Laureyjo, in your previous posting you stated that you were doing 24 hour fasts, now it is only 12 hours?
To make it clear: 12 hours is the time from dinner to breakfast next morning, basically a good night’s sleep. It is not a fast.

Do you log all your food? Do you weigh and measure, on fast days definitely but also on other days? Do you have an overview what and how much you are eating? In your other thread you mention going out for dinner and treats. Could it be that you have no idea how much you are actually eating? It is very easy to underestimate the amounts of food on a plate or forget to take the bottles of wine into consideration.

All I can suggest at present is that you log all food for a while so you get an idea what and how much you eat. Don’t forget drinks, they count as well. Once you’ve done that you might be able to spot the problem.

Laureyjo: “No I was doing some 24hr fasts as in the 2pm-2pm model in the book and consuming 500kcals within that time.”
Simcoeluv explained some of the problems with eating 500 kcal in 24 hours and “normal” amounts before and after in your other thread. You might want to read his answers. Morning to morning is only 24 hours, by the way, not 36.
It is also not what you wrote in your first post in this thread. Your said “i was doing some 12 hr fasts…”

In both threads you have been asked about food logging but you avoid clear answers. Overall, you come across as pretty muddled about your diet and fasting.

My impression is more and more that you are doing something else but not 5:2.
Of course you can continue with that and then blame the diet, but unless you start to be honest with yourself you will not achieve the weight loss regardless of the method you try.
Until you come clear and give us some hard information nobody here can point you in the right direction. So why not be honest with yourself and us; keep a food diary for a week, weigh and measure everything. Tell us about the time you eat on the day before the fast, the day after and during the fast day, how much you eat for each meal or snack; that way we finally know what you are doing and might be able to help you.

Wow Dummerchen, don’t be so mean! The woman knows what she’s doing!

I would say keep at it Laureyjo and try and eat healthy on your non-fast days and if it still isn’t working in a month, try something else! The truth is everyone’s body is different and responds in different ways so maybe this just isn’t for you. Good luck! x

Sorry for jumping in so late, but could we have some more details please? How much do you want to lose? Instead of going entirely by the scale, did you take tape measurements?

I know you might lose patience, but sometimes it takes a bit more time to show on the scale! Also if you haven’t got to lose much, it takes longer.

You might want to stir things up by perhaps doing ADF for a week or by perhaps introducing some exercise? I hit a plateau at some point and nothing happened and the above helped.

I know logging food is a pain, but it did help me. Myfitnesspal is a great app that even includes a scanner! It was easy for me to underestimate the calories from quite a few items, such as innocent looking cookies! Also do you log the calories from drinks?

I hope it changes for you as I understand your frustration.

Best wishes
Stef.

Laureyjo,

If it’s any consolation, I too have asked the same question. The sad answer is some of us are born weird! We do everything right, as you appear to be doing, but seem to get nowhere fast. Maybe it’s a design fault. Maybe we came off the production line late on Friday afternoon when everyone was just dying to get away for the weekend. 🙂

HOWEVER, after taking 6 months to lose 12 lbs and then getting stuck on a plateau for 5, I have in 15 months lost around 30 lbs, not counting 4-5 lbs lost without even trying when I was finally taken off the beastly steroids I was prescribed to treat polymyalgia. That was before I started 5:2. I’m a hell of a lot older and am, or at least was, a hell of a lot fatter than you. I’m now within 20lbs of home, which is a miracle.

All I can say is hang on in there. You haven’t a huge amount to lose compared with some of us, which suggests to me that you were already eating healthily. I think it’s fair to say that results are far less spectacular for those who were already eating the right things, rather than those who were previously putting away lots of sugary, fatty stuff.

So don’t despair. You will get there in the end. It may just take a wee bit longer than you would have liked. And don’t let judgemental smart-arses get to you.

You’re welcome. BTW I recognise the 3 crispbreads + cheese triangle = 100 cal routine.

It also reminds me that when I was working in Paris in my misspent youth I had a boyfriend who was part of the Vache Qui Rit sales team and we used to drive around the city in a van with a great grinning cow on the side. Happy days!

Laureyjo, as for seeing other quantifiable benefits for health, I think the main way to to get your blood work done. Are you sure your body fat percent is really 41%? Somehow that sounds like a lot to me at your height and weight. Was it an actual measurement or just a calculation? On another thread recently someone posted an interesting equation for calculating body fat, I’ll look for it if you want it and haven’t seen it, although I’m sure it underestimated mine because I’m (at this point) relatively low BMI but not fit (medical problems get in my way there). I’m sorry you’re finding the fast days to be such a misery. With time, most of us find them reasonably comfortable most of the time. Some people even enjoy and look forward to them. Although I had a super hungry one on Wednesday, today’s is going fine. I think you might have success with this in the long run if you can figure out what adjustments you need to make to make it work for you. I think a lot of us have to make some adjustments to it from time to time, for varying reasons.

I wouldn’t give up. For more than a week ! I mean to say rather than stress out, do as you have done here and seek support. Thyroid issues can sometimes cause frustration with dieting too. I’m not qualified to give any professional or clinical advice. Just out of curiosity may I ask how much leafy greens you eat, and specifically if you’re eating spinach?

Something I missed for years and years and years is how fruits and vegetables are mostly carbs. So I was over eating carbs by easily having 3-4 carb portions on every plate . Vegetables, plus a starch pasta, plus a fruity dessert , and a sugary drink. I just didn’t realize It was almost all carbs. Even though I was tryi g to be low fat, I was actually on high calorie diet! What’s worse was the poor nutrition value meant I would still crave foods. I started taking multi vitamin supplement, and taking notice of my carbs. Which were just starchy like potatoes , and replacing them with lower glycemic vegetables. Well not all the time, but I stopped buying the starchy stuff with every trip to the store and decided to skip the bread isle a buy something in the vegetable area instead.

I think there are a few people for whom it just doesn’t work. It’s not fair to assume that you must be lying or doing it wrong.

Do you drink diet sodas or use artificial sweeteners? There is some evidence that they can make our bodies resistant to losing weight.

On the other hand, is it possible that your body is at what is a healthy weight for you? Your bmi is 26 by my calculations. It’s true that the charts consider that overweight, but they were revised several years ago, with some lobbying by the weight loss industry, and the normal range used to go up to 27.5, which you are well within. If you can’t lose weight without extreme measures, that may be a sign you are where you should be.

And finally, how do you know your body fat percentage is 41%? Unless you’ve had it professionally measured it is likely not accurate at all. Those body fat scales are not accurate.

Just want to say Hi Laureyjo, thanks for posting this. I’m a newbie here but have tried the 5:2 before and struggled to lose weight on it. I’m about to start again (tomorrow is Day 1!) so I’ll see how I do. What I’ve wondered is whether I wasn’t eating enough on my non-fast days when I tried it before, and I wonder whether this might be the same for you? Good luck – I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you that it starts to come off!

I’ve been doing 5-2 for 6 weeks and although I can now get into clothes that were tight before which feels good I’ve only lost 2lb and on the bits of me I measured not many inches. Are you still trying 5-2 and has it got any better for you??