The 5:2 thread number 25- One year on from Dr Mosley's Horizon ep!

[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.

NFD = Non fast day

NSV = Non scale victory

Michael Mosley has a website to accompany his 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:

All our previous threads can be found by browsing through our very own fasting section of the site.

Another thread which breadandwine has started is a good resource for some of the tips and links 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. 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.

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

Thanks Blue2 I do not cope well with a lack of sleep!!

Anyway, despite chosing to go along with my son's menu choice of sausage roll and chocolate, I can still manage a mini-fast so working towards that.

Foot is mostly up though I have done a few household tasks this afternoon. I don't have a compressiin bandage unfortunatwly but the swelling has reduced which is good because tomorrow is school uniform shopping day. It's the least wonderful time of the year...

Stupid question alert.....been doing this about 6 weeks.....whats a mini-fast?

About 50% of tdee or 1000 calories. For those of us who were studpid enough to eat a sausage roll on a fast day :)

Hello is this where I join.....?

I am doing 4:3 this week and it is my first week. Third fast day is tomorrow. I am struggling to eat me TDEE today and just had a cookie to boost me as only had 1200 today and my TDEE is 2200. I NEVER thought I would struggle but my appetite has been minimal today so do not think tomorrow should be too hard at all.

I am going to do 5:2 after the first couple of weeks - just kick starting so to speak.

Does anyone else struggle now with TDEE eating or will me appetitie quickly resume (hope not!)

Angie you may fond differing answers on that one. when I mini fast I tend to fats for 24hrs then have a normal or special more calorie laden dinner.

*find
*fast

I am having a back FD - turning into a mini FD at this point. Had a great meeting in work, doing good all round happy out. Then followed by outright aggression from guy working on my project who I am senior to but not directly iykwim. Typical girl, home to a glass glasses of vino and crisps
Very hard to know how to deal with, don't want label of aggressive woman but would dearly like to drag his entrails put his nostrils for being lazy inept tw*t - sorry all, misery boots here

bad not back obviously, blame the cheap wine!

angie Not a stupid question at all - for a mini fast is when I hold off eating for as long as possible but don't necessarily stick to 500 cals.

DH did bring bubbles (of the Cava variety) and I was very grateful.

Nice bubble bath now I think, bit stinky after all the furniture moving etc (sorry TMI!)

JB30 Grrrrrr on your behalf, it's not ok to have to deal with aggression at work

Thanks Betsy I strongly feel like pointing out in all the difficulties he experiences, he's the common denominator. The Taylor Swift if you will
Sod him, plan to edge him out and when he wakes up wondering why he's not progressing, it'll be a never ending mystery since he lacks the capability to look at himself. And breathe....

So Angie, there are differing ideas of what a mini- fast might be. I guess it is what you make of it.

For example, on a normal fd, I eat 2 or 3 small meals whereas many people on the thread eat only 1 meal.

HellesBelles Angie I think it's just a way of putting a more positive slant on a failed fast day - I fasted... a bit.

Stops us getting into the mindset of "oh well, now I've buggered it up I might as well eat the whole pack of biscuits" type mentality that features heavily in traditional 'diets'

For me, Thursday often turns into a mini-fast of sorts while Monday is always a proper one.

Not only did I fail on having a FD today I have actually eaten so much I feel sick and bloated at least no wine. Am trying to make myself feel better by thinking I could be on holiday this week and missing TWO fast days.

JB30 I would aim to give him as little headspace as possible - every time your mind wanders back to thoughts of annoyance of him try and get it elsewhere. He's not worth time and space after all. That's what I've been trying to do with someone who's been doing my head in recently. Admittedly it's useless at 3am but great during the day!

Gilbertus So next time, remember how you're feeling now and ask yourself if it is worth it...

Betsy too true :)

definitely under 50% Tdee so not that had today. nothing keeps me satisfied for long again. and now the neighbours are smoking cannabis. that's gonna help my munchies

Oh good grief, these holidays are hard. I was sort of ok for the first 2-3 weeks whilst still working / kids in holiday clubs but for the last 10 days or so it's all gone to pot with endless baking of nice things (which I just cannot resist!) with the children and being off week equalling lack of structure / lots of time hanging out in the kitchen. So havn't managed any proper fasts for about a fortnight now and can't see me getting back on track till kids are back at school and I'm back in normal routine again.

Weighed myself this morning and 3lbs up back to 10st 10lbs. NOT impressed with myself at all.
Think I may have to restart myself with a couple of weeks of 4:3 in Sept!

dotty we have the tools to do this! I am in Mallorca eating and drinking like no ones business, but yes we can get back on the wagon in a few weeks time. Don't despair, September isn't far away.

Ugh, had a lovely night with a friend at a Mexican restaurant then drinks at the theatre interval but feel disorientated now, probably due to snacking on an unholy amount of biscuits during a very quiet day at work today . I'm going to have to take in some fruit and rice cakes next week.

Excuse the 'bragging' but I don't go out to smart restaurants often - I'm out again tomorrow night and this time to the Ivy in that London's glittering west end! Day off so no biccies to tempt me so will eat light until we arrive at the venue. That's the plan anyway.

Today's food so far:

2 small slices of wholemeal toast with matchbox-size piece soft cheese.

Home-made beans & tomates with brown rice & chopped rocket.

A handful of walnuts as I was cracking them out of their shells. (Snacking, yes...but it felt OK.)

Now coming up to crunch-time: a 'picky' evening meal of cheese, crackers, olives, escalebada, big green salad, plus red wine. Hard to keep a lid on this sort of eating...not so easy to take what you 'want' all in one go, as it is with eating 'proper' meals. Ah well, will do my best.

Fast day tomorrow. Won't eat anything until around 4.30-5pm. This seems to work best for me. I'm off to yoga in the afternoon and will probably have an early night as I do get scratchy with the boredom of not eating.

Salut :)

I think I may have to do another fast day today, or at least a mini fast as I stuffed up a great fast day on Wednesday when DH opened a box of chocolates. I know I shouldn't have had even one, but I kidded myself that "just" one would be ok, and not tip me too far over the 500 cals. Well, I ended up having four of them! Which was probably another 200 calories, maybe more? (I actually have no idea how many cals, I didn't want to find out for certain!)

So I was thinking of doing another fast day today, but have just eaten about 10 almonds, so that's not a great start I did eat under my TDEE yesterday, so maybe that made up for the over eating on fast day?

I think I may be thinking too much and one of the reasons for doing this WOE was to get away from that. Perhaps if I eat under my TDEE again today, or should I just carry on as normal?

Anyway, Hellesbelles, I sympathise about the weight loss. This is my third week fasting and until yesterday I hadn't seen much in the way of progress on the scales.However, yesterday morning I got on and I had lost another 0.2 kg, so thats a total of 400gms (doesn't sound like much, but it is something!)

My DH lost something like 5 kgs in a week and a half

So I am down to 76kgs, which I hadn't seen for some time. Last year I did a "Whole30", 30 days of very clean eating (no grain,sugar,dairy,alcohol) and went down to 75.5. However I came back from holidays 4 weeks ago at 77.8, so I suppose I lost a bit before starting the fast days.

I do think that if the weight loss is more gradual, perhaps it will stay off longer (my silly logic), and perhaps some people experience more loss due to loss of fluid? On fast days I reckon I drink my own weight in tea,green tea,herbal tea,bone broth,water,mineral water I think I may have an issue with having my mouth empty

Is it important to eat at our TDEE on non fast days, in terms of keeping the metabolism burning? I am a little confused as I have heard that if you undereat too much, your body goes into starvation mode and tries to hang onto the fat. But then I hear the only way to lose weight is to eat under your TDEE every day and you'll drop the weight. I guess that's how other diets work. So, is it important on the fast diet to always eat your TDEE on non fast days?

Betsybell, I just had a look at your photos. Wow! You are an inspiration. I know you have probably talked about this earlier in the thread or on other threads, but would you mind telling me how long it took to get down to that BMI (that would be a dream come true for me), did you get into strenuous exercise at the same time? Is it all from doing the Fast diet?

So I did my first day of fasting yesterday. I am 5 2 and have crept up to 9st 9lbs so would like to lose the 9lbs. My diet is not great but I am teetotal and dont eat meat. I tend to also try and avoid fizzy drinks (although I like coffee with sugar and powerade EEK!)

I have quite low blood pressure and do get dizzy spells sometimes.

So first day, I skipped brekkie as I dont start work til 10 and rarely eat before then. I had soup for lunch and then had veggie burgers with salad and broccoli for dinner. There was plenty of it. I also had a cup of tea (no sugar) and lots of water. I felt fine if not a little hungry

Woke up this morning feeling awful, could hardly get out of bed. Ate 2 crumpets and some juice to try and get some sugar in me. My hands were shaking. Got to work and went to the coffee shop to order my coffee. I never got to drink it as by the time I was leaving I had to sit down, got to work and lay down in the toilets (luckily just me here) and then had awful runs :(( Finally now 4 hours later I feel better.

So what should I do? I really want this to work as no diets seem to work for me and I think this would be ideal

What is weird is that post FD I am not really hungry I am not sure what to have for breakfast.