The FastDay Forum

I have been on the 5:2 diet for nearly two months now and have got used to fasting to such an extent that I successfully completed my first ever full 36 hour zero-calorie fast last week (that was tough, but I got through it without any problems). However, I was hoping that this would led to a better result at this morning's weigh-in than what I have got.

To begin with, I have gained a pound (0.5kg) since last week. Last week was the second time that my weight has gone down to 11 stone 9 pounds but every single time that I achieve that figure, my weight always bounces straight back again in the following week and that is what has happened again this time. I have however, been following the advise not to go by the scales alone and that is why I also take my waist measurements, body fat content and my blood pressure (I am currently taking Lisinopril for high blood pressure and Simvastatin for high cholesterol).

However, my waist size has increased by 0.2 inches this week and my body fat percentage has also shown a slight increase. My TDEE is 2467 calories and so, I don't really see how I can be taking in too many calories. I have been eating well below 600 calories on my fast days and I don't count my calories on a non-fasting day as this WOL was supposed to get me away from all of that stuff.

However, the biggest issue that I'm having just now is with my blood pressure. With a normal calorie controlled diet and all of the calorie counting which goes with that, I was able to get my systolic blood pressure down to below 120 on a few occasions. During this year, my best blood pressure figures were 120 over 80 on 25 March 2013, although that had generally settled down to a systolic blood pressure in the low 130s before I began this WOL.

Since I started the 5:2 diet though, my blood pressure figures have deteriorated to the point where this morning's figures have come out at 150 over 87 which are my worst figures since the time when I was severely obese at the beginning of last year. That is taken from an average of three different readings, but these are showing consistent results. I am due to see my doctor a week on Wednesday when I will be discussing this issue.

I have been working on reducing the sodium content in my diet and so, I can't see any problems with that. In addition to that, there isn't really much happening in my life just now which means that I'm fairly relaxed just now. That in turn should rule out stress or anxiety as a possible cause of these figures for my blood pressure.

The point of the matter is that I want to see this WOL working and that means that I need to be getting some decent results at my weigh-ins because it is results at the end of the day, which will show the real evidence of whether this is working or not and sadly, I'm just not getting those decent results just now.

I'm also aware that it is the other health factors which are important in this WOL and not just weight loss, and that is why I have collecting that other data which I have mentioned. However, if this WOL really provides other health benefits, the results that I'm getting are not showing that just now. A Monday is not a normally a fasting day for me but in response to these results, I have decided to immediately go into a 36 hour fast. I didn't drink any alcohol last night and I haven't consumed any calories since 7pm last night. That means that I won't be breaking that fast until I have my breakfast tomorrow morning after 7am. I will then be following that up with a complete 24 hour fast later on in the week (probably centered around Thursday).

Until now, I have been coinciding my fast days with my rest days away from all of my gym and fitness activies. However, I am now changing my fast days so that they coincide with an actvity day. Hopefully, the fact that I am fasting on those days will force the body to burn more of that body fat on those days through my exercise activities. Furthermore, that will also ensure that I'm now doing my food shopping on a day which isn't a fasting day.

Just now, I don't really have any confidence in the long-term results of that, but I'll see how it goes anyway.

[carorees]

Just a quick reply for now as I'm not at my computer. I had the same issue with increased blood pressure. I discovered that in some cases weight loss reduces the chemical in the body that lisinopril works on and can cause a paradoxical increase in BP. I stopped taking the tablets and my BP decreased. I'll post more info when I get to my computer.

Hi John - what are you eating on your non-fasting days? Many on this site have moved towards higher fat/lower carbohydrate foods, with a medium amount of protein, and found this works. Several have experimented with coconut oil, self included, and seem to have good results. Not everyone is affected the same way by salt - maybe low salt is not right for you? Have a look at Peter Attia's 'Eatingacademy.com' website for information about metabolic syndrome/cholesterol/sugar etc - but if you have already dieted away lots of fat I don't think you can be metabolically inflexible...

Not much help probably but maybe the doctor will do a comprehensive blood test and get a fuller picture of what is going on and why 5:2 is not working for you now.

Have you tried to talking to carorees about the blood pressure thing because I think I have read other posts where people have found that to have happened - she might have some advice for you about it, as I think she had a similar problem.

Maybe I'm missing somethinge here, but by looking at your progress chart you've lost weight at a decent rate, considering you didn't have that much to loose to begin with, the same thing with body fat and waist measurement. Maybe you haven't lost as fast as you wanted to, but 213 g/week really isn't exceptionally slow in my eyes.

You seem to weigh in once a week, and all sorts of things can affect the results, making a change like 0.5 kg gain last week looking quite tiny. I weigh in more often, and have seen changes up and down for 1-2 kg just for a day. If you measure just once a week, it seems too early to see much of a trend.

I have no idea about the blood pressure thing, but just from the progress chart it does seem like 5:2 actually is working, and it's too early to draw any conclusions from just one week. There are too many variables at work here.

Do you take measurements in a consistent way?

Just a quick reply for now as I'm not at my computer. I had the same issue with increased blood pressure. I discovered that in some cases weight loss reduces the chemical in the body that lisinopril works on and can cause a paradoxical increase in BP. I stopped taking the tablets and my BP decreased. I'll post more info when I get to my computer.

There has been a few times in the past where I have stopped taking BP tablets, only for my BP to then rocket upwards as a result. Because of that, I'm a bit skeptical about stopping any medications without the doctor's say so. However, I was quite a lot heavier back then than I am just now, and I suppose that could make a difference. Because of that, I am about to conduct another experiment by stopping my BP tablets for a week starting from tomorrow (I had already taken today's tablet when I first got up) and then seeing what my BP is at this time next week. That way, if my BP comes down even after stopping the tablets, I can then go to my doctor armed with those results which can be used as evidence in my case for coming off those tablets. If my BP doesn't come down though (especially if it goes up again), I guess that it will be back to the drawing board with that one which would mean that I would still need to continue with that medication.

Hi John - what are you eating on your non-fasting days? Many on this site have moved towards higher fat/lower carbohydrate foods, with a medium amount of protein, and found this works. Several have experimented with coconut oil, self included, and seem to have good results. Not everyone is affected the same way by salt - maybe low salt is not right for you? Have a look at Peter Attia's 'Eatingacademy.com' website for information about metabolic syndrome/cholesterol/sugar etc - but if you have already dieted away lots of fat I don't think you can be metabolically inflexible...

Not much help probably but maybe the doctor will do a comprehensive blood test and get a fuller picture of what is going on and why 5:2 is not working for you now.

A typical non-fast day will begin with some scrambled eggs on toast with a tomato for breakfast, a small glass of orange juice, a piece of fruit and a cup of de-caffeinated coffee with some semi-skimmed milk. For lunch, I will then have a couple of sandwiches consisting of two slices of wholemeal bread with low fat margarine (Flora), a couple of pieces of cold meat and a tomato. With that, I will have another piece of fruit, a small dessert, a couple of biscuits and a small packet of crisps with another mug of the same coffee as I have with my breakfast.

My evening meal will then consist of a piece of meat or fish with some salad or veg and a potato. I have since switched from normal potatoes to sweet potatoes and sometimes, I will have some brown rice instead. However, I have now started an experiment of replacing the potatoes/rice with a pile of mushrooms (or something like that) in order to try to reduce the carbs. I will then usually have something like strawberries and custard as a dessert although this week, I have been replacing that dessert with some instant soup which actually reduces the overall number of calories. With that, I will then have another mug of my usual coffee and other couple of biscuits.

All of that shouldn't be too much of issue since one of the claims of the 5:2 diet is meant to be that you can eat whatever you like on a non fasting day. However, you do learn to make healthier choices over time and as part of that process, I am now reducing the number of biscuits that I eat with my mugs of coffee. I suppose though, my binge Mondays weren't really helping and neither were the lagers that I was drinking on a Monday night although until last week, I was getting away with that in terms of my weigh-in results.

However, I am now finding it harder to binge on carbs and so, the high calorie count on Mondays until now will no longer be part of my plan. Instead, I will now be spreading those treats out over all of my non fasting days instead of squeezing them all into one day and I have now started to replace the lager with some wine.

I had some wine on Saturday night, but that was in a large glass which took up half the bottle. I then unintentionally went on to drink the whole bottle which didn't help matters and that is where this week's weight increase might have come from. In response to that, I then went out and bought some normal sized wine glasses so that from now on, it will be much easier to restrict myself to that one glass of wine per night and I will certainly not be taking any alcohol on the night before a fasting day from now on.

So, there are quite a lot of changes that are being put in place here to make things that bit healthier, and I'm wondering if this week's result may have just come as part of that transition. In any case, I guess that it will just be a case of waiting for all of these changes to settle down, and then seeing what my results are like after that.

[carorees]

Hi @johncs2013

I'm at my desk now so can answer more fully!

Regarding the weight gain seen on the scales, you have been given good advice already...it means next to nothing if you see a gain one day. If you see a further gain next week and again the next week, then maybe then is the time to think something is not right. A one-off measurement tells you nothing. Daily weighing and a trendline is the best way to see exactly what is going on, or weigh only monthly as that gives long enough for the fat loss to show up despite the normal daily variations in weight. Similarly, the tape measure is not entirely accurate...a bit of bloating can easily cause such an increase. Time is the only sure way of knowing whether the diet is working for weightloss!

Regarding the blood pressure, there have been a few instances where people doing 5:2 have noticed an increase in blood pressure. First thing to say is that blood pressure varies a lot during the day so the exact time and circumstances that you measure it can influence the reading. It sounds as if you are aware of this though, so the next thing is that when your body starts to burn fat in preference to carbohydrate (which will happen with fasting and/or reducing the carb content of your diet) the body tends to flush salt out of the system so a low salt diet is possibly not ideal when fasting.

Second, not everyone who has high blood pressure is sensitive to salt intake so lowering salt intake may not affect their blood pressure.

Third, some people with high blood pressure are sensitive to carbohydrate intake so lowering carbs (especially sugar) can lower blood pressure.

Fourth, the drug you are taking (lisinopril) is an ACE inhibitor which acts to interrupt the pathway that converts renin to angiotensin. What happens is that when your body senses a drop in blood pressure, the kidneys release renin, which is converted to angiotensin, which in turn causes your blood vessels to contract, and also changes the salt balance of your body, so raising blood pressure. The ACE inhibitors prevent the enzyme that converts renin to angiotensin from working so preventing the rise in blood pressure. However, if you don't have high renin levels the ACE inhibitor can't work and can actually cause an increase in blood pressure. A low sodium diet and also losing weight lowers the amount of renin being produced and so the ACE inhibitor has less to work with.

In fact, I had the same problem of increased blood pressure after about 6 months on 5:2. I had a lot of investigations by the doc which all came out negative. Then I found this paper: http://ajh.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/9/1031.long describing the paradoxical increase in blood pressure with antihypertensive drugs and I realized that it could be the ACE inhibitor which was causing the BP increase. I stopped taking the ACE inhibitor and monitored my BP twice daily. As the drug takes a long time to leave the system, I reasoned that stopping it would not result in any sudden change in BP but would be quite gradual (it takes about a month for all the drug to leave the system), so I monitored and used an app that gave me a trendline so I could see what was happening. My BP gradually reduced from the 150/100 mark to about 130/80 with occasional trips into the 125/70 level. I concluded that it was the ACE inhibitor that had caused my BP increase. I've been off the ACE inhibitor for 5 months now and my BP is stable.

Another thing that I have noticed is that my BP is very sensitive to how warm I am. If I measure my BP when I'm cold, it can be 10+ points higher than when I'm warm. With the arrival of the cold weather, I have to make sure I'm at a comfortable temperature before taking the measurement.

You say that you are not stressed so this can't be the cause of the higher BP, but fasting puts some stress on the body with increased cortisol, so it might cause transient increases in BP. One point to check is whether your BP drops at night. BP follows a daily rhythm, increasing in the morning and decreasing at night. A lack of a drop at night is more worrying than a high reading in the morning, so perhaps you should check it night and morning for a while?

I hope that makes sense and will give you something to discuss with your doc. Do let us know how you get on.

PS, I see you replied to my earlier post while I was typing this. As I mentioned above, it might take more than a week to see a change in BP when you stop the tablets, so be careful to take your measurements under identical conditions each day or any change will be lost in the noise!

Hi @johncs2013

I'm at my desk now so can answer more fully!

Regarding the weight gain seen on the scales, you have been given good advice already...it means next to nothing if you see a gain one day. If you see a further gain next week and again the next week, then maybe then is the time to think something is not right. A one-off measurement tells you nothing. Daily weighing and a trendline is the best way to see exactly what is going on, or weigh only monthly as that gives long enough for the fat loss to show up despite the normal daily variations in weight. Similarly, the tape measure is not entirely accurate...a bit of bloating can easily cause such an increase. Time is the only sure way of knowing whether the diet is working for weightloss!

Regarding the blood pressure, there have been a few instances where people doing 5:2 have noticed an increase in blood pressure. First thing to say is that blood pressure varies a lot during the day so the exact time and circumstances that you measure it can influence the reading. It sounds as if you are aware of this though, so the next thing is that when your body starts to burn fat in preference to carbohydrate (which will happen with fasting and/or reducing the carb content of your diet) the body tends to flush salt out of the system so a low salt diet is possibly not ideal when fasting.

Second, not everyone who has high blood pressure is sensitive to salt intake so lowering salt intake may not affect their blood pressure.

Third, some people with high blood pressure are sensitive to carbohydrate intake so lowering carbs (especially sugar) can lower blood pressure.

Fourth, the drug you are taking (lisinopril) is an ACE inhibitor which acts to interrupt the pathway that converts renin to angiotensin. What happens is that when your body senses a drop in blood pressure, the kidneys release renin, which is converted to angiotensin, which in turn causes your blood vessels to contract, and also changes the salt balance of your body, so raising blood pressure. The ACE inhibitors prevent the enzyme that converts renin to angiotensin from working so preventing the rise in blood pressure. However, if you don't have high renin levels the ACE inhibitor can't work and can actually cause an increase in blood pressure. A low sodium diet and also losing weight lowers the amount of renin being produced and so the ACE inhibitor has less to work with.

In fact, I had the same problem of increased blood pressure after about 6 months on 5:2. I had a lot of investigations by the doc which all came out negative. Then I found this paper: http://ajh.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/9/1031.long describing the paradoxical increase in blood pressure with antihypertensive drugs and I realized that it could be the ACE inhibitor which was causing the BP increase. I stopped taking the ACE inhibitor and monitored my BP twice daily. As the drug takes a long time to leave the system, I reasoned that stopping it would not result in any sudden change in BP but would be quite gradual (it takes about a month for all the drug to leave the system), so I monitored and used an app that gave me a trendline so I could see what was happening. My BP gradually reduced from the 150/100 mark to about 130/80 with occasional trips into the 125/70 level. I concluded that it was the ACE inhibitor that had caused my BP increase. I've been off the ACE inhibitor for 5 months now and my BP is stable.

Another thing that I have noticed is that my BP is very sensitive to how warm I am. If I measure my BP when I'm cold, it can be 10+ points higher than when I'm warm. With the arrival of the cold weather, I have to make sure I'm at a comfortable temperature before taking the measurement.

You say that you are not stressed so this can't be the cause of the higher BP, but fasting puts some stress on the body with increased cortisol, so it might cause transient increases in BP. One point to check is whether your BP drops at night. BP follows a daily rhythm, increasing in the morning and decreasing at night. A lack of a drop at night is more worrying than a high reading in the morning, so perhaps you should check it night and morning for a while?

I hope that makes sense and will give you something to discuss with your doc. Do let us know how you get on.

PS, I see you replied to my earlier post while I was typing this. As I mentioned above, it might take more than a week to see a change in BP when you stop the tablets, so be careful to take your measurements under identical conditions each day or any change will be lost in the noise!

So, if I were to take an extra BP reading at night (from that, I can now see why the nurses take BP readings at several times during the day when you are in hospital (as I was after a bike accident in the Autumn of 2011)), I guess that it still probably wouldn't be a good idea to do so after consuming some alcohol as that could affect things.

Lots of things affect blood pressure readings - if you are cold it will generally be higher, after a heavy meal or smoking, if you need to urinate, as you mentioned after alcohol etc etc. And I'd do the best of 3 readings if you're checking your own at home - you need to be sitting comfortably in a moderately heated room with the your monitor at heart level. I work in a GP surgery and we generally do 3 readings and discard the first because most people are more anxious than they realise and that first reading is generally the highest. You've (as usual) had loads of great advice but do stick with it if you can!

Maybe I'm missing somethinge here, but by looking at your progress chart you've lost weight at a decent rate, considering you didn't have that much to loose to begin with, the same thing with body fat and waist measurement. Maybe you haven't lost as fast as you wanted to, but 213 g/week really isn't exceptionally slow in my eyes.

You seem to weigh in once a week, and all sorts of things can affect the results, making a change like 0.5 kg gain last week looking quite tiny. I weigh in more often, and have seen changes up and down for 1-2 kg just for a day. If you measure just once a week, it seems too early to see much of a trend.

I have no idea about the blood pressure thing, but just from the progress chart it does seem like 5:2 actually is working, and it's too early to draw any conclusions from just one week. There are too many variables at work here.

Do you take measurements in a consistent way?

When I lost most of my weight last year, I had spells where I would weigh myself every day day to see where the pattern was taking me. That would be immediately after a large weight gain following a week away from healthy eating altogether. Those results would then show just the one trend in one direction which would then be downwards and I would then usually find that even large weight gains within the space of a week, would then be almost wiped out a week or so later.

I'm therefore guessing that the 5:2 diet will provide an even bigger reason for daily weigh-ins because the swings between eating and fasting are bound to provide bigger swings in the weight which over the course of a week, won't be all in the same direction. Because of that, I will probably weigh myself again tomorrow morning to see what effect today's fast (which was unplanned in the sense that my decision to go through with it was only taken after it had already begun, but planned in the sense that this was always going to be what I would do if this morning's weigh-in showed a weight gain over the last week) has on my weight.

From that, it would appear that a better time to log an official result (if I continue to do that once a week) would probably be on the morning after a fasting day when I would have the best possible chance of getting a good result. That therefore means that there is even the possibility that my weight might have gone down to or even below 11 and a half stone at some point after a fasting day. Yet, I will never know if it did or not, because I didn't actually weigh myself at those times.

If I was ever able to record such a weight, that would be the biggest ever feat that I have ever had in my adult life as I have never been down to 11 and a half stone during any period of my adult life, and that dates all the way back to the 1980s. That is certainly one that I therefore, wouldn't want to miss.

John take a look at my progress tracker- you will see how up and down I am - down overall but quite a lot of plateauing and such

I weigh myself every day and write it down but I only enter my weight on the tracker the day after my second fast day of the week (ie Thurs morning) and the trend is downward - but I have learnt (finally) to stop getting disappointed when the scales are all over the place during the week because they vary such a lot BUT I'd never weigh myself late at night because I'd get WAY too depressed I do think frequent weighing means you get a more accurate picture though.

I only weigh once every two weeks as I could not bear the disappointment of fluctuations

I weigh myself every day and write it down but I only enter my weight on the tracker the day after my second fast day of the week (ie Thurs morning) and the trend is downward - but I have learnt (finally) to stop getting disappointed when the scales are all over the place during the week because they vary such a lot BUT I'd never weigh myself late at night because I'd get WAY too depressed I do think frequent weighing means you get a more accurate picture though.

That is why on a weekly basis, I will now be recording my minimum and maximum weights for that week (the same thing will go for my waist size and body fat content) in my weekly blogs (I have just recently posted my latest blog entry which goes more into that). I might even consider taking my average weight over each week in addition to that, which will then give an even better picture of what is happening.

I also never weigh myself at night and even though I can weigh myself at the gym, that is something which I never do since I'm not always necessarily going to be at the gym at the same time of day on each occasion which means that I'm not really going to get an accurate picture of my weight from that. Because of that, it is always first thing in the morning that I weigh myself. That way, I am always going to be as close to what I can, to always weighing myself under exactly the same circumstances which in turn, gives a more accurate reflection of my weight for that day.