I only eat between 12 and 6pm is that the same thing? I never eat breakfast at all as that makes me really hungry before lunchtime.

I’m still trying to figure out the drinking thing as I normally have 4 coffees and I don’t have these on fast days and don’t seem to be replacin them with anything else. I also don’t eat anything until 6pm on fast days.

Kelltoch, my “mentor” (other than y’all!), drinks unlimited coffee on her fast days. unlimited coffee, tea and water–no food. She got to her desired weight in ten months and now maintains with 6:1. I know there may be other issues with caffeine, but def not calories!

SuzyQ, maybe your good numbers are in your measurements rather than the scale! If you’re feeling lighter, let that motivate you to continue the good work though.

A few ppl in this forum have talked about doing 3 FDs a week. Wow! I guess one would just sing Annie’s “Tomorrow!” and power through. I’m not sure I could do that and I KNOW I couldn’t do back to back with no food, even with my trusty apple!

Great work everyone. I think feeling better in our clothes is a great result.

I am in the Bay of Islands this week so not good coverage. Haven’t been able to read all the posts thoroughly so will do that when home again this weekend. I have been doing Monday and Wednesdays but this week it will be Monday Thursday due to being away.

Suzy on my Monday fast I felt the same way – not hungry at all so didn’t eat.Just kept topping up with water. Amazing!
Init-will look up that post by crofty too when I get the chance. Also thanks for your wise words about the lifestyle change. That is my ultimate goal too.

I am going to weigh myself again next Thursday and am feeling like it could be a good result. I’m aiming for 4 kg drop over 5 weeks.
Keep up the good work everyone 😊

FD yesterday, got weighed this morning and another 1lb down so that’s 6lb so far, although I still think a lot of it was water.

Abec – no headaches when I stopped the coffee, which really suprised me. Having said that I never got a high from it either and always took a mug of it to bed to drink while I was reading and it never kept me awake!

The reason I stopped it was because I read that your body can only process 1 cup a day and then the body stores the acid (in water) I guess I was hoping that with the amount I drink that I’d lose a couple of stones in the first month LOL

Everyone seems to be doing really well, so applause all around 🙂

Hello everyone,

Thought I would just add a line before going off to work.

3rd FD yesterday, found it pretty tough for no particular reason, other than maybe not busy enough in the office, plus i tried a sea bass recipe for supper that i didn’t find satisfying. for me if i am eating little, everything i do eat has to be tasty 😀. spoke to someone yesterday her dad did the 5:2 and lost the weight he wanted to and has kept it off since. i love hearing the success stories.
Have a great day one and all.
Sassy

Morning Everyone!

Good luck to those fasting today.

Don’t be bummed Suzy! Your doing great. You know how these things work, nothing happens for what seems like ages and then you see a sudden jump in the scales and all is well again. Just keep the faith!
And beware of any more ditches!

KK, yeah i save my cals for dinner time too. I have soup at lunch time (about 150) and tea/water throughout then a good 300 dinner. If anyone is interested in a very satisfying dinner idea, with chicken kebabs, i will share my recipe. I actually had this for dinner on a non-FD last week because i enjoyed it so much!

And Sas, yes, whatever passes my lips on FD has to be heaven, or i feel like i’ve wasted it.

Coffee – i see, you have a caffeine immunity! I envy you so much. I love coffee, but i loose my marbles with too much. When i’m working, i drink a lot of it because tend to do 36hrs on, but it then takes me a long time to come down enough to sleep.

For the first few days of Dry-Jan i couldn’t sleep at all! I’m used to a couple of glasses of wine in the evening, but now 12 days in, i think i’m getting better quality sleep when i do drop off!

How is everyone else’s Dry Jan going?

Pam, I am so looking forward to being one of those ‘maintainers’. I have 13.2kg left to loose. Slowly does it!
The bigger you are, the faster the weight comes off at the beginning, so I guess if someone looses 17kg so quickly, KK, they would have to have been pretty big to begin with!!

xxx

Hello everyone. I definitely chose this eating “pattern” because I thought it was something I could maintain forever. I’ve lost before on low carb, but I’m not strong enough to stay off carbs forever. But I’m going to have to accept the fact that it will be slow. Sure, but slow. I hope you’re all having a good week. Happy fasting and happy eating!

Kudos SLB! I’m with you on that!

Cheering you on Suzie! Hope my 5th fast day tomorrow goes as smoothly!

Suzy, sounds like a great day, fingers crossed for you today that you’ve seen some loss at last, but if not (yet), you’ve been feeling good which is the main thing. I seem to have mostly got over the ‘cold’ feelings, or got used to them! But it’s kind of nice to have an excuse to snuggle down and socks and blankets anyway, in January.
Jilly, good point about 16:8 helping to manage the wine intake (unless you make your eight hours from 4pm-midnight I suppose). Helps the mind and body get used to going for longer gaps without snacking too.
Jenn x

Yes Suzy. I’m curious (scared?) about my choices on eat days! I was a bad, bad girl last night. Chicken pot pie was a bad choice to begin with, but then I ate well after I was full! I’m fasting today. Will try to insure that I get enough water and tea so I don’t experience the intense hunger (knawing) of Monday. I have sat down to fiddle with days and hours and numbers to do more fasting if the 5:2 doesn’t work like I expect it to. Guess I need to work with other numbers too, like calories on eat days!! Anyway, I find myself manipulating to get my cocktails in every night except my two FDs! Problem? Yeah, maybe. My only son is away at college and I’m divorced so it’s just me and my two dogs and it’s too cold to do much other than watch TV. Bored. I’m just pleased that I stay dry on my 2 FDs. So I’m sure that many of you are thinking I’m a lush. Well, sort of! Not so much volume as frequency though.

My skinny secretary (who exercises ALL THE TIME!) lost 5.5 lbs on 16:8 in one week. She does keep her cals low on most eat days, like 1000 or so. I’m proud of her and I’m lucky to have a fast buddy even though we do it differently.

Everyone take care and hang in there!

Well done suzie,jennifer and slb75!!

Always inspiring to read success stories when one is in the middle of a fast day. Feels like time is moving in slow motion and I am counting the hours til dinner. With time on my hands I decided to do some # crunching which was a bit of an eye openor for me.

By the numbers:
Goal weight 143. Bmi for goal weight approx 1300/day.

1300 x 7= 9100 cal/week

If I do 2 fast days @ 500K each. 9100-1000=7100 cal remaining for the week.

If I want to lose 1lb I will have cut out 3500 cal from that remaining amount. 7100-3500=4600 cal remaining and 5 eating days left in the week.

4600/5=920 per day.

My eating days have been closer to 1600 cals.

Conclusion: I have to tighten up on my eating day calories too😠😢

Well done everyone, I’m gonna weigh myself tomorrow morning. I was supposed to be on fast day today but was going out shopping so would have had lunch out as I don’t get out often lol.

But as fate has it I haven’t been out in car in over 3 weeks and we have -7c last night and my battery froze which gave me a red battery light so I turned it back into fast day ggrr.

Hopefully I can get out tomorrow but it is really Icy and with all the floiding we’ve had its all turned to ice including huge puddles on road ekkk!!

Hi Jay_U, Yes it was an eye opener for me too crunching those #s. For the weight I want to be, it doesn’t leave much snacking room if I want to be sure to lose 1 lb per week. Like you I have been trying to stick to a 1200 cal/day diet, for years, with poor results.

Calorie restriction seems much easier on 5:2 and my appetite is certainly being reset lower which is helping with staying in the BMR cal limit.

Good for you Suzy, I too am finding my attitude is changing. I told myself this would be easy coz I can eat what I like on the nonfast days, but I don’t even want to eat the jaffa cakes and chocolate chip cookies in the pantry. Instead of eating chocolate or lollies straight after dinner I ate prunes. Luckily my husband is on night shift…

Well done KrysK – its sometimes hard to keep up with all the haps. I hope my result is just as good next week 😇
Alan Rickman and David Bowie in one week. Both legends 😖.
FDs over for the week so enjoying a quiet wine for Friday night….

Haven’t done my calculations as yet but will because I love numbers! Maybe keep it for when I need motivation.

Oh gosh sorry KrysK! Well done you! I’ve just finished watching Moseley’s doco, I kind of wish I’d had my bloods done. How are you feeling?

Thanks suzys and init. Yeah I got car fixed and got into town although I ended up at burger king whoops but k will still try to stay in 1500 fingers crossed hehe or will add another fast day on Sunday.

Kk easy does it especially when fighting a cold. Only 2 prunes on a fast day? I would be fainting with hunger. I felt terrible on one of my fast days too, so I guess they can’t all be easy. But 6 lbs down is AMAZING!

A lot of the seasoned fasters talk about their body shape shifting and changing as the weeks go by. Hoping that will happen for us too.

Gas pains could be transit issues too. Less food in, less out so to speak. Prunes should help, I am using chia seeds.

Stay strong over the weekend fellow fasters. See you at weigh in on Monday.

Hello everyone!

I have only been able to read your post and not reply because i accidentally logged out and couldn’t remember my password. Anyway, i’m back!

Firstly well done on all the notifications of loss!! It is so inspiring!!

But can i ask a favour?

All this number crunching… its not my strong point, i have to admit.
Can i tell you how i’m working it all out, and someone let me know if i’ve got it all totally wrong?

Okay, so at my ideal weight of 9stn, the calculator on this site tells me i will have;

BMR- 1298
TDEE – 2012

Am i right in thinking (from looking at your calculations above) that i we need to be TDEE-3’500, in a week, to loose 1lb?

In that case –
TDEE 2012 x 7 = 14’084 cal a week to maintain at 9stn….

By eating 500 on 2 of those days i am -3924 over the week…. so theoretically i could loose a stone a week if i stick to my 2012 the rest of the days?

Okay, i mentioned earlier, before i blocked myself, that i have been eating kebabs on my fast day for dinner –

Dice up a skinless chicken breast (approx 160g)
Put it in a dish with the juice of a whole lemon, a generous tablespoon of pulverised fresh root ginger, a sprinkling of salt and a level tablespoon of clear dark honey.
Mix it all about and leave it for a good couple of hours.

Then dust of the ginger from the chicken, thread the chicken onto kebab skewers alternating with halved (or whole if they will go) brown chestnut mushrooms and chunky red pepper.
Start and end each skewer with a mushroom or a pepper, not the chicken. And you should get 2 and a half good skewers out of it.

Melt down half a (good quality) chicken stock cube in hot water (as little as you can) and mix it into whats left of the marinade.

Put the skewers under the grill and paint on some of the marinade a few times while cooking to keep them moist.

Serve with a large quantity of shredded crunchy lettuce, with a squeeze on lemon over the top.

Depending on how large your chicken breast is this works out for me at between 200 and 250 calls and fills me up completely!!

I am off to go and cook this now, in fact,

Sending much love!

Hi Abe and welcome:

If your TDEE is 2012 at your goal weight, and you have two diet days of 500 each week, you would be cutting 3024 out of your diet each week. To lose a pound, you need to cut about 3500. The question becomes what is your current TDEE? If it is 2260 or so, you would be able to lose about a pound.

Two items to consider – one, TDEEs are estimates, not fact, and you need to observe results and adjust. Second, as you lose weight your TDEE falls (toward your goal weight TDEE), so if you start with losing a pound a week, your rate of loss will fall as you lose weight.

Here is information on TDEE and how to compute TDEEs for various ways of eating: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/tdee-for-the-curious-or-why-dont-i-lose-weight-faster/

Good Luck!

Hi

sorry to be butting in here, but I used to get hog tied over figures when I began this way of life a year ago – one of the other ladies here helped me out so thought to pass it on.

The 3500 calories equals a pound isn’t based on either science or maths! If you suppose that one gram of fat is 9 calories, a pound of fat is equivalent to 4086 calories. As a guide, an average person should lose about a pound a week – but who is average? It is a good estimate – won’t explain losing 3 lbs in one week and won’t explain losing nothing the next!

So rather than getting to far into the numbers, just use two – stay within your TDEE for your weight – or a little less – 5 days a week and then eat either nothing or up to 500 calories two days a week.

As you lose weight, keep checking and dropping your TDEE, it will go down as you go down in weight.

That is all you need – some folk will lose more than others, some weeks you will lose nothing – some weeks you will gain! Nothing for a month, then 5 lbs. Be aware of the trend, as long as the trend is down, you are doing great. Keep checking the numbers but don’t be a slave to them, TDEE is an estimate, calories in food are estimates (check any three sites and you are likely to get a discrepancy!) If you are religiously sticking to TDEE and 500 and not losing, simply drop TDEE.

Bear in mind that the reality for many of us is that we don’t need many calories. Luckily once you get used to 500 calories in a day, 1400 calories seems to be a feast!

Finally, 20% of the time JUST DO IT – no excuses, no extras, no sugars, no treats – and the rest of the time try your best, but don’t sweat the small stuff – forgive your failures and get back on that horse. And if you blow the TDEE – and you will – just do an extra fast day or two.