insulin variability can be explained with intake of carbs. Protein seem to play a huge role as well (especially whey and milk). This is where is gets intresting and also very frustrating, because insulin response is not the same as blood sugar response. So according to some studies, there are food that have high GI, resulting in high levels of blood sugar, but not a drastic effect on insulin, and (maybe even more interesting) foods with low GI which result in huge insulin spikes, which is really what we want to control, right? Seems as we haven’t been able to map the behaviour of insulin to the extent where we can draw clear conclusions, but again obviously some facts remain facts, carbs will increase insulin levels. This is why I think fasting is such an efficient way to go about things, it’s the only “certain” way to keep insulin away and get into the fat burning stage. Of course combining that with low carb(or ‘right’ carb) diet should give fairly good results for most people. But I fully agree, our bodies are so complex and different, so what works for someone might not work for someone else.

And speaking of differences and re-feed days with regards to leptin, I remember reading in an article that there is a huge difference between men and women when it comes to leptin, where women have much more (x time more – can’t remember the exact number)leptin than men, BUT they cannot access it, men have much easier access to their leptin and have a higher usage of it, one of the reasons why weight loss happens (usually) more rapid for men. How annoying isn’t that now 🙂

fitnfast

1:33 pm
10 Jun 15
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Just read that too! Absolutely not fair!

simcoeluv

2:46 pm
10 Jun 15
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Hi:

Dr. Fung notes that protein spikes insulin levels, just not as much as some carbs.

Leptin (the old leptin diet) does not ‘work’, as a diet, because the body has all it needs, all of the time. Research discovered it was the insulin that was ‘blocking’ it. So trying to ‘raise’ leptin levels is pretty much a waste of time.

Men lose weight faster than women mostly because their TDEEs are higher – https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/tdee-for-the-curious-or-why-dont-i-lose-weight-faster/

fitnfast

3:02 pm
10 Jun 15
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I used guidelines from the Leptin diet for a while, mainly the no snacking, nothing after dinner, etc.

simcoeluv

3:22 pm
10 Jun 15
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fitnfast:

TDEE drops while dieting because of weight loss, nothing else. It simply takes less energy to lug around less weight so your TDEE goes down. It has nothing to do with insulin levels. By definition, weight loss is mostly the reduction of stored fat, regardless of what kind of diet you are on.

diverdog

3:25 pm
10 Jun 15
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The “Leptin Diet” looks to me like a way to sell supplements that supposedly raise leptin. More of a scam than anything useful.

No doubt about it if you continue to fast you will burn fat even though insulin is low. Unfortunately you will burn a lot of muscle too.

There is no easy way to measure hydration (water weight) Scales that calculate BF% are actually measuring the electrical resistance of the body which is somewhat dependent on how hydrated you are. I can change my measured BF% over 1% by drinking more or less water or eating a salty meal. It’s a good idea to stay well hydrated and not worry about “water weight” When I use the scale I try to weigh myself at the same time of day under similar conditions so I get an accurate trend.

Patricia86

8:40 am
11 Jun 15
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No weight loss for me this week..ah!!frustrating!

Follow-up actions:
*Keeping at 5:2 and 16:8
*Switching my running to HIIT instead, and putting on some more intense weight training
*Lowering my cal intake during fast days to 400, to leave some room for error (in case I’m going above the 500 despite counting)

I think it’s amazing how people can fast the two days and eat completely normal the other days and still lose weight?!
I’m even restricting cals on the other days (excluding weekends) to 1000 to make up for a bit of wine and carbs during weekends, and still not much results. I guess it takes time..