Very happy bunny today 
. I have lost just 1lb this week but it was enough to take me into the healthy BMI range - yay! I am also now down to a size 12 which is fantastic.
I am so impressed by this WOE as it has worked so well for me. I have been following 5:2 for four and a half months now and thought it might be helpful for newbies for me to share some of my personal observations:
1. I found the fasting days hard to begin with, not because I was ravenous but because I felt very tired, cold and foggy brained. This improved after a few weeks. I still feel colder than usual but I think that may be because I have lost 24lbs of blubber!
2. I find it best to save all my calories for my evening meal on fasting days. When it's cold I often have an M&S Fuller Longer meal. When it's warmer I have oven baked salmon or chicken with a big salad.
3. My weight loss stalled after a month and started to go up (see my Progress Tracker). Based on other people's experiences on this forum I then started tracking my calories on feast days using MyFitnessPal. I was horrified to see how many calories I was eating mindlessly between meals. This awareness and the discipline of recording everything made me think about what I was eating. It did not take long for me to get used to eating only when hungry. I tracked calories religiously for about six weeks until I was sure that I had overcome this problem. My weight loss started again and has been steady since so I don't track calories now.
4. My body seems to have been 'reset' by this WOE so that I now do not crave sweet things or indeed carbs in general as I did previously. I therefore eat whatever I fancy on feast days but I don't seem to want to eat as much as before, so I never feel that I can't have something. This is the secret of the success of this WOE for me - it feels like I am completely unrestricted for five days a week.
5. I could not have achieved this success without this forum. It has helped me when I have had problems and spurred me on when a fast day seemed too difficult to endure.
I hope this helps some others.
I am less than 3lbs away from my initial target and I am hoping to reach this in the next few weeks. I will think about setting a new target but I don't want to go too low because at 51 I have relatively few wrinkles and don't want to start looking older!
. I have lost just 1lb this week but it was enough to take me into the healthy BMI range - yay! I am also now down to a size 12 which is fantastic. I am so impressed by this WOE as it has worked so well for me. I have been following 5:2 for four and a half months now and thought it might be helpful for newbies for me to share some of my personal observations:
1. I found the fasting days hard to begin with, not because I was ravenous but because I felt very tired, cold and foggy brained. This improved after a few weeks. I still feel colder than usual but I think that may be because I have lost 24lbs of blubber!
2. I find it best to save all my calories for my evening meal on fasting days. When it's cold I often have an M&S Fuller Longer meal. When it's warmer I have oven baked salmon or chicken with a big salad.
3. My weight loss stalled after a month and started to go up (see my Progress Tracker). Based on other people's experiences on this forum I then started tracking my calories on feast days using MyFitnessPal. I was horrified to see how many calories I was eating mindlessly between meals. This awareness and the discipline of recording everything made me think about what I was eating. It did not take long for me to get used to eating only when hungry. I tracked calories religiously for about six weeks until I was sure that I had overcome this problem. My weight loss started again and has been steady since so I don't track calories now.
4. My body seems to have been 'reset' by this WOE so that I now do not crave sweet things or indeed carbs in general as I did previously. I therefore eat whatever I fancy on feast days but I don't seem to want to eat as much as before, so I never feel that I can't have something. This is the secret of the success of this WOE for me - it feels like I am completely unrestricted for five days a week.
5. I could not have achieved this success without this forum. It has helped me when I have had problems and spurred me on when a fast day seemed too difficult to endure.
I hope this helps some others.
I am less than 3lbs away from my initial target and I am hoping to reach this in the next few weeks. I will think about setting a new target but I don't want to go too low because at 51 I have relatively few wrinkles
and don't want to start looking older!
Good on you Windsinger, what a great effort and as it sounds like not too hard an effort at all. Keep up the good work and keep us informed as to how you progress. 
Sue
It confirms my point 5 - this forum is a fantastic support. There are many others who have a profile similar to mine so I always look out for their stories as I can learn from them.
