Guest post: Mimi Spencer - 'Why 5:2 is the only thing that's worked for me'

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It's hard to remember a time B5:2… Before the Fast Diet, before 5:2 emerged as the diet that changed the way we think about eating and weight loss, and parked itself firmly in the national conversation.

I'd always been one of those serial dieters who attempted any newfangled fad that came along, often in the interests of research. I've written about body shape and diet in the national press for twenty years or more - dieting was my schtick.

When it comes to dieting and body shape, of course, we all know it's complicated. We know that the (largely media-driven) cult of ageless thin has made many of us needlessly uncomfortable with our size, unhappy with our bodies, unhealthy in our approach to food.

But most of us would recognise, too, that being slimmer is generally healthier – not only as a guard against diabetes, heart disease and stroke, but also for the more subtle changes that occur: a renewed energy, a greater interest in exercise, a body confidence that can really make a difference to a day. These things, far beyond any desperate desire for weight loss per se, are what kept me searching.

I'd undertake new diets in the interests of womankind, ever hopeful, never satisfied as I bounced from regime to regime. I'd waded through the Cabbage Soup diet (remember that? Thermos flasks of gently rotting brassicas on your desk at work?). Through Atkins, with its foul breath and death knell for your social life. And Dukan. And that weird chilli/lemon drink that Jennifer Aniston or someone equally minuscule absolutely swore by.

None of it worked of course, not in the long run. Weight off, weight on, up, down, smaller jeans, ‘fat’ jeans. My life was precisely the life of many women in their forties - looking for the magic bullet that would make the roll top go away in time for the summer holidays.

Then in September 2012, I encountered Dr. Michael Mosley in the course of writing a feature about intermittent fasting for The Times. 5:2 was just starting to gain attention. His Horizon programme for the BBC – Eat, Fast, Live Longer - had sparked interest in the relationship between fasting and longevity, and Michael's take on it was already beginning to find fans. Having spoken to many of the leading experts in the field, he'd come to the conclusion that what you really needed to make it work was a high degree of compliance. His approach hinged on achieving sustainability over time. Fasting occasionally, calorie-cutting rather than calorie-eliminating? Well, that might just work.

It worked for Michael, of course. He lost 20 pounds, his blood sugars – which had been threatening his health – returned to normal. And it subsequently worked for me too.

On the Fast Diet, I lost 22 pounds in six months. These days, I'm in Maintenance Mode, fasting only a day a week, if that. I'm still at my happy weight – which happens to be around nine stone, down from the upper tens. I have more energy, I do more exercise, I know I'm healthier and protecting myself against age-related disease. It's not all about looking good in a clingy dress. Though that helps.

So why has Michael's plan worked for so many? There's the science stuff of course – details of which are in the original book - but, for me and for countless others, there's the huge benefit of compliance: we do the Fast Diet, we stick with the Fast Diet, because most of the time, we're not dieting at all. There's something radical here, something ‘revolutionary’, as Michael said on TV way back at the outset.

It's easy to grasp, easy to follow, easy to modify to suit individual needs. And there's no guilt. You bust a Fast Day? So what? There's always tomorrow. You've got a dinner date? Great. Enjoy it.

Some people have, however, asked us for a ‘boot camp’ version of 5:2 to propel them off cruise control – particularly in readiness for summer's great reveal. So we've written The Fast Beach Diet – a souped up, six-week programme which includes techniques to change your habits around food, tips on how to eat healthily and well on any day, and ideas about how to negotiate the temptations and cravings of our food-fixated world. It includes an exercise plan too, based on Fast Exercise, the high intensity training book written by Michael Mosley and Peta Bee.

So, as you can see, much has changed since B5:2. I hope you benefit from it too – do let us know how you get on.

Shotgun The evidence about health benefits of IF (intermittent fasting) is based on a huge number of scientific papers and experiments by reputable scientists in the fields of health, fitness and anti-aging.

They aren't specifically interested in weight loss, just health.
Hormesis is one of the most exciting fields of science imo.

Various (minor) celebrities have jumped on the 5:2 bandwagon to cash in.
They are mainly interested in weight loss, because that is what sells.
However, their shallowness does NOT invalidate peer-reviewed science research.

So in a nutshell, what are these 'peer' scientists saying about 5:2?

LRD I'm horrified to hear of pregnant women being pressed to diet.

Epigeneticists have presented papers that restricting calories or complex carbs in pregnancy modifies expression of the baby's RXRA gene, increasing the risk of obesity.
This epigenetic change is hereditary, so grandchildren etc affected too.

So, no diet of any sort when pregnant, unless under medical advice
(except cutting out alcohol, junk, blue cheese etc)

Well, it's not new, is it?

You can't walk outside the house without seeing something that's talking about women needing to snap back to pre-pregnancy weight, or needing not to gain too much, or whatever.

You only need to hop over to a current thread on Mumsnet where a prolific poster on here is telling people that they do not need to gain weight in pregnancy .

But we live in an age where to be very slim indeed (like the op of this thread) is seen as ideal and many women are almost phobic about fat of any kind.

bugger the aesthetics to be honest - I won't pretend I don't enjoy going from a size 16-18 to a size 10-12, or course I do, at almost 60 I look better than I did at 16 but I enjoy even more the knowledge that I have massively improved my chances of living long enough to see some grandchildren.

Did anyone else watch this last night?
www.itv.com/news/2014-06-05/tonight-the-diabetes-epidemic/

For a 45 year old woman to drop from 10 stone 4 (bmi 22.5) to 8 stone 10 (bmi 19.1) in 13 weeks she would need to eat 500 calories on fast days and no more than 1568 calories on non fast days if she is moderately active.

abra the problem is a lot of people think it's fast as in quick. I see it on here and on other forums a lot. People complaining they've 'only' lost 1lb this week.

mintyy whilst I get what you are trying to point out, someone who wants to go from a high-normal bmi to one heading towards underweight probably has a good grip on eating normally anyway, and if they want to do it that quickly are going to have to deprive themselves or exercise their butt off. It certainly wouldn't be a sustainable plan, nor a sensible one I'd say.

Actually, I'm quite amused by that confusion over the word fast .

Those stats I put in are the op's rl stats. I forgot to mention she is 5'7".

I think Michael Moseley probably felt he could eat "whatever he liked" within reason on his nfds because 2 days a week on only 600 calories gives him a huge deficit on his weekly calorie requirements, allowing him to eat perhaps a little more than his tdee on nfds and yet still lose weight. Because he is male, taller and heavier than the average woman, quite active and obviously eats fairly healthily anyway.

I know I am a stuck record here but for many women, including op who had quite a generous tdee of 2063 at her start weight, two days a week on 500 calories does not produce a sufficient deficit to lose even 1lb a week unless she also restricts quite severely on nfds.

That's all I'm saying.

I'm thinking of doing a diy 2:5 diet, which will involve allowing myself up to 1800 calories a day twice a week (my splurge days), and having the other 4,450 calories on the other 5 days, perhaps 1 on 500 and 4 on 1000 calories.

mintyy what's with the obsession with having to lose 1lb a week? Plenty of people have tried 5:2, lost at a slower rate and are happy. Plenty have also tried 5:2 and lost at a higher rate despite only having their 3000 deficit. Plenty have done the same with other diets too without the need for it to be a solid 1lb return week on week. In the end these figures are just theoretical.

I lost a stone a month for the first 5 months just eating to 500on fast days and whatever my tdee was on a non fast day at that time. I never had to dial down my eating on nfd to force the magical 3000 figure, and for a large part of those 5 months i wouldn't have achieved that 3000 figure through what I was doing. Turns out fasting agrees with me. Same with dh. Neither of us feel the need to overeat to compensate either. It's not going to agree with everyone but it certainly doesn't mean someone who's had success on it is lying about their methods (both authors have been vocal in that they don't count on nfd, they don't have to with neither starting overweight)

Its not an obsession, not at all. I personally found the experience of fasting 2 days per week too difficult to sustain when I did not see any weight loss.

Are people really happy to lose less than 4lb a month if they are putting in a lot of effort? I'm surprised to hear that.

Just goes to prove that some of us have more forgiving metabolisms than others then eh?

15 out of 63 posts are Mintyy telling us it doesn't work... That's disappointing because I started today

I started because a nurse I work with who's role is to advise people on lifestyle changes (smoking, alcohol and obesity) has been following it and raves over the health benefits. She has also lost weight.

Yes, everyone's metabolisms are different. Which is why some things work for some people and don't get others. My metabolism didn't stop me from nearly getting morbidly obese though.

And yes, I'd have been happy with 4-5lb loss a month. Because that's 4 stone over a year. And I didn't want a quick fix, I wanted something that would make me keep it off. But then it was never about vanity for me, my health was affected and I want to live to see grandkids.

If you were so miserable on 5:2 why are you even thinking of trying to do it and depriving yourself on further days? If you want a quick fix then you're on a sure fire path to misery.

Oh God! I'd have been happy with 1lb a week, ecstatic even. I have a funny feeling I'm not expressing myself terribly well .

And good luck FrontForward - it works extremely well for some people. I'm not sure what they do that I didn't do, but I certainly haven't been saying it doesn't work.

Minty If your TDEE is 1700, then that is what you can eat on average on NFDs. The FDs would give you a weekly 2400 deficit, so about ? lb.
That is healthy and sustainable for someone of lowish TDEE.

To accelerate weight loss, we suggest using the goal weight TDEE
which also trains you how to eat for later maintenance.

A faster quicker alternative is ADF, where you could eat up to 120% TDEE, 2040 for you. I personally wouldn't like so many FDs, but Varady has human trials on hundreds of people that ADF works and is healthy.
There is much more science for ADF than 5:2 , tbh

Yes. Gruelling though, isn't it. 500 calories two days a week and 1650 calories five days a week, all to lose just over 2.5lb per month. It would take me 16 months to lose my excess at that rate, assuming I could keep the weight loss up. And then I'd be down to bmi of about 24.

Whereas our op lost 21lb in 3 months when her starting point was bmi of 22. AND she was allowed more calories than me.

I bloody hate being short sometimes.

TDEE is mostly determined by height, age, activity level, only the last of which you can influence.
That totally sucks btw for the disabled who can't exercise.

Talkinpeace, ErrolTheDragon on our 5:2 threads have sub-1500 TDEE, but raised it a few hundred by exercise.

I'm 5'3", nearly 58 and my TDEE would be 1500 if I were sedentary, but I cycle everywhere - too mean to get a car - and I'm a lifelong exerciser, so it's actually 2400.

What is TDEE... Please

Wow, you are doing 900 calories worth of exercise every day? How do you fit that in and what do you do?

TDEE - number of calories to stay the same weight.
iifym.com/tdee-calculator/

The science is clear - we all need to eat healthier foods which are not processed and in addition if we can have longish gaps between eating and sometimes fasting that will help our health too.

I suspect moving to a healthier way of eating with lots of good fats, medium protein and low carb and lots of veg plus some intermittent fasting works for more people than eat all you like boxes of chocolates and sweets 5 days a week Billy Bunter style followed by 2 days of fasting.

Front TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is how many calories you should be eating in a day to maintain current weight.
This is a very accurate TDEEcalculator because it uses detailed activity times for an average 24 hrs

Minty I only do 60-90 mins very intense training 5-6 days per week and I have a few days break every couple of months. The TDEE works for me, though.
I do HIIT spin, boxing, heavy lifting, CrossFit circuits.

My cycling to/from work, gym and shops (relaxed pace) keeps my system ticking over.

"Eat all the junk you want" would exceed almost anyone's TDEE.
On the 5:2 threads, we try to encourage healthy eating, because many of us are on it as a longterm healthy WOL.
Most folk there learn healthier eating and exercise habits - my username is no longer applicable.

Within that, one of the things I like about 5:2 is that it works for all sorts on our threads: balanced / mediterranean / low carb / low fat / paleo / veggie / vegan .....

Low carb or low fat each seems to suit a minority, depending on insulin sensitivity / endocrine system.
Each group can be evangelical, but most of us seem to do best on a balanced diet.

Longterm, I'm sure mainlining sweet junk would have health consequences for anyone. It is not a food group.

My tdee would be 1580 without exercise. Most of my extra is walking. OK, so as a sahm I am a bit more able to do that, but basically I just don't sit still that often. If I can't escape my house for a walk I hike around my living room whilst the kids are occupied eating/sleeping/drawing and sometimes TV watching if it's a very bad day. On the occasions I work I use my lunch break to go for a big hike. I also use a fitbit which I find quite accurate for me and is perfect as my activity isn't often focused. Wouldn't recommend unless you're a big walker though yeah, that definitely says walker, phew

One of the reasons I can say I eat what I want is because what I want I eat has changed. My diet was always reasonably healthy - just too much food and too many processed carbs like pasta. I now follow the mantra of "eat real food mainly plants". I still go out for meals, have Indian, Chinese, Italian food but it really is a treat to do that now and so I enjoy it even more when I do have it. We used to have Chinese takeaway once a week, it doesn't occur to me to do that now - it doesn't feel like I'm depriving myself of it, Ive developed different habits.

Discovering that 5:2 worked so well for me has been an unexpected gift really - I'm working tomorrow, attending a workshop, read my notes today and saw that they're providing tea, coffee, biscuits but we have to bring a packed lunch - my reaction to that is "oh good a fast day". It will be easy to just drink the tea / coffee ignore the biscuits and go for a walk at lunch time. I didn't plan it as a fast day but it's a good opportunity to throw one in - its the flexibility that's so great for me.