The new 5:2 diet thread

[GreenEggsAndNichts]

The continuing thread for those of us following either the 5:2 diet or the alternate-day fasting diet. Both are two versions of Intermittent Fasting, which you can read more about here.

The 5:2 diet was featured on Horizon recently, and essentially requires you to fast for 2 non-consecutive days per week. The other 5 days, you can eat what you like. Alternate-day fasting is just how it sounds; you fast every other day. By "fasting", we mean that we keep our calorie consumption very low, around 500 calories on average, on those days.

Come join us, and tell us about your experiences with this diet! :)

Eating day again for me. Went to ILs so been quite a piggy day.
Had a big toasted bap with honey for breakfast and a cup of tea
Paella type thing and a mayonnaise-y salad with potatoes, prawns, carrots etc and then a chocolate ice cream.
Supper was a small portion of potato salad, a cold sausage and some cherry toms. but then I had a little pot of custard (167kcals) AND a square of chocolate.
Fast day tomorrow.

I'm back from hols so have done fast day today. I'm getting confused a little though. I ate dinner as normal last night at 8, & then today had lunch 300 calories at 2, with dinner 150 calories at 8pm. Does this sound right?

Hi all, can I join you?

My BMI is around 27 and I really want to lose 2 stone. I've had some success with WW in the past, but this method appeals to me as an alternative to the relentless calorie counting. I'm planning to fast on Mon and Thurs, so my first fast day will be tomorrow - wish me luck!

After my last fast day I weighed myself and have lost 7poundsin a month !

Fast day tomorrow but have disgraced myself this weekend as some Swiss relatives have turned up with several bars of chocolate which I love. I am powerless over it.

Have eaten one large bar. Am giving away the rest tomorrow. Anyway, fast day tomorrow. Onwards and downwards.

Right.

Back to it from tomorrow. Hoping Monday, wed and Friday thus week. Weighing in in the morning. :)

Right, I'll probably lurk mostly, but DH and I are keen to have a go at this. I've just had two slices of peanut butter and wholemeal bread (in my defence, I didn't have any dinner!) and I reckon I'll have a go at 500 calories tomorrow. Health reasons and being a lardarse are my motivating factors

Just gonna jump on the bandwagon and mark my place. Watched the program and was totally intrigued. Am overweight but usually happy with my weight but had knee injury last year and have put on 3 stone or so over my usual (am about 20st but tall and broad so suit size 14/16) so would like to at least lose this extra 3 and see how I feel from there.

Sooo.. Long story short am starting this week as I feel that this may be a sustainable lifestyle choice and I'd like to be as healthy as possible as long as possible. Will continue to read here for support - you ladies are all an inspiration :)

Had first fast day on Friday, all was going brilliantly, kept to under 500 then lots of healthy stuff on sat but unfortunately we all ordered WAY too much at an Italian restaurant tonight which ended up with me eating my body weight in deep fried calamari and prawns as a starter, so I was too full for the healthy sea bass I'd intended to eat... Oops! Fortunately the vat of wine eased my pain!
Am actually looking forward to my fast day tomorrow ... But not relishing the weigh in! Surely i can' t eat sooo badly on feast days without some reprisal? Will let you know the bad news tomorrow :)

first fast day over. wasnt as bad as i expected! had a noodle salad at lunch, a cup a soup at dinner and a nectarine. was a bit hungry, but if anything it has taught me how much i go to the fridge and snack. when i woke up this morning, i expected to be starving and i wasnt remotely! i made healthy meusli bars yesterday so have just had one of those and i feel stuffed!

I love this way of eating, after a naughty Fri and Sat of curry lasagne and way too much wine, then a fast day yesterday, (in which I didn't feel hungry) I'm down another pound on Friday's weight ....I can sit down comfortably in that .that stupidly expensive skirt now....
Eating today ....

Braved the scales and I have maintained my loss and not gained anything despite eating stupidly BADLY yesterday. That never happens. Am now raring to go for fast today...coffee and skimmed milk and disgusting Dukan pancake thingy here I come!

my ADF turned into 5:2 last week & this weekend has been filled with all bad things (chocolate, wine, potatoes, loads of cheese). I lost 0.5kg (about a pound) which I was not expecting, I almost avoided the scales this morning. Weekend proved to me (as if I didn't already know) that the more often I eat the hungrier I am - I was snacking & grazing for two days. Need to stop that now.

Tantalisingly close (just another 0.5kg) to the next goal but I have three meals out this week including today so am planning on going back to ADF with fasts on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Monday & I'll probably cheat & weigh in next Tuesday

aftereights that sounds right. Upthread the example was given

Saturday normal dinner
Sunday 500 cals *
Monday normal breakfast

*split as you choose, but most people try to leave at least 16 hours from Sat night meal to next and then at least 12between last food Sunday and breakfast Monday.

Well have eaten well, but not excessively at the weekend. Have felt full after each meal and couldn't really manage brekkie yesterday.

Have weighed in today and am 1lb down again, making 5lb in 4 weeks

Today should be a fast day, but went fruit and veg picking yesterday and am about to make an apple andblackberry crumble with DD, so prolly willfast tomorrow, Wed and Friday.

Fasting again today...feeling OK so far. Just had half an apple. No idea what to have for lunch though.

Fast day for me too today, not hungry so far. Going to try the pepper and tomato soup mentioned up thread for lunch, with a small amount of sweet potato in it.

Well after an all day wedding Saturday and an all you can eat birthday Chinese meal last night (stepmums) i have apparently put on 6.5lb! Gutted when i got on the scales this morning, feels like theree last three weeks have been a waste and all i must have previously lost was water. On a fast day today but got to say felt like just chucking the towel in this morning and not bothering. Well continue with adf this week and see what happens on weigh in on Saturday.

Official weigh in after 4weeks... (drumroll!) I have lost a stone, yay. Need to lose another one, ideally in the next 4weeks, and then probably another one after that, but not so desperately iykwim, so I might revert to 5:2 for that one, or at least keep at the 4:3 but indulge a bit more on feed days.

Fast day today and I have had a slimfast and about to have a ww ready meal, just to keep things simple and keep to calories - had a bit of a morning this morning and I'm not really feeling it today, just hanging in there. :-/

If you're full of all-you-can-eat Chinese and wedding food, rachel, you might want to wait for that to pass through your system before you get too discouraged. Good luck this week. :)

rightbugger a HUGE well done to you!

Rachel I agree give it a few more days , if there was MSG in that Chinese banquet you could also be holding water ..

Thanks HappyOrchid.

Another Newbie/Lurker here. I watched the programme and was sufficiently intrigued enough to give it a go. I've struggled with my weight since the birth of my son 15 years ago and tried lots of diets but my body seems pretty good at holding onto those pounds! In June this year I was at my heaviest ever - 11st 2lb, which given that I'm only 4ft 11 is just way over. I immediately cut down on my meals and got to 10st 5lb and there I stayed for weeks and weeks...until the Horizon programme. I've done about 3 weeks of the 5:2 so far, fasting on Mondays and Wednesdays. I initially got to 10st 2lb after the first week then went back up to 10st 4lb...then 10st 3lb...weigh in tomorrow which will be interesting. I would ideally like to be 8st 7lb in the dim distant future but getting under 10st would be great at the moment - that's my goal for now!

Weighed in this morning and again no loss, that's 3 weeks now. Have realised that I am not going to lose eating like this and should stop expecting to and start just focusing on the health benefits associated with fasting, hopefully that will be enough to keep me on track.

I did my fast days on Wednesday and Saturday last week. After seeing someone here (maybe GreenEggs?) mention they had a big salad on one of their fast days for only about 100 cals I decided to have salad as one of my foods on Saturday. I did a huge salad (1 carrot, about half a cucumber, half a head of lettuce, 2 tomatoes and a red pepper, and some balsamic vinegear as dressing [8 cals per 10mls]) and it came to 172 calories. I split it over 2 meals as it was a very large salad.

So for lunch I had salad and a boiled egg (egg was about 108 calories) and a sugar free sweet for "desert" and then I had a satsuma (about 40 calories) and soup (about 192). So I went a bit over 500 (I ate about 522cals in total) but not too bad. I found that fast day hard enough as I had PMT (period finally started this morning).

I was very hungry yesterday after the fast day, unusual for me, but might have been down to the PMT.

I am thinking of making up soups and calculating the calories and putting them in the freezer so I have them for fast days. I have been using ready-made soup for the fast days until this but prefer to make them myself most of the time.

I weighed-in today and I am 4.4 pounds down on when I started almost 4 weeks ago so I am very pleased with that. I might be slightly less than that in reality as I usually go up in weight during my period, though I might have less water retention than usual this time.

I am thinking of trying to give up dairy products for a while as well just to see if it helps with PMT which I have had a problem with for years. There seems to be a possiblity of a link between the protein in milk and cancer as well so that is the other reason (though I have not had time to read all sides of the arguments about this so I'm not sure of the strength of the possible link - i.e. don't take my word for it! ).

Of course if I give up dairy products this might also be a factor in any weight loss, or other health changes, so I won't be able to put everything down to the fasting. I won't be dairy free for a few weeks though as I have stuff to use up in the fridge.

Good luck to everyone fasting today.

Hi all,
haven't really been on as my fast day has been moved several times. It is great that the flexibility is there though.
Did think about fasting on a team meeting day, but there was a buffet lunch and nowhere to store anything packed or access to shops so not much option other than to eat the sarnies at the place. Didn't go mad though and had about four quarters of sandwich, tea and coffee and later a bit of pasta and garlic bread with salad.
Yesterday I had forgotten that there was a family party so no point even attempting to fast.

So today then. Fasting has been ok so far. I didn't workout last night because I feel much more hungry the next day if I do. I am going to try working out early on a pre-fasting day so I have time to eat and stop my body complaining. Probably won't manage a lot of the time, but worth a try.
Has anyone else had this problem?

Have had three cups of tea with ss milk, a carrot, beetroot and chick pea salad with a bit of balsamic and then another couple of carrots.
For dins I'm having a tin of lentil and bacon soup and carrots and an apple plus herb tea for the rest of the night.
Next fast on Wednesday so only tomorrow to stuff my face eat normally.
Have to buy new scales before next weigh-in. Broke the last pair!