Hi and welcome:

The way any diet works is if you eat less than your TDEE you will lose weight. If you arrive at your accurate TDEE, you will be able to figure out about how much you will lose on this, or any other diet.

Here is how you figure out your TDEE: http://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/tdee-for-the-curious-or-why-dont-i-lose-weight-faster/

It may be you have a low TDEE, which makes it hard to lose weight fast. But you can lose weight on 5:2 – anyone can. It is just a matter of how fast.

Good Luck!

Hi again:

There is no such thing as ‘starvation mode’. It is a myth. Check the FAQ on the top of this page.

The fastest way to lose weight is to eat nothing (not recommended). The basic rule is the less you eat, the more you lose.

Here are some tips for those just starting 5:2: http://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/tdee-for-the-curious-or-why-dont-i-lose-weight-faster/

Good Luck!

Starvation mode is a myth for short term fasting, but obviously not for true starvation (read about the siege of Leningrad), and probably not for long term calorie restriction diets. People want to lose weight fast, so they often enter severe diets that go on for a long time because they have a lot of weigh to lose. It’s no a myth that this has the potential of lowering your BMR and the body apprehends starvation.

I suppose its important to know whay the goal is.
And wether you’re able to exercise.

simcoeluv is correct that intermittent fasting will help to lose fat if you eat less than tdee. I try for 2lbs a week through both restriction and exercise. About 1 1/2 from restriction and half lb from exercise. However my long term numbers are less tha lb a week. Im happy though because it is slowly coming off. It does work, and just being good at the fast days is more important than the result of the first few weeks. Its week 52 or over time that is I would focus on.

Hi again:

The way 5:2 works is you go to bed, get up, eat 500 or fewer calories during your waking hours, go to bed, get up and eat to your TDEE or less – twice a week. On all 7 days of the week you can eat foods you want to eat – there are no forbidden foods, or foods you have to eat. For the first month or so focus on doing your diet days correctly (500 calories or less) and most everything else will fall into place.

Here are some tips for beginners: http://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/warnings-to-newbies/

Good Luck!

Hi:

Dr. Fung does not talk about starvation mode. He states that as people’s weight decreases, their TDEE goes down. That is an established fact.

Dr. Fung and I do not agree on the set point theory. In my opinion there is no evolutionary evidence that humans have weight set points, and there is no clinical evidence of set points, either. It is a handy, but non proven position to take when there is no known explanation why people seem to more often than not regain weight they have worked very hard to lose.

When you talk to people that have lost weight and gained it back, plus more, they almost all will say they fell back into the pattern of eating that caused them to get fat in the first place. It is not like they say “I lost a lot on a low carb diet, stayed eating the same low carb foods, and gained all my lost weight back plus more.” It is more like “I couldn’t stay on the low carb diet – I had to eat my bread – and I gained all my lost weight back and more.”

The question is why?

Are they incapable of learning how to eat differently so they won’t regain the weight? Do they lack willpower? Don’t they care?

In my opinion, of course not!

I think Dr. Fung discussed “why” later in his series when he speaks a couple of times about carbs being addictive. Current research is confirming that position.

If you adopt the theory that carbs are addictive, most regained weight is explained. A person goes on a diet, loses weight, goes off the diet and eats some cake or some bread or whatever, usually something they had previously cut out of or at least downplayed during their diet. The brain says “finally”, and asks for more. And after awhile the people are eating the same stuff that got them fat in the first place. Not because of an intelligence or willpower problem, but because of an addiction that has until recently not been recognized.

There is no proof of a ‘set point’, and there is just now starting to be research pointing toward carb addiction, so we are still in an area of theory and opinion rather than proven fact.

But the clinical proof is there is no starvation mode for fat people. The body is designed to feed itself and keep going as long as it has fuel in the form of fat, and protein. It is also designed to burn fat first in the evolutionary sense of feast and famine modes. While the body needs protein to survive, so some muscle will be burned, the body will keep burning fat first until it has so little left that protein starts to become the only option. That is when the very large metabolic rate decrease occurs because burning protein means burning things like the heart, which means death. The real starvation mode is the body’s last ditch attempt to survive. It does not show up to prevent an overweight person from losing a few pounds.

Simcoeluv, he has a NEJM study from 1995 indicating a 16% drop in BMR with a 10% drop in weight. That’s about three times more than the calculator on this site would predict and it certainly indicates there could be a physiological response to dieting in addition to simple reduction due to having a smaller body.

And Dr. Mosley had another Horizon show with “naturally” thin young people deliberately being overfed and gaining weight and losing it again quickly and automatically. Why is that exactly? They don’t seem to get addicted to carbs.

I’m not saying that carbs aren’t addictive or that the set point theory isn’t wrong, all I’m saying is that the physiology of weight loss isn’t “clear” and it isn’t clear why dieters usually fail to keep weight off. Since I’ve lost weight for over a year now, I advise people to fast and not diet between fasts because that was my first hand, successful, experience.