The FastDay Forum

I'm not completely new to 5:2. My husband and I started it just after the Horizon programme, so early September I reckon by the time I'd shown it to 'Imself on i-player, discussed it between ourselves and got going. He has been particularly successful and has lost between 4 and 5 stones in the time. He had a lot more to lose than me and I have managed a stone and a half in the time.

We had a two week break over Christmas and I'm a bit stuck now. I accepted over the two weeks that I would put a few pounds back on and was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't as much as I'd anticipated, but I'm still scrabbling back to where I was before Christmas.I'm not putting any more on but not really getting any further either.

I am also a member of another small forum (main subject gardening) and when we had a short discussion about 5:2 after the programme on our general discussion board there, I was asked to write a resume to start a forum for those of us who wanted to give it a go. So we have our own little support group of diet buddies there, but it's nice to be able to find more comprehensive and knowledgeable support elsewhere too.

I've been attracted today by a post on Faceache about the progress tracker. So far Mr Gonewest and I have only taken notice of our weight and the fact that our clothes are generally not so tight anymore, and some favourites we thought would we'd have to relegate to the charity shop are now wearable again. Yay! I've not had a go at the progress tracker yet, but look forward to seeing how/if it helps, and to providing data for more thorough investigations into the whole topic.

[Moogie]

Hi there my dear & welcome to the forums. Wow, you and your husband have both done really well in the time you've been doing this - congrats!

If you've not got so much to lose it may well come off a bit more slowly, as seems to be the case with all weight loss. However, there may be things you can do to give it a boost. How do you split your cals up & what sort of things do you eat? I've definately found a second wind on 5:2 by swapping on to a single meal in the evening (giving me about 24 hours of fasting before that).

I hope you enjoy using the Progress Tracker, it should prove quite interesting when more members are using it!

Yes I realised Mr G was going to lose more and at a faster rate than me as he had considerably more to lose. I'm really happy with what I've lost and don't really want to lose heaps more.

At the moment my fast days are fairly repetitive, I eat 2 rashers of bacon and an egg in the morning. I don't use any fat to cook them in. Then on a Monday I make a bucket of soup that will do for evening meal that evening with enough for Friday our other chosen day. That's as far as the repetition goes though because so far I haven't repeated the same soup. I'm happy with that while the weather is cold and will start varying the evening option when the weather starts to warm up. I did try to vary my breakfasts (Mr G varies his) but find that protein satisfies me for longer. That usually leaves me with a few spare calories and Mr G doesn't often succumb to anything else either so he's usually under his calorie allowance on a fast day - another reason for him losing his weight quicker.

In truth since Christmas and with the cold weather I think I have sometimes overestimated the calories I have leftover. Also on feast days for the first week or so there were, of course, some of the seasonal goodies leftover to use up, and the fact that we usually send people home with a chunk of our Christmas cake which we didn't do this year, it still didn't seem to take any longer than usual to eat up somehow. I've been much more determined today though so we'll see what happens over the week to come.

I may try the single meal thing, but am susceptible to migraines if I don't eat breakfast so it would have to be that, plus I'm a certain age and don't always sleep brilliantly lately and I think being hungry at bedtime wouldn't help matters, but I might just be making excuses for myself. I was thinking, if I am really stuck, that when the weather warms up I may do a week or so of 4:3 and see how I go.

[Moogie]

I guess all you can do is try it one day and see how far you can make it without eating. For years now I've often not felt the need for breakfast until 10-11am, so I just pushed that forward and forward until I only ate at dinnertime on fast days. A big breakfast may work better for you, and perhaps have a mug of stock (I've yet to try this but lots seem to swear by it!) for around 10-15 cals for a 'soup' near bedtime, to fill you up?

Speaking of bedtime, it's that time for me. Been at this desk long enough today! Otherwise would write more.

Night night!
x

Mum used to give me a mug of bovril and dry toast when I was ill. Guess I'll have to try it without the dry toast, never did like that bit anyway, but the bovril was quite nice. Suppose marmite is similar, might give that a try tonight.
Night night, sleep well.