To ask for your experiences of 5:2 diet?

[Cheeeeislifenow]

I eat healthy, I include treats in my diet, I walk up to 6km three or four times per week. I am overweight and never seem to be able to lose weight, even though I stick to 1800 cals per day and do indulge in treats occasionally.
I have just started the 5:2 diet in a bid to kick start my metabolism. has anybody found this to be an efficient way of losing weight?
To add I am 97 kgs and 5ft 8.. I also have psoriatic arthritis and Fibro.

Sorry i haven't any experience but i have been wondering this too so interested in answers.

I'm 5ft 6 and 78 kg, have a reasonably healthy diet although could defo do more exercise and eat a few less treats. I've been reluctant to start something drastic that i can't keep up and end up in a weird yoyo dieting thing which i think is probably more unhealthy than just being consistently a bit overweight if that makes sense?

I found it really good for me when I was at university and able to choose my two 'easiest' days to go low calorie. I wasn't particularly overweight, I just wanted to shift a few extra kg.
As soon as I started full time work I found it harder to manage. As long as you can plan your schedule around feeling hungry then I'd say go for it - there was no way I'd be walking 6km on one of the diet days! It was so nice not to have to worry about what I was eating the other five days, and I'll definitely use this diet again when my schedule suits.

I’ve been on 5:2 since August and have lost half a stone. I find it pretty easy to manage now but the first 3 weeks were tough!

Pick the best days for you to fast. For me that’s my 2 busiest days of the week, I just have less time to even think about food. And plan your meals for those days. I budget my 500 calories out and have 3 small meals.

I recommend calorie counting on your non-fast days to monitor and make sure you’re not going to undo all your work fasting.

There are some specific 5:2 threads on MN - on phone so can’t link. They were helpful for me when I first started.

I loved it and am going back on this week. I kept the weight off until I got a coil fitted then piled on a stone in a fortnight! Which I've really struggled to shift.

Planning is the key to it - picking the right days to fast (for some people that's days when they're super-busy, other people like to only fast on quieter days, for example. Some people really go wild with their fast cooking, others prefer to eat a calorie-counted ready meal and just not think about food). You need to experiment to get it right for you. Lots of threads on here about it though.

Can people give some recipe / meal planning ideas, please?

I tried it but found the fast days too hard to manage around other commitments and made me a bit obsessive. I also found I couldn't really exercise on fast days or my hunger got out of control.

I recently started 16:8 and I have found that way way easier (I tend to eat between 1pm to 9pm- just have black coffee and water before that). I am a normal weight but love my food and my wine so I find that this routine stops me piling it on. I find it much less distracting than 5:2. I've actually lost 3lbs in a month despite not restricting during the 8 hour period at all.

I did it for a while and lost about a stone. It took a long time. When I was in the swing of it I managed ol but I can't face doing it again. Any calorie deficiency will Help you lose weight I find it easier to do it all the time rather than fasting

I agree with johnnycomelately. I find it eAsier to skip breakfast and not snack in the evening

I found it fab. Consciously not doing it atm because I'm v tired and run down and it's just too hard to do any diet then, but when I was able to sleep without being woken by a small person then it was just fab.

It's hard, has to be said, but it does get easier and the payoff is great. I had headaches for the first 3 weeks but after that somehow my head seemed generally clearer than for years and I felt leaner and keener. After the first few weeks going to the gym was no problem on a diet day.

Looking forward to trying it again.

There's a really good long running thread in the weightloss section of mumsnet www.mumsnet.com/Talk/fasting_diet and some recipes there too.

To the Original Poster (OP).

Well done on looking to shift some weight, that's the first big step in actually doing it. I am related to, and work with, a number of people (male & female) who are in total denial about the issue that is their weight.

If I can offer a number of recommendations (take them or leave them as you see fit)

1. Ditch the booze. Easier said than done, I know, I am a bit of a vino-lover, but booze is fatal for any manner of weight loss programme. There are dozens of coincidental benefits to abstaining, but that's another story.
2. Make 2/3 of any plate of food you eat green food. Doesn't matter what. And there are loads of low calorie, really tasty, salad dressings etc you can put on aforementioned rabbit food to make it taste nice.
3. Treats - depends what you mean by this. If your 'treat' is a 1kg bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk, then you're undoing the weight loss value of the exercise you take and any diet you are on. If your 'treat' is an apple, it's not such a big issue.
4. Get amongst like minded people. This is a HUGE motivator for weight loss, exercise etc. Weight Watchers (WW) is about 5 quid per meeting; if you can't afford that then write your weight in your diary, on your calendar etc and take great delight in watching it eventually go down.

5 Avoid silly fad diets, like the 'Cabbage Soup' diet, or these daft detoxes you see advertised. You'll feel like s**t, smell like it too, and will likely gorge on food when you go back to 'normal eating'.

I hope all of the above helps; to evidence the effectiveness of the above, I lost 2 & 1/2 stone last year over a 5 month period by following the rules above. I then re-discovered vino & beer as of Jan this year, and have put on a stone of the weight I lost....... As our American friends would say, 'Go figure'.

Drop me a private email if I can help further , and very good luck with your efforts. You can do it, very easily, just keep telling yourself that!!!

Sp

Thanks for the advice.. just found the thread on 5:2 which is great. The one thing I would struggle with is not having tea with milk and sugar. I know you can have herbal tea.. but it's not the same.

When I am in the right frame of mind I find it easy and I tend to lose weight relatively quickly.
I tend to skip breakfast and then have an egg for lunch and a salad and small jacket potato for my tea.
Also pick a day when you are busy so you won’t think about food too much. I tend to do the same two days each week.
The book by Michael Moseley is very good and motivating and has some good ideas

Thanks @spadgehunter well done on your weight loss, I am sure you will be able to get back to where you were. I actually drink very little. Just when I go out which is about twice per year. I genuinely do eat very healthy.. I have three meals,normqally don't snack I cook from scratch every day. Things like stew, curries etc.i just think my body needs a bit of a shock. And excercising harder really isn't an option.

I made sure that I had two good cups of tea a day even on the 5:2 chee. worth the calories! Maybe cut down a bit on the sugar in it? even then some recipes in the Mosely book actually have a teaspoonful of sugar in. IIRC it was 15cal per teaspoonful (hope I'm right there) so it's not the end of the world if you do have some.

or start off with 750cal days, that'll give you a few good cups.

I am no expert, and I don't know the full rules, but I would say it is worth a go. The reason I say this is that, after a comment that one of my friends made about me eating loads I kind of tracked my food intake and found that I have been accidentally doing the 5:2 for years!

I generally eat healthily more often than not, but I do eat a lot and I don't deny myself treats at all. However, on my two busiest days I find that I barely have time to eat, so can easily fall below 500 cals. FWIW I'm 5'3 and a size 8.

Good luck!

@Cheeeeislifenow of course you can have milk in your tea!! I'm having a Fast Day today and have had 2 coffees with milk already - you just need to count the milk as part of your total for the day. Come and join us on the 5:2 thread - lots of advice and support. I lost 4 stone with 5:2 and have been maintaining successfully since May.

Thread 81 is the current 5:2 thread number btw, just in case anyone is lurking!

Personally I hated it.

I suspect I have a binge eating disorder - I certainly have a very disordered relationship with food - but I found that subconsciously, the fast days were giving me permission to binge on the non-fast days. So it didn’t work for me.

I’m planning on doing low carb for a bit as this consistently works for me, although I fear my constant yo yo dieting will at some point screw my metabolism beyond redemption. But I need to get my weight under control, I’m too scared to weigh myself but I’m probably about 16 stone. And 5 ft 5

I’m doing the 5.3 so I fast three days each week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I’ve lost 12 pounds in 5 weeks and I’m loving it! Have another 2 stone to loose. I find I’m less hungry on my normal food days after fasting which is such a bonus ! Definitely try it!

Thanks for the advice... Good news about the tea! I am going to go have a good nose at the recipe thread.

I’m wasnt overweight at all, more over fat (think skinny fat) and this was the only diet I found that worked and I lost fat in places I had struggled with while just ‘eating healthily’ like my arms.

It can be difficult to arrange the fast days around other commitments though. Like I could never do it on a day where I had lots of meetings because my stomach would just rumble loudly and embarrass me!

A lot of people asked me whether I found myself binging on my normal eating days but I honestly didn’t find that at all.

Good luck!

If you are genuinely eating 1800 cals a day (including all drinks, nibbles of this and that, snacks etc and correct weights/measures of the foods you are eating) and aren't losing weight, then you need to reduce that further.

Calories in < calories out, otherwise you won't lose. You must have quite a slow metabolism.

I hated it. Was irritable and just plain hungry on fast days and then felt really weak the next day too. It really got in the way of exercising too so I felt that even though I was losing weight my health was suffering.

But some people love it.

Why not try 5:2 and see.
It works for many folk, (but is not suitable for those with an ED)

Latest 5:2 thread - we're a very friendly bunch:

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/fasting_diet/3385139-5-2-Thread-number-81-Warning-Big-Choc-will-come-smacking-if-you-start-snacking?msgid=82170163

I lasted nearly a day but found all I thought about was food and I was so hungry and irritable.
Am going to try 16:8 instead. Are you meant to do that every day?