5:2 Diet Thread! 12! Cheaper by the dozen!

[GreenEggsAndNichts]

The continuing thread for those of us following either the 5:2 diet or the alternate-day fasting diet.

The 5:2 diet was featured on Horizon in August 2012, and essentially requires you to fast for 2 non-consecutive days per week. The other 5 days, you can eat what you like, or approximately your TDEE (see explanation below). 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 for a woman, 600 for a man, on those days.

You'll find on these threads we use a number of acronyms. If you're new to the threads, or Mumsnet in general, they might not make much sense.

WOE/WOL = Way Of Eating/Way Of Life. We use this term instead of "diet" as many of us see this as something to do in the long term.

MFP = My Fitness Pal, a website many use for keeping track of the number of calories they're eating.

TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure, quantifies the number of calories you burn in a day. This measure is best estimated by scaling your Basal Metabolic Rate to your level of activity. TDEE is critical in tailoring your nutrition plan to desired fitness goals. Here is a link to a calculator to help you figure out how many calories you should be eating in a day.

ADF = Alternate-day Fasting, as it says on the tin, fasting every other day rather than 5:2.

Michael Mosley has recently unveiled a new website to accompany his new book on the subject. Please go check them out, as he's the whole reason most of us are here!

I know a number of people lurk on this thread, as this is currently quite popular. Please just jump in and post if you're new- we won't bite. Well, maybe on a fast day. You'll find a lot of support here.

Here is a list of links to get you started with this way of eating. Please let us know if you find a new article or some other information online:

First things first, here are links to some of our previous threads: most recent one before that another one!

Another thread which breadandwine has started is a good resource for some of the links and tips that get lost in these big threads. In addition to sharing links, we try to condense some of our top tips for fasting there. Keep in mind, we all do this differently, so these are just tips, not rules. This might be a good place to catch up with us if you're feeling a bit lost!

frenchfancy has a recipe thread over here, please post any low-calorie recipes there so they don't get lost in these bigger threads!

Here is the link to the BBC article regarding Michael Mosley's findings, which was featured on Horizon.

B&W has found a new link to the aforementioned Horizon programme here. If you're keen to see it, watch it soon, because BBC has been quick to find these copies and shut them down online. We're hoping they'll re-play it again soon. I know these threads are popular, maybe they'll read my request.

A blog post here gives some of the scientific explanation for why this way of eating helps you to not only lose weight, but improve your all-around health.

A Telegraph article which comments on the diet and gives a brief overview.

A study discussed here gives commentary specifically addressing the effect of this diet on obese people (both men and women), with regard to both health and weight loss. ("After 8 weeks of treatment, participants had an average 12.5 lbs reduction in body weight and a 4 cm decrease in waist circumference. Total fat mass declined by about 12 lbs while lean body mass remained relatively constant.) it also mentions "Plasma adiponectin, a protein hormone that is elevated in obesity and associated with heart disease, dropped by 30%. As did LDL cholesterol (25%) and triglycerides (32%).")

Something to consider if you are currently your ideal BMI: this appears to suggest the benefits for women at a lower BMI might not be seeing the same health benefits that are found on men at their ideal BMI.

Another food link, here is a link to the BBC Good Food site, with a list of low-calorie soups.

A BIG THANK YOU to all who have been contributing, btw. Most of us are learning this way of eating as we go along. All of the links above have been posted by others in our previous threads, and they've been very helpful. Sorry if I haven't given credit where it's due, but it was just enough of a job getting all the links re-copied and back into one post.

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

Quick reminder to everyone. On your fast day make sure you weigh your portions. I had cereal this morning (not a fast day) and weighed just to see. Box said it was 137 cals/ serving. But a serving is 40g and my not very big bowl had over 90g in it! So from 137cals my breakfast has gone up to 300 cals

morning

yes i'm def off the cup a soups now that i found out the low fat condensed cream of mushroom soup (which is yum with black pepper) works out to not much more than 100cals for 600mls! so 300ml of tasty thick soup for less than a mug of watery cup a soup and the other half of the can could be used to make a sauce for fish or chicken with veg in the evening. i'm going to try making my own this week though.

i am pleased and amazed to find the scales haven't gone back up this morning despite a day and a half of eating. i'm sat at 11.7.2 so nearly half a stone down in 17 days. even if the loss slows down a lot being around the 10st mark by summer suddenly seems quite viable.

what's odd about this woe is that it is actually what was my natural way of eating but i always got told off about by everyone and got lectures about how the reason i was tired/or whatever else was wrong with me was because i didn't eat breakfast, left it long periods without eating etc. then when i put on weight it was because i didn't eat breakfast

i tended not to eat in the day and then eat in the evening and people would say this is why you put on weight because it all just sits there whilst you're asleep - to which i would say yeah but come the morning and early afternoon and i'm burning it because i don't eat then. it's hard when your instincts about your body go against conventional wisdom. my weight gain wasn't because i ate at night it was because i started totally pigging out at night on sugary calorie intense food. partly because of a medication i started taking that is renowned for causing weight gain and partly because i gave up alcohol and replaced the sugar with food. it wasn't the when but the what.

for people prone to bingeing what seemed to work for me this week surprisingly was to do two days in a row of fasting - it seemed to break the cycle a bit and really give my stomach and appetite a chance to... adjust. whilst i have eaten a bit of crap since it hasn't been the epic quantities i felt the need for before. i think whenever i'm teetering back up towards stuffing myself and not feeling full i'll do two in a row again - it also reminded me how nice it is to feel 'light' and not backed up and bunged up with overeating.

sorry for extremely long post - everything is a cognitive process for me and a learning experience so i tend to need to waffle on about it

That's brilliant Swallowedafly - what an epiphany for you, and nice to know you were right all along I expect! My appetite has adjusted enormously with this - I find it impossible to overeat - yesterday had a big lunch (satisfying my once-a-year craving for proper burger and fries) and all I could manage in the evening was a few lychees and a couple of crackers and cheese and it felt like a binge! My DH is doing this too now and he's re-adjusted his appetite too. My main problem now is I'm buying too much damn food - haven't re-adjusted my shopping quantities yet.

I've decided not to bake a cake item this weekend - it just sets off sugar cravings, I'd rather indulge on interesting fruits instead (hence the fresh lychees - delicious!).

swallowed an excellent post.

It's very strange how this WOE changes the way I view food. I bought a cake yesterday had one small slice & thought actually I don't like this & threw the rest of it away. Before I'd have eaten the lot whether or not I liked it simply because I'd bought it.

thanks - it's not so much yay i was right all along (well there's a bit of that ) but more yay i CAN trust my body and my instincts.

logically i knew i was right. that there stopping eating a few hours earlier than me when sat around on the sofa couldn't be as effective as my sleeping then spending most of the day going about my activities without constant eating. i also 'knew' that my body couldn't be wrong in not wanting to eat and literally feeling nauseous at the idea and that i shouldn't be overriding that and forcing food in. but it is so hard when there is this constant obsession about how you NEED breakfast, you NEED lunch, you NEED to eat often etc.

if breakfast was so vital and important why would my body utterly reject it? has it got a death wish or something? our bodies tend to want to survive and get what they need.

i do need to retrain my mind though - i had come to use sugar as a drug to make me feel warm and satiated at night. i guess i could do with thinking of replacements for that or maybe it is just about learning to be ok without a 'blankie'

Swallowed I'm interested by your 2 day fast reset theory. I tried 2 fast days in a row a few weeks ago and really srtuggled. It wasn't really through choice I was going away for a long weekend and struggling to fit in 4:3. I was ravenous on the second day and ended up having my meal at 4pm and going to bed hungry

I think this is something I will build up to incorporating into my routine when I can see old habits returning and weighloss stalling. Going out cycling today enjoy your Saturday whatever you are up to

skinnyeye - don't do it then! it doesn't sound like it worked for you or did you much good.

for me day 2 happened naturally and was easier than day one actually. i nearly did day 3 because i wasn't hungry but ended up eating in the evening.

trust your body.

Sorry if this has been discussed earlier upthread but it is just so long!

Is anyone doing IF 5:2 but 6pm till 6pm? I think this will work much better for me but isn't discussed much in the Fast Diet book. I just can't go to bed so hungry and see no reason why the bulk of the fasting can't be done overnight in the earlier part of the day? Anyone else doing it this way?

Also I'm a bit concerned about the NHS and their negative take on fasting. They appear to refute all the scientific evidence for health benefits on their web pages

you can do that if you only eat 500cals after 6pm otherwise it isn't the same sw.

so you could save all of your 500cals and have them before bed.

would that work for you?

Thanks swallowedAfly. I think it would because I don't normally eat anything after 5pm anyway and would just have a small breakfast and lunch instead. I just found that the cumulative effect of having only 500 calls all day was making it impossible to sleep!

You can always try it and see. But I don't think your weekly calorie defecit we be as big so weight loss will be slower.

survivingwinter As swallowed said - as long you still restrict your calories as well that's fine, but if you mean eating 500 cals between 6 and 6 and then eating more after 6pm then you're not going to get the benefits of fasting.

Have you tried skipping breakfast then eating a small late lunch (say 200cals) then eating the rest at 5pm (or whenever suits you)? There's a lot of personal testimonial on here that suggests eating breakfast tends to 'unlock' your hunger for the day and that it's a lot easier to ride over the hunger til later in the day.

Most of us find that we don't get more hungry, in fact the hunger passes quite easily - can also be staved off by drinks (I have masses of herbal tea on fast days), or a cup of stock. I personally have a small lunch (100 to 200 calories - soup or ham & salad sandwich with low GI bread) and eat most of my calories early evening with a good hot spicy meal. This week I did manage a fast without eating anything until my evening meal and it was fine, but I prefer splitting it into 2.

Sorry if this has been covered a million times before, but has anyone down 5:2 whilst exclusively breastfeeding (16 week old)?

Oh my god so much to read!!

I have been using MFP since New Year and have lost 11 lb on 1300 cals a day but seem to have reached a stalemate and haven't lost a think in just over two weeks. Do you think fasting for two days in addition to this would kick start me again? To be honest I find that if I don't snack, which is my biggest downfall, 1300 cals a day is enough for me so would be happy to carry on with that too. Do I just choose 2 random days to fast and stick to them each week? Thanks.

i haven't borabora and personally i wouldn't. give your body some time - you only gave birth a few months ago and are still recovering plus working hard to produce milk on top of presumably lack of sleep etc.

is there really such a big rush?

BoraBora There definitely are some BFeeding fasters on here - might be worth checking the earlier threads for more info/advice - I'm pretty sure there was mention of it on thread 9 (when I joined in) - I expect you could do a search for it?

megatron Hello! Read the links in the OP and try it! There's so many benefits to be had and not just weightloss...

bora definitely breast feeding mums on here but I seem to remember that Dr MM doesn't recommend it but I could be wrong.

surviving I do 8pm-8pm then eat 500 calories & start eating normally following morning.

literarygeek is BFing, for one, and there are others.

As Bestsy says, it was discussed in thread 9 and possibly 10. If you do a CTL F search for literarygeek you'll find some info.

I suspect that Dr M is just being cautious. If you think back to our hunter/gatherer ancestors, they would have BFed out of necessity, right?

Interesting observations from SwallowedAfly and Aftereights

2nd day of normal eating for me yesterday after the first 2 fasts, so far so good.
However, yesterday I encountered my first real WOE challenge. It was a staff training day at work and they had laid on a very lavish buffet. My first thoughts were panic!!! What am I going to eat? How many calories are in things? Am I going to undo all the good work?
I then realised I must have looked like a rabbit trapped in the headlights and I was also holding up the queue. So I very quickly gave myself a stiff talking to and reminded myself that I could actually eat these things and that I should just take a medium plateful and see how I feel. So I took two filled rolls and a bag of crisps and left the gorgeous looking cakes, telling myself that I could always go back for a cake if I was hungry. I also had to ignore the comments from other people -'are you sure you don't want a bit more?'

I ended up eating the crisps and one roll; I took a bite out of the second roll and thought, actually I'm really full up! So I threw it away. Although I did feel bad about throwing it away and felt people were watching me, probably a hang over from my childhood (the don't waste food mantra).

So I'm also starting to learn so much about myself and about listening to my body rather than using my eyes to eat (Oh that looks nice I must try it). However you need to have the confidence to do this and as I found out, it doesn't come naturally. Hopefully over time it will.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Morning all, just wanted to share the fact that today I am wearing a pair of jeans that last fitted me approx 8 years ago and I can breathe and everything

I weighed in this morning after an eat day yesterday and since last Saturday I've lost 5lbs - know some of that will be water but I'm well chuffed. Was a bit worried as it was an up day yesterday.

I did 4 eat days and 3 fast days.

Way to go gonepearshaped.

I feel much better today. I'm on a non fast day today and so far had a cup of herbal tea, 1/2 a grapefruit and a small soya latte and done a 20 min 'fat buster' workout.

I'm going out tonight with friends for a birthday celebration and am hoping to wear a size 12 dress that I bought in last years January sales and have never worn yet.

Hope everyone's weekends are going well.

That's so funny gone that you can 'breathe and everything' - so get that! :-)

BsshBossh - your 52 lb weight loss is really inspiring and your message to keep plodding on. I've lost 22 lb on 4:3 and have another 30 to go, so I'll take your figures as a good omen :)