does anyone use 5:2 (or fancying starting it) to get rid of menopause weight gain?

[notagiraffe]

I read this week that fasting is the best way to get rid of menopause weight and that 5:2 is perfect for it. I like the sound of it, and am going to give it a go. Does anyone want to join me? Or is anyone doing it who can offer tips or insight?
Thanks.

Yes me! On holiday and cannot avoid the fact after years of a flat stomach I am now egg shaped ! I have downloaded the book - ready to go!!

5:2 is how I got rid of my menopause weight, when nothing else seemed to work. I combined it with eating fairly low carb foods (no refined sugar, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes etc for the most part) and lots of veggies.

I lost around a stone over about four months, which was what I wanted to lose. The threads on here were a huge help.

To maintain, I switched to 16:8 - eating only within an eight-hour window - and a year later I've still kept the weight off. It goes up and down by a couple of pounds but that's it. I'm not hugely strict but am pretty used to not eating before midday or after 8pm now.

Hope it works for you. Good luck!

For all kinds of people some intermittent fasting is the easiest way to go as there are no choices or difficulties - you just don't have breakfast or whatever way you are doing it. I would like to lose a stone and I always find this way of eating (and I eat keto and paleo too) really works for me both for how I feel, health and weight. I am almost mid 50s, no menopause yet but it is probably looming (nice to read this week that late menopause tends to mean you live to 90+ a study found so some benefit of still having to pay for tampax at age 54 I suppose).

Thanks for the replies - great to see they're all positive.
Fallstar it's funny - I've gone off sugar a bit, and white bread makes me feel really unwell. Still eat pasta and rice though as teens and DH would kick up such a fuss if we switched to brown and I haven't yet sorted out cooking mine separately.
So 5:2 followed by 16:8. Sounds good.

I love breakfast, so am thinking of doing berries with low fat natural yoghurt and a sprinkling of oats, then big salads at lunch time and just having a cup a soup for tea.

What did you all do?

GirlGoneWild I was regular as ever and then during stressful time this year everything just stopped suddenly. I've heard things can stop-start for a few years but so far, I must admit I love not having periods. I used to get anaemic and feel exhausted and this is definitely better than the peri-menopause was. Except for the sudden spread of stomach!

MancMum we can do it together. Have you work out which days should be fast days? And do you do them together or separately?

Are you going to track what you're eating on My Fitness Pal or similar? I found that really helped me.

Berries are great, although I'm not a natural yoghurt fan, so I tend to have them on their own (or with a couple of squares of 90% chocolate, but not when I was doing fast days...).

For breakfast (or the first meal of the day), when I was doing 5:2 and now I'm doing 16:8, eggs are good, as they fill you up and keep you full for a while.

On fast days, I used to have some kind of protein and veggies/salads, usually across two mealtimes to make up my 500 calories. Sometimes I'd have soup - usually around half a carton of the fresh ones, depending on calorific value). Then gallons of coffee/tea (both decaf). I also found sipping lemon & ginger tea or peppermint tea (the Twinings ones) helped. And loads of water.

One of the most important things that IF did for me was to remove the fear of being hungry. I think I used to panic eat as well as comfort eat.

Oh, and I never did two fast days in a row, but I've heard that some people do!

Fallstar - yes I get what you're saying about panic eating. I've passed that on to my DC too. They can't bear to be hungry even fro half an hour. I've only just (and they're mid teens now) started saying they can't have a snack 30 mins before dinner. I used to be irrationally scared of them feeling hunger.

I'm another who lost my menopause weight on 5:2 after nothing else worked.
I've been maintaining for over 2 years now. I've just had my 60th birthday and I feel great

You are all very welcome to join us on the Main 5:2 Thread #64 for advice & support.
We're a very friendly bunch

The OP has all you need to know about 5:2, lots of tips & links, plus the scientific research behind it.

Most useful tip: eat meals, no snacking EVER

My childhood was mid 1950s - 1970s and like every kid I knew, I just had 3-4 meals per day, no snacks.
We all roamed free & played outside most days, plenty of energy without snacking.

The fashion for snacking was invented about 1980 by Big Food to make Big Profits.
Male bodybuilders trying to gain weight may need to eat frequently. However, after toddlerhood, most healthy people don't actually need snacks.
In fact, snacking is thought to be a contributory cause to the obesity epidemic.

There was 1 overweight child in my primary school and 1 in my secondary, pretty typical for those times. Very few adults under 40 were overweight then.

Like BigChoc I lost my menopause weight on 5:2 - back in 2012 when it first arrived. I lost 34 lb. Since then I've had one upwards wobble of about 10lb, but that was because I stopped fasting over Xmas (!). Once I got back into the groove the weight came off steadily. I'm now 9st - which is actually 4lb below my original target. My BMI is 19.1. I am walking a lot more and know that I am much fitter because I don't get out of breath at the top of the hill any more :-) I do still need to lose some weight around my waist though - it's more than 31.5 inches and weight seems to go on there first these days rather than any where else

I would certainly recommend 5:2 and hope it suits you - I'm overjoyed to have so much control over my weight now - but to never feel like I'm on a diet! I do eat what I want - but what I want to eat has changed and I now find fast days easy because I've learned what kind of days work well, for me, as a fast day. I'm also relaxed about changing things round ans swapping fast days for pizza and beer days!

I tend to do 16:8 most days - only having breakfast on the weekend - as I've found it easy to not eat until about 4pm so long as I'm busy and out of the house.

I'm a tad younger that catsrus and bigchoc but have found (along with several friends in real life) that 5:2 is the best way ever to shift the middle aged belly
and keep it shifted.

Well I would like to join you too ladies. Will start tomorrow.

I'll join you ladies, starting tomorrow -wish me luck

Good luck : jump onto the big thread - its the lively one

Can you have a cup of tea with milk outwith the 8 hour feeding window?

I do !
I am a total caffeine head so allow 100 calories a day for semi skim milk in my tea
but I have nothing solid from supper through to lunch the next day, most days.

That's a relief, I don't think I could manage on herbal tea first thing. May give it a bash!