The FastDay Forum

Hi everyone. I started the 5:2 in January and reached my goal weight a month or so ago, hurrah! I've not found it too difficult to keep it off with just an occasional fast and 16:8.

However, just over 2 weeks ago I got this awful virus in my head. I got vertigo, headaches, ear infections, eye infection and now I've got a blooming stye as well. I've never had a stye in my 50+ years before! A friend has just mentioned that their health took a nose dive after stopping the fasting. So is it a usual side effect, or am I just unlucky?!

I've got to think it's unrelated. Sounds like you caught a bad virus!

Poor @radleykitten, with your sick kitten eyes and all. As you are still fasting to maintain I can't see that fasting in itself is a cause. I have got to goal twice before using other diets and have never experienced your problems. I have been prone to illness as my weight increases again, as I overeat procesed crap instead of nutrious food. My friend has started umpteen diets and gets really sick (even hospitality) within a week or two. She doesnt like fruit or veg though and exists on dry crackers when dieting! So I think good quality, high nutrient food might help, as might multivits and probiotics.

It might just be bad luck. As you get one infection it could leave your system weaker to fight against the next infection, so you can get a run of them.

Im not much help, but sending you lots of cyber hugs.

[carieoates]

Without reaching goal myself. All I can say is I believe it's bad luck. How on earth can reducing your appetite and being in control of your food intake have given you a virus. There are a few viruses doing the rounds at the moment. And I also think that your body is now far better equipped to fight any nasties than before your weight loss surely. It's like saying you catch colds from going out with wet hair.
Maybe I am wrong. But that's what my common sense and little medical knowledge tells me.

How awful for you @RadleyKitten. I hope your run of I'll health ends soon. I reached my goal a year ago this month and, like you, have been 16:8 / occasional fasts since with no detriment to my health. Probably just bad luck - maybe your immune system got compromised with the first virus, letting others get a hold.

Thank you all for your replies.

I felt brilliant when I was fasting, and I was ok for a couple of weeks after I stopped. It was only my friend saying that her health became poor after she stopped fasting that I began to wonder if my body is objecting too! Or maybe I'm just run down and picking everything up and it's a coincidence

[Tracieknits]

I think it's a coincidence as well. I didn't fast at all the month of December and other than feeling giddy from eating so many sweets, I was fine

I hope you're feeling better soon!

News just in @radleykitten. This article in todays Daily Mail indicates you might be on to something. It links 5:2ing to increased infections. But, bear in mind that the studies were done on fruit flies! I hope you are well on the mend by now.

[carorees]

News just in @radleykitten. This article in todays Daily Mail indicates you might be on to something. It links 5:2ing to increased infections. But, bear in mind that the studies were done on fruit flies! I hope you are well on the mend by now.

Tenuous or what??? Oddly the fact that the SAME genes that are activated by fasting are also activated by EXERCISE and GREEN VEGETABLES is not mentioned because they don't want to tell us that these could cause infection!

The truth is what we have been saying all along: the principle of hormesis is that a some stress is beneficial. This stress can come in the form of fasting, exercise, cold exposure and green vegetables, these are all known to trigger the genes they mention in the article. Excessive stress by extreme fasting, extreme exercise, extreme cold or extreme amounts of toxins from vegetables or by the most common source of stress - work/life issues - can lower the immunity. This is old news.

I take great issue with the description of 5:2 as an extreme diet. A very low calorie diet which is recommended for the very obese consists of around 600 cals every day for weeks and yet that is prescribed by the NHS, but 500 calories for two days a week is somehow more extreme? I don't think so!

That study convinced me 5:2 is a dangerous diet for fruit flies. I won't let mine fast ever again. It says nothing meaningful about people.

This is all of a piece with the torrent of mouse research reported with headlines that claim people with a disease will benefit from some intervention. The stupidity of the people who report on science is so consistent and depressing.

I hope you feel well soon @Radleykitten, it sounds like you are unlucky - there are a lot of summer colds/viruses around, people in my circle on line and near by are suffering and they do not fast. @carorees thanks for unwrapping.

Careful now. Most of the evidence that fasting is good for us comes from mouse studies. We can't just be dismissive of animal studies when they don't tell us what we want to hear.

That recent Longo study showed that fasting affects the immune system, though he does a multi-day fast, so different from 5:2, ADF, etc.

Having said that, I suspect your virus is just coincidence. I hope you recover quickly.

[carorees]

I agree that the mouse studies of fasting, while interesting, do not tell us much about intermittent fasting for humans. The calorie restriction studies on mice, because of the way the rodents eat their calorie allowance for the day quickly and so fast the rest of the time, are probably nearer to mimicking a human IF than the ADF studies in mice.

@MaryAnn,

I'm not impressed by any of the research I've seen about either fasting in general or IF. But my previous researches have convinced me that calorie restriction is what makes all diets work. The genius of 5:2 is that you can get the benefits of calorie restriction without that horrible day in and day out deprivation that occurs with other plans.

I was chatting with the friend who turned me on to this diet and we agreed that the beauty of it is that we only feel like were are dieting for 3 hours or so, twice a week (the three hours before dinner on a fast day, for for me). The rest of the time, no diet! This is a friend who I have known for 20 years who has never stuck to a diet longer than three weeks. She is down 25 lbs and still on this one, 7 months later. That has to be worth something!

But beyond that, I think we will only have a better idea what the long term effects are after many people have been on this diet for 3 years. With other diets, that is how long it takes to see a) if reasonable amounts of people can maintain their weight loss and b) if the health benefit persist.

With most diets I've looked at, the health benefits touted by the guys who write the books show up in very short term studies (six weeks to three months) but tend to disappear in longer studies--and that includes weight loss! Some diets that look very good over 3 months end up looking pretty bad at 3 years, not because the diet stinks, but because the diet teaches people bad habits that make maintenance very hard.

Diets that involve eating foods that come in prepared packages or cans fall into that category, as they don't teach people how to eat properly "free range." Low carb diets also fall into that category for too many people, because they learn that eating a lot of fat is healthy--which it is if you are eating at a ketogenic carb intake level. But after a few years, they forget the latter part of that last sentence. They let their carbs creep back up to a non-low carb level, but continue dowsing their salads with blue cheese and pounding down bacon. That does not end well!

I'm only 5 months into this diet, so I don't pretend to know how sustainable it is. But the very fact that I'm still on it, says a lot. I haven't been able to do a weight loss diet longer than 6 weeks for quite a few years as my TDEE is so low that the only diet that takes off pounds is a near starvation diet.

But we'll all have to talk about this issue again in thee years to see what the real, long term health benefits are!

I don't disagree with any if that. Actually, IF for weight loss in humans is pretty well established in Krista Varady's studies. What isn't clear is whether (or to what extent) the other good things (improved lipid panel, glucose tolerance, etc.) is independent of weight loss. Even in the rodent studies this is difficult because most will lose weight on IF.