The FastDay Forum

I am new here too. have had 3 fasting days, friday last week, this monday and yesterday, put myself on weight this morning, and were very disappointed . I have not lost anything AT ALL , and I have not even eating up all my cals on feast days either. On my fast days I eat about 400 cals, and on feast days around 1500-1600 cals, ALL put down in a database, so I was sure not over eating on feast days.

What is the reason for this? Can somebody help , please!

Pia

Hi Pia, sorry you've had such a discouraging start. Please have a look at this topic. You really can't judge the effectiveness of 5:2 after such a short period. If you consume well under your TDEE, and it sounds as if you have, you must lose weight, but it may take a little while to show up because of other confounding factors. Don't give up yet!

Thanks Dominic.

I try not to give up and just continue, as I have planned. I have been thinking about an issue. I have been on a low calorie diet for 7 weeks now and have lost weight, the calorie intake has been about 1000-1100 EVERYDAY, so maybe because of that it has stucked to plateau for a while? Could it be one of the reasons too? I was just tired of this very low calorie diet every day, so when I read about this 5.2 diet ( I am using 4:3 ) it really appealed to me, because I do believe that my body need different intake to loose weight on the long term. The last 2-3 weeks on that 1000 cal.diet nothing happened at all when it comes to weightloss, so I guess I am just disappointed and tired of nothing really happens at the moment :/

Your body has probably gone into famine mode. You have to re-assure it that you are not starving. Be gentle with yourself. Have faith and when you have recovered from limiting calories, you will lose weight.

Yep, you're starving yourself. Don't mix up diets, either calorie-restrict every day to get your weekly calorie deficit OR fast.

I get better results the weeks my food intake goes up and down, the weeks I go all clean with my diet, I don't lose weight.

Hi Pia, I can understand that you were sick of the low-calorie diet, but if that was 1000 x 7 days and you are now on 2 x 500, 5 x 1550 cals then you are taking in quite a bit more now so I would expect any weight loss to be less. If your TDEE is 1350 cals then you wouldn't expect to lose anything, but this would be a low TDEE especially given your BMI.

My suggestions:

• Try some more exercise, including on fasting days - good for raising metabolism and burning calories, and of course healthy too. If you are short of time or find exercise too boring, consider HIIT.
• Give it time!
• If you can face it and don't want to wait, you could cut back immediately to say 1400 calories on the feed days - it should help.

Thanks a lot for your support. I am not on different diet now though . My 1000 cal. diet was before, I started this. I will try to lower my feed intake to 1400 calories, and because I am on 4:3 with 400 cal. on fast day, maybe it will work out in that way.
What makes it worse and more difficult is maybe because I have underactive thyroid, taking medicine for that.. but I will continue and see, how this is working and maybe you are right. 3 fast day and only 5 days on this diet is not enough to figure out, how it works for me . Tnanks a lot for your replies and good advices.

Yep, you're starving yourself. Don't mix up diets, either calorie-restrict every day to get your weekly calorie deficit OR fast.

I get better results the weeks my food intake goes up and down, the weeks I go all clean with my diet, I don't lose weight.

Yes until now, I had the same problem, when I go all clean with same cal. everyday - No weightloss!! How much intake do you take for feed days and do you change your feeddays too, like 1550, 1700, 1300 and so on, or do you stick to same amount of calories?

Agree totally with the above comments. Sounds like you're on a plateau because your body has become used to very restricted calories. As BBT053 says: don't try to mix 5:2 with an overall calorie-restricted diet.

You decided to try 5:2 for a good reason, so be prepared to give it a "proper" try for at least a few weeks (possibly it will take longer if you've been eating only 1000-1100 calories a day for nearly two months).

My advice is:

1. Know your TDEE! (Be realistic about the amount of exercise you really do on an average week, and err on the conservative side). Use that number. On non-fast days you don't necessarily have to calorie count and eat *exactly* that number, but try to ensure that you're averaging around your TDEE on non-fast days. 1500-1600 may be close to your TDEE, obviously I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's lower. If you actually find it hard to eat up to your TDEE you can easily add a few hundred extra calories to your daily intake by increasing your portion sizes a bit and switching 'diet' and 'low fat' foods for their whole equivalents (i.e. use real butter, olive oil, whole milk on your cereal...)

2. Consider trying 5:2 instead of 4:3. I realise it might sound counter-intuitive but from what I've read here on this forum, 4:3 doesn't necessarily seem to give significantly greater/ faster weightloss than 5:2. Obviously, it works for some people, and that's great, but I think it makes logical sense to try 5:2 properly for at least 3 or 4 weeks and see how that goes for you, and then consider whether there's anything you need to change.

I'm not a good role model for calorie counting as I don't...I have a idea of what are in certain things and if I'm eating something new I'd work it out. But I tend to stick to veggie soup or curry on fast days.

I do know that I had sausage and chips this week. I tend now to go on the "how I feel" with food as it varies hugely. It appears to be a carb heavier diet on feed days and low-carb on fast days. My OH picked up a ready meal for one of the fast days that was pasta and I really struggled with that, was very hungry.

Cleaner weeks involve a more paleo approach, so that I can show my face at the gym with some understanding of the diet! Plus it suits me in many ways but I'm not giving up dairy and bread. Eat an awful lot less bread though.

[carorees]

I saw on another thread that you have thyroid problems. I'm afraid this means your metabolic rate is very low. I think the best results for people with under active thyroid are obtained by having big variations in calories on different days, so maybe try something like 400 x 3, 2100 x 2, 1500 x 2, this will give you an average of around 1200 per day. Try this for a month and see where you are. I think you should probably not gain weight on this, especially if you keep carbohydrates down. The high calorie days will help to boost your metabolism a bit.

Thanks a lot for all your helpful advices. And you are right. I will continue on 5:2 instead of 4:3 and see how it works. I think my body have been so used to get only about 1000-1100 calories a day, so it is not kind of responding to it. Better with this fast and feed days, where the intake is different, like Michael Mosley wrote in his book.

I will definately give it a try for 8 weeks or so, I was just very confused this morning with no weightloss, because I have been really good keeping my calories .

I am happy to have found this forum

I saw on another thread that you have thyroid problems. I'm afraid this means your metabolic rate is very low. I think the best results for people with under active thyroid are obtained by having big variations in calories on different days, so maybe try something like 400 x 3, 2100 x 2, 1500 x 2, this will give you an average of around 1200 per day. Try this for a month and see where you are. I think you should probably not gain weight on this, especially if you keep carbohydrates down. The high calorie days will help to boost your metabolism a bit.

Thanks Caro. I have been thinking the same thought about changing my calorie-intake on the feed days. I think it could help boost my metabolism. I don't know if 1200 cal. is low enough, but I will give it a try.

1200 is around the resting metabolic rate reported for thyroid patients in a few studies. +20% takes you to 1440 cals/day if sedentary most of the time.

Someone had a really good link on why people who come off low calorie diets will initially gain weight before losing again but I can't find it.