To think the 5:2 diet is just dangerous nonsense?

[MrsMattBomer]

A girl I teach in sixth form was telling me about it today. I was a bit baffled by it, brought it up to a colleague who said it was amazing and really works.

Am I right in thinking it's basically just eating what you want and then starving yourself for two days? Is this not incredibly dangerous? Surely it's an eating disorder of some kind, not a diet!

There's a lot of evidence out there that shows the benefits of intermittent fasting.

I don't do 5:2 myself, but the science is out there and It makes sense. Don't knock it if you don't know anything about it.

DH and I have done it for years. We both lost a lot of weight and have kept it off. We still do 5:2 most weeks except for high days and holidays. I really can't see what is dangerous about it. I now know what hunger is and I'm not scared of it. If I have to miss a meal for one reason or another it doesn't bother me.

Well I do know things about it, I have done my research in the past. I just think it's dangerous, personally, as most diets are. I think it'd be better if the sector were regulated so that people didn't lose a load of weight and then go back to eating normally thinking they'll never put it back on.

The NHS has really not stayed current with calorie-restricted diets.

The NHS dietary advice is still very much into carbs isn't it?

A couple of days considerable deprivation a week is easier to maintain for a lot of people than continuous low-level deprivation. I've found it very effective for that reason.

With any weight loss plan if you go back to eating "normally" of course you will put weight back on, for you to have ended up needing to lose weight your "normal" obviously wasn't right for you.

But there is no reason why the principles of intermittent fasting can't be used to shape eating for life.

You can't use the NHS as a guideline in this - they say so themselves. The only message they can give about food restriction is moderation and the supposedly safe low fat regime. They can give no other blanket advice. The reason for that is glaringly obvious!

We've barely evolved since the days where we lived in caves. Food porosuctiom methods have become so intense as to remove much of the nutritional content. Current eating habits - including those advocated by the NHS, and the likes of WW and SW - aren't at all healthy for the human body. There's a lot of scientific evidence to suggest 5:2 is beneficial.

Well I do know things about it, I have done my research in the past. Go on then, do tell. Do you mean just the 5:2 or do you mean all forms of intermittent fasting?

I just think it's dangerous, personally, as most diets are. OK... at heart I agree, dieting in the modern sense is pointless, often dangerous and always expensive. But If itself is not.

I think it'd be better if the sector were regulated so that people didn't lose a load of weight and then go back to eating normally thinking they'll never put it back on. I agree there too. But IF was one of the first 'diets' that was always espoused as a forever way of eating, not a temporary change in dietary habits.

You might get a lot more consensus if you didn't aim at the one recent dietary format that has made such enormous changes the psychology and physiology of those who do it properly - as documented in thousands of papers over a few decades now. Moseley didn't invent it, he just popularised it!

I think it'd be better if the sector were regulated so that people didn't lose a load of weight and then go back to eating normally thinking they'll never put it back on.

How can you regulate that though? Yes it’s a fact that huge majority of people who lose weight then put it back on, no matter what weight loss plan they've been on. But that’s their own responsibility as an individual. Once you go back to the eating habits that made you fat in the first place, yeah, you’ll get fat again.

The only time i ever lose wait is with intermittent fasting and yes you do learn to recognise being hungry and being full and so generally meal times become easier to manage in a healthy way.

However with any diet or healthy eating, so much more is needed to work on the mind and causes for overeating or eating the wrong things.

I really wish the government realised that by putting money into this area then the obesity toll on the nhs would not be such a problem. However its far easier to blame than to help and mental health services are constantly cut anyway.

If you stuff your face with 5,000 calories for 5 days and starve for 2, it's not going to do you any favours. If you eat pretty much healthily, and fast for 2 days, it should enable you to have a couple of treats and still lose a decent amount of weight each week.

There is so much gold standard, peer reviewed, medical research on this now that there is no reason for anyone to question its validity, let alone suggest it is dangerous.

I don't think this is true. I am willing to be proved wrong and if you could link to some of this research that would be most helpful. My understanding is that there is very little research and that none of it relates to women, just to mice and men.

Of course! Why didn't anyone else think of that. Temporary you genius!

No! Wait! The Moderation Principle has been shown not to work. In people who regularly overeat it feels like permanent deprivation...

Nobody eats 5000kcals on 5 days of the week when IFing. That is an uninformed and slight hysterical take on it.

As is the idea that anyone starves for 2 days a week when IFing.

Am I right in thinking it's basically just eating what you want and then starving yourself for two days? - No, you're not right.

Why on earth would any intelligent being start a provocative thread, on a subject they can't be bothered enough about to actually research?

I intermittent fast, 3-4 days a week. I have a resting heart rate of 52bpm, excellent cholesterol levels and am in perfect health. I'm healthier now than I was when I ate 3 meals a day.

Humans have not evolved enough to require food constantly. And don't even get me started on the fact that many can't seem to leave the house without a "snacks" to see them through.

DH has done it for about two years now and it seems to work for him in terms of keeping his weight down. He says he would rather be hungry two days a week and eat normally the other five.

MadameDePomPom

I'm not sure how you'd regulate it but I would prefer it if books branding themselves as a diet or health plan had to undergo stringent checks and have actual evidence of them working.

You only have to look at the Atkins diet to see that people can print any old rubbish with no scientific basis and nobody bats an eyelid.

Ah! If you look for research on 5:2 specifically that is true Lesprit. But there has been research on dietary restriction and IF for many years I used to have a large amount of it bookmarked... I'll see if I can find any of it.

At the moment anything attached to Brad Pilon needs to be ignored. The upside of his fame is that there is a lot of new research being done on humans across a range of body mass indexes

But there is a body of evidence on human response to intermittent calorie restriction - quite a lot on religions that fast, so as to do no harm The evidence shows a wide range of similar advantages to those in rats/mice.

And, if I remember rightly, there is a longitudinal multi cohort study going on across a number of countries, since 2010ish. I wish I still had my university library card

You only have to look at the Atkins diet to see that people can print any old rubbish with no scientific basis and nobody bats an eyelid

But that's incorrect as well, because low carb high fat diets work as well.

You only have to look at the Atkins diet to see that people can print any old rubbish with no scientific basis and nobody bats an eyelid. Do you mean the same Atkins Diet that many experts have now had to admit actually does have many of the benefits he claimed it did.

The same Atkins Diet that is now forming the basis of the government backed dietary advice in the US, where they focus on less sugar/carbs rather than the European focus on less fat?

Diets just work on a numerical basis, there's no mystery, if you eat less calories than your body needs to burn over a sufficient period of time then you will loose weight. However firstly everyone has a slightly different calorific need, secondly many people find it hard not to eat more calories than they (a) realise or (b) need to and finally if you don't get a sufficient range of nutrients for everything your body needs to do then you will get side effects. (Eg Alcoholics are often very thin as they often stop eating and get their calories from alcohol, but it's obvious that while that means they loose weight it's a really bad plan)

I've been doing 5:2/4:3 for years long before it became popular.

I was actually put on it by my rheumatologist as it's very beneficial for reducing inflammation in inflammatory arthritis. In fact details about intermittent fasting is in the handbook I was given when I was diagnosed. It helps me not feel so lousy & side effect is it helps keep the weight down.

Diets just work on a numerical basis, there's no mystery, if you eat less calories than your body needs to burn over a sufficient period of time then you will loose weigh In real life, that isn't a just it is a psychological nightmare... or we would all be our perfect weight!

absolutely!