The FastDay Forum

I started the 5:2 diet nearly 6 weeks ago. Had my 4th weigh in on Monday and had put 1.5lb on. That would have been ok cause I was away on a girlie break midweek and ate my own bodyweight, but I don't feel like it's working for me.

In my first week I put on half a pound, then the next week I had 3lb off, I stayed the same the next week and had half a pound off last week before my 1.5lb gain this week.

That's a total of 1.5lb lost in 5 weeks. Trying to stay positive and keep going. Am on a fast day today and so far so good, but I feel like if I don't have a good weight loss this week I may as well give up.

I have lost 3inches off my waist over the 5 weeks though, which has kind of helped me stay a little bit positive.

Has anyone else experienced similar difficulties? Any tips??

Hi there

I've just started 3 weeks ago, but there are many threads on no weight loss or stalled weight loss, have a look in the delighted or disapointed section?

Everyone is different, and lots of people are trying different things to try and find out what works best for them good luck

[Moogie]

Hi Comberspud & welcome

Sorry to hear you've had a bit of trouble getting this working for you but please don't give up just yet - tell us a bit more about your situation (BMI, weight to lose, how you do your fasts etc) and we'll do our best to help give you a boost.

First of all 3 inches off your waist in 5 weeks is amazing! Remember, that's the more important number than the scales - isn't weight loss about getting a healthier, better shaped body? Well inch loss is what makes it show, not the number on the scales. Athletes can be pretty heavy, but well shaped because muscle weights more than fat. I wouldn't mind the numbers on my scales so much if my measurements were what I wanted them to be

So, let's just ignore the gain you had from going away and indulging - we've all done that sometime (I gained 4lbs away on hols for a week + my birthday after! almost finished losing that 3 weeks on). Look at what you lost before that 3lb in 4 weeks is close to the average of 1lb a week, and we don't even know how much you have to lose, if you don't have so much to lose it will come off slower.

The first few weeks are usually a bit up and down as your body adjusts its water/fat levels - you lose a load of water weight and small amount of fat, then regain some water but lose fat and it all goes a bit crazy on the scales while your body adjusts. Ultimately it looks like you're more or less on track aside from this slight blip after going away. But remember, it's only 1.5lbs and your body can vary by more than that quite naturally over the course of even just a day based on water levels, what you've eaten recently, hormones and more besides.

Give us a bit more info and we'll see what we can suggest - but it sounds to me like it's working for you, you've just set yourself back a bit with this temporary regain! Don't worry, this is a way of life, one week doesn't matter.

Hi Comberspud,
Yes, my experience has been similar. I have been on the diet for 9 weeks and I lost a lot in the first week, but then hovered up and down around that weight for 6 weeks. In week 7 I finally got to under 75kg and was very happy only to go up again the next week. I am still dedicated to sticking to the diet though because very slowly my weight is going down. It's a little bit down, a little bit up, but it doesn't go up to what it was at the start and it is jiggling down and up and down and down. Also I dont' know where you are, but it's winter here and any weight not gained is a plus. I find it easy to stick to the fast days, although I wouldn't go so far as to say I enjoy them. What else am I going to do? I know that diets don't work. This isn't a diet as much as a life style change and I can see my self doing it for ever. It doesn't matter how long it takes me to lose the extra weight. And then there's the other health benefits. I do think I feel more energetic now. That's my thinking.

[janeg]

Hello Comberspud and welcome to the forum. That's rather frustrating if the weight isn't shifting. Something is obviously happening if your waist is shrinking quite remarkably!
It would help if you told us a bit more
What your TDEE is and
How you split your calories on fast days are a start.
More exercise, salt changes, TOTM and all sorts of things can conspire against us to hold on to the weight.
As rebelsue2 says there are a variety of threads on the 'why am I not losing weight?' theme. You can find them by searching on the little window on the top left hand side of the board.

Hi Comberspud - to save the disappointments possible with weekly weigh-ins quite a few of us weigh daily and use an app like Libra or its iPad equivalent to draw a smoothed line through all the data points - if the line goes downwards you are winning, regardless of the spikes up & down. I find it invaluable for maintenance because my daily fluctuations are affected by exercise (dehydration) and fasting and carbo-loading so are all over the place but the trend line hardly moves. Keep going whatever, anyway!

CreakyPete, sorry to hijack the thread but do you know what the iPad equivalent of the Libra app is? Thanks.

Thank you everyone, your comments are really encouraging.

I started at 12st 6lbs with a BMI of 31.8 (I'm only 5ft 2). I am not really excersing and not watching what I eat on my non-fast days, which probably has a considerable impact on how much I'm losing/gaining.

On my fast days I do stick as close as possible to the 500 calorie limit. I think the most I've gone over on any one day was about 30/40 calories.

I have breakfast as soon as possible after I get up, usually around 6.30am - 7am. The rest of the day I drink water and herbal tea, with a coffee and a splash of milk at lunch.

I have dinner at around 5.30pm.

I'm still finding my feet calorie wise so have stuck to very similar breakfasts, usually 30g porridge oats made into porridge with 100ml semi skimmed milk and some berries.

Dinner the first few fast days was a tin of Baxters Carrot and Corriander soup, a tbsp of cottage cheese and a Ryvita Thin. More recently I have had a ceasar salad with just a small amount of low fat dressing (calories counted) and on Monday I had salmon fillet with salad and one potato baked in the microwave and chopped up through the salad.

Your encouragement has helped lift my spirits so I am determined to stick it out for at least another few weeks.

This is the first I have stumbled upon this forum so I'll have a wee hoke about and see what is on here to help.

Thank you everyone.

Mummybunny2005 I use fat watch on my iPad which works fine .it's not free I think I paid 2.99

Mummybunny, I use True Weight. The light version is free

[Moogie]

Comberspud - it's still early days so I'd suggest sticking to what you were doing and see how you get on If you sign up with the progress tracker here you'll get some lovely encouraging graphs & some useful info about your daily calorie needs.

You may find some improvement if you fast for longer periods, eg instead of breakfast try seeing if your hunger first thing passes and wait until late morning or lunch before you eat. This gives you a nice long fast from dinner the night before until whenever you start eating on your fast day. A lot of us have found that we only feel more hungry throughout the day once we start eating and so save all our cals for a nice big (quite normal looking actually) dinner. I swapped to that after doing about 6 weeks of lunches & dinners and found it gave me a kick start.

Hi Comberspud, I am the same, lost 7lb in 7 weeks and have gone up and down by the same 2lb ever since. I am going to keep going, because what's the alternative? Have a look on the progress trackers, there are huge amounts lost, albeit slowly. Everyone says it works and I have faith in them. Why else would they say it? Keep going, oh and lay off the Comber Spuds, they won't help

LOL!!@WendyDarling You're right, especially if they're smothered in butter! Haha

Can someone tell me what the TDEE is??

Hi Comberspud - to save the disappointments possible with weekly weigh-ins quite a few of us weigh daily and use an app like Libra or its iPad equivalent to draw a smoothed line through all the data points - if the line goes downwards you are winning, regardless of the spikes up & down. I find it invaluable for maintenance because my daily fluctuations are affected by exercise (dehydration) and fasting and carbo-loading so are all over the place but the trend line hardly moves. Keep going whatever, anyway!

My experience with Libra was terrible. I had the same experience as you, comberspud, for the first 5 weeks.

I weighed myself every 1-2 days and logged it in Libra. I bounced around between 181 and 187 lbs. Libra had me trending as gaining(!) weight and reaching my goal weight somewhere around never! Even though I never went above my initial measurement.

I deleted Libra and stopped weighing myself so often. As of a week ago I was down 10 lbs over 9 weeks (maybe 10 weeks?). I don't really know as Libra put me off tracking my weight and amount of time on the diet.

Give it some more time, Comberspud. Keep thinking of those lost inches. It was the few inches of slackness in my clothes that kept me going and eventually the weight did come down.

Oh and as Moogie has said, some of us find it easier not to eat anything till the evening on a fast day. I don't eat after dinner on Sunday evening, on Mondays I have nothing except green tea until dinner, then I have salad or vegetables with chicken or fish, i sometimes have a 10 calorie jelly, a cup of chai and always a 40 calorie hot chocolate at bedtime, then I have nothing more till lunchtime on Tuesday, then I do it all again from Wednesday after dinner. this makes a fast of + 36 hours with -500 calories. Just try different things until you find the way that suits you. I for one am really enjoying this and even though the weight is not coming off I will continue with it anyway. Sorry I'm not a very good advert!! Good luck and keep posting