The FastDay Forum

Newbie here though I've been reading lots of posts.
I've just finished my third week of 5:2 and have lost nothing at all, not a single pound, and no measurement loss either - everything fits as tightly as it did. BMI 26.4, TDEE 1754.
I've been very careful to keep within the 500 calories on fast days, drunk lots of water, avoided carbs, felt like eating my own arm by late afternoon and had shattering headaches from mid-afternoon still there following morning. I see from posts that headaches may indicate loss of sodium, thanks for that info. I've been having scrambled eggs for breakfast, then nothing till evening other than drinks, mostly water, and grilled fish/chicken with salad/veg for evening meal.
Non-fast days breakfast is Weetabix/porridge & an orange, lunch Ryvita & Philly lite, with an apple and some natural yoghurt, occasionally half a tuna sandwich instead of Ryvita, evening meal chicken or fish with salad or vegetables and fresh fruit (strawberries or pineapple or nectarines for instance) and usually a glass of wine. Following suggestions on here, I've started skipping breakfast.
Exercise - one quite strenuous yoga class a week and I walk most days, evenings at present because it's so hot. Also we're about to finish (thank goodness!) a 2-year renovation of house and garden, lots of professional help but lots of DIY too.
I know that in theory I'm getting the health benefits of 5:2 but if my body is refusing to co-operate with the weight loss, is it really co-operating with the health benefits? Everyone else seems to lose shedloads of weight. Where am I going wrong please?

Hello
I don't think I really have any answers for you but wanted to send best wishes. It sounds like you are doing all the right things calorie-wise, and you are exercising too. I bet you are getting fed up with it.
Just a thought - have you considered having your thyroid checked? I have to take thyroxine and it just occurred to me that it could be a possibility?
I am certain that other more knowledgeable people will be along with better answers soon.
Lots of luck, and I hope you solve the puzzle soon

Mathematically you would need to eat 200 less than 1.4 times your TDEE on your feed days to break even. So if your TDEE is 1754 that suggests you're taking in 1.4 * 1754 - 200 = 2256 per day on feed days. Is that possible ? A 250ml glass of wine at 12% is about 210 claories from the alcohol alone.

That's the calorie based approach. Another approach is "what do I need to release fat" and part of the answer to that is a calorie deficit but another part is low insulin levels. Your fast day headaches imply a bit of carb dependency so perhaps you should try having scrambled eggs for breakfast every day of the week, rather than carbohydrates (porridge / weetabix). Worth a try.

Thanks Doodle, I had a check about a month ago for something quite unrelated and was told that there was no problem with my thyroid. PhilT, thank you for the suggestion about carb dependency, I may try scrambled eggs if just giving up breakfast altogether doesn't do anything. It's awfully hard to keep motivated on fast days when nothing's happening apart from headaches!

Seejay,
Are you a serial dieter? that is sometimes the reason for an initial slow weight loss? if not, then you have possibly miscalculated your TDEE, your activity levels or you are eating (or drinking) more than you think. Your calorie consumption appears to be pretty low so are you maybe grazing here and there or having an extra glass of vino? I'm not the diet police, honest, but you should be losing something on this woe, so maybe just recalculate your TDEE, and also your total consumption of calories over a week and see if your sums are adding up. Once you've been doing a while there is no need to calorie count at all, but it can be useful in the beginning.

Have you considered that you may be under-eating on your non-fasting days and slowing down your metabolism? I did a quick mental tot-up of your calories and it could be that you are not eating to your TDEE. Have you tried eating above your TDEE on a couple of days, slightly below for two or three plus the two fast days? This mixing up of amounts of calories has worked for some people who have plateaued, so may be worth a try?

As dhana has said it may be worth calorie counting for a couple of weeks - even though I know it's a chore! I haven't counted calories since the end of my third week and I'm now in Week 23 or 24. This WOE does work, so stick with it!

Thank you for these helpful suggestions which force me to face things but I’m not sure what to do next.
Am I a serial dieter? Yes and have been since I was growing up in the 1960s – I remember a steak & salad only idea, then the grapefruit diet, then counting calories (I was obsessive about it), F plan diet, BBC diet, Montignac, Atkins, WW (twice), lots of others. All are short-term ideas even if they work and mostly they didn’t. 5:2 offers a WOL which is what I need.
Do I undereat? It was a shock to calorie-count the meals I ate on Friday (can't do yesterday, don't know the accurate weights) which came to only 1427 even with a glass of wine and the meals were the same as I normally eat (usual breakfast & lunch, then hot-smoked salmon fillet, salad and strawberries for dinner).
Has constant dieting/worrying about food slewed my ability to eat “normally”?
An oddity that’s long baffled me is that for years we took family holidays in France and I always lost weight despite eating masses of lovely cheeses and pate every lunch time, heaps of baguettes, frites with evening meals, lots and lots of fruit bought in markets and from roadside vendors, lakes of wine, coffee and cognac in small village squares. In short, everything I normally avoid or restrict and yet I lost weight. In retrospect a French holiday was the only time I ever stopped obsessing about my weight and what I ate.
But I’m overweight (BMI 26.4) and it shows. So if I eat more, won’t I put on even more weight? I’m too close to this to see things clearly. Can some of you be more objective for me please? It’s a big ask because I’m new here but I’d so welcome your help.

Hi Seejay, not everyone is losing shed loads of weight. I suspect the people who have lost quite big amounts fairly steadily, are those that didn't have great diets before 5:2. For others (like me) who ate pretty well anyway there isn't such a step change so the weight loss is slow.

I lost a good few pounds early on but I think that was because it was post Christmas poundage being lost. Now my weight loss has settled into 1 - 1 1/2 lbs per month - that is all. It is practically undetectable because the day to day natural body weight fluctuations can be quite dramatic with this regime so the scales don't always tell the whole story.

I don't think you're undereating. I would be very wary of upping your calories - but then I don't agree with this starvation mode theory. I think you're just unlucky like me to have a fairly low TDEE so it doesn't take much to go over the limit. I can't give up the wine so I gave up breakfast instead .

So in summary, I would just stick with what you are doing and just have realistic expectations. It does work but it will take time.

Try two weeks without the wine. Alcohol isn't stored so is processed by the liver straight away. If you take in 200 alcohol calories then for 3 or 4 hours you are alcohol fuelled and any carbs and fats that were eaten at the same time have to be put away in storage.

If you started the meal with full glycogen stores then the carbs go into fat storage.

Some pre-meal exercise can deplete your glycogen reserves, which should help a bit, but you should think hard about the wine (I say this as a drinker).

Thanks Madge, I think I do need simply to be patient and expect to take things slowly. And you've sacrificed breakfast for wine - a girl after my own heart!

Phil, thanks for the explanation about alcohol calories being processed first which I hadn't known about but this makes the France experience even more inexplicable because we really did drink lots - wine with lunch, not just evening meal and not just one glass either, plus all the extra food and high-calorie stuff as well and yet I would always lose weight.

I shall just get on with it now, fast day tomorrow (I do Monday and Thursday) but take note of what all you good people have advised and stop fretting about it!

Possibly something you're eating on non fast days is causing inflammation. Google inflammatory foods and see if the things you're eating might be causing the weight to stay on. That's what happened to me.

Ha! Must sound like a right alcoholic. Actually I have done the 'dry January' thing for a few years and I must say I haven't really noticed much difference in weight change.

The 'French paradox' thing is weird isn't it? Maybe it's because of sitting down to proper meals and less snacking in between? Or the more outdoors way of life leading to NEAT (there's plenty on here re. NEAT if you don't know what it is, kencc is the guru on this). Good luck anyway.

The thing that Phil says about alcohol makes total sense seeing as when I have stopped drinking, it's made no difference - looks like it was the snacking with the alcohol that was sneaking the pounds on!

Hi Seejay,

I got off to one of the slowest starts in the history of 5:2 but I stuck with it for the health benefits and even when I plateau-ed for weeks on end I plodded on and I got there in the end. Now, almost 10 months on I am below my target weight and maintaining easily so, my message is, KEEP GOING!!!!!!!! DON'T GIVE UP! IT DOES WORK EVEN IF YOU'RE A SLOW STARTER!!!! Phew, tired now after all that shouting, good luck,

Ballerina x

Hi Seejay

I am three weeks into the 5:2 Fast Diet, and have not lost any weight for two weeks and was losing the will to continue until I read your post and realised that I am not alone!!

I don't normally read or post on forums but thought that I could eat 'normally' for five days a week after reading about the diet. Not sure this is the case as I now see people talking about TDEE (still trying to figure out quite what this is, or has to do with anything )

Hope you're still hanging in there? I know I need to, but just hoped I would see some results sooner than this

Thank you to anyone who reads this - I just need to rant!!