Hi Dani1986!

I’m also restarting the 5:2 diet with yesterday as my first fast day. I’m trying a new strategy with the timing of meals and will see how it works out. Yesterday went a lot more smoothly than what I remember fast days going for me, so I’m pretty hopeful. So, Dani1986, maybe it would be helpful to try something a little different on the fast days just to mix things up a bit.

Hope this helps!

I’m re-starting too. I originally followed the diet back in 2012/13 and lost a few stone. Stupidly I gave up and went onto more extreme methods such as vlcd and juicing. I lost a lot more weight but put it all back on.

I think if I had stuck with the fasting I would have kept the weight off.

I have already been following this for 2 weeks and I’ve lost 6lbs so I think it’s entirely possible to have success with the diet the second time around. Good luck!

Well FD #3 has gone well, even with all the activity today. Having a small amount of complex carbohydrate seems to make the fast day so much easier for me. Last year I tried a low carb diet and over 5 months lost about 18 pounds (8.2 kg), but felt rotten most of the time, so I went back on a more Mediterranean type regimen. It seems that going too low in carbs doesn’t work out well for me. After a couple of months perhaps things will change. Michael mentions in his book that he lost his sweet tooth. It will be interesting to see if that happens with me in a few months.

I’m really happy to find this thread as I can relate so well to what most of you are saying! We’ve been back on 5:2 for about 1 month. It was very successful the first time – I lost 5 stones in 2014, my husband lost about 1.5. I got quite skinny so we started doing 6:1. That slowly got ‘forgotten’ and we started cutting out carbohydrates instead.

Unfortunately, as we’re in our mid-late 60s and my husband is vegetarian we found that loading up every coffee with cream and eating a very rich ‘moderate carbohydrate’ diet has meant that my weight has crept back up by about 2.5 stones and he was getting a distinctive belly! We tried a 16:8 fast once per week but this does nothing, frankly. I think you need to do it every day, which we’d find hard.

A routine health check 5 weeks ago, including a weigh-in, meant I could no longer kid myself that my clothes were shrinking in the wash. I cycled home from the doctor’s thinking ‘5:2, 5:2, 5:2’. It felt like a relief, if I’m honest, and my husband was just as keen as me to get back to it.

The only difference, this time, is that our 5:2 meals are lower-carb and higher in protein (mostly from eggs and Quorn). Instead of missing lunch, we don’t eat until 3-4 in the afternoon and this seems to suit us better. I searched online for some new recipes which are all really tasty and have made fasting almost a pleasure. We are eating ‘sensibly’ i.e. low-carb but not too high-fat on non-fast days and we’re not (so far) feeling hard-done-by!

So far, it has worked like a dream. My husband’s belly has almost gone and I’m fitting into many of my ‘shrunk’ clothes again so we must have lost at least half-a-stone apiece, maybe a bit more. I now believe that low carb + 5:2 really is the way to go for both weight-loss and health – as long as you don’t overdo the fat or let the carbs creep up on non-fasting days.

All this is just as well as we’re off cycle-camping in France next Wednesday and I’m very happy not to be lugging quite so much of me up those hills!

Good luck, everyone on this thread – if you’re not already, consider trying low-carb – Diet Doctor is a brilliant site if you don’t already know it.

Hey,

I’ve found this feed really helpful! I lost 2.5 stone about 5 years ago and kept it off for 2 years then let it slip. A stressful move, and renovating a kitchen did it for me (lots of takeaways reignited my bad habits) I got to my current and pre 5:2 weight about a year ago and have been fluctuating with various diets but always bounce back to this weight or more. So, back to 5:2 for me. It’s releaving to know that it worked last time so all I need t do is keep it up.

I did my 3rd fast day yesterday and stepped on the scales this morning expecting to see some results, but alas, the scales said I’d lost 0. Have you guys had good results now that you’re a few weeks/months in?

It would motivate my loads to hear of your success!

Hi Refaster (and all), there seems to be a variety of reasons why weight seems slow to shift for some people. I would check your clothes – are they looser than they were before your 3 fasts? Also, I would suggest not weighing yourself too often – no more often than weekly.

Since I posted in August, my husband and I have kept up 5:2 consistently apart from during our French cycling holiday in August-September when we mostly missed breakfast instead and it was fine. We drank a fair bit of wine but otherwise stayed on our customary low-ish carbohydrate diet (no bread, rice, pasta, cakes or biscuits) but we eat pulses because my husband is vegetarian.

We are both convinced that keeping carbohydrate on the low side is key. 5:2 is both easier and more effective than 4 years ago, and it worked well enough then when we ate more carbohydrate on fasting days. Now, fasting seems really easy and we hardly notice that we’re doing it. We’ve worked up about 20 tasty recipes (vegetarian, low-carb, low-fat) for fasting days. Some will be familiar to everyone but get in touch if you want them.

We don’t own scales so I have no idea how much weight we’ve lost since re-starting 5:2 in late July but we appear much slimmer and our clothes are either fitting better or are actually too big now. People are finally starting to notice and we feel fit and well. Hill-walking and cycling are easier than before. We intend to stick with it this time!

@miriamw
I am also Vegetarian, May I have a few of your recipes?

I tried this diet successfully in 2013 but now need to work at weight gain again.

Have all the old tracker records of 2013 time period gone?