The FastDay Forum

I'm mid way through my second month and so far have lost just 1llb. In my first month I had lost 3llb, which I was really pleased about, but at the end of February, I caught flu. I was able to involuntary fast the first week as I didn't fancy any food, but the second week I didn't fast whilst I recovered. During that time, I gained 2llb, putting me almost back where I started. I began again last week, but am feeling a bit frustrated that it should have gone back on so quickly and be so difficult to shift again. It's made me think that I need to be more careful on my non-fast days. Does everyone else here track their food every day? Also, during the time I was ill, I didn't exercise much - is this actually an essential part of the 5:2?
I'm determined that this will work for me, so want to make sure I'm giving it the best shot possible. Any advice would be very welcome.

I don't track now, but I did for the first couple of months. Just to give me an idea of what it was sensible to eat. I used My Fitness Pal

Hi Jilly,what Merlin said makes very good sense. In the longterm,remember that on non fast days you are told to eat well but not eat all you want..i.e., you can't draw a chair up to the fridge and graze all day.
for some people tho,and i' m one of them, tracking calories on most non fast days is necessary,tho its a drag.

As for exercise,health probs mean i cant do much,but have still lost weight. They say that altho exercise is good for you,you'll lose weight anyway on 5:2 if you do your fast days properly - exercise will help burn calories of course and keep heart and lungs happy/ help develop good muscle tone.

Don't get discouraged and give things time to settle in - many many people have lost a lot of weight this way- and keep it off. Also,bear in mind it's thought that regular fasting has longterm health benefits also! X

Hi Jilly, I do and I don't. I am definitely "aware" what I am eating even if I don't add every single calorie. I know when I have eaten over my TDEE. The day after a fast I don't mind going over just a bit but the other days I try to stay within.

I agree with Merlin, if you are new to dieting then getting familiar with calorie content is helpful. Even now I am surprised how many calories some food have as compared to others. Getting used to lots of vegetables with a protein food will comfort you that there is a lot of food you can eat, you just need to find the right ones.

Hi @JillyR I have to track on non fast days or I don't loose ...I guess some of us just have to and others are lucky enough to get away with it.

Until I started tracking cals and eating only to TDEE I didn't loose very much at all.
However I am quite small (5ft2) have a fairly low TDEE of 1640 , I also have to mind my carb intake as well as too much and again the weight loss stalls again, I could also eat my own body weight in things like bread, boiled pasta , crackers etc as I am naturally greedy

It's a bit of a pain but now I am in the swing of it its not too bad and I don't actually get really hungry , and I do still have days such as birthdays and special occasions when I don't track at all , as I see this as a life change not a diet with an end point.

Try working out your TDEE and tracking for a week, that's what I did .. and that kick started my loss , I also had a look at what I was eating as well and tried to reign in my carb monster

[Tracieknits]

If I'm not losing when I really want to be losing, I track. But usually, I don't.

I find if I track for a month or so, I get a better handle on what eating to my TDEE actually is. Let's face it, I didn't get to 100 lbs overweight by instinctively knowing how much I should eat in a day >.<

I have never tracked on normal days. As a lifelong dieter I tend to cook low fat ( I know that is not 'in' these days) and I have a fairly good idea where the danger areas are. I do eat a few sweets and have a drink of alcohol at weekends. I do keep losing weight albeit painfully slowly now. For most this is not a quick fix and for some people it does take a while for the weight loss to get going- from memory I think I had lost 2 or 3 lbs after 5 weeks but it did pick up after that - so stick with it!

Thank you all so much for your replies .
I think I will have a go at tracking each day this week so I know what I am actually eating, then it might make things easier in future.

Hi @JillyR and welcome!

As others have mentioned, it is very useful to know the calories of foods that you usually eat, so it is certainly worth findng that out. Most days I roughly work out how much I am consuming - very roughly!

This way of eating has to be sustainable for you in the long term. So in order to help with weight loss, look for changes you can make that aren't too difficult for you. Minimise the amount of processed food you eat - make as much as possible from scratch. Maybe you can give up some foods - I now rarely have pasta or rice, and bread only occasionally. Eat lots of non-starchy veggies. Have an unsweetened drink instead of having a snack. Don't eat after a certain time at night. And so on!

Re exercise, not essential, but worthwhile! You don't have to do something too vigorous - aiming for 10,000 steps a day is something doable for most.

Best wishes and good luck.

I don't track on non-fast days, but I am on a mission to cut out most added sugar, alcohol, and highly processed foods so that has me eating fairly sensibly even on feed days.

As others have said, exercise isn't essential but it helps.

I'm mostly posting to comment on eating while and after being ill. I suspect that you could have kept up your fasting during your recovery with few to no ill effects. I did so recently and recovered from my flu and then head cold just fine. In fact I recovered better than I had in past years when I had to resort to medical care. You have to decide what is right for you and your health of course, but there isn't anything inherently wrong with this WOE during illness.

Glad you are feeling better and are getting back on track.

I never did, but I did 4:3. I think if i did 5:2 I wouldn't lose weight unless I 'dieted' every day i.e watch what I am eating.

Hi: I track every single day. I also watch my carb intake.

I track daily while I'm dieting; I aim for 500 twice a week & 1800 on other days, which is 10,000 calories a week. I also have a 100 cal nighttime snack any night I need it - I've always slept badly & eating carbs in the middle of the night helps me get back to sleep - that gets me to around 10,300 cals for an average diet week.

I read that 3,500 calories 'not eaten' results in a pound lost & that the 'average' woman needs 2,000 calories a day to maintain weight, so I took it that for the 'average' woman 10,500 calories in a week should result in a pound lost. Clearly no-one is actually average, but this does appear roughly right for me.

Sometimes when I've wanted to try to move the weight loss along I've added a 1200 calorie 'half-fast' once a week, but I found these harder than the 500 cal days. But going to the gym on the '1200' day & adding almost all the calories burned to the 1200 works for me - so if I go to the gym & do 300 cals of exercise I can eat 1450 cals that day. I found this made me very keen to go to the gym!

I began this last Autumn, lost 10 pounds by December, put some back over Xmas when I celebrated for a month - & I'm now almost back down to that Dec low. By monitoring calories I learned what's in most of what I eat regularly so I know without weighing most things now. And I've learned SO much about avoiding biscuits / chocolate, etc by Googling each evening to check the (often awful!) total of any odd snacks that have fallen into my mouth during the day. And going away, or taking off the calorie restrictions for a few days feels wonderfully indulgent.

At the start I kept a food diary. It made me more mindful of what I was eating. At other times, I have tracked calories more carefully. As others have said, it's good to know how many calories are in your commonly eaten foods. I think most important on non-fast days is my mindset: am I eating just because I can or am I eating because I'm hungry? I even use some fast day tricks, like sugar-free gum and soup when I'm hungry in the afternoon.

Hi when I started I wrote down everything I ate, it was the only way to keep track of what i was consuming, but I soon learnt the calories of most things and now I have a rough tot up just to make sure I'm not going over the top.
As for excercise I don't do any formal stuff but I have a fairly active job which helps I think.
I would just keep a food diary for a week or two and you may be surprised at the amount of calories you are having.
Good luck.