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! :)

Had a bad feed day today, which started with peanut butter on toast, followed by houmous salad roll for lunch, three Jaffa cakes then three oatcakes with houmous, then 1slice toast with beans and have just had a bowl of muesli and a bit of DPs pasta. Saving grace is that I walked quite a few miles today.

Think I will have another fast day tomorrow and start with porridge which seems to fill me up very well.

Does that not defeat the purpose of fasting then? From what I could tell reading the studies and watching the Horizon programme the idea was to limit food intake to one time so your insulin levels only rise once during the fast. Sorry if I'm completely wrong. I'd quite like to have left myself something to eat this evening

SilveryMoon, I did exactly the same yesterday, so have fasted again today.

I think it is better if you just have one meal a day, but Robert Mosely on the horizon programme split his up and I think it still has health benefits.

I have done 2 fast days now with DH and they were not too bad so we are going to try the 4.3 plan for a couple of weeks with a view o dropping back to 5.2 if we struggle. We watched the horizon programme on you tube and it was interesting although it did raise some questions. It wasn't that clear to me if you are meant to spread the calories or not so for now we are. It was also suggested that high protein was not ideal but the programme didn't go on to explain this further. I would also like to know the sample size for adf and if the results have been replicated. That said, i am happy to give it a go.

My eating pattern is to have large cuppa with milk and half teaspoon of sugar first thing. For lunch i have had salad with protein like prawns or duck ready made so i can't have extra. About 150 cals. Dinner has been stir fry turkey and veg with tiny bit of sweet chilli sauce for about 250. Through the day i have tea with no sugar, diet coke, no sugar squash or the odd tic tac at 2 cals each! Have enjoyed my feed day today a bit too much... Peanut butter on toast, crisps, olives stuffed with olives, few Thornton chocs in addition to meals!

Marking my place - I did my first fast day today - small banana for breakfast, Sainsbury's lentil & tom soup for lunch & dinner, with half a wholemeal bread roll with each. Peach for pud. A bit over 500 cals I think, but I really couldn't contemplate going without breakfast!

Looking forward to food tomorrow!

I know this sounds pathetic, but I really don't like salad or vegetables or soup or anything really.
I have always been a fussy ester which is prob why I have such issues.
Need to do something though and break this pattern of eating crap

As if we needed more incentive. But read this
www.genesisuk.org/media-centre/articles/The%20Intermittent%20diet%20.html

Very interesting cunning.

My next fast day won't be till Sunday as I've got a birthday to go to tomorrow and then off to Newmarket races on Saturday. I want to lose this weight though ideally before Xmas. :s

And silvery moon... I'm so glad u said that! I don't mind soup but salads and vegetables I will quite happily not eat! Always feel like a bad parent when I say that cos inevitably I get the 'well how about setting a good example to the kids' question.

Yes suja. My ds's eat veg. I just can't. They don't seem too bothered that I don't eat it though

Yes the Genesis way of fasting was my original inspiration. I do still follow some of their general rules, like just having one piece of fruit per fast day. They are quite specific about having a lot of milk, or yogurt as a substitute, and I think I could do that. Also you can have that throughout the day.

Have finished my fast day, I might even be under calories. I saved up everything for the evening, had a small bowl of veg before going out, then didn't even finish the second glass of wine. This day was very easy, certainly compared with my first fast day. My friends ate (this was not ideal btw, I'd planned my eating day as yesterday so I could join them, but we changed plans at the last minute. I'm stubborn though and didn't want to give up the fast day ) and I had a small amount of wine. I'm pleased.

And I want to say I'm looking forward to food tomorrow but I am, for the first time, not actually chomping at the bit. I'm sure I'll have something nice, but I'm not as focused on it as I have been on previous fast days. It's all very interesting.

I can't comment about whether or not you should break calories up over the fast day. I think it's best to try to leave a long break at some point, either the first half or second half of the day, but I think the important thing is to get yourself able to complete a fast day and then work from there.

I personally think I wouldn't be able to have food in the middle of the day then not eat anything else. Today I had the veg around 5pm and that felt right. I probably won't eat again until lunch tomorrow, going by the eating pattern I've had this week.

Thanks for the link cunning. The milk days on that diet sound really quite good. Much more than I'm currently eating on my fast days.

Hi all,
it was an normal eating day for me today. I did feel a bit tired, but had a late night, so not sure if I can blame yesterday's fast day! Can't say it is making me feel especially healthy doing the fasting, but hopefully I will lose the weight I haven't been able to shift through this.
Had two bowls of cocoa pops for breakfast, felt sick! Surprise!
Seem to always want seconds of cereal the day after fasting.
Other than that had a very boring day of meetings all day and struggled to stay alert, and had a peculiar buffet for lunch, tiny bit of pizza, tiny bit of quiche. coleslaw, bread and butter and some fruit.
Then later a scone and cuppa then much later a bit of homemade casserole and a chocolate bar Dp bought me last night, felt sick again.
Also a couple of biscuits at around 6:30 with a cuppa.
I definitely think I was eating more than usual and feeling a bit spaced-out, but hopefully I will go back to normal eating tomorrow.
About to hop on exercise bike for 20 mins pedalling - I'm a night owl! :o)

Silverymoon you could try some vegetarian Indian food if you don't like straight veg. If you make it yourself you can control the oil.
Alternatively, you could always eat fruit instead, but watch out for the sugar. I can eat one orange for 62 cals or 100 grammes of carrots (about 4 small/medium carrots) for 42, so a lot more bulk in the carrots for fewer calories.

I started on the Genesis diet too but have cut down the milk to 1 pint a day but I do eat only vegetables and 1 piece of fruit as advised their. Occasionally a tiny bit of other protein. I think 2 pints of milk is prob too much in calories for me and later research seems to suggest it was the calorie restriction that matters... in any case milk is good for us perimenopausal types I think? But I certainly use milky drinks as a way to stave off other cravings along with a bit of truvia sweetener. Really helps me not scoff all the junk the kids have around in the holidays...

Hmm. I can do carrots. And cucumber, tomatoes.
Will need to look into what fruit has the least sugar.
I'd try another fast day today but am going for drinks tonight. Not strong enough to drink water and not wine in a pub

Morning everyone. feed day for me today. Little boy been up since 6, trying to make him go back to sleep now but he doesn't appear to be relenting!
I've got so much food in the house to make some lovely recipes, might do some cooking tonight when dh at work and ds in bed. Anyone else do much cooking from scratch and have any recipes to share? I don't usually cook from scratch very often but finding that i can get more food for my calories if made at home, plus very satisfying when it's all done.

Has anyone had bloodworm done? I am tempted to ask my gp if they can do it just to see. Though a comparison would be hard now as my third fast week is now over.

Blood workbloody iPhone

well yesterdays feed day was strange as I couldnt finish my dinner , but i think i was just trying to eat too much in one meal ..so wondering if fast days have started getting me me used to smaller portions i did have a small snack later in but only made 1200 calorie the whole day ..

I'm having a 'half fast' today -will eat a dinner tonight as Dh home for the weekend - he works away all week which does make it easier to follow this weekdays. I know there will be lots of bank holiday food and wine around and so my next day fast cant be until tuesday now.

Good luck all those fasting today .. i'm definately feeling not only a bit lighter but full of energy too! id like to keep off hte 3 lbs ive lost this week if I can overthe weekend .

How did Michael Mosely manage to lose a stone in 5 weeks? I have done three weeks now and lost three and a half pounds...

Man metabolism I'm guessing!
My DH has lost about 5-6lbs in 2 weeks and he's pretty slim anyway! Grrr!

I started off on genesis diet also but find the 5:2 much easier to follow. I've not lost a single lb this week but have lost 9lb overall so not bad. Only another 4 stone to go!

Some links have mentioned that men have more success with this diet, due to physiology. During one of my googling sessions for Intermittent Fasting or ADF, I stumbled across several male fitness sites which were espousing the diet for use in combination with weightlifting.

As a diet, it does work for females (the results of the Chicago group, for example; that was a mixed group of males and females) and the Genesis diet results are similar as well. But I think, as females, we generally won't see quite the drastic losses Dr Mosley did. (There are always exceptions and I've read of many success stories from women)

If you find you aren't having much success, you might want to try to change up how/when/what you are eating. I've stuck loosely to the Genesis diet in the sense that I just have one fruit and some veg on my fasting days. I've eaten poorly on my eating days but I've gotten better. I think my first few I had convinced myself I was ravenous or something. However, I suspect we shouldn't be eating too low calorie on the eating days, if you know what I mean. If you just look at it from a caloric intake point of view, if you eat 500 cals one day, and 2000 the next, you're averaging 1250 per day. Which is good. (Higher average depending on your ratio of eating to fasting days ofc) But if you're ADF and you're eating 500 cals one day, and 1200 on a feed day, then your average per day is 850 and your metabolism might very well slow down from that. (Again, this won't be as drastic if you are 5:2, but your average cal per day will still be low)

I'm willing to give it a good go. At the moment, even if I stayed even I'd be happy, because this actually allows me days where I'm not worrying over the fat/caloric content of otherwise healthy foods. My fast day yesterday was the easiest yet, and I practically sprang out of bed this morning compared with my usual hiding under the duvet until I really have to get up. :) Something must be up.

My dp has lost half a stone in 2 weeks. So she is on target for a stone. I have lost half that amount but dp does have weight to loose. I don't have to much to loose. It's really working for her...but she does two mad martial arts sessions a week which helps too.

rachelblythe I have found myself planning more home cooking in advance now that I have fast days. I've done a bit of bread baking this week, focaccia last week. I made Chinese ginger chicken dumplings this week. Wonky, but tasted nice. I assume they were low in fat and calories, actually, because I just used minced turkey (er okay I couldn't find minced chicken ) herbs and veg in the fillings, and they were boiled. I wouldn't have them on a fast day or anything but it was nice.

What sort of food do you like? I wonder if we should do a different thread for recipes, not sure if I want to drive all the fasters away with talk of food. :)