The FastDay Forum

so i lost 15 kgs pretty quickly in less than 3 months through the 5:2 diet. actually the 4:3 diet as i fast for 3 days. but after that, i haven't lost any weight in 2 months. only 1 kg was lost in 2 months and since then the weight machine tells me the same number. also, previously this happened for 2 weeks but my waist was going down and after that the weight but now waist and weight are both stuck. i havent changed anything and its the same diet. in fact ive switched to lighter alternatives like bran bread instead of white bread. i do sometimes eat a giant club sandwich once a week but im sure i used to eat it before as well. so what is wrong?? help please.. and btw i startd going to office a month back, noot that it should be related to not losing weight :s.

[Tracieknits]

There are quite a few posts about plateaus and busting through them on this forum. Perhaps if you look through them you'll find some good advice. As a matter of fact, there's a whole section of the forum dedicated to this: not-losing-weight-f27/

For my husband and I and both been through plateaus. It's a fact of dieting. You have to be patient and wait it out.

One thing I have done to bust through is temporarily *increase* my eating. Really have a lovely weekend of overindulging, and then go back to being faithful to your fasting days and TDEE on feed days.

Congratulations on your weight loss so far.
Have you calculated what your new TDEE is? having lost so much weight you now need fewer calories to just exist. The Progress Tracker includes a TDEE calculator.
Good luck

[Betsysgr8]

Well done on your previous loss! As the others have said you may need to look at your TDEE. You say you are now in an office .. perhaps you aren't moving quite as much as you had been and with the change in your TDEE that can result in nothing shifting. Take look at #NEAT it's not about exercise as such, just finding little ways to sit less and move more.

What a wonderful weight loss! I am really envious!
Try mixing up the amount you eat on different days my body responded to confusion I also found I was slightly dehydrated & didn't lose weight for a couple of weeks so an increase in your water intake may pep your body into releasing any extra fluid it may be hanging on to. Have you increased your exercise? Because muscle weighs more & again you may have fluid retention masking weight loss. Finally sometimes we lose inches & it doesn't show on the scale. So just hang in there & try some different things.

I'm at the same place: 15kg then stuck. I don't expect any pity, because It is a good weight loss so far. I suspect I haven't adjusted to my new TDEE. Or I have water retention due to increased exercise. Whatever the reason I plan to stick with it and hopefully the weight will start going down again soon.

You don't give us any information regarding how much you weight, how much you've lost, how much you wish to lose, what is your BMI in order for us to be able to guess better but -as everyone else said- it is clear that you reached a plateau.
You could either try and tweak what you're doing, continue till you start losing again or stop. There is a theory that by creating a technical plateau for a couple of weeks, or even longer, we trick our body that we aren't on a diet and when we start again it sees it like a new diet and we start losing like in the beginning.

thanks everyone. i weight 98 kgs. i used to weight 115 a while back. for the TDEE thing, its somewhat the same at 1900 cals but i still only take 1500 max on non fasting days like i used to. on 1500 cals, i feel full and its enough food so im definitely no exceeding my tdee. for exercise, i never used to when i started the diet and even though im in office now, i never used to do much exercise except for a 10 min walk to the market so everything is pretty much the same. i know its good weight loss but it feels sad when i see my expensive branded jacket which could fit me if i was 4 to 5 kgs underweight. and not losing for 2 months is definitely disappointing so im not sure what to do. maybe i can start walking after my internship but even on that, i take lesser than my tdee on non fast days so i think that i should be losing weight :/

Perhaps you are eating too little! You lost the weight in the beginning and now you got into some sort of a starvation mode.
1500X5 = 600X2= 8700/7 = 1242
That's under MY TDEE and I'm shortish and female...

maybe but i would feel really guilty if i increased my intake, especially if i dont start losing soon. any other tips>??

so i lost 15 kgs pretty quickly in less than 3 months through the 5:2 diet. only 1 kg was lost in 2 months and since then :s.

OK - 16 kgs (35 pounds) in 20 weeks.

The average weight loss on 5:2 is about a pound a week. 4:3 followers are slightly faster losers than that.

I'd say you are doing fine!

Keep up the good work!

PS Maybe this will help: 5-2-diet-chat-f6/topic6491.html

It seems people struggle more to lose when they get in the healthy BMI range. That might be true for you. Also, maybe try upping your NEAT, the sort of incidental exercise you get by walking more, taking the stairs, etc. Your body might be subconsciously conserving energy because of weight loss and low intake.

Good luck!

thanks everyone. i weight 98 kgs. i used to weight 115 a while back. for the TDEE thing, its somewhat the same at 1900 cals but i still only take 1500 max on non fasting days like i used to. on 1500 cals, i feel full and its enough food so im definitely no exceeding my tdee. for exercise, i never used to when i started the diet and even though im in office now, i never used to do much exercise except for a 10 min walk to the market so everything is pretty much the same. i know its good weight loss but it feels sad when i see my expensive branded jacket which could fit me if i was 4 to 5 kgs underweight. and not losing for 2 months is definitely disappointing so im not sure what to do. maybe i can start walking after my internship but even on that, i take lesser than my tdee on non fast days so i think that i should be losing weight :/

What is your height, as that factors into BMI and TDEE. I am a few pounds higher than you presently (220 lbs) with a BMI of 30% still and I would say 1500 cal a day on non fast days is too little, so that might be the problem. There is a balance - if you go to low all the time, your body holds onto fat as it thinks its starving. This is a common misconception for dieters, thinking low cals all the time will get you there, and it does just the opposite. I am doing 4:3 as well, and I shoot for about 2000-2200 cals a day, which is 200-400 cals below TDEE on feed days, and I am losing at a steady pace of about 1.5 lbs a week.

Try upping your cals a bit for the next week, but continue 4:3 and see what happens.

Hi Onoono,

First: 15 kgs is quite a bit of weight to lose, congratulations. Probably your body is adjusting to your lower weight? I understand your frustrations, as I went through a bit of a plateau myself: after having lost 5.5 kg, I stayed the same weight for ten weeks. Curiously enough during these weeks I switched from 4:3 to 5:1, as I was beginning to feel a bit faint. But now I seem to begin to lose weight again. There is a very useful post from simcoeluv on plateaus and I certainly would try to find Kencc's post on NEAT. Please don't give up, there will come a day when you'll fit in your nice new jacket! Perhaps sooner than you think. Good luck!

If I remember rightly, you weren't eating enough to start with and lost very quickly starving yourself. Forgive me if it wasn't but I don't have time just now to check.

I wrote a "it has to be sustainable" post at the time. Your body probably just needs to catch up with your loss, give it a chance. Health is more important in the long-run.