Hi everybody, looking to lose 20 lbs and sick of never being succesful on diets. Looking for someone to start the year off right with me. Shooting for a Monday and Wednesday fast!
This topic contains 396 replies, has 40 voices, and was last updated by Jilly R 8 years, 8 months ago.
Hi suziequeue, I’ll join you in the new year. I have 20 lbs to lose too-unless I put on another lb or 2 at the last parties of the year.
I am back to work tomorrow so planning to take all the chocolates and Xmas cookies in to the office to share with staff and clients so I can minimize some of the self inflicted damage
Pam
Hi Suzie, I’ll fast on Mondays and Wednesdays too as those are my long days at work so less opportunity to graze.
Just got in from a house party where I stuck to soda water with cranberry juice splash, ,tasty but not too damaging. I am very motivated as overindulgence the last 10 days has all my clothes feeling tight and binding!
Spending some time this evening thinking of distractions and rewards for fast days and for the expected weight loss.
I am in vancouver Canada. First white xmas in years!
Pam
Hello all, I will also be starting on Monday. I did this last year and lost 1 1/2 stone. Went back to my bad old ways in September and put 1 stone back on! This time I’m hoping to get to goal and then fast for 1 day a week to stay at goal. Good luck everybody. The first 2 weeks are the worst and then it gets easier 😀
Hi all. I also have 20 lbs to lose. Aiming for Mon / Thursday, but kicking off today! I had to buy new trousers for work, next size up….urghh. I can foresee sizing up again next Xmas if I don’t get this under control! Today will be ok but challenge will be to stay in the game on Monday. Good luck everybody xx
Hi suzie, please share your liver cleanse . . .I for one could use that too!
I am starting today not fasting, but staying in my tdee. Will do a fast day tommorrow, then every mon/wed.
I threw out the remainder of the Xmas baking and goodies yesterday as I was mindlessly eating it, not even enjoying it anymore.
Ski trip planned for mid Feb and can’t do up my ski pants!!!! Will try those on every week and plan to fit into those by next month.
So here we go katie,Kim,Mrs pp,jenn,lia,suzie a new year and a new start. I’m sure with group determination and support we can all shed these last 20 lbs.
Pam
Hello and Happy New Year my dears!
I am going to be doing Monday/Thursday too, starting the 4th! I have had a bit of a fling with 5:2 about 2 years ago but i admit to being not ‘fully committed’. This time its different.
I want to loose about a stone and a half but also i’m particularly interested in fasting’s potential to improve auto-immune issues like nightmare psoriasis! So am looking at this as a life style change to be continued indefinitely.
I am also doing a dry January, which currently sounds great because i am hungover from last nights celebrations but i know that it will be a real challenge later on.
Anyway, i’m very pleased to have stumbled across this thread and meet you all. I have a good feeling about 2016. xxx
Day 1 ….. has been going well, just drinks and a few veggies. But now getting to that stage of the evening when my mind starts coming up with lots of reasons for a sandwich and a biscuit! Hopefully at this point, knowing I’m not the only one doing this will help me stick it out. I guess this may take a little time to get used to! Today is a bit of a trial run, though I know from past efforts that the evenings are tricky. Off for a walk in a minute, wintry wet weather and all….!
I’m doing a dry January too…starting Sunday lol
I love food & wine…a little too much so I believe the 5:2 will work well for me.
Evenings are hardest (I’ve done this before only lasted 5weeks but it worked!), I saved a few calories (100) and had a slice of toast or a boiled egg (70) then bed ear lush, found it easier to go to bed with something warm in my tummy!
Think I’ll aim for soup for lunch (200 country kitchen chicken & veg) dinner chicken & veg (200) and supper to send me off to bed (100)
Jenn – I think i will be doing my fair share of cold/soggy evening walks this month too! The evenings are definitely the hardest time to avoid a bit of toast and pate or a glass of wine…
And Kim – I’m glad someone else is going to be not drinking!
I like the idea of a little 100cal tummy filler for before bed on fast days, too.
On my feast days, i am going to try and make sure that i am all done with eating by 8pm. No late night snacking. So i can get a good 12hrs of no eating each night.
xx
Well done Suzyqueue. Yr breakfast sounds good! I just did the grocery shop… trying to be all planned and not over-buy as any excess food in the fridge will call to me on fast days… I struggle with throwing any away. Though with two growing boys in the house you wouldn’t think that would be an issue! I’m also attempting dry January, so hopefully there will be no alcohol induced munchies… we will see. Anyway, have stocked up on veggie broth. I read it was good to have a little salt on fast days so maybe packet soups will help. Yum???
Packet soups were a staple of mine last year, as were omelettes.
Suzy, the biggest tip I can give is to plan out the food for your fast days the night before. I know that I need to eat my main meal as soon as I get in from work, otherwise I will start snacking. Also, I suggest going to bed early on fast days. I know that this isn’t always possible, but it helped me keep on track on the cold miserable nights of last January and February.
Good luck everyone 👍
Hi… can I join you lot. Mainly because you have not mentioned anything like “I am going to lose (whatever) by (whenever), because I know I will just fail miserably at that! Began 5:2 last January and lost a stone nicely (for me) in a few months which was fine. Then I just stopped losing. Really and honestly, it was because my ‘fasting days’ stopped being fasting days due to me having too much to eat after about 5pm hahahah.. loser! Saying that, I didn’t put the stone back on… until NOVEMBER. Got a stinking cold that lasted 3 weeks and as a teacher of small children, got into the whole Christmas thing by end of November – stressing out over performances and then getting a ton of chocolate from parents at the end of term and now I have been on hols for 2 weeks eating like a horse. Until the cold started I was walking 10,000 steps a day (3km first thing in the morning with the dog). Since then I have just been staggering around.
SO… back to work on Monday (4th). My fasting days are Tuesday and Thursday – not going to nibble when no one can see me. Going to get back to the walks even though the weather here (Liverpool, England) has been utter shit for months (grey and rain and wind)and get rid of the 8lbs I have put back on in a couple of weeks. Please be there for me. 🙂
Hiya Chris. I’ve been just the same with walking…was doing so well , more than 10k steps a day, until all the rain and storms started. Now down to 30 mins per day max! At least it hasn’t been icy or I’d stop altogether. I love walks though so can’t wait for weather to improve just a bit. 😀
Well done on losing the stone last yr… if you hadn’t done it, you might be one stone more than you are now!! So it’s all worth it!
I’m considering joining Suzy and posting my weight on Monday… never having done weight watchers or anything like that, I’ve no idea if a public ‘outing’ will help 😊
Hi chris and welcome:
Here is some information that might help – almost all 5:2 questions are answered somewhere in the thread: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-basics-for-newbies-your-questions-answered/
Good Luck!
Hi SuzyQ, I am awake!
I started in July 2015, inspired by a couple of friends doing 5:2 and then by watching the “What’s the right diet for you?” documentary.
I had watched the “Eat, Fast and Live Longer” documentary earlier.
I had put on a lot of weight, over a decade and more, after chronic illness (me/cfs) forced me into a sedentary lifestyle. I tried cutting down my eating but nothing worked until I completely cut out sugar five years ago. I lost about 20kg which was wonderful, but then I stopped losing weight and started putting it on again. I was about 10 kg above my healthy weight (a bit vague because I threw out my scales in frustration).
When I began 5:2 I was so nervous, not sure why! Maybe worried that it would stress me and be bad for my health. It was winter here, so I decided to have a small bowl of porridge in the morning, and some veggie soup and a piece of toast in the evening.
My first failure was that I just couldn’t cut out my cups of tea and pot of coffee. All these drinks have milk in. However, in the “What’s the right diet for you” they had fasters eating 800 calories, and I figured I wasn’t going above that.
Anyway, at the evening of that first fast day, I not only felt good, I had a burst of energy. And then the next morning I felt great! From that moment I was a convert.
My main realisation then was to make sure I could make it sustainable – so I was easy on myself with those cuppas.
Over the first few months I sometimes fasted three times a week. I was probably having 700 calories on fast days, but it still made a big difference. I could feel clothes getting looser, and I started noticing changes in my rolls of fat!
I found it all really straightforward. I think coping with chronic illness meant I was used to managing difficult things, and 5:2 wasn’t very difficult in comparison. I generally have a few hungry hours in the afternoon, but it gets easier and easier to handle them. And I just keep telling myself I can eat what I want the next day.
I changed my days depending on what was happening in the week, but always two days, sometimes three.
When the weather got warmer I didn’t want my porridge for breakfast, and after a bit of trying different things, I suddenly realised that I didn’t need breakfast at all and, with it gone, the milk in my cuppas wasn’t taking me over the 500 calories.
Since then I have had cuppas in the morning, miso soup with chicken in it in the early afternoon, and a more substantial soup in the evening. I have also firmed up my days: I found I love fasting on a Sunday, and Thursday works for the other day.
I have lost enough weight now that I am not overweight, but I think I have about 4 more kg to lose. I know it goes off more slowly as you have less to lose, so I am not fussing about how long it takes. I have thrown out so many of my clothes and enjoyed buying new ones.
Fasting seems to be resetting my brain so that I snack less, and have a smaller snack when I do, and have smaller meals and a much better sense of when I am empty, or full, or satisfied. Hunger waves are now just a feeling and I can easily distract myself until the feeling goes goes. (Touch wood and whistle, I might have a bad day!)
The worst time I had was a month or so ago when I went out with my sisters and had (lovely) Vietnamese food. There must have been sugar in the sauces, and I had a sip of champagne plus a few cherries my sister brought down from her farm. Sugar is really bad for me and it set off cravings and overeating. But the next fast day put a stop to that, so I know now that if have a bad eating day I should move my fast day to the following day quick smart! Then I am back on track.
I can see that 5:2 doesn’t suit everyone, but it suits me so well. How I wish I had discovered it earlier.
I do like the ritual of planning for my fast days (preparing the soup etc) and making each one as good as I possibly can. I’ve never had a derailed day. Plus it helps that I have a quiet life and have the time to concentrate.
5:2 has been such a lifechanger for me that I am keen to support people who are trying it. I look at fat people now, and I know how hard their lives are, and I just hope they find 5:2 and have the same success I have.
My circumstances are different to yours, but I was a teacher before I got sick, and had one teenager before she grew up and moved away, so I know how busy you must be. All power to you!
Is that what you wanted to know? Feel free to ask any questions.
Cheers
Hi all ☺ I would like to join your group too! My plan is also to start on 4th Jan, with my fast days being Mondays and Thursdays. Today, I received a big kick to my bigger backside when I weighed myself and the number on the scales was way worse than I thought it would be!!! 😨😭 This has now given me the motivation to do something about it! The bad news is I now have about 3 stone to lose 😣 to get to my “ideal” weight and back into my size 12 jeans.
So I am going to try my best not to cheat and to stick to the plan and hopefully though each others support all our goals will be achieved in 2016. 😉 xx
Woo hoo…. there are so many here now.. helping each other. I am going to complete the tracker on here (I did last year, but never put in the weeks that I either gained or stayed the same.. or took measurements). So my rules that are now non-negotiables are: food diary, not only keeps me on track, but is really helpful later in the year when my weight loss is slowing down and I need to see what was working. Ordered a proper one from Amazon, will let you know if it was worth the cash. Going to track weight and measurements. I too am apple shaped. Size 14 pants, size 22 tops! The 14 pants does NOT mean I have skinny thighs, they are thunder thighs, I just have no hip bones just squashie fat. I am diagnosed borderline diabetic so worry if I skip breakfast, so it will have to be porridge. I also have non alcoholic fatty liver disease – so gonna cut down to half a bottle of wine a week (again), and have peripheral neuropathy so troublesome feet and hands… Its time I knocked all this rubbish into touch. By the way I am at that tricky time of life for losing weight (just comin up to 59), veggie, born, bred and still living in Liverpool, UK. Full time early years teacher and insomniac.
By the way GC ( and all), have you seen the latest Michael Mosley book… “the blood sugar diet.” ?? Only been out a couple of weeks. Aimed primarily at those with type 2 and pre-diabetes. I came across it yesterday. De-bunks a few myths about eating for diabetes and covers a very low calorie plan (800 calls a day for 8 wks), potentially to kick start 5:2 lifestyle.
Hello All!
Gearing up for a January 4 re-start here too! I’ve been hanging around these boards for a couple years, but never really gave this way of eating a fair chance. I guess I’ve been too impatient and always went off on some other plan before giving 5:2 a good go. I see some familiar faces here(Hi Cinque!) and look forward to getting to know all of you.
I’m 55…soon to be 56, live in the US. I’m retiring on October 31 and want to look forward to a long, healthy retirement! My plan is to do 500 calories on Mondays and Thursdays and keep to an eating window(16:8) on a couple of my non-fast days. Weekends will be “free style”. Also, like Cinque, I need to keep sugar to a minimum. There is a lot of diabetes in my family and I have no wish to go down that road. I have about 30 pounds to lose and am anxious to get started. Today(Sunday) I’m kicking it off with a 16:8 day.
For exercise I do a strenuous boot camp workout 3-4 days a week. I go to the studio at 5:30AM and am finished well before 7. I love getting my workout done early in the morning. I’d also like to start running again, but that may have to wait until I retire and have all day to myself. The studio has been closed since before Christmas and tomorrow will be my first day back. I see some sore muscles in my future this coming week!
I really want to make this work and look forward to the journey with all of you!
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