Hi all

After 6 months on the fast diet I’ve come to appreciate that I can control my weight and body fat percentage (which I check on Omron body fat scales). Watching that body fat figure come down has been especially satisfying (from 25.4% to 15%) and I believe it’s a better way of understanding your fitness than BMI alone.

Now… I don’t want to get all anorexic so I’m wondering what is a good sensible target to stick to for body fat? There’s not too much wrong with my figure now apart from some tummy fat and a tiny bit of double chin. So I’m debating whether to stick at 15% or target getting down to 12% or 10 or whatever is “optimum”. I’ve tried googling this subject and though plenty of info out there I don’t see any clear recommendations. My current BMI is 20.0 but I have very skinny bones (wrists like a ballerina!) so I don’t think that tells the whole story.

I’m male, 40 yrs old by the way and have lost 2 stone since April on this diet.

Hi all

Thanks for your help and in particular aitch51 that’s a very interesting link. I think it gives me my answer that for me a good target is anywhere between my current 15% and 12% – no lower. The thing about this diet is it’s so effective at burning fat that each of us needs to consider when to stop, and using body fat percentage to judge this is probably a good way.

It’s just a shame not to be able to go on with 5:2 indefinately but I guess Dr Michael’s “maintenance dose” approach of 6:1 once target reached is the way to go.

Ps thanks for your reply Nika. I see where you’re coming from with that, so hope to make fasting a long term thing for myself as I love the thin feeling.

Well I’m down to 13.1% now and still not sure where to stop. I wanted this diet to rid me of my belly completely, yet it still sticks out a bit. My visceral fat on the omron scales is down to 2 (from 7 at the outset) so I know my insides are healthier, it’s just the flat tummy I crave. Maybe I need some exercises to help the saggy tummy!

Some official guidance from the creators of the diet as to where it should be stopped would be useful, since as far as I can see the fast diet results in a continuous loss of body fat there has to be some definitive advice on what the “end” looks like. Michael says he switched to 6:1 because his wife said he was looking “dangerously gaunt” yet not all of us have a GP at home to advise on this.

Thanks Sylvestra, I had seen the link before but as the tables contained within it have no optimum figure I guess as you say there isn’t a simple answer to the question. Exercise is no doubt the key to a flatter tummy once you’ve shifted excess fat so I should think about that.

Right, I’ve thought about it, now I’ll go watch some TV instead 😉

Thanks Sylvestra. My reading of the body fat charts are that those “average” ranges reflect the average distribution of body fat composition across the whole population, so it doesn’t necessarily seem to follow that the middle of that range can be taken to be a healthy or indeed optimum level. Perhaps that would be the case if as many people in society were underweight as overweight – then the middle is ideal – but we know most people carry too much weight, so surely the optimum range is going to be below the average of the whole population?