The FastDay Forum

Hello Newbies and welcome!

Somehow, you have run across 5:2 and this site. Many of you come with questions, doubts and skepticism. Most of your questions have been asked and answered many times by many people, but they are new to you. You may ask a question on this site and not get an answer, depending on the thread you choose to use or create.

So this thread is for you. Ask and wonder, and we will try to get an answer for you.

To start out, the way 5:2 works is you go to bed, get up, eat 5/600 or fewer calories during your waking hours, go to bed, get up and eat to your TDEE or less – twice a week. On all 7 days of the week you can eat foods you want to eat – there are no forbidden foods, or foods you have to eat. For the first month or so focus on doing your diet days correctly (5/600 calories or less) and most everything else will fall into place.

That is 5:2, pure and simple. Anything more is not 5:2, and is not necessary to get started and succeed.

There are several posts that answer your most common questions. You can read them now, or when the question comes up. But in the following posts, well over 95% of the common questions are addressed. Here goes:

(1) The basics: 5-2-diet-chat-f6/topic6317.html

(2) You are not losing weight consistently: 5-2-diet-chat-f6/topic6491.html. This is for people that either start out OK and then stall, or don’t lose weight right away at the start.

(3) You have not lost any weight for a month or more (if your timeframe is less, see 2, above): 5-2-diet-chat-f6/on-plateaus-t7102.html. This will show you what you need to do to resume your weight loss.

(4) You are not losing weight fast enough – this will explain why, and how much weight you can reasonably expect to lose over time: 5-2-diet-chat-f6/topic6600.html. Unreasonable expectations of how much you will lose on 5:2 (or 4:3 or ADF) can cause you to quit for no good reason.

(5) You have started your diet and started exercising, too, and your results are not very good: 5-2-diet-chat-f6/topic6543.html. It turns out that while exercise is the single best thing you can do to improve your health (unless you are a smoker – quit), it does not really help you lose weight faster. If you think it will, and you are not losing, you might quit when you should really stay on the diet.

(6) You are confused about how much time should pass between meals: http://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/5 ... r-newbies/. Bottom line, this is a weight loss diet and time between meals is irrelevant.

(7) You go off 5:2 because of a great weekend or holiday and come back having gained quite a bit of weight: 5-2-diet-chat-f6/the-scale-tale-t7660.html. Just keep doing 5:2 and don’t worry about it.

The above address most of what comes up. Many people have many personal answers that work for them but not necessarily for everyone else. I believe you should start with the basics, and worry about other things only after you have done the basics correctly and they don’t seem to be working for you.

Good Luck!

Thank you for this collation of useful links. Should be resurrected every few months.
Great info!!!

We've missed you @simcoeluv. I know you are often on Dr. MM's site - but we sure welcome your advice on here any time !!!!!! Please post on here OFTEN.

Hello Newbies and welcome!

To start out, the way 5:2 works is you go to bed, get up, eat 5/600 or fewer calories during your waking hours, go to bed, get up and eat to your TDEE or less – twice a week. On all 7 days of the week you can eat foods you want to eat – there are no forbidden foods, or foods you have to eat. For the first month or so focus on doing your diet days correctly (5/600 calories or less) and most everything else will fall into place.

That is 5:2, pure and simple. Anything more is not 5:2, and is not necessary to get started and succeed.

@simcoeluvThis must be the most accurate and summaried way of describing 5:2 that I have read for a while

Without opening up the old discussions weve all seen about what is real 5:2 or not.. Iwould totally agree that as a first timer, its the most simple approach. Do what you said twice a week. Give it say 3 or 4 months before you go exploring the "options".

The second paragraph does basically say that if you stick to the 5:2 plan as you describe you can indeed succeed.

[carieoates]

Ooooh I thought I was seeing things.
Hello Simco, nice to see you back and yes you've been missed. Your words have been used over and over, and I've resurrected your thread over and over because it's so right.
Don't be a stranger.

Absolutely spot on, 100% correct, @Simcoeluv! You have summed the 5:2 WOL perfectly! We miss you on this site!

Hi:

Here is an interview of Dr. Longo, from the BBC program, on fasting and cancer treatment, cancer prevention and 5:2: http://www.imjournal.com/index.cfm/fuse ... d/78/longo

Thank you @Simcoeluv for this new link. This collation of info will definitely need to be resurrected at the beginning of January when there will be many who want to make a new start.

Too bad the doctor here had to diss 5:2 and say only his medically supervised proprietary diet would work.

I believe the data also support the idea that a very low carb diet that does not overdo protein would do the same thing. It is starving the cancer cells of glucose that appears to be helpful. They don't metabolize fatty acids and ketones the way healthy cells do.

Hi:

Many that come to 5:2 are drawn by the belief they will not have to count calories. They then are confronted with discussions about TDEE and how many calories to eat on their non diet days and point out that the 'book says' that they can eat normally on their non diet days, so why do they have to count calories?

The answer is that when someone starts 5:2, they need to count calories on their two diet days, but not on their non diet days. The reason they need to count calories on their two diet days is that 5:2 works by cutting calories out of a person's diet on those two diet days. If calories are not cut on those days, the person will have little chance of losing weight.

And the calories need to be counted, not estimated. A whole bunch of research has shown that people are very bad at estimating the number of calories they are eating/drinking. Even nutritionists that should know underestimate their daily intake by 10% or more: http://weightology.net/weightologyweekly/?page_id=379

So start by counting two days a week and see what happens. If you start losing weight, great. If you have not lost any weight after a month or so, you are eating too many calories. Remember, on 5:2 you can eat any foods you want, but not any amount of foods you want. If you overeat on your non diet days you will not lose much weight, and may even gain weight.

So then you will have to count calories for a few days. Read number 4, above, and you should get on track in no time.

Good Luck!

Hi:

Most people that come to 5:2 are here to lose weight, and some of those are here because they have Type 2 diabetes and their doctors have told them losing some weight would be a good thing.

There is a growing number of people that are treating their Type 2 with intermittent fasting combined with diet modification. Some that have been on insulin for many years no longer need any medication at all. They achieve these results while still taking all of their doctor's advice and not buying anything - not even a book.

Here is a series of videos that have some case studies, an outline of how its done, and a presentation to doctors explaining some of the science. There is also a lecture series that is about 8 hours long with much more detailed scientifically based information explaining why and how it works. http://intensivedietarymanagement.com/c ... re-series/

If you have Type 2, it might be worth a look.



Good Luck!

Hi:

Many Newbies come to 5:2 wondering if it is safe. The concept of not eating a lot of food often seems dangerous.

As 5:2 allows people to eat whatever food they want, and to both choose and change their diet days whenever they want, it is impossible to do clinical studies on all of the potential 5:2 'diets'. However, it is possible to do a study on the 5:2 pattern, and it has been done.

Researchers took a group of 107 overweight women and had them eat a 5:2 pattern for six months. For two of 2 consecutive diet days each week they ate 25% of their TDEE. On the other five days they ate their TDEE, following a standard Mediterranean type diet.

The result? "IER (5:2) is as effective as CER (standard reduced calorie diet) in regards to weight loss, insulin sensitivity and other health biomarkers and may be offered as an alternative equivalent to CER for weight loss and reducing disease risk." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3017674/

So if you are wondering or worried about whether 5:2 is safe, will ruin your metabolism or will in some way be bad for you if you follow it, there is clinical proof that it is as effective as a standard diet.

Good Luck!

@simcoeluv,

Thanks for the links!

I don't have hours to spend watching YouTube videos, so I'm not sure exactly what the people running that diabetes site are pushing, but my brief scan of the site raised a serious red flag. For starters, there is no such thing as "insulin toxicity" and too much insulin is NOT the problem for most people with Type 2. Too much glucose, yes. And there is such a thing as glucose toxicity, which is a huge issue.

And yes, when people have very high blood sugars, they experience a form of acquired insulin resistance, which raises their blood sugar even further. This occurs when their blood sugars are perpetually over 10 mmol/L, But once they lower their blood sugar below that level after each meal, that acquired insulin resistance goes away. The the residual insulin resistance that remains is often genetic and rarely drops. Claims that you can lower your insulin resistance by dietary means are just plain not true.

The mistaken belief that IR has been lowered is made a lot in published research, because researchers rely on the highly inaccurate HOMA formula to calculate insulin resistance rather than using more accurate methods. But when researchers have compared the results from that HOMA calculation applied to fasting blood draws with the results of studies done with insulin clamps, where the exact sensitivity to insulin is calculated, they have found that the HOMA is often worthless. It certainly was for me. I'm extremely insulin sensitive based on my actual response to injected insulin, but applying the HOMA formula to my fasting insulin test results tells me I'm very insulin resistant.

It is possible to have very high insulin resistance and be thin and healthy with normal blood sugars. That just requires cutting way back on carbs and, for some, using metformin, and/or injected insulin. I know plenty of people who do this.

This is particularly important because fear of insulin causes doctors to prefer to prescribe quite a few much, more dangerous drugs, when insulin, when prescribed properly using the DAFNE protocol can do a great job in improving health. Many if not most people with Type 2 are insulin deficient, not just insulin resistant, and may need supplemental insulin to keep their blood sugars in a range that will avoid complications.

After almost a year doing IF, I'm still trying to figure out what the real impact of IF is on diabetes. My sense is that it is helpful, but probably not as helpful for people with Type 2 as it would be for them to cut back dramatically on their carb intake every day, lowering carbs until the person can achieve normal blood sugars after each meal. (7.7 mmol/L at 1 hour is ideal). Fasting on top of carb restriction might be even more helpful. But if people have diabetic blood sugars, fasting 2 days a week and then running blood sugars the rest of the week that are rising into the glucotoxic range is NOT a good approach. And because of how blood sugar runs in people with Type 2, overeating on those non-fast days is more likely.

And it is also essential that would-be fasters know that weight loss on its own rarely reverses diabetes, despite what doctors tell people. Very overweight men will sometimes see an improvement after losing a lot of weight, but most middle aged women don't.

Hi peebles:

While Dr. Fung is a medical doctor that has been treating diabetics for about two decades, he is not trying to 'push' (sell?) something to you. He has placed all of the information on line and there is nothing 'for sale', not even a book. Nor am I in any way connected with Dr. Fung - I've never met or even communicated with him, although I am aware he has been kind enough to respond to questions posed by people interested in his research. Anyone can take his research and approach from his free lectures and use them as they wish.

I assume you are aware that the way doctors currently 'treat' diabetes does not work, in the sense that current treatments do not make the diabetes go away. 'Treatment' is of blood sugar levels, which are a symptom of diabetes. Controlling blood sugar levels, however, does not make the diabetes go away. Being overweight is also a symptom of diabetes, and a common prescription from doctors is to lose weight. But, as you point out, weight loss does not cure diabetes either.

I guess if someone came up with an approach that allows people that have been diabetic for decades and injecting insulin for years to stop taking any medication of any kind and still have normal blood sugar levels, I would be interested in looking into it if I had diabetes and faced the common results of the disease. Especially if it cost me no money, and did not require any abandonment of any medical advice and treatment I might be currently following. And if, after spending some time on research, I decided that I wanted to continue with my diabetes and my current treatment, and face the predictable results of that course of action, I would have lost nothing but - time.

Good Luck!

peebles:


"After almost a year doing IF, I'm still trying to figure out what the real impact of IF is on diabetes. My sense is that it is helpful, but probably not as helpful for people with Type 2 as it would be for them to cut back dramatically on their carb intake every day, lowering carbs until the person can achieve normal blood sugars after each meal. (7.7 mmol/L at 1 hour is ideal). Fasting on top of carb restriction might be even more helpful. "

I am aware of many diabetics that have never heard of Dr. Fung, but are using 'his' IF/dietary approach to reduce and eliminate their need for insulin and other drugs to control their blood sugar levels. While the full lecture series is quite long, may I politely suggest that you review the fourth video at the link I posted, which is only about an hour long, to help you 'figure out' what the impact of IF on diabetes can be? It is a presentation to fellow doctors treating diabetic patients explaining how the doctors can incorporate IF into the treatment programs of their patients, and explaining why it works as well as it does. The presentation references quite a bit of clinical research, but you sound like you can understand it. You have identified many of the parts of the puzzle. Perhaps Dr. Fung's research can help you fill in the blanks.

Good Luck!