to think this 5:2 diet craze is likely to lead to an increase in anorexia

[sarahseashell]

.. in the longer term?

obviously that's just my own thoughts on the subject but I do sadly think that's what'll happen

I started 5:2 last September and lost the stone I needed by December.
I am now a size and shape I'm happy with and would like to stay at for the rest of my life.
I still do two fasts a week - because I have read extensively on the medical side of Intermittent Fasting and the health benefits are clear.
I do not restrict my meals at all on the other 5 days
BUT
being middle aged and slim my TDEE is only 1520 calories a day
so I don't eat much during the week.

It sounds terrible

People will be fasting 2 day, and living off pizza and donuts the other 5 and thinking its healthy.

Personally I think a balanced healthy diet over everyday is what everyone should do.

AlSo I would worry about the impact on children.
As a family we eat every meal together, my children would notice me not eating the same/ with them and I wonder if they would ten think its normal not to eat proper meals

People will be fasting 2 day, and living off pizza and donuts the other 5 and thinking its healthy

Bullshit. That's not down to 5:2, that's just not knowing what eating healthily is. I am on 5:2 and so is my partner. We eat very healthily. Tonight I cooked and we grew most of what was on our plates. I make great food. I am a bloody good baker and so is DP. That's our problem. We know what good food is, thanks very much. We were eating too damn much of it.

Someone I know is a calorie counter. Her lunches are mostly sandwiches made from white processed bread, and crisps. But they're calorie counted!

No method of restricting what you eat, NONE of them, automatically makes someone into a heathy eater. You have to work at both if you want to manage your weight and your nutrients.

forevergreek
I have two teenage children and I have been utterly open with them that as I am no longer building bones and muscle I need to eat less than them (see my recent post about the age linked drop in TDEE on the 5:2 tips thread)
they are totally cool with the fact that on fast days, if they do not fancy bean soup, they can have whatever

and no, the whole point is that people use 5:2 as a way to reset their relationship with food while having fun once a week.

a balanced diet every day is indeed the ideal,
but the fact that what was in 1970 a size 14 is now a size 10
and that even with vanity sizing, more and more people are overweight
and food is obscenely cheap (in terms of impact on the planet)

I think 5:2 is just fab for those who need to lose weight
and those who do not
and to reduce risk of chronic diseases (which is what its actually about)

But yeah, all the posters who say 'hey, just have a healthy balanced diet every day' are totally right. Because it is as easy as that for everyone and we don't have any problem with obesity in this country. Oh, hang on...

Clothes sizes are huge now it's true. I used to be a size 8-10, recently I have been having to buy size 6 as 8 huge. I haven't lost any weight, and my size 10 jeans from 10 years ago fit fine. All my other size 8s fit fine, but this year anything new in a size 8 has been way too big. Why is this?

Will it get like America where a size 0 is small and size 5 large?

Talking- I can see that's ok with teens, but mine are toddlers and I don't think they would understand at this age why thy have to eat their risotto and yogurt and I didn't eat anything. They eat very well and I think this is due to family meals together.

I know a few people doing this diet. None of them are doing it for weight loss, or are doing it for their appearance. They are all sensible and intelligent people who are doing it because they think the research papers showing that periods of fasting prolongs your life for additional reasons than just the benefits of being a healthy weight are correct.

I think some people just hear the word diet and assume it's all about vanity or losing weight.

Awkward- but why isn't it that easy? I could have never eaten anything but junk, but an evening online will teach me what I should be eating.

My sister was diagnosed coeliac at the beginning of the year. We had no experience of it but a few days research gave us the knowledge of what and what not to eat.

I know what is healthy, what is recommended. If I choose to
Ignore that and eat donuts for breakfast then I would expect to gain weight/ feel lethargic/ ill etc. it really is common sense.

Some people have tried it, found that it works, that they don't overeat on non-fast days, that it's sustainable long-term, and that it has improved their relationship with food.

Exactly! I wish I'd discovered it years ago. I've done the slimming world thing, doing all the special recipes etc every single day. I lost two stone but it all crept back on. I've tried calorie counting and you never get a day off from it. Even if you go out for a meal you are worrying about how many calories are in everything and feel guilty for going over.
The 5:2 lets me forget I'm 'on a diet' for five days of the week, it makes it much easier to cook for the whole family, even on the fast days I just have more salad with my dinner. The kids don't notice. We tend to eat healthily anyway, no takeaways or anything and we have an allotment too, it was just my constant search for sugary snacks that was out of hand and this regime has made me crave less rubbish on non-fast days. I've lost just over a stone in three months so it's hardly crash dieting. And this time when I reach my target weight I'm confident that I will be able to keep the weight off by fasting one day a week, which is nothing. I feel such a relief that I'm released from the feeling of having a constant struggle to keep my weight down, which tbh was seriously depressing.

Forevergreek do you think every overweight person lives on donuts and pizza? I promise that's not true. I'm 2 stone overweight, cook everything from scratch, my favourite food is salad. I don't eat meat, always eat a balanced diet with plenty of veg. If it were as easy as just eating less I wouldn't be fat. People have complicated relationships with food, impulse control, appetite and satiety. Fasting helps me to regulate and control my food intake, it helps me. It's not for everyone, but then 'just eat healthily everyday' doesn't work for everyone either.

Forevergreek, I think from what you've said that you have a good relationship with food. You know what's good for you, you know when you've had enough. So you've got inbuilt control over food, if you like.

The way i understand it is that a lot of people don't have that, for all sorts of reasons. Me and DP do know how to eat healthily, but we like food very very much, and we are both emotional eaters. So we eat too much.

Other people have all sorts of complicated relationships with food. Plus the Western diet and way of life predisposes us to addiction to sugar and fats, and very few of us get enough exercise.

5:2 is a way that works for some people to learn or regain the control that other people may naturally have. Plus giving your digestive system a break has real health benefits whether you need to reset your control button or not. Does for me, anyway!

forever
little kids do not notice if they walk in on their parents having sex
they also do not notice what is ON their parents' plates, so long as those parents are enjoying the meal time with them

if you go to a restaurant, do you all eat the same meal?
why should home be different if it suits the parents?

I'm doing it to bring down my blood glucose levels and blood pressure. I've had great results. My numbers are now well into the healthy range.

And I've lost 2 stone gradually over 8 months.

On fast days I eat a salad with a lot of protein at lunch. I find I'm not hungry the rest of the day, but if hunger doeshit, eat some nuts and/or cheese. Non-fast days, I eat lunch and dinner, and snack and dessert if I feel like it. Overall, it seems I eat less on non-fast days than before taking up this practice, apparently my stomach has shrunk. I don't care for breakfast and am relieved to have given up on it and not feel obliged to eat it.

I also like to bake, and this lets me balance it all out.

This thread is very interesting. I started 5:2 a month ago, and I can see how it may trigger disordered eating in someone who is predisposed, although this could be the case for any diet.

All the posters saying 'just eat when you're hungry'- the problem is that a lot of people confuse boredom with hunger, or thirst with hunger. Hunger has become a want rather than a need. The snack industry didn't exist 30 years ago, and people didn't really eat much between meals, but now people seem to be 'hungry' every couple of hours. Portion sizes have also inflated, combine that with our being taught to clear our plates and we're all getting bigger.

Before starting 5:2 I was a chronic grazer but a glass of water and waiting until my next meal is fine.

It's been the best eating plan I have ever done, I plan to fast for the rest of my life. It's the first time I have broken the cycle of guilt, binge etc around food. I've learned loads and feel a million times better.

This way of eating has saved me money! I have read free info on the net and my grocery bills are down.

I have a toddler and serve family meals, I just have a very small portion or maybe just a portion of the veg on a fast day.

badgers this happened to my ex as well. Exactly the same thing.
He was also told that skipping meals long term was bad for the stomach and no not all ulcers are caused by a bacterial infection.

We are not talking about the odd day with no breakfast. My ex only ate once a day for months and it really did make him ill

GoodTouchBadTouchWed 31-Jul-13 16:46:23

Like Ehric said, Bollocks.

Anorexia is a mental illness. Its like saying "cleaning can lead to OCD"

Anyway, a few people with anorexia taking it too far is not important compared to the number of fatties who might benefit from it.

If we were SOOOOO used to seeing overweight ppl around then there would not be comments on here like this and overweight people would not be being abused in the street.

The Mimi Spencer article says how she found her happy weight Yes thats right. HER happy weight. Not the weight every other fucker might expect her to be.

Ghosts i also did that earlier this year from April to June. I lived on 2 weetabix for breakfast.
And a can of mackerel and veg for dinner. I lost nearly a stone and had intermittent diarrheoa which was severe when it did happen.

ghosts
ALL ulcers are caused by bacteria : they are nearly extinct

skipping breakfasy was nothing to do with it : otherwise people like me who have skipped breakfast for 30 years would have them

dark
you need to vary your diet
the lack thereof was your problem

As a recovered anorexic (as far as one can recover anyway) I know that this diet is not appropriate for me (if I needed to diet, which is unlikely!).

I can't imagine this actually causing anorexia - it's not usually an illness about being thin or model-like, it's actually more about control and boundaries than anything else. Anorexics hide their weight-loss, are secretive and manipulative, and usually have underlying psychological causes for their illness. It's not just a "diet taken too far".

It really bothers me that diets and thin celebrities are blamed for eating disorders. It's actually quite offensive and very ignorant.

When I was a teen and was unwell it was nothing to do with how Nicole Richie looked. I did use the excessively thin celebrities to argue away any concerns about my own body weight and justify that I was totally fine. But it wasn't because of them.

I look back at what was actually quite a long period of my life really, 9-17, and feel shocked at how blatantly unwell I actually was.

Have a handle on it and have done for a while but I have slipped back into it during difficult periods of my life since then. I don't doubt that will always be the case. I hope it remains "slipping" and never goes back to being as it was.

Talkin im hoping to start Weight Watchers on 14th August. I could do with the extra help and support. I think that would work better for me.
I want to do it for my health first and foremost. That is most important to me Not how i look. I also would like to start an excersise routine Im interested in what my body can do rather than how i look. How i look is not the most important thing. And i will find MY happy weight. A big fuck you to the celebrity culture that tells me how i should look.

Alis i agree with you They are still damaging images though. Ive been abused in the street by men because i dont fit the realm of desirability they have been fed by the media.

Any diet and constant obsession with a diet can lead to an eating disorder. I see why you are concerned but as an ex anorexic, the fast diet works for me as other diets require me to obsess and calorie count and exercise daily, whereas this one is done and dusted in 2 days. Also, 500 calories is a ton of food when you eat it in fruit and veg!

My whole life is not about calories