The FastDay Forum

Hello!

I've started 5:2 today, and getting on ok so far! Quite hungry, but herbal tea is keeping me sane.

Because I have struggled with insomnia before, though, I think I'm going to make a modification to the plan, and would love a second opinion from some of you who have been doing this for a while.

The idea is not to go to bed hungry, so I will time my 24h period from 8pm - 8pm, with dinner both before I fast, and then ending the fast with a late dinner. To off-set the fact that this will mean more calories, I'm planning to consume no calories, save those in milk for my tea, during the fast. I've tried this today, and it's fine - I actually find it easier to skip the meals.

So my question is, a) is anyone else doing it that way; and b) how has the extra calories for dinner affected your progress? (I estimate that in addition to the 500 cals I could legitimately consume, that I might go over another 150 on some days).

Thanks! Nic

I have cocoa (and ignore the cals) as I would wake up hungry otherwise. I'm on ADF though so can have more cals per fast day.

Most people do the 36 hrs ish, with either one, two or three meals for the calories. It's entirely up to you.

[carorees]

Hi Nicola and welcome!

I think that the 8pm to 8pm system will work well as long as you are sensible about your evening meal size.

If you do the diet according to Dr Mosley's method, then assuming you eat up to your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) on feed days and 25% of this on fast days, by the end of the week you should be in energy deficit to the tune of about 22% (you will have eaten 78% of TDEE). So, if you can reproduce this kind of deficit in your method you should see similar decreases in weight.

As you are no doubt aware, it is the long period with no calorie intake that brings the additional benefits over the simple calorie restriction so you would have a big tick as far as that is concerned.

Many people do almost what you are doing by saving their 500 cals to the evening meal.

Let us know how you get on.