5:2 Diet Thread! 13! Now, the baker's 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!

If you've been at this a while and are moving on to maintaining your goal weight, there is a thread here to discuss that.

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.

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!

Milk is ok, if that's what you want...but be careful, because those 500 cals go pretty quickly! I stopped drinking 'normal' tea years ago, have you tried any others? Peppermint is my favourite and I somehow converted DP to it as well!

I have eaten less than 1400 today but I'm not hungry any longer. Should I just let it go even though TDEE is over 1700 (and it is 10.15pm and tomorrow is a fast day!)

Aarg got start of a migraine hope it doesn't develop as fast day tomorrow it's my own fault over done it on the green & blacks!!
Drinking loads of water to stop dehydration and taken a couple of painkillers.

What's everyone planning for food tomorrow if you are fasting?

Lots to catch up on!
Glad to see you have now got your loss Saf
PMPC I am in the same position as you. It will only be my 2nd fast & I'm concerned I might run out of steam through lack of cals today Fingers xed we'll be ok.
I did my 1st fast with milk, b'fast etc as it was how I'd understood it from the programme & book & I'm pleased to say I've continued losing on subsequent feed days with a total of 4 1/2lbs gone! Only another 7ish to go so I'd agree with see what works for you. That said I wouldn't be surprised if I need to alter as I go but at least I was able to get through. Not sure I wouldn't have reached for high fat/sugar/salt fix if I hadn't eased myself in, but I am weak Good luck to all fasters tomorrow.

I'm having ryvita and lactofree soft cheese for breakfast, dinner TBA!

Hi ELR I had a headache on sat, hope it improves for you.
I am planning on oatbran porridge,egg white omelette with asparagus (as I have both leftover from other recipes in my fridge!) then salmon something in the eve. Prob some asiany broth type thing. How about you?

thanks greenfig but it may be back on again tomorrow for all i know

i'm fasting tomorrow. plan will be limited cups of coffee and tea in the day, tons of water and i intend to have a proper healthy meal in the evening with plenty of fibre. probably oven baked fish with lots of steamed veg. that leaves a few calories spare if i need a bowl of soup before bedtime.

Starting my first fasting day tomorrow. Feeling excited, hope u can last 16 hours I had my dinner tonyt at 4 as I had to make little ones dinner. So my 16 hours will be from 8 in the morning will have a cup of tea with a little milk. Followed by lots of water throughout the day. Work at 5 so I make kids t for 4 so that's goin to be bit tempting. Will have my dinner wen I get home about 7-8 hope all goes to plan. How is everyone getting on today?

I'm going tohave bbq chicken breast with a couple of boiled potatoes and veg

TiP- 'Hunger is mostly in your head'. 'Try not to snack ever again'. Wonderful to have you back and wag your finger and say all this! Hard for the rest of us 'snacky' people, but we need a talking to!

I am trying not to eat on non fast days unless I am hungry, it aint easy but it makes sense that people were not meant to graze - we dont eat grass! In general hunter gatherers would have probably had to work for food; fruit for example has short seasons, hunting animals takes time etc?

prob pretty obv I have been reading paleo stuff isnt it!

Charlotte, as others have said you can have milk if you want to. The 5 2 diet basically requires 2 very low calorie days where you only consume 500 Cal, when and how you have those calorie is up to you. In general a fast means a period of time where no calories are consumed and some people find it helpful to include a fast of up to 14 hours or more within the very low calorie day. The reasons for doing this is that it can reduce hunger and it may be more beneficial for cell repair.

Reading through some of the posts from the new starters, I think many people are finding it hard to believe how staggeringly simple the ?rules? for this WoE are. Simply put, the ?rules? are:

On fast days eat no more than 500 kcal (600 for men). On non-fast days eat normally.

That really is it as far as rules go, and if your main objective for doing this is weight loss then whatever you eat, whenever you eat, if you?re following those two simple rules then you?re doing it correctly. Everything else that we discuss on these threads are tips which help us and research which has been done for the health benefits that also come with this WoE. If you find it too difficult to go down to 500 kcal on fast days straight away, there is no harm in starting out with a slightly higher allowance on fast days and easing your way down to the 500 kcal.

One of the things some people struggle with is what it means to eat ?normally? on non-fast days. Simply put, this is roughly the amount of food your body needs to stay the same weight, so not a diet portion and not a binge either.

When I started this WoE I wasn?t actually planning on using it to lose weight (I was highly sceptical and didn?t think it?d work but I?m always willing to give things a fair shot). I was just intending to use it to keep my weight under control while I was away studying in China for six months because I knew I loved the food out here and I wanted to be able to fit into the seat on the aeroplane when I flew home. So I didn?t restrict my eating on non-fast days at all because for me the whole point was to be able to eat all the yummy Chinese food I wanted and stay the same weight. But after 4 weeks I noticed my clothes were much looser so I went out and bought a cheap set of scales. I did start out on ADF though (because I hadn?t heard about 5:2 then) so it would have been pretty hard for me to eat so much on normal days that it would undo the fast days. After a week or so I also noticed my appetite got reset and I simply didn?t want to stuff myself silly anymore.

Others have a different experience to me. Some come from years of calorie restriction diets, so the eating normally on non-fast days seems a lot of food to be eating while trying to lose weight. Others have spent years overeating by quite a lot and find it a challenge to only eat a normal amount for their bodies. For both these groups of people it can be really helpful to work out your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE ? there?s a link to a calculator in the OP) and then use MyFitnessPal (MFP) or some other method to track your calorie intake on normal eating days. You don?t have to do this for the rest of your life, just a few weeks of doing this can help you get a good idea how much food is the right amount and then you can stop calorie counting on your normal eating days and just relax into it. It?s also perfectly ok to average out your calories over your normal eating days, so if you?ve got an event coming up one day and you know you?ll be eating loads there?s nothing wrong with having a little less on your other normal eating days ? just so long as your normal eating days average out at roughly your TDEE. I?m told MFP?s weekly tab is great for this. Another option for those doing 5:2 if you have a calorie laden few days coming up is to throw in an extra fast day if you can and if you?re feeling up to it.

Another thing people are curious about is the 16 hour and 24 hour fasting periods that get mentioned a lot on these threads. These are done for two reasons: 1) because many of us find that the later we start eating on a fast day the easier it is to get through the day successfully and 2) because one of the principles behind the health benefits that go along with this WoE is that giving your digestive system a complete break from digesting food helps the body go from grow mode to repair mode. Repair mode is where the health benefits come in. How long is optimum to fast? The short answer is we don?t quite know but studies seem to suggest a 16 hour fasting window will bring health benefits and that possibly more benefits come from longer periods of fasting such as 24 hours. Some on this thread achieve this by not eating from after dinner the day before a fast until either lunch time (for 16 hours) or dinner time (for 24 hours) on a fast day. This is not compulsory though. I had breakfast lunch and dinner for the first 4 months on this WoE, and I now usually have lunch and dinner, just occasionally doing the 24 hour proper fasting period.

A wise man once wrote: ?He who walks with the wise grows wise?. This is certainly true with these threads. There is a wealth of information and research as well as personal experiences on these threads. If you don?t have time to read through all 13 of these main threads (who does?) I really recommend the links and tips thread (linked to in the OP). You?ll also see some other tips about what kind of foods to avoid on fast days etc. such as avoiding processed foods and really carby stuff like pasta or avoiding diet fizzy drinks. These tips are here to help us stick to the fast days and to benefit our health but they are not rules, so if you really like your fizzy pop then you can still have it. There are no banned foods on this WoE. When I started this WoE I had a two litre per day diet coke habit. Reading these threads and the links to health risks associated with aspartame (particularly the association with depression, which is a risk factor for me) I?ve now cut back to around a litre or two per week. All of us on here are experimenting with this and finding what works best for us and then sharing our experiences.

I just thought this recap might help those who have joined this thread in the last couple of days. Apologies if anyone has already posted something similar recently, but the internet in my building is out so I?m having to get online when I can go somewhere with a connection which means I?m a few days behind with reading posts at the moment.

Right, off now to catch up on this thread.

NurseEzzzaChapel excellent summary, very useful thank you! I was slightly confused about the length of the no-food fasting period so you've been very helpful there. I'm doing my first fasting day tomorrow, first day today of tracking cals on MFP. I'm planning to eat with DH tonight at around 8pm, and then wait as late as I can tomorrow morning / early afternoon before having my first fasting day meal. I've planned for a green smoothie, which really does fill you up for relatively few cals if you don't use too much fruit. Having followed these threads for a week or 2 and looked at all the other forums/websites/facebook pages, I'm feeling really really up for it!

fast day today.

i'm going to attempt to have just one cup of coffee this morning and then hold out and see if i can manage to go without more..

my concern has been caffeine withdrawal headaches. if it wasn't for my coffee addiction and inability to drink it black i'd easily manage 20hrs of total fasting. i'm not sure how much damage the splash of milk really does but it would be interesting to see if i can wean off 'needing' caffeine anyway. on the other hand i don't want to make myself so uncomfortable that this begins to seem like too much.

my weight, as i predicted has bounced straight back on again today according to the scales. 11.9.2. i seem for the last week or so to always come back to this weight even though fasts take me below it to 11.8 and to 11.7 one day. really hoping this is the last time i see the 9.

I've been mixing normal coffee with decaff (the swiss process non-chemical stuff) and slowly trying to increase the amount of decaff vs caff. DH hasn't noticed yet!

Great post nurseezzza Can you copy it to the T&L thread so it doesn't get lost.

First fast day and have left for work without having breakfast - I am a little bit hungry but nothing unmanageable yet! Ironically I used to never have breakfast (just wasnt hungry til about 11 at earliest) but after years of reading how essential it is in the media have trained myself to have porridge or fruit, wish I hadn't bothered now!

artemis i know what you mean. just before i started this way of eating i had started training myself to eat breakfast for the first time in living memory. then i got to forget it again.

countryhouse i am laughing about you secretly decaffing your dh. what is the swiss process stuff? i've stayed away from decaff because of the carcinogenic business.

Hi Guys, can i jut say there seems to be another poster with a similar name to me lol, can you check who youre "talking" to as i got all excited thinking the messages were for me but alas its for the other artemis lol....Even thought tip was getting exasperated having to explain it all but again it wasnt aimed at me :)

sorry to excite you artemis and yes, i'm talking to you this time will think of another shortening of the other posters name.

5th fast for me today. Already had one cup of black coffee and a cup of ginger tea, will then follow this by hot water with lemon juice and so it will go on until about 8.00pm. Can see I'll be in the loo a lot today . Scales have not moved this week and am stuck at 11st 2.2lbs, however it is my TOM so maybe it's to do with that.

Took the advice of the more experienced amongst us and have just measured my waist, although no weight loss, I have lost half an inch going from 31in to 30.5 and as mentioned in a previous post my BP has reduced significantly. So there must be some good things happening inside

Good luck to all those fasting today and hope the scales begin to move in the right direction for anyone that is stuck.

ha ha SAF thanks, thats me set up for the day now...well my Mondays arent filled with much excitemnet normally :)

First fast day today feeling positive and focused, feeling slightly hungry and would love some toast right now. had a big dinner at 4 last night so 16 hours from then 8am.will have little soup about 12 then will have dinner either before or after work depending on how hungry I am..how are people getting on on there fast days?

Well, today wasn't going to be a fast day due to going out for a curry with friends tonight, but my husband's work schedule has just put pay to that so it's Monday fast as usual today!
Someone was asking earlier about meal ideas for fast days. For me it'll be to break my fast at about 3.00 today (since 8.00 last night) with a banana. Then tonight I'll be having a salmon fillet marinated in ginger / chilli on top of some stir fried broccoli, greens and leeks. Yum!