The 5:2 Thread number 21! Soaking up the Sunshine

[BetsyBell]

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.

NFD = Non fast day

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!

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- 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.

There's a link to the aforementioned Horizon programme here.

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. (I highly recommend this for an 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!

Thank you for encouraging me yesterday people. I MADE IT!! Got through the day. I think thinking of it as skipping breakfast and lunch is a much better way of doing it; keeping busy and telling yourself you can have it tomorrow are also great tips - thank you!! Hurrah! Necxt one on Thurs and feel more determined now.

Well done peachy
I'll be fasting on Thursday too.

I reset Mfp to maintenance and it's a more attractive 1700 cals.
But i still went over that today
It's a bit of a PITA adding food/working out how much ihad.
[sulk]

Also, what's the effing point of yogurt FFS.
So bloody calorific.
Might as well have an ice cream.

Ugh, I'm all bloaty today as I had school dinners [shudder]. I am almost looking forward to Friday's fd .

Emily, you don't have to do mfp for long, just until you get a visual idea of what your portions look like. I think it's one of those things, people either don't like counting calories or they do. I quit like it because I'm a sad do and it feels good when I'm under calories, especially if under by one calorie - it was a game I used to play when I was religiously calories counting!

WEIGHING EVERY DAY
Please don't.
Part of having your relationship with food properly under control involves "knowing" what you weigh.
Go and lock your scales in the back of your OH's car or in the shed
weigh once a week at most.

Diana Rigg (actress, look her up if you are too young) was taught to tie a VERY thin silk ribbon around her waist.
It stayed there for years
if it dug in she was too fat, if it was slack she was too thin.

Step away from the scales.
I do not own a pair : I weigh myself each Friday at the Gym on the posh balance scales at exactly the same time in exactly the same clothes ....

Yoghurts vary enormously. The flavoured ones tend to be full of sugar and additives, the low-fat ones will have added sugar - I stick to plain Greek yoghurt, and add my own fruits/ nuts/ savoury stuff like cucumbers and tomatoes.

Remember I told you my sister had asked me about this WOE 3 weeks ago? Telecon with my mother this week - she says "Oh your sister and her husband are looking so well - they've been doing this for 3 weeks now!". I'm so glad she's been able to follow it with good results. Now I just need to convince my mother to try it!

Coming to the end of my fast day - tried to fast yesterday and ate nothing all day, but was scuppered by a last-minute plan to go out for dinner with some work colleagues. An counting it as a mini-fast.

Today I've had lots of herbal tea and water, 3 x tea with skimmed milk, and am about to break my fast with sweet onion and spiced puy lentil stew. Also did my last day of ripped in 30 week 1 and a 40 minute run (all on empty stomach) so I am feeling proud!

Reading everyone's posts is really inspiring to me - congratulations to all the old hands at this woe and all the newbies as well

Agree with Melanie on the yogurt thing. No fat Greek yogurt is delish, filling and very low cal. Add own fruit. Or fruit and a little granola. Or fruit and tiny amount of honey (like the Greeks do it).

I like to whizz the yogurt in a food processor with mango to make creamy "fool" type thing and add a little shaving of chocolate on top. Feels very decadent.

Or whizz it with avocado to put on top of crackers.

Hi everyone!

I have just started this and hoping to follow your great successes.

I started yesterday so had a 'feast' day sticking to my TDEE, today was my first Fast day and I've gone a bit over on the calories- have had 637 . Have I completely messed up or is this ok? Will really do my best to stay under 500 on Thursday for my next fast day.

Thanks

Yes, I will go back to buying Greek yogurt. Maybe "total 0%"

egg
Small steps.
You likely have had fewer cals in the last couple of days than you might have otherwise.
It comes with practice.
I still regularly up on my NFDs.
Still losing.

Tuesday night pity-party post warning!

Had a terrible nights sleep and felt grumpy and distracted all morning because of it. I've been off the calorific Pret sarnies since I started this WOL but felt in the mood for one today! Had soup instead and no bread. Felt a bit better in the afternoon probably due to the pint of water I drank. Gym session tonight felt that bit harder than usual and feeling a bit porky right now even though I haven't overinduldged at all today, but have done a little on my NFD's. Pretty much resigned to seeing no weight loss this week due to being a bit picky and also having a homemade banana cake but about to put a celebratory bottle of Prosecco in the fridge anyway in the hope the scales have shifted in the right direction

Just had a very small piece of ginger Green and Blacks and agree with sotired - it tastes fabulous on a FD.

Take it easy saf and well done ponygirl.

with DH being a Burnley supporter he has banned the DC from becoming Rovers fans like their school friends

cbgbees oh, dear! Your DC has my sympathy!

Thanks for all your feedback, it's been really useful. DP is out this evening so we haven't discussed things any further. DD2 is nearly 14, she is sporty but has gained a lot of weight over the last couple of years and is keen to lose some. DD1 has gone from size 14 to size 12 since Christmas but that's a whole other story. I used the word 'envious' rather than jealous - she might look at me and wish to be more this shape than her current one, and she is pretty down on herself, but making an effort to be more active. She gave up chocolate for Lent, which is something I would never do!

I don't think DP worries about me being attractive to others, I hope I was equally so four months ago! I think, and in fact he has said a while back, that his preference is a size 10 rather than an 8 in the same way I like my OH to be tall and broad-shouldered! There is no way he is going to go off me but I would like him to stop going on about me being skinny and telling me not to lose any more - I'm not even trying to! I was under 9st the summer before we met and can't have gained much by the time we met in the autumn.

Anyway, enough about me...well done to today's fasters, you did it!

Hello egg and well done skyler :)

hi all, so busy this week that naturally not eating as much, sometimes think over eat when life is quiet and boring!

bread& wine and CBGBees Im in Hoddlesden, but I can see Ewood park from my loft window! Love the road to Nabend and all that weaver history. What would they have made of us lot fasting to lose weight eh? Daft as a brush , no doubt. How long did your fast last bready?

Postmanscat you weigh what you flaming well like, big or small.

twinmama32 Ive read somewhere that losing weight is harder for your average PCOSer so well done. Are we stuck on a plateau or are we maintaining??

em'sBF I assumed you knew what you were doing when you mentioned setting your MFP to weightloss, that you were on some personal endeavour, so didn't mention it. However, yes the calorie allowance of 1700 is much better than 1200. That's a mere 60 cals above mine, not bad is it but easily reached when you eat cheese and have some wine.

egg in a bap there are so many tasty food names lately! It took me many fasts to get the hang of 500 cals, but I still lost a stone in roughly a month.

Hello all, I think I have been the same as you Peplum been a bit busy and yesterday was just in 'head down try not to think about fasting' mode. I have done consecutive fasts the last 2 /3weeks which may have been the reason things have continued to chug ever downwards - slowly I may add - but today I am 9 stones something!!
It is 9st 13 3/4 lbs but I'm taking that 9 stone
Last week I was 10.1 1/2 and before that 10.2 1/4 so I seem to be losing 3/4 of a pound a week.
/emo/te/2.gif
I honestly cannot remember the last time I weighed in single digits, I am suspecting sometime in 1995 or 1997.

Well done Miffy!

egginabap, do you plan ahead what you're going to eat on a fast day, and add it all up in advance? That's where sites like MyFitnessPal are most useful.

ok, that's it. Can anyone with a yummy food name please name change and spare my sanity? Even if it's just Tuesdays and Fridays

egg don't worry about going over on your first attempt. Or even your second or third. You'll still be doing yourself some good. Like melanie says, try to plan them in advance (also helps you not have to think about food on a fast day).

miffy I dont care what anyone else thinks, that's a 9 in my book! well done

A decision has been made: I am fasting today, and possibly even on Friday too.

Well done miffy, I need to get a grip and get back down to that elusive number myself - been skirting around the low 10s for weeks now. I am back to misreading my hunger signals and I don't like it.

Yes, betsy, thats the mindset you need. OH, I wish id read this thread before I made the decision not to fast. Ive got to talk to people a lot today and DH informs me I have drain/poo breath when fasting. So persuaded self not to. Any body else get that? Even breath freshener spray doesn't last.

miffy that is a miffytastic result! It was defo the late 90s when I last saw a 9 on the scales.

peplum I generally have coffee breath on a fast day. Clutching at straws here but how's your dental hygiene generally? Do you floss everyday? It might help if there's an underlying problem that the fast days exacerbate.

On a general note, flossing's quite a good distraction from wanting to snack, especially in the evening if any of you are that way inclined!

Hello egg, well done all you losers, am soooo looking forward to being in the 9s. Have just squeezed myself into the 10s (not seen for about 4 years) and haven't seen 9 anything for about 10.

peplum you're not the only one (my dh pulls a horrific face but doesn't say anything which i find more annoying!) i think drinking shed loads of water along with not eating anything too spicy the night before helps (plus a good tooth brushing in the morning) and i make sure i have sugar free gum around if im feeling a bit manky, the saliva released helps to break down any tiny bits of food to reduce bad-breath causing bacteria. Science lesson over, hope meetings go ok!

Morning all. Tummy bug seems to be on its way out as yesterday I was eating most of my kitchen!
Fast day today, and maybe Friday too. Not decided yet but if I do Betsy we can get each other through it

Dotty You're hardcore for planning 2 fasts straight after being ill! Glad you're feeling better though. Did you have a nice holiday? - I know it probably feels like ages ago now but I forgot to ask! At least the tummy bug waited til you got back.

Just remembered I've got to do lots of baking this evening (cake! quiche!) so that'll be really fun at the end of a fast day