The FastDay Forum

Hi all,
Well, I've been 5:2'ing now for just about 1 year, and in that time, have come down from 15st 7lbs, to this morning being 14-7lbs. Result. I'm delighted.

I feel great, I've had to have loads of clothes taken in, altered, and am now back in 34" jeans again, which after a decade of being gradually increasing, feels fab.

However, despite me still fasting on 2 days per week, I seem to have stopped at 14-7lbs......could I have achieved my ideal/optimum/natural weight ?
I'm 51, and have always been a 'bigger' build, a 'rugby player build if you will, always carried a reasonably muscular frame etc (oooer missus), and in all honesty, I'd told myself that if & when I got to 14st, would perhaps go to 1 day a week to purely maintain.

Perhaps I'm destined not to achieve 14st ? Perhaps I've found my equilibrium ?
Anyone else reach a point where you have just 'Plateau'd' ??

Or - am I perhaps not being 'Strict' enough on my Fast days ?
Yesterday for example.......I had 2 cups of tea, milk and 1 sugar...... 2 Latte's with Milk & 1 sugar, a Baked potato for tea with Beans, a Pint of Lime cordial with it, and then a cup of tea in the evening.

I dont eat at all during the day of fasting, preferring just a light meal at tea time etc, and thats how I've always done it.

So - any thoughts/suggestions/criticisms ?

Thx all

Hi @ChrisMc Well it could very well be that your body is at a happy weight or yes it could be the dreaded plateau, the one time I stalled last year I reduced my carb intake and this kickstarted my weightloss again.
Last week I reset my activity level on my tracker because I've not been out walking much lately and was actually very surprised to see quite a significant drop in my TDEE not sure if any of this applies to you but thought I'd share.

More likely you are eating a bit too much on your non-fasting days to lose any more weight at your current activity level. So, find your TDEE from the tracker and check how your 5 days stack up against that, if necessary eat less and/or move more...

Good Luck!

[Tracieknits]

I'm with the others on this. At 51, it is unlikely your optimum weight has to be higher than you'd like.

Your fast day has a lot of sugar and carbs in it - if the rest of your diet is like that, I would suspect you need to ease off the sugar and carbs a bit. I'm no low carber by any stretch of the imagination - but I counted 4 or 5 sugars and a baked potato and beans (not sure if your baked beans have sugar in them, but ours in the States do). On a fast day, I would probably swap out the potato for something that would stick with me better, like a lean piece of meat, and add some green veggies. I also would cut the sugar by at least half on a fast day. yes, 1 teaspoon of sugar at a time doesn't sound like much, but you had four or five of them. that's 80 calories in just sugar, which is a huge portion of your fast day calories.

Hope this helps!!

Thx Sue/Pete,
I appreciate my Coffee/tea addiction isnt perhaps ideal on fast days, perhaps I should cut out altogether for the 2 Fast days.
As far as 'activity', working from home as I do means I walk the dog at least twice every day, even Fast days, - an hour at luch and 30mins at 6pm ish, so not too static !

I'm thinking its perhaps as much to do with Coffee/tea/milk/sugar as anything, but getting close to 'optimum' weight too perhaps isnt helping....

Optimum is an unknowable quantity.

Without knowing your BMI it could easily be that your TDEE now matches your 5:2 eating quantity.

Try adding a fast day or two to your week to see that will restart the weight loss.

Hi Tracyknits, - I hear ya, thx for input.

But - I cant see a medium jacket potato and beans being more than 400 cals in total, lesving me with a supposed 200 more in my tea/coffee during the day, - + my Daily Total of 600 Cals. ?

Now Carbs/v protiens......... I didnt think it mattered what your 600cals consisted of ?
Might just start having diluted cordial drinks only on fast days, No food, and see what gives. !

[Tracieknits]

Well is does and it doesn't matter. Eating nothing but carbs is not a healthy way to go, and if I ate nothing but carbs on fast day, I'd be ravenous and miserable. Dr. M certainly recommends eating lean protein and veggies as your fast day food, although he does say it can be whatever you want.

Those last 7 pounds are difficult for many to move. That's when people find they need to make changes, such as reducing carbs and changing the type of calories they eat in order to make the scale move to where they want it.

Carbs do a lot of different things in your body than protein, fat and veggies. For one, protein and fat can be broken down and directly used to repair cells rather than just being burned as fuel - so while technically they are the same number of calories, some of the calories actually aren't used as fuel, so they kind of don't count. There's a lot of scientific stuff behind it that I'm not eloquent enough to explain, perhaps someone else can chime in.

I've been the same weight for months, I'm dithering between thinking I need to tighten everything up or just carry on. I'm getting smaller, I think but it's complicated by the amount of exercise I do.

I also think I'm about 2 stone under my set point so I feel uber-thin, which I'm patently not at 12 stone and 5 ft 3 but it doesn't help with motivation!!

So you have my sympathy! I would count a latte as a meal in itself.

Have you added the cals up on your fast day to check ? I don't drink hot drinks at all, but some latte is pretty high in cals, then add the teaspoons of sugar/milk plus the rest of what you eat.

Might be worth a quick glance to check the total incase its exceeding the limit

Maybe change the food on a fast day and move away from the carbs and add more protein/veg to mix the system up a bit Always good to confuse it and not expect carbs Veg curries with some steamed veg come in around 200 cals in total, so its easy to reduce the cals on a fast day and still feel fulfilled. You don't have to eat 600.

Just a couple of thoughts Well done for sticking it with it for a year

I'm with Tracieknits and Minigill - the sugar in the tea and the milk in the lattes (not to mention a pint of lime cordial if it wasn't sugar free) will cost you a lot of calories and it's so easy to drink things and underestimate the cals in them.