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

Nothing patronising about it! ..and certainly not as patronising as your nasty sarcasm,..which does nothing constructive at all.

I think you will find the NHS keep telling people such as yurself the same thing - 'cept you are too smug and sarcastic to take it on board.

NHS keep telling people
they do, and what an utter waste of time that is when they are up against the food industry telling us that

• breakfast is essential
• snacks are good
• fast food is great
• hunger pangs are bad

and the fashion industry vanity sizing the waistband on a pair of size 10 jeans from 28 to 32 inches in 40 years

There certainly is too much conflicting advice out there.
Obviously the motives of some of the advisers must be questioned.

Well the 5:2 covers them all doesn't it.
A day or two of fasting to satisfy the need for effort and then 5 days which you can have breakfast/snack/do atkins/pig out/weightwatchers/whatever you fancy.

Genius.

I am at a total loss as to how the Op even made this connection. It only shows that she has a total lack of understanding about what a complex condition Anorexia is.

And what's even worse, is Op's latest post, shows that she clearly not taken on board any of the thread, because she is no more enlightened.

If I only eat when I feel hungry I will gain weight at around 2 lbs a week. or a stone every two months....

That's why i am laughing.

People who eat when they feel full may well gain weight...the problem is people who only eat when hungry who still gain weight...because they have to go against their instincts just to stay the same, let alone lose weight.

I doubt there are that many people out there eating when they feel full. Some of course but certainly not the majority of the obese.

Having read the Mimi Spencer article which was mentioned upthread I was shocked to see how she described herself as "round and soft" at a size 12 She also describes herself as having a gnawing refrain that she was a "bit too voluptuous, a tad too fat. This is how she describes herself as a size 12. She also said that beyond 9 stone "Im back to the muffin me"

Older womens magazines now seem to be emulating the mags aimed at younger women.

It was Mimi Spencer who co wrote The Fast Diet with Dr Micheal Mosley.

Darkesteye
But modern size 12 is 1970's size 16 and that is OVERWEIGHT
When I was a size 12, my BMI is up in the 24's which is much too fat for my frame

notice that the lower healthy limit on BMI charts has been adjusted down to 18.5 ...... leaner is healthier. End of.

And old people need 1/3 less calories than younger ones

Food is so messed up in the western world. As so many other posters have said.
In an effort to not offend ppl, (which of course we should'd do. It's not nice) we've definitely become forgiving of fatness. so "curvy" is used to describe a person who is overweight. My curves are at their best with the least covering of fat. I know when I get to the point where some ppl say " ooh, don't lose any more weight" (BMI around 21) that I look and feel my best. I certainly don't have an eating disorder.
When I've been my heaviest (post pregnancy) I have been too fat IMHO, even though I've never actually been "clinically" overweight.
Can't see hw one particular woe would lead to an illness that is really underpinned by emotional issues.
Love 5:2. (or now 5.5:1.5).

Darkeyes it's perfectly possible for someone who's hovering around the 5' mark to be overweight (not necessarily fat) at a size 12. Which, as Talkinpeace says, has crept up, measurement-wise, over the years anyway.

People being overweight (again, not fat per se) has become so normalised that a slim body, especially a slim body in the lower part of the healthy BMI range - say 18.5-22 - has almost become some sort of unattainable 'ideal'.

As I said upthread, most people, when you look around you, are even a little bit overweight, simply because it's just so much easier to be this way. It takes concerted effort it to be.

ICBINEG, no most people don't eat when full. Most people do however, eat when they're not hungry. Or even at just the very first pang of hunger.

I find it weird/annoying that wanting to be slim - to have the sort of body that nature intended before our sedentary, mass availability of food lifestyles got in the way - is something to be sneered at. That making an effort not to put on weight is a questionable thing - something that will surely lead you down the road of an eating disorder.

For me, this way of eating is something I can easily work into my lifestyle, without feeling like I'm depriving myself daily, and it allows me to enjoy food most of the time. I love salad. I like vegetables. I also adore cheese. I like wine. I like cake. I love flavours. I love food. Eating 'healthily and cutting out the junk' is all very noble, but it's not much fun when it's every day for the rest of your life. This way of eating doesn't impact on another soul, since no-one but my DH knows about - I don't talk about it (except online when invited to by an OP) because nobody is interested!

If it's not for you, that's fine. But given that it gives me the best of both worlds - eating what I want and being slim - I'm going to carry on.

Good post dondrapers

DonDrapers
can we borrow you over on the 5;2 threads as another eloquent person is always useful

Excellent post DonDraper.

What BigglesDraper said, and:

Ex-anorexic here. I've been 5:2-ing for a few months now and definitely don't feel as though it hits any of my old, bad triggers. What it does do, which I love, is give me a way of shedding the weight I put on over a couple of very stressful years without having to spend my entire week in a kind of self-imposed penance. I reckon I'd be more likely to end up yo-yoing if I had to spend all week fretting about staying within my calorie limits, or counting points, or some such thing.

I exercise 4 x weekly, have 2 fast days a week on non-exercise days, and spend the rest of the week eating plentiful portions of pretty much what I like. I've lost a stone, I've got another to lose and then I'll shift into maintenance mode.

I fail to see what's disordered about that.

Send me the link, Talkin!

See, I am no more likely to develop an eating disorder than fly to the moon.

An eating disorder would mean rejecting food, and as someone who adores it, that is categorically never going to happen.

I hope I don't come across as flippant on a serious subject. But eating disorders are rooted emotionally, psychologically. And you're either in 'that place' or you're not. An eating disorder begins with the person, and a certain way of eating or lifestyle choice is only going to kick start it, if it was going to start anyway.

For me it wouldn't be sensible or rational to reject a way of eating that works well for me, simply because, theoretically, it might - might - be some sort of catalyst for random person X whom I've never met.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/fasting_diet/1820028-The-5-2-thread-number-25-One-year-on-from-Dr-Mosleys-Horizon-ep

Hiding thread. My sanity is precious and id like to keep it.

Dress size and weight doesn't mean a lot. It's all relative IMHO.
My sister is usually heavier than I am but has always been slimmer. So being a size 12 does not mean that a person is fat.
But i start to look fat at that size.
Also some ppl definitely carry their weight better.
We're all different.