The FastDay Forum

I completed my first fast last Monday & because I didn't feel hungry I just had a black coffee & with drinking lots of water kept going until 3-0pm until I started rumbling & ate a banana. I then had supper around 7-0pm that was an M&S vegetable cannelloni & green beans & melon that all came to just below 500 calories. This was a bit haphazard & unplanned & prompted by reading the article on 5:2 in the Radio Times so I have now bought the book & found this forum!! So all good.
I am aged 65 with 5 stone to lose but because I have already joined Rosemary Conley online with a special introductory offer I will also be doing that for 12 weeks. So far have lost 6.8 lbs with a low fat diet so I plan to continue both to keep an eye on my calorie intake on feed days. Is anyone doing something similar? I am disappointed with that weight loss so hope that 5:2 will help boost things & I am also enthusiastic about the health benefits because I had breast cancer eleven years ago & piled on weight having to take Tamoxifen, that weight I h ave not yet managed to lose. My fast days will be Monday & Friday at least that is the plan for now. I am really pleased to be part of this experiment to find a better balance & long term life plan.
Good luck to everyone just starting like me.
Isis

[carorees]

Hi Isis and welcome!

Is the Rosemary Conley a diet or an exercise plan or both? If diet is it low or high carb in structure? There is quite a bit of evidence coming out that high carb, low fat diets are the least effective in promoting weight loss (they do work a bit because like all diets they are based on reducing your calorie intake). The most effective 'standard' diets are the low carb or Mediterranean diets.

The 5:2 works on the principle that you eat normally on non-fast days which is to say you eat to around your daily calorie requirement. Some people have found that the weight loss is not so good if they calorie restrict on feed days, others have had good weight loss even with calorie restriction. Dr M says that the health benefits come from the big difference between fast and feed days so that also indicates that you should not really calorie restrict on feed days. He also recommends reducing carbs if possible and especially on fast days.

I just thought I should point that out so you can decide how to proceed.

But, good luck with it all.

Hello Caroline
Thank you for your comments. The RC diet is low fat below 5% per 100 grms food & cal counted my current allowance is 1586 cals per day that I find hard to eat so much. Exercise is recommended but I have dodgy knees with mildish arthritis so I do some salsacice dance type aerobics 2-3 times a week but should do more. I am expecting weight loss to help improve my knees. I suppose being identified as fairly sedentary would be about correct but hope to become more active with a reduction in weight. For my fast day tomorrow I was planning a tuna steak with fresh vegetables for supper & no breakfast because last fast I was not hungry. Perhaps my appetite is already reduced because of dieting?
Thanks
Isis