Hi:

I have often commented on the inaccuracy of fitness trackers. You simply cannot rely on what they are saying: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/03/21/fitness-trackers-bad-at-keeping-tabs-on-how-much-energy-burn.html.

If you want to lose weight, use the TDEE calculator at the top of the page, which we know is also just an estimate, put in sedentary for your exercise level and use that number as a starting number. If by eating to that TDEE or less you lose weight, great. If you do not lose as much or as fast as you want, adjust the TDEE number down (eat less) until you get the results you want.

Another aid would be to enter your goal weight instead of your current weight, which would be even more helpful if weight loss is your primary goal. If you use a tracker to determine your base TDEE, do not believe the exercise calories used and eat them back.

As a general rule, if your goal seems to be to eat as much as possible or ‘allowed’ on your diet, then you may not have a winning weight loss frame of mind.

Good Luck!

Hi Matrika:

I’m not aware of any research that proves that a ‘fatty liver’ must be ‘cleared’ prior to weight loss ‘kicking in’. Going from memory, the Dr. that did the research that the BGD is based on contends that liver fat is the first to go on a severe calorie restricted diet. But many people go on ‘slow’ moderate calorie restriction diets and lose weight. And even if liver fat does go first, the weight connected with the liver fat would go with it.

So, if you are not losing weight, I’m aware of no research saying it is because your liver fat is still with you.

The less you eat, the more you lose.

Good Luck!

Hi una:

My thoughts on water fasts on diet days are in my 12 Dec 15 post on P. 7 of this thread. I have been doing them for about 2 years and find them easy to do.

One of the lessons of 5:2 is that you won’t get sick and die if you don’t eat for awhile. People come to 5:2 having been taught or believing they must eat, often 6 or more times a day. They believe if they don’t eat their metabolisms will slow down and prevent them from losing weight and many other myths. They don’t know that an overweight person could go for months without eating anything and not only emerge lighter, but also healthier.

When faced with two days of eating less, their first quest is for 500 cal. recipes so they can eat as much as allowed on the diet. They often continue to believe they must eat three times a day. They can’t imagine not eating for a whole day (really over 30 hours).

But not eating is the secret of 5:2. That is how you cut enough calories out of the diet to lose some weight. And that is the key to maintaining any weight loss achieved – if you see your weight creeping up because you are eating too much, you stop eating and reverse the weight gain.

I believe 5:2 is not a diet, it is a mindset. And the mindset is very different from the norm. Unless you do it long enough to get it ingrained in your conduct, you will be unsuccessful. And I believe water fasting on diet days helps ingrain the mindset, giving a person a better chance of losing weight and keeping it off. Water fasting teaches you that you can not eat and still survive and prosper. Once you understand constantly eating food is not necessary for your well being, it is almost liberating.

Good Luck!

Hi una:

You are welcome. As they say, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again! I think it will be worth it.

Good Luck!

Hi:

An interesting interview with Dr. Longo (of the Eat, Fast and Live Longer video) about IF, human clinical trials and the future. Seems he is on to something: http://michelsonmedical.org/2014/12/26/igf-1-fasting-discussion-valter-longo/

Hi:

Dr. Longo interview on the 4 day water fast: https://thehealthsciencesacademy.org/learning/eat-fast-live-longer-interview-professor-valter-longo/

Hi Chicago and welcome:

Enjoy! I often wonder why some people on a weight loss diet strive to eat as much as possible on the diet. All that does is slow their weight loss!

The less you eat, the more you lose.

Good Luck!

Hi MN and welcome:

Your ‘metabolism’ is not affected by 5:2. The ‘starvation mode’ myth is just that. Check out the FAQ at the top of this page for more information. It is a fact, however, that as you lose weight your TDEE goes down.

TDEE – celling on diet days – is the amount you can eat that neither causes weight gain nor weight loss. If you eat more than your TDEE you will lose weight slower on 5:2, or not at all. This explains TDEE: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/tdee-for-the-curious-or-why-dont-i-lose-weight-faster/

Good Luck!

Hi Deb and welcome:

The only way you can lose weight is to eat under your TDEE over time. There is no other way. If you are not losing weight over a period of four months, you are not eating under your TDEE. Forget the ‘numbers’ you are quoting – whatever they are, you are eating to your TDEE, not below it.

The key to your comments is the word ‘approximately’. That means you are not keeping track of what you are eating. Research shows that people that estimate the number of calories they are eating underestimate the number by almost 50%. So you are probably eating around 50% more than you think and say they are.

So the answer to your question is simple – eat less than you are eating. There are several ways to do that. The most instructional way is to calorie count for a week or so – write down or log every calorie you put in your mouth. Gum, tastes of food while cooking, breath mints, milk in coffee or tea – everything. If you eat something from a bag, check out what a serving is. You might see that there are 10 servings in a bag you just ate all of. You will then start to understand how many calories you are really eating. Here are my thoughts on plateaus: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/on-plateaus/

Good Luck!

Hi reeree:

A pound of muscle weighs the same as a pound of fat.

Also, you don’t need food to burn fat. The longest documented water fast (eating no calories in food or drink) lasted for over 54 weeks, and the guy burned over 250 pounds of fat during that time.

The less you eat, the more you lose.

Hi safety:

The guidance is to eat to your TDEE or less. BMR is irrelevant for weight loss – it is included in your TDEE.

There is no need to eat between your BMR and TDEE. There is no need to eat to your TDEE.

The less you eat, the more you lose.

Good Luck!

Hi Mulac:

That is loss of water and, believe it or not, fat weight (if you are calorie deficient). Water is constantly expelled from the body via breathing (you can see your breath on a cold day – that is water). But when fat is broken down, the remaining components are also expelled through the lungs.

Hi Melinda:

A personal question, so a personal answer.

I believe if a person has the ability and knowledge to do something, they can do it if they want to. I have the ability and knowledge to lose weight, so it simply comes down to whether I want to or not. A few years a ago someone took a picture of me and one of my grandsons and I decided I wanted to lose some weight.

But I more than knew that just losing weight was not a goal in and of itself. For decades I have observed people that set a goal of losing 20 pounds with the idea that after they finished losing the 20 pounds they could get back to their normal, non diet lives. Of course, they would lose the weight and then gain it all back and more. So really, their ‘goal’ was wrong. It should not have been to lose 20 pounds. It should have been, if it was really that important to them, to lose 20 pounds and live the remainder of their lives at that 20 pound lighter weight.

I was and am steeped in the knowledge of diet and nutrition and I was truly wondering what I should do. I knew I could lose weight – any reduced calorie diet would allow me to do that. But I also knew that I did not want to follow any of those weight loss diets for long periods of time. Low fat – I liked eating fats too much. High fat – I am addicted to some carbs, bread in particular, and had proven time and again I could not long go without it creeping back into my diet.

It was then by pure accident I ran across 5:2. Literally a 2 minute TV segment stumbled upon while channel surfing. I immediately knew it would work and wondered why I had not thought of it decades ago. It was clearly a ‘diet’ I knew I could do forever and wanted to do. I ‘started’ that day.

I was and am in no hurry to lose weight. I set no goal to lose X pounds in X time. Just as in the Eat, Fast and Live Longer video, weight loss to me is a by product of the 5:2 way of eating. I am not diligent in following 5:2 – I do it when I want to and have time. I travel and choose not to do it when traveling – although 5:2 taught me I could skip meals when traveling and reduce the impact of any good food and drink I might be subject to along the way. Sometimes my schedule makes it difficult to get two diet days in each week – so I just do one, or none and skip a meal whenever I can. Last year I decided to see if I could maintain my 40 pound weight loss for a year, so I tried all sorts of fasting related combinations to see if I could maintain, but not lose weight. I ended the year within a pound of where I started. This year I want to lose some more weight, so I am.

So to answer your question, I really have no challenges or obstacles to losing weight. For the first time I have found what is for me the ‘diet’ that works and that I want to do. Not just to lose weight, but to keep it off forever.

On this site I try to help others to determine if 5:2 is right for them. I try to ‘manage expectations’ so they stick with it long enough to see that it actually works.

I’m happy my posts have been helpful to you, and you are welcome!

Good Luck!

Hi CT:

Insomnia is fairly common. If you check my 13 Dec 14 post on P.4 of this thread I go into a bit more detail. I wish I could edit my initial post to include the issue because it is a common question, but this site won’t allow me to edit posts after 5 minutes so many of my answers to some common questions are scattered throughout the posts on the thread.

I’m glad you are settling down with 5:2 and enjoying so much success!

Good Luck!

Hi Deep:

Might have been in my ‘Warnings’ post.

Many people think if they eat less they should immediately lose weight. Some eagerly weigh themselves after a diet day and expect to see pounds lost. And sometimes they do. But the body does not necessarily work that way. Body weight does not simply consist of fat weight. Two other factors are water weight and ‘food in transit’ weight. Muscle weight does not vary quickly, so I will ignore it.

The one that seems most variable is water weight. Water can be retained or lost for various reasons. A common reason to retain water and its weight is eating processed carbs. The excess blood sugar is stored as glycogen in the liver or muscles, but to store it the body needs 3 or 4 times the glycogen’s weight in water to go along. This is why people that have a holiday and eat what they want, or a fun weekend, or even a big meal can report they gained literally pounds right after. It is also why people that eat carbs for awhile and then change their diets to lower carb (whether intentionally or unintentionally) can drop weight quickly. Also, hormones play an impact, as can salt intake.

Going along with eating more – carbs or otherwise – is food in transit weight. Whatever you eat has weight (if you weigh your food, you will see it can be literally pounds a day) and it takes awhile for it to pass through the digestive system and be eliminated from the body. It varies by person, but it can take two to three days (or more) to be eliminated from the body.

All of this weight gain and loss resulting from water retention and food in transit weight happens in pretty much of a random pattern. So you will have days when your water retention is high and your food in transit weight is high and if you weigh you will get a high reading on the scale. Then you can get a day when you are a bit dehydrated and your food in transit weight is fairly low and you will get a low reading on the scale. That is why your weight can vary two or more pounds every day.

Fat weight loss occurs fairly slowly – on 5:2, only a few ounces each diet day. But it does continue over time.

So a person is victim to what their body is like the day they weigh. Even if you weigh once a week, it is possible to weigh on a low day but then weigh on a high day the next week or two. These pounds of water and food in transit weight easily cover up the ounces of fat you are losing. But eventually you will weigh on a ‘low’ day again and woosh – two or three pounds will be gone, reflecting the fat weight loss from one low day to the other.

People that report fairly consistent and steady weight losses usually have very consistent diets over the week – they eat similar foods week in and week out, which levels out carb induced water weight which is probably the main mover of quick weight shifts.

This process is why many average their weigh in weights and look for the trend. It is also why I suggest in my Plateau post that it is not a real plateau unless you go for a month without losing – by that time fat weight loss should show up regardless.

People that expect to constantly and consistently lose weight when they start 5:2 have problems because of this. They are still unsure that 5:2 even really works, and when they don’t lose weight for a week or two they either quit because it does not work, or panic and try to ‘shake things up’ by doing something different. More exercise or ‘going to 16:8’ or whatever other things recommended to them are tried. Most often, these changes ‘work’ – but only because they have continued with a calorie deficit in their diets. But they would have had the same results, however, if they would have just continued with 5:2 and waited. That is why you sometimes here on this site ‘just keep on keeping on’ – because if you do, it works!

Good Luck!