The FastDay Forum

Hi there,

I'm new to the 5:2 WOE and have a quick question that I'm sure the more experienced out there will be able to help me with.

To give a bit of background I lost about 3 stone some years ago on Weight Watchers but life and 2 pregnancies have slowly but that back on. Last week I stepped on the scales and discovered that I was about 7lbs from the heaviest I had ever been and I didn't want to go back there.

On Thursday I bought the book and read it and decided that Friday would be my first fast day and from then on I would fast on Monday and Thursday. This week was a good week to start as I usually do a week a month without alcohol and this tied in nicely.

I got up on Friday and weighed myself, deciding to make Friday my regular weigh in day. I was 15 stone 2 lbs. Horrifying. I fasted and it went well. As did my Monday fast. On my feast days I ate 2000 calories which I'm tracking with Myfitnesspal as I have a problem judging portion size. I've had no alcohol.

Now to the point, this morning I weighed myself just to see how things are going and I weigh 14 stone 9 lbs!!!!!!! That's a loss of 7 lbs and I still have tomorrows fast before my official weigh in on Friday morning.

Can this be right? I know the scales at the start were accurate as being over 15 stone was what made me start this in the first place. I really don't understand how I can have lost this much while have chips and ice-cream.

I'm afraid I'm doing something wrong and it's all going to pile on immediately. Presuming that tomorrows fast is fine again and I have no reason to doubt it I imagine I'll be down 8 lbs on Friday morning. Has anyone else experienced this?

Apologies for the long post but I don't know whether to be thrilled or terrified!

hi Jejum- my first bit of advice is to put your scales away and go off of your body size. I have been fasting for about 4 months and not lost a lot of weight (I have a low BMI) but boy, I have easily dropped a size in pants. You will see many many posts asking the same question as you- why have I lost so much weight?? and then you will see the 'I lost a lot of weight initially and now I am not losing any more weight!'. Put them away! They are the work of the divil. It seems that our body weight is made up of a lot of water and the 5:2 bizo really wrecks havoc with our water. Be glad you have had a big loss and just keep going. Just keep doing it and enjoy how your clothes get too big! Many people take waist measurements but I just go off my clothes. Hang in there! It does actually seem to work.

It's not unusual to lose a lot of water weight in the first week or two of any diet.

Great job!

I lost 5lb in my first week and my bmi was already in the (upper) normal range. I then went away for a week and didn't fast and put back on 4 of those. It then took me several weeks to lose that initialy weight again. I think that doing 5:2 for the first time is a big shock to the system - as with any diet. Do you remember losing a lot the first week of weight watchers? I lost 3 1/2 lb in my first ww week several years ago then it slowed down. The same thing is likely to happen here.

As toad says, all sorts of things can affect what the scales say as I'm sure you well know being a diet veteran. I ate a lot of bread-based things over the weekend (and a lot of other things!) and I weighed heavier after the weekend than I had for a while (probably a combination of lots of food in my system and salt helping retain water etc). I then lost 3lb after my fast yesterday - now I know that is not 3lb actual weight loss as it just brought me back to where I was last week, but it just shows how arbitrary one single reading can be. I keep promising not to weigh myself all the time but it's a habit I find hard to break.

Well done on your initial loss though, I'm sure it's spurred you on to keep going. And yes it does work!!

I've come around to the idea of daily weighing, but using an app with a trend line (true weight or libra). IF comes with lots of ups and downs throughout the week, so getting depressed about a gain or excited about every loss is pointless.