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! :)

This is week 4 for me and starting 8th fast day. Feel gone, had a diet Pepsi so far as I hate black tea/coffee and need caffeine (dd kept me up last night). Egg salad for lunch and either ham or fish for dinner.been looking forward to fast day as on eating days I've felt yuk and overfull on 2 occasions at least.

Oh and lost 1/2 stone after week3 so hoping for another couple of pounds lost on Friday

Feel good not gone stupid me iPad

Marking my place again.

DH and I didn't weigh ourselves last weekend, as we had spent the beginning of last week staying with friends, drinking more than usual and our Tuesday fasting day had been a bit vague. Weighing to find you have gone the wrong way is very dis-spiriting, so we didn't bother.

Fasted as usual yesterday. Strangely the hunger got to me for the first time since I started. Maybe cos it's the first time I've been on my own all day ?

I certainly feel that my trousers are less tight than they were, DH says that my rear is decreasing in size, so something is working.

Will weigh ourselves again on Sunday ...

well done Bunt! That's brilliant :)

So, first fast day today.

I didn't eat dinner until 9pm last night so am going to eat at about 2pm. I've brought in a mixed salad which consists of orange pepper, tomatoes, cucumber, spring onion, celery, tiny bit of avocado, tomato, radish and a spoonful of Tesco 3 bean salad without the vinaigrette. I made my own dressing made from a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar (v low in calories but v high in flavour), some herbs, black pepper and half a teaspoon of olive oil. I am not entirely sure how many calories are in it but I think it's around 270. It's quite a large portion of veg but hardly any dressing.

I also have a very small fairly green banana (62 kcal - less sugar in unripe bananas) so that's quite a big lunch.

Currently sipping jasmine green tea. Have fizzy water to drink, plus an endless supply of filtered water here in my office.

Tonight I will have 2 small slices smoked ham (48 kcal total) plus a salad made of baby spinach, cucumber, spring onion and celery, without dressing. I will probably also have an Ainsley Harriott spicy lentil soup. That should get me to around 500kcal, and it's 2 decent meals. More processed food than I had intended (ham and soup) but still not that unhealthy?

I'm also taking a daily vitamin supplement.

Just found this, for those of us that find exercise boring or if you can't fit it into your daily life:
tips on how to burn 300 calories

I'll be exercising on non-fast days, probably either fast walking or vigorous housework!!

SexBomb Hi, I think u were referring to me with regards to the 7pm-7pm fast that I'd started doing. Well I did it for 2 weeks, on an alternative day basis ..........and I lost just over 4lbs. I have since been on holiday so haven't really stuck to the diet.

Anyway I have started again today(well last night as I had stopped eating from 8pm onwards), in work atm but have only had a cup of tea and a glass of water so far. Plan to eat @ about 7pm tonight.....strips of chicken breast and flat bean stir-fry. I just find it easier knowing that I am having dinner everyday.

ADF as explained by some1 on YouTube....he eats dinner everynight but has breakfast and lunch every other day. HTH

Did two fast days last week which were ok but seemed to go a biit nuts over the weekend so not sure if it's a good approach for me.

Anyway, doing another fast day today although am not at work today which makes it harder as I am not shuttling from meeting to meeting which usually takes my mind off food. Thought I would do soup and ryvita for lunch and then a grilled chicken and salad for dinner. But will try to delay lunch to 2pm. Trying not to count the minutes!

Term has started so today is a fast day.
So far a glass of OJ, two cups of tea, a 1000 metre swim, 1 hour yoga, 1 hour bodypump : all as per normal for a Wednesday.
But lunch was more tea and a few french beans scrumped from the garden rather than my normal sarnie.
DH is doing it too so we have a healthy supper planned - with no alcohol or carbs ....

I wonder if there is a limit on the caffeine intake !

Non fast day today. Just wondering whether the tea with milk I am drinking in the morning on fast days is affecting my insulin levels and subsequently the non-eating 'fast period' from the evening before, any thoughts?

Well done Phlebas and Bunt!
Welcome Tristan, my DH did his first fast this week too, be interesting to see how he gets on with it.

I have started to wear some trousers I bought at the start of the summer, but were too small for me, only to find they are slipping down. I'm starting to think about wearing stuff I haven't used for a couple of years :)

Bloody hell Talkinpeace, is your middle name Superwoman or something :o

I'm normally a gym bunny, just one who has eaten and drunk rather too much over the summer!
Am finally starting to feel hungry - not helped by just having been food shopping.

Louise I'm drinking loads of tea with semi skimmed milk - but I always do. It is bound to have a teeny effect, but depending on your normal diet, that will be counteracted by the fact that your system has nothing else to work with : a pint of semi skim milk contains around 23g of sugars (as per fitday nutritional info) - how many cups of tea do you get to the pint?

Fast day again, my 4th in a week as in the first week I did 4:3. Really really really hungry today and feeling shocking but that's because I was up lat last ight and DD woke at 530 today. Going to do Friday if I can cope with it too and then maybe Monday and Thursday. After that I'm back to work so going to ease back to 5:2.
Had nothing til lunch and then had a big salad again with some lean chicken. Had a brilliant loss this first week of 5lbs, so hoping for a good loss this 2nd week before I ease back to 5:2.

Hi TalkinPeace ,was wondering about this. I only drink around 3/4 cups I guess but trying to work out whether this affects the fast phase was hard. Can't see me managing to last until lunchtime without them tho :-(

First fast day this week for me. It's been easy again although I do get headaches when I fast and they don't always clear off again for a day or two! Unsure whether to fast again tomorrow or fri - fri less easy as not at work but think tomorrow could be too soon.

I do have 2 or 3 cups of tea with milk and 1 small spoon of sugar on my fast days, I think I would struggle without them. I do count the calories in to my 500 allowance.

It doesn't seem to be interfering with my weight loss.

I tried using Truvia instead of sugar in my first week, but stopped because a) it really isn't nice, and b) despite having no calories, it is 99% carbohydrate, so I'm not convinced it won't have just as detrimental an effect as sugar - or worse.

(if anyone wants to try Truvia, I have a jar with 2 teaspoons taken out of it you can have )

Am interested in this IF - am low-carbing but b=have stalled, with not much to go. Am a bit scared of fasting, as i used to get quite faint and shaky (on low-fat, low-cal) - how long do you fast for, in hours? I eat about 6pm, but not again until about 7,30 am. That's over 13 hours. If I fasted the following day, when could i eat again properly? Is it really a whole 24 hours of 500 cals before eating normally?

I have to say, although I love low-carb (cheese! cream! butter!!!!) i'm not too sure about the health aspects.

Hello all,

I am currently doing adf and finding it really works and is not as hard as just eating fewer calories every day. I have been doing it for 3 weeks and have dropped about 7 pounds. Hoping to lose another 7 to take me to my target weight. Am finding it hard on my feeding days not to eat so much that I feel sick and have been nibbling chocolate and other foods that were previously forbidden. Even though this is the case I'm still losing weight though. I actually feel physically better on my fast days than my feeding days, which is odd.

So do you eat anything on feed days? I do find that on low-carbing I do miss fruit! I don't want to go out of ketosis (or do I? Does IF depend on ketosis? Am a bit confused)

So far so good today - I was really busy at work and so I grabbed a pack of ham and a bag of watercress for lunch. Unfortunately something came up which meant I had to eat on the move and it isn't easy to eat sliced ham and watercress while driving!

I don't feel too bad but I'm away to have 300 calories of chicken and veg. :)

It'd be interesting if mn get Dr Mosely or someone on for a webchat to ask about low carbing with this diet. It wasn't mentioned on the program. I have to say I don't fancy it much!

Did well today, as for the second time ever I managed without breakfast! Had a fab egg salad for lunch and then 3 slices of nimble toast and philli and a cup of tea for dinner.

captainmummy
The whole point of ADF and 5:2 is that IT is the calorie restriction - so all the Dukan / Atkins pseudoscience can go by the wayside
For those with a lot of weight to lose, getting OUT of the habit of fizzy and crisps has to apply to all days
but for people like him - with a BMI under 25 anyway, toast and a bit of rice and pasta are part of a balanced diet ....

Was going to fast M/W/F this week (WEEK 5), but made apple and blackberry crumble and zebra cake on Monday so it becam third eating day in a row

Fasted yesterday (didn't get on to MN yesterday as DD decided to fall off bike and split her lip open). Ate today, but only about 1600 calories and will fast tomorrow.

Aiming for another lb down by Monday.
So far a full 4 weeks in and 5lb down. Easily the most I've lost on any diet other than Atkins which allowed the weight to fall off, but after 8 months on it Icouldn't face another piece of bacon.

I'm enjoying the fact that there's no forbidden or good foods, not obsessive about calories consumed on feed days (just not going too mad)
I think I could easily adapt this on a permanent basis. Just reducing number of days when target weight reached.

6lb to go to be in normal BMI and another 8lb to be really comfortable.

Good luck all.