skinny2014, I like your aspirational screen name, mine is aspirational, too. I’m in the US, 57 years old with multiple medical problems, started 5:2 August 17 2013 at 5’4″ and 157 pounds (162.5 cm, 71 kg., similar to where you’re at) and have lost 37 pounds (16.8 kg) in 37 weeks. In addition to doing 5:2, I have been walking a lot, going from an average of maybe 3000-4000 steps a day to about 10,000 per day now, and making sure that I don’t significantly or regularly overeat on non-fasting days. Doing daily calorie restriction, all I could manage to lose was about a pound a month, and I was hungry almost all the time instead of only some of the time, and as soon as I stopped being hungry all the time the 10 pounds I managed to lose in a year would go back on (I went through *that* cycle twice!). I think it did help that I told everyone I knew what I was doing, then I *had* to follow through 😉

Dear Skinny

It sounds like you have had a tough day. I wonder whether instead of a kick I might offer you some kindness. Life sometimes throws us curve balls. I am the same height as you and since being on 5:2 have lost 6 kgs over the past year. They say slow and steady wins the race and so I feel this is a lifestyle change rather than a race. Meanwhile my energy for life is up, my yoga practise is zinging and my endeavour to continue with an intention to stay healthy through 5:2 continues. I wonder what you have to be grateful for right now? I have another 10 kgs as my goal and I know I will get there. I am fasting today and finding it easier than my last one but have days when I feel desperate and log on looking for support. Well done for reaching out instead of into the fridge. As for fasting tomorrow? May you find a still quiet place where the answer can emerge. Jxx

Hi skinny2014, I’m gonna do kindness too. There’s no need for a kick and Discipline14 has it all right.

I remember when I first started out back in the dim & distant autumn of 2012 having 1 REALLY serious head ache, where I honestly don’t know how I managed to drive myself home and I was just at work, not at the gym. I had to just crawl into bed and sleep, couldn’t even muster the energy to eat or take headache pills right away when I got home. Once I’d slept for an hour or two I got up, ate my fastday meal and had a couple of tablets and I was fine. But that only ever happened once and was probably dehydration.

The one other bad experience I had was a few weeks later and was the first time I tried to do any real exercise (other than a brisk walk) on a fastday. I THOUGHT I would be best to eat my fastday meal first then do my 1 hour (2.6k) swim then come home and go to bed. BAD IDEA! I used that 500 calories up right away in the pool and came home ABSOLUTELY RAVENOUS to the point of having a splitting headache. I didn’t want to totally ruin my fastday and I only had half an hour before bed but I HAD TO eat something so I had a small slice of cheese (which I have since realised my body was probably craving for the repairative qualities of it’s whey protein). I went to bed and eventually went off to sleep having probably consumed 100 calories or so more than I intended that day but I didn’t consider the fastday a failure and the next day I woke up totally fine and not even a bit hungry.

These were probably just things that my body had to go through in settling into this lifestyle. I certainly learned my lesson from listening to my body on that 2nd (swimming) occasion and have since swum on a totally (or on non-fastdays just largely) empty stomach, saving all my fastday calories for AFTER my swim.

That’s what it’s all about – listen to your body, figure out what you personally need to do to make this lifestyle comfortable for you. Try things out and don’t treat a failed experiment as a personal failure – it’s all part of your journey.

THE most important thing is to get comfortable with the fasting and find what works for you timings/exercise wise. Once that is accomplished then you can start tweaking to figure out how to kick start a loss when you hit plateaus, or whatever other issues you may be facing.

Best of luck & don’t beat yourself up – it’s only 200 calories, just knock 50 calories off your maximum TDEE intake for the rest of your non-fastdays this week (if you really feel you want to) and call it good. 😉

Hi you sound like me when things go wrong , straight for the fridge lol but like you have turned to this forum and lovely ppls time and supporting words of encouragement to get me through

Tomorrow Is a new day good luck and don’t beat yourself up about today