The FastDay Forum

Hi

pretty disheartened. Four weeks in to the 5:2 and every week I am 3 lbs lighter after my second fast day, but then by the end of the week I am back to my starting weight.

So last week i started the week at 11'10 - fasted Monday and Thursday and by Friday was 11'7. Then by this morning (Monday) back to 11'10 again. This has happened for the past three weeks with no overall weight loss trend downwards.

It is very demoralising - I am not enjoying it all and because there is no positive feedback in terms of sustained weight loss, I feel like giving up.

even if I had seen a general trend of a pound lost over three weeks I would feel somewhat better.

I am hypothyroid and having my blood tested again on Wednesday so maybe that might make a difference but otherwise, I feel tired, sluggish, constipated, bloated... not great to be honest!

I would nt worry too much. Most peoples weight fluctuates quite a bit. Really need to wait and see the long term trend. i know how disheartening it can be tho. Chin up ;)

ps look at my tracker!

Weight loss accumulates slowly and incrementally inside a sloshingly wide 2 kg (4 pound) window of daily eating, drinking, and excreting. Weight scale readings are a bobbing cork on a rather rough sea.

Consider activating the Progress Tracker and entering your weighings there. Over a few short weeks the trend line will show you what is actually happening.

[janeg]

Ach@twofish, you sound really miserable.
What can I say...
well, you are probably going to find it tough having thyroid problems BUT people with the same syndrome on here have managed to lose weight. Fairly sure there is a thread about it (try searching fasting with medical conditions)
Also, some people without thyroid issues fluctuate madly for the first few weeks then it drops off. Whole load of stuff to do with water retention, changing hormone level and stuff. Sorry, I'm not very technical.
Another thing is - have you measured ? Do any of your clothes feel just that wee bit looser?
There are threads on why is the weight not shifting too which may help you feel as though you're not alone.
Please don't give up. The health benefits are happening even if you don't feel good just now.
Good luck at the doctors with the blood tests. Hopefully in a few months there will be a difference in your bloods too.
Hang in there and let us know how you get on
:clover:

@twofish Now wonder you're disheartened I would be too, however I've seen many members wait
6 weeks before seeing a loss, my advice is to measure but that's also been said to you, strangely enough it does sometimes show on the tape measure first, I always recommend measuring to newcomers
before their start.
Get your bloods out of the way first but whatever you do don't give up carry on doing what you've been doing and assuming your within your TDEE on your normal days you should lose some weight,my only other nugget is to reduce your carb intake, good luck and please let us know how things are going for you. ♣

[carorees]

Hi @twofish

So sorry to hear you are not having the results you hoped for. There are a couple of articles you might find useful in the Fasting section of the main site: Why the scales don't tell the truth and Fasting for people with thyroid disorders

Unfortunately, having a thyroid problems usually means that your daily calorie requirements are lower than for those without such problems, thus weight loss is very slow. But many people here have succeeded and as others have said it is too soon to tell at the moment. There are some tips in the article on thyroid disorders about how to get the best from intermittent fasting in your situation.

Hope things improve soon.

You don't say if you have lost any weight at all since you started on 5:2 in January. It is common to lose weight and then plateau while your body adjusts to the new weight. It's called the 'set point' and it's the new normal. When your body has got used to it, you will continue to lose weight again until you reach another point where your body has to stall a while. If you give up on 5:2 you will put back all the weight you have lost at this point. So, that doesn't seem a very good idea. I am having my usual long winter plateau at the moment and i have decided to stop worrying about losing weight and just do 5:2 for the health effects. I live in hope that my weight loss will start up again in the summer. Meanwhile, I have lost a lot over a year and I wouldn't want to put that all back on and have to go back to wearing a larger size.

Hey, twofish, although I'm rather new (started late April), just want to add my encouragement. Understandable that you are discouraged, but may I say, you wouldn't have posted here if you really wanted to quit, 'cause you know we're going to say "buck up" and such. Maybe you need to lay off weighing yourself for awhile...I weigh only once a week (Friday morning, after 2nd fast day); perhaps you could go a couple of weeks without. I seldom weighed myself for years, couldn't maintain a weight loss so didn't want to know. Now that I BELIEVE that this WOL is my answer, I not only weigh myself, I got a new scale (which of course weighed 3.5 lbs heavier than my old one! oh well...). As my signature says, I'm thinking about trying 4:3 when I hit an inevitable plateau.

I'm sorry to hear about your struggles, twofish. In addition to what others have said, there are threads here about minimizing bloating which might be helpful for you (I've been lucky and it's only happened a few times to me--if it happened a lot, i might have given up!). As for tiredness/sluggishness, it might be that your body has not adapted yet to burning fat instead of carbs on fast days. That can take some time (though hopefully not much longer than a month), so be patient. Also, pay attention to your non-fast days. Are you counting calories or keeping a food diary? Do you feel like you're overdoing it?

Finally, this is never a popular opinion here, but this WOE isn't for everyone. If you don't feel well and aren't seeing the weight loss you want, perhaps you are in that category. I'm not recommending that you give up now, but it's worth keeping in mind...