I have been on 5-2 for 12 weeks now. Some fast days I do small coffee (love love love my coffee) with half and half and Splenda – I just use less h&h than other days. I then cut out my lunch fruit and eat grilled chicken with lots of lettuce for dinner!!! I lost 14.2 lbs in 12 weeks. I don’t do cream and sugar to many times on fast days though!!! :-).

It’s not a no no it’s just that the calorie intake boosts when you add milk. I have one cup on fast days with milk in the morning then its black tea for the rest of the day.

Hi, in the beginning I used to only drink herbal tea….lots…on fast days but now have 2 cups of coffee with skim milk…one with breakfast and the other after dinner.Still drink nothing but peppermint tea in between..both hot and cold.works well for me.

I believe it is because some coffees are about the size of a bucket. I seem to recall a 375 ml ‘serving’ of coffee being mentioned somewhere. If this is a milk/white coffee you can imagine the volume of milk and the calorie count involved.

As a keen drinker of coffee with milk (make mine a caffe latte please) I have switched to milk -free on fast days. Not coffee machine coffee, but pour-overs which are made with single origin beans. This allows me to visit the coffee shop, indulge my appetite for caffeine and really look forward to a milky coffee on the next day.

As far as I am concerned this is a win-win situation.

I’m a heavy coffee drinker, about 5-6 cups per day. I always make my own latte with skim milk. I started fasting this week and began drinking my lattes without sugar. On my fast days this week I have been making and espresso with a dash of milk. It’s gotten me by on my first two fast days. I think cutting out the sugar is a big thing, sick to skim milk and half the milk amount of what you would normally have.

“I think any comments by Michael/Mimi would be so you avoid Starbucks or similar on fast days!”

Yeah I think you’re right. A lot of people would really under-estimate the calories in their coffee, especially in a flavoured latte or the like. Some people who have not really been educated about nutrition (including the severely overweight who may be interested in 5:2) may not even think about the calories that they drink; they may consider that it’s not food and so it doesn’t count!

Fruit juice and squash drinks aren’t good either. A lot of squash with added sugar is 150-200 cals per pint (and I can easily drink a pint if I’m thirsty). Low-calorie sweeteners are probably ok if you really can’t get by on just water or unsweetened drinks, but is not ideal as there is some evidence it ‘tricks’ your body into thinking it’s getting carbs, making it harder to lose weight.

Isn’t it something to do with milk producing insulin or something like that I read somewhere and if not being beneficial to the fast 🙂

I have switched to unsweetened almond milk, a modest amount, in my coffee for fast days, and that might be just the cup I make at home, no second cup at the office. On non fast days I am somewhat reducing the low fat milk I use.

I wouldn’t let coffee cream hold you off starting the fast. Just count the calories you add to it, and maybe make your changes incrementally. Low fat milk for half and half, etc. I add soluble fiber to my coffee, which seems to make it feel ever so slightly creamier even with the almond milk.

I think Michael’s choices are practical, but also personal. I re-read the part about avoiding high protein to reduce IGF-1, yet he (Michael) also advocates lean protein because it is satisfying longer. And obviously because it is a part of his life and habit. Dr. Longo seems to advocate a vegan diet, dut Michael wanted to create a plan that works for him and many others. I think had black coffee been abhorrent to him he would have found a compromise and carried on.

I’m curious about what ‘half and half’ is – I know it’s some kind of coffee whitener/creamer, and I assume it’s American as I’ve never come across it here, but what is it actually made of, and what form does it take – powder? liquid?

Hi RosC or anyone who can answer. If you have the coffee/milk at 7am but your fasting period is 11am thru 7pm, is the basic time frame affected by the 7am coffee? I would of course count the calories but I cannot wait till 11am for my coffee…

djoy11 – please enjoy your coffee in the morning – even on fast days.

This forum has lots and lots of variations on the 5:2 way of eating. The only requirement is that you consume 500/600 calories on your fast day. You will lose weight this way and reap the benefits of a fast. Even Mimi Spencer said that if you want coffee with a splash of milk, go right ahead.

I’m new to the diet and I’m not blowing it by having calories in the form of milk during my fasting time. I have a cup of coffee with milk as part of my breakfast calories and another with my dinner calories.No calories for the 12 hours in between. My Asian friends drink just plain hot water instead of tea/coffee if you don’t like herbal teas. I always thought this was weird but it does fill the gap. I do get a mild headache in the middle of the afternoon and I’m going to take a small dose of caffeine (tablet form) this week to see if that helps from the possible caffeine withdrawal.I’d like to suggest you get Keto or Keto Diastix (from chemists and some gyms) to measure ketones in your urine. Ketones are present when you break down body fat.I do back to back days of fasting on my 2 busiest days.Although ketones are present on the first day ( colour on the sticks indicate this)there is a lot more of them on the second. Indicating a better result for me then non consecutive days.

Julie,

Thanks for posting.

I am not diabetic, but have switched to unsweetened almond milk for my morning latte, partly to keep calories down but more in the hopes it wouldn’t affect insulin levels (and also I’m not convinced there’s any benefit to adults in drinking large quantities of the milk of another animal…).

So thank you for confirming that it doesn’t affect insulin.

Hi Penny, I have cuppas all Fast Day, I realised it is easier to give up meals than my precious cuppas. I have lots of cups of tea and a pot of coffee and use about a cup of milk by the time I have had them all.

At the end of the day I have miso soup containing chicken, mushrooms and greens and I really need the saltiness by then.

So you should be fine, the only rule is to keep under the 500 calories over the day, and you are doing that.

But if you think you need a bit of salt you can just have a bit on a wetted tip of your finger!

I’m trying the 16:8 method starting today & as I write this I am gagging down black coffee with splenda…vile! Are there no non-dairy, sugar-free, no/low cal milk substitutes out there? Probably not the healthiest alternative, but just a dab would get me through my 6 hours till lunch!!

So today I decided to try iced coffee black instead which is much tastier – I ‘splurged’ with some sugar free (zero cal) syrup at Starbucks & it’s actually delicious! Thank god for workarounds (even if they’re not as healthy as just doing it black)! 🙂

Hi all, I stopped having coffee on my FD and had only black and green tea at first but then changed back to 1 coffee with 50ml of milk which is 35cals first thing in the morning just take it off your count and feel happy about your morning coffee. After the morning coffee it is back to black tea it tells me I am fasting. I don’t have sugar in any hot drinks due to going fishing with my dad as a teenager, on the water at 3.00am cold spring mornings, and if I wanted coffee with sugar in it I would have to bring it so I learned to drink it without sugar pretty quickly.

This is a nice thread. I am interested in a splash of something in my coffee too. I wish people would post not just what they are doing, but if it is WORKING! So if you do a splash of something in your coffee, is it WORKING?? Are you losing weight? Thanks for any info here.

I hate black coffee, too. I just have a splash of semi-skimmed in my three morning cups. Then eat at 1 ish.

You cant avoid not having insulin production in the morning. You get a shot of insulin at about 5-6am while you sleep to prep you for waking up so that you have available energy. Its called the Dawn Effect. So a small shot of milk in your coffee isn’t really going to change things too much. Just get used to coffee without sugar in it.

Sorry just reread what I wrote. Not quite right. You get a shot of glucagon pre waking up, this gives you a glucose hit so you get out of bed with energy. If the glucose hit is too big then you get a shot of insulin to bring it within the normal range. Drinking coffee with a splash of milk isn’t really going to do much. I fast on Mondays. I usually have about 3 coffees with a splash of milk. By late afternoon Im in ketosis (measured with a keto meter), so the splash of milk isn’t stopping ketosis.

Bill Bill thanks! Yes I am doing a daily 17:7 at this point. Glad you found a coffee ad that you like. I am in the US and can get Nutpods which is coconut/almond creamer (tastes very mild, like cream, no weird aftertaste and only 10 calories for a tablespoon). Agree with you about the sugar. i have been off sugar for nearly 5 years and (wow, 5 years!-hard to believe). I try to do some black coffee days, but BLECH i really hate black coffee. I will try espresso when I have the chance!

Is it just me – as a non American – but Half and Half sounds GRIM! Why can’t you just use milk like the rest of the world?

From Wikipedia :
Half-and-half consists of a mixture of milk and cream which contains between 10.5 and 18 percent milkfat. It is pasteurized or ultra-pasteurized, and may be homogenized.

(b) Optional ingredients. The following optional ingredients may be used:

(1) Emulsifiers.

(2) Stabilizers.

(3) Nutritive sweeteners.

(4) Characterizing flavoring ingredients (with or without coloring) as follows:

(i) Fruit and fruit juice (including concentrated fruit and fruit juice).

(ii) Natural and artificial food flavoring.[12]

The word fasting is used on this website by the majority of us to refer to “fast days” when we eat either no calories (some find it easier not to eat anything) or 500/600 calories.

No it is not dangerous. Our bodies store enough glycogen which is a form of energy in our liver to last for at least 24 hours and for those of us trying to lose weight there is plenty of body fat that is utilised when we don’t eat which is the point of the exercise.

Have you never been ill and not eaten for a day or two? I have on several occasions and I always made a complete recovery. Our bodies are much more sophisticated than many give them credit for and they know how to cope when food is absent for a short period of time.

Not eating for a long period of time is completely different to not eating for one or two days.

Lengthy fasts should only be undertaken with medical supervision.

I would also suggest exercising caution over the veracity of articles in the tabloid press.