The FastDay Forum

Hi everyone

I did my first fast day yesterday and it went well. I was so hungry by bedtime that I felt wired mind, but it was so nice to wake up this morning and have toast and a milky coffee. I'm hoping I can keep this up!

Just a couple of qs, I've noticed a lot of people count calories on the feast days. Is this important? Its just I find that restricting calories when I've done other diets has in fact been my downfall as I spend the entire day thinking about how much I can eat and usually end up overeating! I love the idea of only doing this for 2 days and the rest of the time I don't have to think about it.

I weighed myself this morning after my fast day and lost 5lb?! I know this isnt an accurate measurement due to water loss etc but it sure looked good

Good luck everyone.

[Moogie]

Hi Carameline & welcome to the forums!

Most of us don't strictly count calories on feed days, but many of us I think have a vague idea of our intake just to be sure we're not vastly overeating (as of course this would lead to less or no weight loss - or heaven forbid, gaining!). I wouldn't worry about it at the moment my dear, just make sure you eat a fairly normal intake of food on your feed days (yes, that includes cakes, biscuits etc! you can have them, just don't scoff a few packs a day, lol) and if you're losing weight then you're doing fine.

If you should find the weight isn't coming off, then it's time to look at whether you're over or under eating, which yes would involve counting calories (or at least keeping track of them) for a week or two to help us troubleshoot the problem.

A lot of us know more or less what our 'normal' calorific intake should be (eg, for women it's around 2000 on average, but I'm pretty inactive and only need about 1750 to maintain weight) - but we don't stick to it religiously, in fact some of us find that by overeating some days and under-eating for a couple we have better weight loss. Eg some of us indulge a bit over the weekend, going over our normal intake, but then during the week we try to be a bit more sensible and stay a bit below it. It's not always a conscious thing, it mostly seems to come naturally. It's funny how 5:2 can change your eating habits without much effort at all!

I don't count calories on any days! BUT - I have calorie counted for years so have a really good idea of the calories in the foods which we (husband & I) generally choose to eat. This means that I can be very aware of what we have eaten and, if there has been some very high intake feeding / drinking, I can just adjust our next days food to balance it out. I would do as Moogie suggests - try not counting but use it as your fall-back position if you find that you are not losing.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do!

Calories-counting is not necessary for this diet, assuming that you don't pig out (like I did on my first week, oink, oink) on your non-fasting days but it can help you to:
-make sure you aren't eating over your TDEE
-see what went wrong if something does
-find out your PERSONAL TDEE after a few weeks of counting calories.

I'm brand new too - (second week, 3 fasts done) - but I'm finding that I feel like I want to control what I eat on Feast days so don't go overboard...I seem to be losing fine.

I'm using My Fitness Pal to count calories for the first month I'm on the 5:2 Plan, just so I can get used to the correct portion sizes and calories.