The FastDay Forum

Simply 5:2 for me too. Done that for a little more than 13 weeks and lost nearly 10 kilos (18 to go ) - The real 5:2 makes it easy not to be over focused and obsessed. I am thinking of it as a WOL for the rest of it... By the way - I love fasting on mondays. Thursdays are OK too, but mondays feels "cleaning". - Guess I am lucky because my husband goes along with the 5:2, so it also gives a couple of easy-food-prepraing-days. - It makes it possible for me to go cayaking directly from work these two days.
I am Danish and we watched the BBC program on Swedish television during easter Holiday.
Good luck to everybody. And thanks for this forum, it is GREAT

Although frustrated with the slow-down I'm going to continue as I have been on simple 5:2 because I'm nearly 6 months in and I simply wouldn't have been able to sustain anything more punitive for this long. Besides which most of the fast days are fairly easy with just an occasional 'angry afternoon' (always on Thursdays).

Happy to keep it simple at the moment cause I'm relatively new to it. But as others have said, if weight loss stalls, thanks to this forum I have the tools to tweak and change things up.

Alf

5:2 works for me! I am all for keeping it simple!

Great show-of-hands post.

Pure 5:2 here, and I feel it's working well. I tried 4:3 but it didn't make a difference to me, and it took up more of my attention.

All my measurable progress has gone from rapid to slow and steady. But as long as there's progress I don't feel the need to mess with it. It took me 20 years to get this "cuddly", so I'll be delighted if it only takes another one to get healthy.

Another one just doing 5:2. I love that I've lost 16lbs and I don't feel like I'm on any sort of diet, I'm just skipping breakfast and lunch two days a week. I would agree with what someone said earlier though, I haven't plateaued yet so maybe if I had I would be looking to do something different to get back to losing again.

I started this WOE because I was interested in the supposed health benefits. I viewed the weight loss as an added bonus. The more I've got into it the more I can see how you can become obsessed with calories and scales (something I've ignored for 20+ years!). At the moment I am sticking with 5:2. I hate dieting which is why this WOE appealed to me - two days of restricted calories and then 5 'normal' days is doable and sustainable for me. So far I have lost just shy of 1 stone in two months, so I have my bonus! If weight loss slows then I won't worry. As Vulcan said it took me 20 years or more to put the weight on so I'm prepared to be patient and just see what happens, hoping that the health benefits prove to be true.

I'm on 'classic' 5:2, as well, and haven't been tempted by any of the multitude of variations which others choose to use. Having yo-yo dieted for years, this WOE has allowed me to lose just over a stone and a half, despite two holidays, since the end of January. I haven't plateaued, although there have been holiday weeks when I've gained, and I no longer obsess about calories, 'wrong' foods etc.

I can sympathise with those who become frustrated, for whatever reason, with simple 5:2 and those who have interests in nutrition/exercise, which they want to utilise with this WOE, but I love the simplicity and will (fingers crossed!) stick with it for the foreseeable future.

The real test of this WOE, for me, will be when I reach my target (one pound to go!) and then try using 5:2, or 6:1, for maintenance. If I can maintain my target weight for longer than a few weeks/months, then I will be a very happy bunny indeed!

I started off on ADF, then 4:3. Not for any notion of quick weightloss as I was and am quite relaxed about calories and want a fairly slow loss, just wanted it to be a regular thing, which has worked well.

However, I'm now losing a bit too fast for my liking (2.4 kgs last month) and thinking of doing 5:2, however if it's equally effective (which I've always believed as I was losing the pound a week on 4:3) I'm a bit lost what to do next.

I was going to do this as a separate thread but I'm not worried to the point of needing help, just trying to figure out how to lose a wee bit less quickly. This is obviously a NEW thing to me, given my weight generally goes up, not down!!

I suppose the answer is a few more cals somewhere, cue coconut oil coffee!!!

Great thread!

5:2 is working well for me too and I'm very happy about being 14 kg lighter after 16 weeks.

3 months in and I find 5:2 works well for me too. On fast days I tend not to eat until early afternoon and on non-fast days I eat and drink what I want. I have noticed I am eating a lot less chocolate possibly because I am eating from all the food groups and my body no longer needs the 'chocolate boost' late afternoon.

yep I keep it simple now 500 calories or less on fast days with just an evening meal and fast days just eat what I want I did count calories in the early days to see how many I was eating, but not anymore as I know its within my TDEE and it is working very nicely thank you

What everyone else said - plain ol' 5:2 for me. 2 days each week with v little food is enough for me so 4:3 or ADF doesn't appeal, and I love breakfast too much to try 16:8 (and I know I could eat breakfast and then finish eating earlier but I like eating in the evening too. I just like to eat when I'm hungry not because a clock tells me I can).

It's certainly working for me and I feel amazing (apart from 4pm on a fast day...)

Me! Me! I want to keep it simple!

BUT. 3 weeks into a plateau and I'm panicking. I want to do more of whatever was making it work but I can't figure out what that was. I was doing straight 5:2 but (due to stress and being frantically busy) was eating for Britain the other 5 days and losing weight slowly but steadily. Then things eased up a bit, so now I have time to eat sensibly, so hit a plateau. Eh? What?!

So strong desire to muck around and experiment is warring with equally strong desire to keep it simple.

Haven't worked that one out yet but great thread, this, and great forum. Keeps me hanging in there!

Me too. I keep it simple so that I don't have to think too much about it. I know there are numerous variations and tweaks that people undertake but, for me, it is a case of 2 days a week of 700 calories ish. Plan A is to go throughout the day on water, black coffee and tea prior to having a meal at 6pm ish and then have a light supper before bed. If things got really bad I would simply postpone it to another day. I am now into my sixth month and I am just a couple of pounds shy of my ultimate target and intend to switch to 6:1 when I get there.