Jaybee78, not sure, to be honest. A bowl of porridge in the morning of FD worked ok for the three out of four FDs. It’s just the last one was a struggle. Will try to “investigate”.

NFDs for me until Wed. We are in Manchester for our anniversary and the German Christmas markets are on…

I think I might need three FDs before my weigh in 😀.

Thank you, that’s okay J-Ray. This is the first time I have seriously done fasting too, I tried it back in the spring but couldn’t manage to sustain it – lots of personal things going on in my life didn’t help, but that’s just an excuse. This time I seem to have got into the ‘mind zone’ and (so far) I am managing fairly easily. I have lost some weight – though not as much as my son who is doing the Eight Week Blood Sugar Diet (also a Dr Michael Moseley plan) but I have gone down 2 – 3 notches on my belt, which makes me feel good. I seem to manage much better if I skip breakfast and lunch, which I find easy on work days, and I really am not hungry. I don’t think it would be so easy if I shared an office with other people though, watching other people eat or smelling their food isn’t helpful. I am trying to skip as much carbs as reasonable, very, very little bread, no pasta, very small amounts of rice if at all and I only have potato occasionally. I have started having half and half potato and sweet potato which I am really enjoying – sweet potato is supposed to be much better for you. I am not having any alcohol or fruit juice.
I read about people fasting by only having an evening meal, so I guess it is an acceptable regime.

I went on Slimming World diet about 4 years ago and lost 4 stone, but 2 of those I managed to put back on so I probably have 3 stone (20kg) to lose . . the regime was easy at the time but I couldn’t fit it into my lifestyle permanently. So I am not as big as I have been, but I am not happy with how I am . . hence this November Challenge is a good way to get into the habit . .into a good habit, hopefully for life.

Interestingly, my son has reported sleeping better, feeling more alert mentally as well as more flexible and comfortable physically. Unfortunately I don’t always sleep well, but that’s because of lots of anxieties and concerns still hanging on personally. This should ease by the end of the year, when the final hurdle in my personal life should pass.

I seem to have rambled on.. sorry..

for the record . . . Nov 14 FD

Keep strong and remember only you can make these changes to improve your health and life .. we all have control of ourselves if nothing else.

Day 15 = NFD.
Holding steady with 5:2. Today marks my 9th month on 5:2; I’m proud and amazed that I’ve been able to keep this up so consistently. Slow but steady results, not counting the yo-yo and plateau periods (when I eat mindfully but the scales ignore my efforts). So glad I found this approach. And all of you too.

Hi ladies..

Day 13 & 14 – NFD

I am feeling very low today.. stuck between 157.6 to 160 pounds since 25th October.. the weight is just not budging below 157.6 🙁 .. I have added exercise to my routine.. am more active but I want to see results now.. No inch loss also.. I am glad to hear good reports from you all.. and will hang in there and just wait to see results!!

WWFH.. I have seen that if I eat carb/sweet snacks late night (my office is from 7-12 in the evening), then it takes lot of effort to break that habit.. even eating just 1-2 days in a row at that time is bad for me.. and when I make up my mind and just control myself for one day, I feel less hungry the next day and don’t crave those snacks late in the night. It’s just a matter of controlling my cravings for a few hours.

Meon – hats off to you for doing one meal a day.. you are very brave!

Have a great day everyone!

Thanks wwfh
My goal was to get below 60kg by December
Start weight is unknown right now, I stopped weighing about a month ago as I found it really counterproductive when actually my real goal is to comfortably fit one particular pair of pants regardless of what the scales say…currently 4cm away from my goal waist measurement.
This month
FD = 3, 7, 9, 14
All others NFD
Hopefully this is sufficient for the challenge

Morning everybody. November 12-15 all NFDs.

Back from my short break in Manchester. I need to burn lots of calories as the result.

Today is FD for me. The same for Friday. I also hope to have a reasonable day tomorrow, something like a light NFD.

@j-ray, oatmeal is a type of porridge and the one I eat.

Had it this morning and I feel very satisfied so far. I think it is pretty filling. Also brought one of those Skinny Glorious soups. Half a pot is only 119 calories. Which is much better than eating yoghurts for lunch, I think. Will give it a go.

Day 17 FD
Busy work day today so that always helps
HIIT session planned for lunch and hoping I don’t get hit by the excessive tiredness and fog brain that I had at the end of Mondays fast
I read this quote the other day and I don’t think it was this thread so I thought I’d share as it resonates with me, especially on a fast day.

The elevator to success is out of order. You’ll have to use the stairs….one step at a time.

Day 16: FD.

Quite easy too. Was not even excited about today being NFD. I think I will stay in the light mode all day. I need to lose a lot to be on track. Manchester calories, please burn fast!!!

Morning everyone..

Nov 15 FD
Nov 16 FD

My scales aren’t changing much which is disappointing, it doesn’t take much extra food (at the weekends) for them to go up but somehow it takes an awful lot for it to go down. However I am basically a ‘think positively’ kind of person and I have notched my belt up tighter (between 2 and 3 holes smaller on the same belt) and my waist feels smaller. I have taken some new measurements and it confirms this. So I think I just need to keep my head down and keep going.

Lany36 – have you tried some of the recipes in the 5:2 book? Are you able to ‘cook’ at lunch time? There are many vegetarian ones there and look online too, loads of ideas for a fasting diet. Eggs are always a good option.

Wishing everyone strength and focus for today . . .

Day 17: NFD. Had around 800 calories today plus an intensive zumba class. I would be happy with losing a tenth of a pound this week! 😫

Day 18 NFD NZ
Broke my fast at 1pm today so about 41 hours with 400cals.
Rest of the day was a bit carb heavy and possibly over TDEE but I’m not too worried as my fast was great and I’ll go lighter tomorrow.
Thanks for all the suggestions about food, i love omelette and cauli rice. I also eat Greek yoghurt and berries often on a FD so you are all very much on the same page as me when it comes to food choices.
Normally I do HIIT on my FD and find it good.
I went for a 70minute walk about 4hours after breaking my fast with my lunch calories today and felt really weird, almost out of body, couldn’t really feel my legs properly. Has anyone else had trouble with exercise after fasting??

Meon, I am exactly the same. Weekends are very challenging and eating nuts in moderation is never possible! I love raw nuts but the danger with them is that you eat too many. Considering that they are very calorific it is not a good thing!

Fasting today. Had my porridge at 8 in the morning and I am still ok at 12-45. That’s a good going!. Very nervious about my weigh in tomorrow morning.

Day 15,16,17 – NFD. 🙁
Trying again today.

Day 18 NFD
Day 19 NFD

Just watching “that sugar film” and the quote “our bodies can’t burn fat while insulin is dealing with all the sugar”. There is so much sugar hidden in the foods most people eat (only 20% of supermarket food is free of sugars!) that it’s like our bodies are constantly dealing with sugar. So having a FD would give the body the sugar break the body needs to be able to deal with the fat.

Day 18 nfd
Day 19 nfd

Ran a good 4.4 miles today, after a good easy 4 miles Thursday. I think this is overall a good time to work on long slow endurance before transitioning to higher intensity sprints, HIIT. Like you mentioned WWFH, part of getting adapted to fat burning mode. Long easy runs are getting easier and faster on less food! Non scale victory!

Tomorrow is likely a migraine day, I routinely get a 3 day migraine once a month. Maybe, hopfully, the fasting will help.

Day 15 NFD
Day 16 FD
Day 17, 18, 19, 20 NFD

Managed my fast days even with four days of wedding stuff. Also did my three runs for the week 🙂

Now for next week, which is also going to be a challenge due to being away for several days on a field trip…

Best of luck everyone!

Day 19 = NFD.
Fell off the TDEE wagon a bit today. Not feeling too bad about it (though maybe I should), since I’ve been consistently good for 99.9% of the days since starting with 5:2. Karlanz you must have willpower and then some — 4 days of wedding stuff and still stayed on track? My hat’s off to you and everyone struggling against the tide!

Day 20: nfd

@lany I have found trouble doing hiit on fast days, I don’t think I’m enough fat adapted to do so. I can do easy jogs, so am focusing on doing plenty of those, good for my running anyway!. A friend invited me over to do body pump on Tuesday, a nfd after my Monday fd, so will see how that goes.
I have some serious burning mouth/sunburned lips feeling going on, since Friday actually, so it started 2 days after my last FD. Anyone else experience anything like that?

Day 20NFD
Day 21 FD

So hungry today! I would have dinner early on a FD simply to avoid cravings but have to pick up DD7 in an hour so don’t really have time to cook my salmon. Sucking on a chicken bone from last night’s dinner to tide me over lol. I figure the cals woul have to be fairly low since I’m not actually eating it!

J-Ray, yes the target is added or refined sugars. But you’re right, I guess with any sugar n the blood (even from lactose) it is harder to break down fats. Which is why having an extended block of time without eating (as we tend to do with the fast diet) would have an impact on fat. The doco suggests that the body “holds onto fats” while sending insulin to the sugar and that’s why fat is harder to break down with sugar around. Another doco I watched suggested that there is a “perfect ratio” of fat and sugar in foods that we are naturally attuned to as it would help us store fat (considering we evolved from a time when food wasn’t always available). They used iced donuts versus plain glacé donuts to show that a much higher percentage of people reached for the glacé donut over the higher sugar iced and sprinkled donut, and then did fat/sugar tests and found that the popular one had that ratio. I know none of it is in the fast diet book, but I just find it interesting to look for links between similar food studies, especially as the fast diet is a scientific one. (Can you tell I am also a science teacher?!)

Day 21: FD

@meon-dweller (and all fellow evening snackers), it’s actually turned into a secondary goal to avoid the evening snacking all-together, which is a habit which turns on me when I get the munchies for the greasy/salty (not good for when husband goes out of town – I can down a bag of potato chips!) I’ve been successful so far just making a cup of tea, and if that goes, making another. Once I “break the seal” on evening snacking I think it kickstarts my stomach/brain into thinking it’s hungry again and I eat more than I need to.
Snacking is a funny thing! A couple years ago we went to Spain for 10 days, and it became quickly clear that snacking isn’t a “thing” there, and with the later nights nothing is open for breakfast. It seems the lifestyle there tends to be more towards an 16:8 without snacks in-between meals. You eat, and then don’t think about food until it’s time to eat the next meal, and then it’s a feast.

@jaybee78 that makes sense! I think it’d why there is this saying that floats around that you need to exercise for at least 35 minutes to get into fat burning mode – you need to get out those glycogen stores; but fasting is another way to do this. Interesting! I’m also a science-nerd, and not given to doing anything fad or psuedo-science-y, and look at the fast diet as more of a lifestyle change. In that respect, it’s fair to say I’ve seen reports that most of the studies done have been done on men and women have not reported the same benefits, but this is mostly anecdotal so I figured I would see for myself. Thus far, I’m on day 3 of a day when I would expect to wake up with a migraine, and for the first time in 1.5 years I *seem* to be avoiding the monthly migraine, so all things being equal if that’s the only benefit I see I’m sticking to it!

Hi guys.. I’m having a bad time at the moment. I struggled with my FD’s towards the end of last week, and have been feeling very low for the last few days. My scales yoyo over the same few lbs, any extra food seeming to up the reading but even fasting and only having an evening meal it doesn’t seem to go down. I took the view of not focussing about my food intake over the weekend, eating 3 meals a day, yes I had a piece of cake and a couple of biscuits, some bread at lunch time.. but nothing extravagant or excessive.. and as predicted I’ve put on weight again. I really feel I deserve to be going down on my scales reading.. but it just isn’t happening. Anxieties in my personal life have reared their ugly head again.. I am heading for a big hurdle just before Christmas which is preying on my mind. I have a lot to be grateful for, and I know that, but sometimes, occasionally things really get to me and life is emotionally challenging. I know my woes are minor compared to many in the world . . but of course we all have things that affect us. Anyway, just trying to unburden things here a bit and see if it helps. I am fasting today okay . .

update for me

Nov 18 FD
Nov 19 & 20 NFD

Keep strong people . .