The FastDay Forum

One pound a month is definitely not enough for me, Juliana! I can see that you are in the normal BMI range of 24. Many people, myself included, are here because they are (or were) in the obese or overweight category. One pound a month, twelve pounds a year is not even close to acceptable in my mind. Twelve pounds a year! Three and a half more years to lose the 40 more I'd like to see gone. Add that to the one and a half already done and it makes 5 years to lose 80 pounds. Sorry. NO WAY. That just wouldn't cut it. You mentioned three years in a previous post. That is just too long. People (most everyone) would give up long before they made it 3 or 5 years at a pound a month.

One pound a month is what I'm stuck with unfortunately. My tracker says I'll get to normal BMI range by mid 2014. I think it will probably be more like end of 2014 taking into account holidays/ Christmas etc. Still I plod on...

Hey, Madge. I have had months where I lost nothing whatsoever. Notice the plural there. It's happened more than once and when it happened I took it as a sign that I needed to change my game. I seriously don't believe many people would continue to eat so little 2 or 3 times a week only to lose a pound a month. Maybe some who are close to their goal; but not many who need to lose a substantial amount.

I rarely eat junk food, sweets, biscuits, cake. I cook from scratch at home. I now skip breakfast 80% of the time (so I'm doing 16:8 mostly, on top of 5:2) and I try not to eat too many carbs. I walk to work and back Mon-Fri amounting to around 25 km per week. Apart from skipping breakfast and the fast days, I did all these things prior to 5:2.

Things I could do would be to up my exercise (I will go back to the gym in the Autumn) and give up the wine - NO WAY!!

1 lb per month is fine with me.

Sorry...didn't mean that to sound like I think you are doing anything wrong. It is late here and I think maybe I'm too tired to get my point out effectively. I am a slow loser, too. I feel like I have had to make changes to the plan or otherwise I would get too frustrated with the whole thing to continue. I have done most all the things you've metnioned above, in addition to upping the exercise. The only point I was really trying to make is that there comes a time where lack of progress will cause many too fall off plan. Not aiming that at anyone...just a general observation/opinion. Nite all.

Madge, have you checked thyroid, rheumatoid factors and whatever else might stop you from losing?

And yeah we dont need supplements or drugs to support our lifestyle here. My tummy is growling here as its fast day today for me but I can handle it.

What are the supplements made of anyway?
hmmmm

There are thousands of people on this forum, perhaps some of them feel that they want a supplement. I hate it when my tummy is growling and it is one of the reasons I don't go out or arrange business meetings on fast days. I would happily take something that would stop that, assuming that it would.

If I could not afford to stay in twice a week, I would definitely take supplements in order to be able to go out, work and function on fast days. I even know what I would take.

The supplement contains konjac, VitB and Copper. It's the Konjac that does the trick, IMO. Personally, I would do it differently.

This formula is expensive, it will be interesting to hear what Moogie thinks about it. I am still over 30 BMI and if something can give me a boost I would try it.

Just read up about it and changed my mind I will carry on slow but the natural way.

Chris x

One pound a month is definitely not enough for me, Juliana! I can see that you are in the normal BMI range of 24. Many people, myself included, are here because they are (or were) in the obese or overweight category. One pound a month, twelve pounds a year is not even close to acceptable in my mind. Twelve pounds a year! Three and a half more years to lose the 40 more I'd like to see gone. Add that to the one and a half already done and it makes 5 years to lose 80 pounds. Sorry. NO WAY. That just wouldn't cut it. You mentioned three years in a previous post. That is just too long. People (most everyone) would give up long before they made it 3 or 5 years at a pound a month.

i cant rmemeber where i came up or why i said one pound a month as usually i figure 2 pounds a month or 1kg a month is probably pretty damn good for 5:2 or 4:3 without the "extras" as i call it

the average around here is apparently 4 pounds a month so it seems many are struggling to achieve this, even where weight is say over 80kg. So then maybe aiming for half that is ok.. i.e. 2 pounds a month or 1kg a month.. Without doing 5:2 one may indeed be gaining 1kg a month so its way better situation than that.

anyways 2 pounds a month or 24 pounds a year or 1.7 stone a year must be considered good. not the ideal but still in the right direction.

of course some people have a critical health issue and need to lose more weight than even 4 pounds a month. There is one person in australia that got some media exposure last year is 300kg so clearly its all different for him and a friend of mine needed to lose 40kg in 3 months due to health concerns.

Its all a big numbers thing and as long as the direction is down over long term its a good thing.

I cant help thinking that too many people here are feeling they they have somewhat "failed" if they dont reach this level of 4 pounds a mmonth which is inferred as "normal" in the thread "average loss of 1 pound a WEEK in progress tracker" .. I dont think 1 pound or 2 pounds a month is a failure at all and any loss of weight if that's whats wanted or needed is good, even if it's a tiny compared to this "group average".

We should all be proud of achieving any decline in weight if we are over our healthy BMI however small.

Re the supplements.....

It's a lot better than the hot Asian chicks I've been getting lately!

Wow, this is the best thread in ages!

It certainly is, so I thought I'd add a bit of my own story.

Over coffee, early in 2012 a good friend of mine (he got me started on baking bread) mentioned he’d come across research about longevity associated with intermittent fasting. You can read all about here, just type in ‘fasting’ in the search box,

http://nobreadisanisland.blogspot.co.uk/

His friends had a smile, as no-one would consider him overweight; when the Horizon programme was shown a couple of us joined in. To us, it wasn’t a weight thing, it was the health bit, particularly the benefits to the brain.

What interested me about the development of the 5:2 idea is that it came about because it suited Dr MM’s life style and in fact ignored some of the research. Dr Mark Matteson, undertaking studies in humans and animals, made the following observations (and others),

‘complete fast (no food) with hydration maintained with non-caloric beverages will be superior to consuming 600 calories on the fasting days.

In the case of the 5:2 diet, we do not know whether better health benefits are realized with two consecutive days of fasting versus any two days of fasting during the week.’

For Dr MM, that wasn’t suitable so he did what suited him, I’m not sure that is necessarily a good model for everyone to follow.

Many in the medical profession will not make up their minds until there’s some peer reviewed research. In the past three weeks, because of something quite minor, I’ve seen five different doctors, not one of them had heard of 5:2, neither had my own GP but was supportive of the idea, saying people have fasted for centuries for religious reasons, so no reason not to try it.

I consider myself fortunate that I came to the debate before there was any hype about weight loss and thus was able to ignore most of the claims that appeared in just about every magazine and newspapers.

When reading some your accounts, thanks miffy and others, I’m doubly grateful. Although, like most of us ‘Westerners’ a few less kilos is a good thing, I’m 5k lighter than a year ago and that was achieved by not following the diet over holidays etc. Truly I’m lucky.

It’s worked for me but I do hope someone will publish some research soon, if only to save the UK government a lot of money by no longer funding some patients on Weight Watchers.

I cant help thinking that too many people here are feeling they they have somewhat "failed" if they dont reach this level of 4 pounds a mmonth which is inferred as "normal" in the thread "average loss of 1 pound a month in progress tracker" .. I dont think 1 pound or 2 pounds a month is a failure at all and any loss of weight if that's whats wanted or needed is good, even if it's a tiny compared to this "group average".

We should all be proud of achieving any decline in weight if we are over our healthy BMI however small.

Well said Juliana - that's always the problem when some sort of 'benchmark' is set,whether intentional or not. Perhaps this will seem less of a problem when, and if, research proves the benefits to our bodies in other ways than losing weight - I hope so.

Sorry...didn't mean that to sound like I think you are doing anything wrong... The only point I was really trying to make is that there comes a time where lack of progress will cause many too fall off plan. Not aiming that at anyone...just a general observation/opinion.

Hi 43tweaker, no I didn't think you meant that at all . I totally agree with you in that lack of progress generally causes a lot of people to fall off plan. I have gone past the frustration stage and have now reached acceptance. I could probably speed things up a bit by cutting back even more but then it would start to encroach on my social life and that would eventually make me miserable and then I would give up entirely.

Hi TML - I've had my thyroid checked 3 times over maybe the past 15 years and it always comes back 'normal'. I think I am just genetically predisposed to having a lower than average TDEE.

I think there are some things that we will never understand properly as to why some people can eat more than others and not put on weight....but that's a whole new thread...