Anyone had stomach acid problems on 5:2 diet?

[bbcessex]

Hi all,

I've been following the 5:2 diet for around 4/5 months.. going great, I'm really finding it easy and have lost around 16 lbs (not fast but suits me).
I often do 4:3 if it's a normal week (fast Mon / Wed / Fri), but fast 2 days only if it's eg. Bank Holiday.

I've been noticing over the last month or so that I am starting to suffer with heartburn / indigestion type pain - seemingly 'all' the time, not just after eating.

On my Fast days, I have no breakfast, then home-made carrot / coriander soup for lunch, then nothing until more carrot soup and half a sandwich at around 8.30pm. I am really happy with that, I don't feel starving etc. and enjoy the food and the 'empty-ish' feeling (not bothered about variety either!!).

The stomach pain could of course be completely unrelated but I've never really had ongoing problems before (often had acid after a night out / lots of wine though) ...I'm taking lots of Gaviscon / Zantac, and am going to go to the Docs but wondered if anyone else has experienced this?

Any advice / experience appreciated - Thanks.

I was about to start a thread about this! I've been doing it for about 4 weeks and it's going really well. I'm so pleased with the weight loss. However I get really bad indigestion on the fast days. I have a teenie bowl of brown cardboard cereal for breakfast and then nothing until tea when I have a very very small salad or tomato pasta, noodles, or something. I've been getting heartburn at around 3pm the last 4 fast days. How can you get heartburn when you're virtually empty?

I had this about 5 months into fasting - along with bloating, pain after eating. I gave up wheat and it gradually got better - has been fine since.

Hmmm.. curious.

Snoworneahva - have you given up wheat completely? Did you have the problem before fasting?

farewellfigure - I guess it's stomach acid production.. I am worried that eating less has caused my stomach to produce too much acid that it's not 'using' (although I'm not sure that's a very scientific assumption?). It's strange that you get this too, particularly on the days when you are eating very little (although I get it all the time now)..

I have a doctors appointment tomorrow, will report back findings. I absolutely want to avoid the 'fasting is bad for you, stop doing it' response because aside from this, fasting has been an absolute miracle solution to my eating and weight issues.

I have now given up wheat completely, and I didn't notice a problem till recently, but thinking about it, it could have been brewing for a while - I couldn't blame it on fasting specifically but it started getting worse in Feb, bloating, pain, over full feeling when not having eaten very much, had loads of tests at GPs - nothing including gluten tests showed anything significant but gluten sensitive tests are often wrong so I decided to give it up just to see - and after 3 months of increasingly uncomfortable symptoms things started to reverse. I'm just glad I found the cause and I'm pain free now.

snoworneahva - glad you have seen improvements, that's great. Must be a big relief.

I went to see the docs; she said that not eating for long periods of time can cause stomach acid problems in some people because the stomach continually produces acid irrespective of your eating habits.

She wasn't unduly concerned, gave me a course of tablets and is of the opinion that it will sort itself out.. there has been an improvement, so good news.

I was relieved that she didn't blame everything on the 5:2 and recommend avoiding it.. she was quite supportive actually, happy news!