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Fasting / 5:2 diet

1. WELCOME PLEASE READ HERE FIRST

158 replies

Laska42 · 24/05/2013 13:10

Hello! And welcome to the 'Antidote to all diets'!

Now that Mumsnet has grouped us into the' mainstream? I thought (as someone who has been here since the start) that I'd post this quick welcome and point you around to where you'll find the best information we've gathered together the quickest .

5:2 is in our opinion not just a diet but a whole new Way of Eating which you can do for the rest of your life if you like..(some of us maintainers are planning to do just that) We think its the 'thin? for life option? and also of course were all hoping that it will have the added advantage of giving us great health benefits also.

So if you are new and have questions and want support we recommend you at first join The 5:2 diet thread.

I'm not linking it here as it moves so fast and We are currently at thread number 20 as I write this having started back in August 2012 on number 1! So as you can see there?s been a lot of ongoing support and help on that thread which we've all benefited from ..

I think you'll like it there , everyone is very friendly and helpful .

I'm now going on to mainly nick our lovely greeneggs post from the main thread here, but its evolved throughout the time we've been doing this so its good to read
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BASICS

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 a 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!

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:

HINTS AND TIPS, SCIENCE AND OTHER GOOD STUFF WEVE GLEANED ALONG THE WAY

This thread 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!

RECIPES

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

MAINTENANCE THREAD

For those of you who are maintaining we have a separate board ,where we try and support each other to make this a life WOE. If you've been at this a while and are moving on to maintaining your goal weight, there is a thread called IF 4:3 5:2 Maintaining a healthy weight currently here

THE FAST DIET BOOKS

Dr Michael Mosley and MImi Spencer had now published a Fast Diet book and a recipe book.. there are others by other authors too,

THE HORIZON PROGRAMME WHICH STATED IT ALL

There's a link to the aforementioned Horizon programme here. This may not be here long as they do tend to disappear from the web

MEDIA STUFF

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

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 by Dr Mosley himself, very informative if you're just starting. (we highly recommend this for an overview)

ANOTHER USEFUL RESEARCH STUDY

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!

PLEASE DON'T POST HERE , BUT PLEASE DO JOIN US ON THE OTHER THREADS

THANKS and GOOD LUCK this is such a great WOE I?m sure you won?t regret doing it .

Laska

OP posts:

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BigChocFrenzy · 04/08/2015 18:05

REMINDER
5:2, ADF, 16:8, Fast 5 are all tested WOEs that will enable most folk to lose well and safely.

BUT
People with past or present EDs should NOT fast at all