oh Lisa, I really feel for you, please don’t worry about the weight loss, slow is good, and a 1 lb is 1 lb so well done!

do you have any hobbies, pets? when I am at home i pretty much do the same stuff too but i have 2 dogs so they need walking twice a day… i work in London and so all my mates are there, i moved here in Kent back in 2006 and to be honest i know very dew people…

about the sleeping,my instinct tells me you know the answer to your question, i really don’t want to come across as patronising and tell you you shouldn’t so i wont.. maybe you have worries, if you need someone to talk to then please do, a friend, a relative? talk to me if you like 🙂 let us know how you are, if you want i can give you my email and you feel like it then write to me, i don’t mind, i am a good listener…

take care and keep posting! 🙂

ok ……. I’m not medically qualified, so i will get that in first. Im not sure about doing harm but there is so much more that you could do (particularly in terms of trying to lose weight) I started the 5:2 at the beginning of Jan, and despite having exercised to a very high level 20 years ago, I had no desire to go to a gym or start exercising, but I was aware that something would be better than nothing, so Ive started walking – initially a one mile loop from the house would take 25 mins, now I do two one mile loops and it takes 33 mins – thats it 33 mins per day. If I’m busy then I take my phone and make calls as I go. But you have several hours to kill. You can walk/run, you can do sit ups, you can make up weights with home products and exercise that way. Walk up and down the stairs for an hour and so on
ITs been reported that you burn more calories standing up than sitting down, so put on the tv, stand up and watch a program or dvd and don’t go to sleep.
I would think that the lack of activity will slow down your metabolic rate and I would also think that you BMR and TDEE (see elsewhere on this site for that info) would be such that you may be consuming too many calories on a non fast day.
Lastly, and I’m not saying this is the case for you, you would need proper medical advice, but a lot of sleep can be a sign of depression and depression is often present in those who are overweight. The fact that you say you are alone (lonely?) and ‘desperate;y’ trying to lose weight indicates that you may be a candidate for depression. Even walking in fresh air can lift one’s mood so its worth considering.
Good luck.

and you CAN do it !

Question is: if you were at an ideal weight, would that change your routine? What do you want to do when you are slimmer? I think some of the suggestions of seeing your GP is necessary. You don’t have to be alone. Do not isolate yourself further. It may seem that there is no hope but there is. Just do it. Do not wait for motivation or over-think this, make an appointment now. Just talking and discussing option will be a great starting point. If you have been diagnosed before, then go back and get more support or a different treatment plan. Know that you have options. But lying in bed is not!!! Best of luck.

Lisa – This exact query has been raised numerous times before. Some people just don’t get the evidence that anything is happening via the scales to begin with. It doesn’t mean that nothing is happening. The fasting aspect of 5:2 targets any visceral fat you have first (so it may be munching its way through pockets of fat which are encasing your heart & lungs etc.) while at the same time helping to convert fat into muscle (which weighs more than the fat it replaces).

It depends how big you were to start with, what kind of exercise you do, what food you generally eat and your individual body’s history. If a person has been filling themselves with rubbish for years on end and gradually wrecked their metabolism then it will take a fair while for the body to recover enough to respond to a new way of life.

You can see from all the personal stories throughout this site that this lifestyle DOES work, it just might take a while to get going on the old fashioned scales. There was one submitter a few days ago who was complaining at only having lost 1lb, despite the fact that they had wizzy sci-fi type scales that actually told them in plain English that they’d had a massive body fat reduction over the same period. That person was converting fat to muscle which was why there was no ‘weight’ loss.

I didn’t weigh myself for the 1st 2 months on this plan. I had never really expected to lose more than a bit of visceral fat so I didn’t see the point until I eventually noticed that my trousers were starting to sit better. By the time I weighed myself I’d lost somewhere between 14-18lb but I hardly looked any different. Other than my lovely new clear soft skin and the lack of eczema.

1 and a half years on I’ve lost about 50lb but it gets more and more gradual as I get closer to my goal weight & that’s fine. This lifestyle is good for me and sustainable and makes me feel good about myself, it’s something that I could and would do anyway now, even if I totally stopped losing weight. The health benefits and the feeling of strength and control that it gives me are worth doing just for themselves.

I hope you find your way past this slump and manage to find those benefits for yourself too. Try just going for a half hour/hour walk on a fastday before you eat anything. That always gave me a boost and made me feel like I could take on the world when I was just starting out. Good luck.

Cheers Angie – Maybe we need to keep this one bumped to the top as it seems to be most newbies’ first question? 😉

Good idea TracyJ!!

😉

Lisa are you still on the forum ? hope so. All the advice about getting out and about may have felt overwhelming for you, it’s ok honey if that’s the case and maybe it’s smaller steps that would work for you: a short walk at midday, an hour at the local library, going to a cafe and having a cuppa.

please let us know how you are