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If you're new and have a question or need some advice, please give us as much information as you can about your situation in order for us to be able to help you as best we can. For example, it's helpful to know your BMI/weight, how much you want to lose, any medical conditions which might affect your weight and (if you've started fasting already) how you do your fasts in terms of splitting up your calories, what you eat etc. Thanks!

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hi all. I am new to forums of any description but really wanted to see if anyone can give me some advice. lost weight few years ago (using ww) and now find i have put it on gradually. in a place where i want to loose 10lbs (would be happy with more but hey-ho)! i started this diet 3 weeks ago and have fasted - very strictly- for 6 days in total. i lost 3lbs first week and really only half a pound since. I probably eat no more than 1200 cals on non-fast days. any advice? my bmi is showing "overweight". i am probably peri-menopausal (dont know if this is relevant or not). 5'5 weighing 11st.0!! have read great things about it and want to continue but as i am in it for weight loss - am i fighting a losing battle???
Hi Gilly & welcome :)

Don't be disheartened, it really is still early days for you and some folks do find that they lose in the first week and then the body adjusts for a week or two with not so much loss or a little regain (usually to do with fluid retention). I also find that when it's that time of the month I tend not to lose anything, perhaps you've had one of those weeks amongst the 3 you've done?

When you have less to lose it will tend to come off more slowly, and if you're not eating much on your feed days your body may be storing as much as it can as fat, thinking you are in a famine.

If you tell us a bit more about how you fast we might be able to offer some more tips. How you do split your cals & with what sort of foods? What time(s) do you eat your meal(s) on fast days? When do you start & finish your fast? Are you very active?
Have you been taking measurements?
I have had 2 think really it would be better to weigh once a month, but i know few of us can resist jumping on the scales even although it might only be weekly.
Its 2weeks since my first loss and have stuck, but my waist measurement is down considerably, and my clothes are feeling much looser.
I had kind of a fat roll on one side of my back, and noticed this morning it's almost gone!
I try on a pair of trousers I couldn't get in to every weigh in day. At first there was a huge gap in the middle and I struggled to even get them on....today I managed to do up the button.

So although I haven't lost on the scale I know something is definitely happening.
Hang on in there. Remember slow and steady and all that. Hopefully next week you'll be rejoicing in a loss.
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Maybe you need to eat more on the non fast days? Have you tried going on the Dr Johnson website and putting in your details. That suggests the calories for up and down days.

http://www.johnsonupdaydowndaydiet.com/ ... -diet.html

It might be worth a look? hope it helps.
Hello Gillyl1967,

I am sorry that you feel that you are getting nowhere but, in fact, you have lost an average of more than one pound a week, over three weeks, which is greater than the one pound a week forecast of weight loss, which the book makes and it is an absolutely brilliant loss! In addition, you don't have much weight to lose and most people would acknowledge that the less you have to lose, the more slowly it is likely to come off. You only have six pounds to go before you reach your target - so you are nearly halfway already!

From your WW experience, you will know that weight loss isn't even. I can remember weeks when I thought that I 'deserved' to lose lots and didn't and weeks when I had no expectations and was pleasantly surprised!

Please don't be disheartened - and keep going with 5:2! This is a brilliant way of eating and eventually may also provide you with a way of maintaining your target weight (by going to 6:1) so that your lost weight never gradually comes back to take you by surprise!

All the best and keep us posted on your progress!
thank you everyone. really appreciate the positive replies! i am defo going to stick with it for another few weeks and see how it goes. Moogie - i tend to split my day with skipping breakfast (using skimmed milk and having a latte then black tea to keep me going in the morning) soup and one or two rice crackers for lunch. then balance of calories at dinner-omellette or salmon or salad etc. my fast usually starts at 7pm (ish) night before and broken at lunch time on fast day. in between i have black tea or liquorice tea? i aim to go a 30min (2mile) walk most days after kids are sent to school and am fairly active throughout the day. find myself tired tho on fast days - particulary at night and when i feel hunger getting better of me in the evenings, tend to go for a bath and early bed! i am a bit confused about my calorie in-take on normal days tho. the link rachel sent says i should eat 1900 calories but only have 400 on fast days (help!!!). i aim to lose an another 10lbs on top of what i have lost already so a bit to go yet! family wedding/holiday and hubbys 50th this year - no pressure!!!!
Nothing's ever straight forward, is it?! If I were you I would stick with the 500c on fast days, as recommended on the 5:2 diet. myfitnesspal.com suggested an intake of 1200 calories per day for me (I am very sedentary and take very little exercise at all!) and I try to keep to that on feed days. So far it is working!

Good luck and well done for being so determined!
StowgateResident wrote: Nothing's ever straight forward, is it?! If I were you I would stick with the 500c on fast days, as recommended on the 5:2 diet. myfitnesspal.com suggested an intake of 1200 calories per day for me (I am very sedentary and take very little exercise at all!) and I try to keep to that on feed days. So far it is working!

Good luck and well done for being so determined!


Hey, can I just add and say that the Myfitnesspal app although it is fab, it will tell the vast majority of people that they need 1200 calories to lose weight, I have been on other websites and it is more like 1600for me personally, but everybody is different :) guess we have just got to see what works best for us as only we truly know our bodies.
Thanks Sophtwizzle for the info re myfitnesspal,

I have actually been trying to keep to 1450 on my feed days rather than 1200, although that still makes my average calorie intake for the week fairly low. I will see how I get on at that. I just felt that 1200 calories would feel like a diet every day, which is what I am trying to avoid. It means a whole new way of thinking for me - I have counted calories for so long (on & off - of course) it is a hard habit to overcome!
gillyl1967 wrote: the link rachel sent says i should eat 1900 calories but only have 400 on fast days (help!!!). i aim to lose an another 10lbs on top of what i have lost already so a bit to go yet! family wedding/holiday and hubbys 50th this year - no pressure!!!!


With that calculator you select what your calorie restriction on fast days will be so if you choose 20% you would get 380 on fast days based on 1900 on normal days, if you choose 25% you would get 475. The 5:2 diet is based on having a 25% reduction on fast days, so that's 475.

Try this calculator: http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm
In the advanced options you can choose different ways of calculating TDEE so you can see that the amount varies depending on the method. Unless the % body fat is known, the methods have to take a guess at your body fat, this leads to the variation in predicted amounts.

I would start with the most generous TDEE as your feast day allowance. Keep a rough tally of what you are eating on feast days and see how far you are off these figures on average. Keep to a quarter of the allowance for fast days. If no weight loss after a month, I'd assume that the TDEE was not accurate and use a lower one for a month. I find the http://www.fatsecret.co.uk website (which is v similar to the myfitnesspal one) useful because I track my calories (very roughly) and can see that over the week I am averaging 1500 cals a day which is enough for weight loss. It's better to look at the overall calorie restriction over the weeks because it allows you so much more flexibility than trying to hit some special target every day.
I really think you should either do a calorie-restricted diet every day or fast with sensible eating the other days (see Caro's reasonable diet plan above), not mix the two.

You're basically starving yourself if you mix the two(averaging 700 cals a day) and your body does actually need some fuel to function properly.
Hi all, yet another newbie to the forum.
Have many of you on here measured your results in body fat rather than weight loss at all?
If you have what sort of results have you been seeing? As much as I would like to lose weight, losing circumference and body fat are far more important to me. I have seen a small loss already and been doing this 5:2 for 2 weeks. I have also started lifting weights again at the gym at the same time so wasn't expecting much weight loss but I'm 4-5 lbs down (prob water weight as mentioned many times before) but still!
I've lost around 1% body fat in the last 2 weeks. (Only another 10% to go!)
So any body fat measurements out there?
Many (most?) people are tracking their waist measurement on our progress tracker. Waist measurement is a good indicator of visceral fat. Most people are seeing steady reductions in waist size and a large number have moved from an unhealthy waist: height ratio to a healthy one (i.e. waist is less than half of their height).
Thanks for the links Caroline. Factoring in that we (women) are eating no more than 1000 calories over 2 of the 7 days of the week then I finally understand the maths of this. Even with my 'little/no exercise' admission I should lose weight if I eat up to 1463 the other 5 days of the week. I LOVE this system. It's so bloomin' flexible :)
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