The FastDay Forum

Has anyone mentioned water?

As a veteran dieter (as I'm sure many of us are), I've always found that I lose far more when I drink lots of fluids.

My weightloss often stalls, irrespective of how little I've eaten, if I don't drink copiously, although I'm struggling to accept that Prosecco doesn't count!

Stick with it - you will get there.

smg

TracE and Madge, I think I'm in a similar boat to you. I eat pretty well, not often over my TDEE unless it's a big night out and my weight loss has been slow too and I gained 1 lb last week and stayed the same this week.
I nearly always eat well and I cook from scratch but my portion sizes are a bit big and I eat a lot of carbs and no meat so I think that's where my problem lies in how I got overweight and why it's hard for me to lose.
After my disheartening last two weeks I have gone back to calorie counting, just for a couple of weeks to see exactly what I'm doing. Yesterday I was bang on my TDEE of 1600 and that included a cupcake and a glass of wine, I think that is where the difference lies between 5:2 and other reduced calorie diets.
I think I'm going to see if I can stay at or around 1600 calories on my feed days all this week and under 400 on my fast days and see how I get on. That being said my deficit from two fast days will only be 2400 calories so that might not even show as a 1 lb loss. We shall see..
Good luck and keep it up

1lb=3500 calories, roughly...

Jenny, Miffy - seems the boat's getting bigger!

Caroline - I do mix up my TDEE (which I think is around 1750 cal although appreciate it's not an exact science). On feed days Tues and Wed I still eat fairly frugally and then on Fri/Sat/Sun am likely to be over the TDEE. With the fast days it averages around 1350 per day so that's a weekly deficit of 2800 cal so in that case I can pretty much expect to lose less than 1 lb per week.

smg - I drink plenty of water throughout the day so don't think it's that with me. Probably too much wine at the weekend more like it!

Anyway slow losers, let's just keep each other going - we'll get there in the end!

1lb=3500 calories, roughly...

Exactly. If my TDEE is 1600 (I'm short and pretty sedentary) 2 x 25% fasts is a deficit of only 2400 calories/week. It's surprising that I've lost 1 lb/week up until now I suppose and makes it more understandable that weight loss can stall.

I think upping exercise might help with metabolism and shifting some more weight.

Plenty of room on the boat Madge, especially for the wine

Yes indeed!

I think the high intensity exercise thing is of benefit. I just haven't managed to put it in to practice yet!

Girls, I don't mean to be a party pooper but are you sure that you have the correct TDEE?

Wow lots of us in same boat shall i set up a post called "Taking the scenic route" on the progress forum so we can compare, banter, moan, celebrate each others journey??

Yeah, sounds good. I think the important thing to keep in mind is that we are fitting the diet in to our lifestyle - not the other way around.

TracE add me to the boat too! Slow is the new fast :0)

Well, I've been double checking on what I've done differently since the first weeks when I was losing. Also checked my TDEE with the link recommended by TML13. That gives me 1500 to maintain and 1270 to lose so with an average of 950 I should have been Ok. I can see though that my carbs are much higher so, given that I was previously pre-diabetic and my blood glucose seems to be going back up, I'm thinking that it might be an idea to try mixing fast days with low carb. I'm only going down to about 30g though rather than the 10g that I was on prior to 5:2. That was getting too restrictive. I had only dropped that low because I was stalling on low carb too.

Sorry it isn't working too well at the moment TracE, let's see what we can come up with...

A few ideas that occur to me:

1. I know that by your calculations you are already eating under your TDEE on feed days, but cutting more might help. Maybe your TDEE is lower than you think - the online calculators are only a rough guide and you may have a slower metabolism than average.
2. A new idea just hot from the nerds corner: try switching what you eat. If you are currently eating mostly carbs on feed days, cut these down somewhat and replace with the same amount of calories but as fats. Or vice-versa. There is some very new scientific research which suggests that some people lose weight well with one dietary balance and others with the other. [More insulin-resistant people do better with high fat...] Since they are eating the same amount of calories overall it must be to do with their metabolism changing depending on what they eat.
3. If you can hack it and it doesn't seem too anal, try having more 'feast' days balanced with 'thin' days i.e. instead of all feed days being the same number of calories, make some more and some less. Some people have reported that this seems to give them better results (presumably again because of the way the body's metabolism reacts).
4. Eat more to lose more - not! Personally I think this is voodoo and not good voodoo either. But others might disagree...

Hi Dominic, I am interested in point 2. I have always had a sweet tooth and have eaten lots of carbs too. I used to be slim as well! I have always been a hungry person, every couple of hours I used to get hungry. 5:2 seem to be curing this. I must be a big time sugar burner. My question is, if I avoid carbs and eat more fat, what should I eat could you give me some examples?

[carorees]

For me, low carb eating means focussing on including a lot of vegetables...think four or more cupfuls a day, plus some berries, nuts, seeds, meat, fish, cheese, cream, dairy, coconut, oils are all good. The oils of course are high in cals so not too much on fast days!

Avoid: sugar, sugary drinks, low fat diet foods, white bread, pasta, rice

Keep low: potatoes, bananas, brown rice/pasta/bread, some veg like carrots and tomatoes which are relatively high in carbs.

It depends how low you want to go with carbs. Some say no more than 30% of cals from carbs, others advocate lower intakes.

Ive started the new thread its in the "progress report" section with TAKING THE SCENIC ROTE in the heading