The FastDay Forum

Morning all. Really hope someone can help. I'm feeling so fed up this morning. This is my 18th week on 5:2 and I've only lost 5lbs altogether - and most of that was in the first week.

Stats: I'm 41, have a sedentary lifestyle, my TDEE is 1921, BMI is 31.28, weight 199.3lbs. I need to lose about 40lbs.

On fast days I usually have just one meal in the evening, with just a couple of coffees with a splash of semi-skimmed milk throughout the day. Occasionally I'll have lunch too - either salad or soup. Dinners are very varied but usually consist of some combination of protein, veg, pulses, and a small amount of carbs. I try to cook from scratch on fast days because I like coming up with interesting, tasty recipes but I do sometimes have quality ready meals/ready to cook supermarket dishes. If you want to see exactly what I've eaten, I write up my fast days in my blog (url in sig).

Before I started 5:2 I was on Weight Watchers, so was on a calorie restricted diet. I think I have been going a bit overboard on my feast days but other people's standards but I think that's my 'normal' eating so I thought I should still be losing because of the severe restriction on fast days. I never wanted to count calories on feast days but as a last resort I've started doing that over the last 10 days or so, using MFP. I've only gone over my TDEE a couple of times since then, and only by 100 calories or so.

I've also been walking 10,000 steps a day for the past 10 days or so. Yet I stepped on the scales this morning and STILL there's no movement.I usually find fast days relatively easy, even enjoyable! Yesterday was an exception though and I buckled in the evening after a disappointing dinner but even so, after having essentially 1.5 fast days this week, as well as restricting calories on feast days too, and adding in the walking, I really expected to see some change.

I also have body composition scales and I see that my visceral fat and body fat haven't gone down at all in the past 4 months.

Sorry for the long post (you did say you wanted lots of information!) but I really am fed up and hope someone can help.

Hi starmaker, I can sympathise. I am also 18 weeks in and have lost only around 7 lbs. Unfortunately, I also agree with kencc, you are probably over-eating (the men on this forum are so blunt ). Do you have a body fat reading? I'm of the belief that you can calculate a more accurate TDEE with this method and unfortunately you will find that it will probably be 200-300 cals less than the figure you've given in the original post. I am 46, 5ft 6 and 12st 7, my body fat is a fairly whopping 41% (even though I have always eaten healthily, low fat, little processed food, sugar, junk etc) which gives me a TDEE of 1640 cals per day. I have figured out that if I want to have a life ie. enjoy the weekend eating out and drinking wine then I am left to play with only around 1200 cals on the other non fast week days if I want to lose a meagre 0.5lb per week.

Thanks for your replies and suggestions.

Check out kencc's post on NEAT too. That makes a lot of sense. I'm sure if you continue with the 10,000 steps per day, you will see results soon (albeit slow). I am looking at this as a long term project now so not bothered if it takes the rest of the year to lose another few pounds. I agree that it seems unfair that some people seem to be eating a lot more and still able to lose but I've observed the same with other diet plans as well - life is unfair!

Hi starmaker, I think Madge is right that your metabolism is slowed down (due to?? maybe age, lack of activity, having dieted with WW for a long time) and your TDEE is probably lower than you thought. I was in your spot a few years ago, walking a fair amount 10,000 steps (not that fast--have a male dog ) without really losing much weight. It wasn't until I started walking as fast as I comfortably could to get places, doing Zumba (latin aerobic dance) several times a week together with cutting down that I started to see results. I think it's just a reality of our age and metabolism.

I feel your pain, star! I am similar in age/stats. I've only been on about a month and have been trying to eat at tdee on non-fast days. (Rationale being I'd rather start high and if I keep losing, great, if not, I can lower accordingly.) MFP has my daily goal even higher than the 1920 or so cals listed here for my tdee.

I do some running 2-3x per week. If you have a real sedentary week, you may need to adjust down your cal intake. Or as suggested, perhaps your metabolism is off-kilter coming off WW prior to 5:2?

The only other tip I'd put out there is to really (really!) get your food scale and tracker out to see what your caloric intake truly is. At least for a few weeks if this not something you're keen on doing in the long-term.

I'm no expert for sure! That's just my approach at trying to slay these #*%! LBS/Kgs! I'm going to check out your blog!

Its hard going sometimes isn't it? I tried Caroline's advice of checking out on Libra what my calorie deficit is so I can work out a more accurate TDEE. I wish I hadn't now as, according to that, I have only had a deficit of 117cals over the last two weeks. My daily average for that period was 1044 so thats giving me a TDEE of 1161! To get a decent weight loss on that I'd be going drastically low. Its all making my brain hurt!

kencc - I hope nobody ever asks you "Does my bum look big in this?"

I do think it's quite amusing seeing the difference in some of the male/ female responses. The men are definitely more straight to the point and that's not a bad thing at all. Cuts through all the fluffy, touchy-feely stuff that's for sure.

I think for the ladies, a lot of us know, deep down, that we are overeating, but overeating doesn't necessarily mean stuffing our faces all day long with the wrong foods. Some of us can't get away with very many calories - relative to 21st century living.

I think there's a lot of talk about those previously being on WW/ SW leading to a slowing down of metabolism (or body has 'got used to' fewer calories). Maybe this is true but I don't think so. I think the crux is why did we need to do WW/ SW in the first place? Because for some of us with low TDEEs, it doesn't take much to slightly exceed and therefore over time, gradually put on weight. It's a very fine line some of us have to tread.

Its hard going sometimes isn't it? I tried Caroline's advice of checking out on Libra what my calorie deficit is so I can work out a more accurate TDEE. I wish I hadn't now as, according to that, I have only had a deficit of 117cals over the last two weeks. My daily average for that period was 1044 so thats giving me a TDEE of 1161! To get a decent weight loss on that I'd be going drastically low. Its all making my brain hurt!

I downloaded Libra last night on my phone. It didn't tell me much I didn't already know--that my weightloss has plateaued. But it's very interesting to see it visually on the graph and I'm hoping it motivates me to crack down and be accountable on feast days.

If you look on the stats Nodakmom it shows your calorie deficit (or otherwise!) for the last week/fortnight. You are supposed to be able to work out your actual TDEE from that. It could be my brain, but I found it a bit difficult to negotiate my way round it at first.

Maybe those of us who have had tears of doing other plans have just sabotaged our metabolisms.

You're doing very well Ken and I do like your systematic approach. I know what I need to do, it's just applying it consistently that's the problem! 1640 cal TDEE is doable I agree but I find it very easy to go over this at weekends due to meals out, so have to remain pretty strict in the week. Easter and Bank Holiday weekend didn't really help either. Now we have another one coming up and we're off to Antwerp, so that will be beer and chips thwarting my attempts yet again! Will have to look to June to make a concerted effort.
Julie

Yes, sorry starmaker for the ramblings. Anyway in summary what you need to do:
1) Eat boring food
2) Get a Libra app
3) Do a body fat measurement to get a better TDEE
4) Carry on with the 10,000 steps
5) Monitor your cals closely for a bit
6) Do NEAT
7) Think of it as a long term project not a quick fix
Good luck!

With the OPs stats (starmaker) I would do at least a week at 800 cals/day where there is no issue about possibly being at maintenance, then revert to 5:2 with a new view of what TDEE is (from Libra during the 800 cal period) on the feed days.

If the response is "I can't do 800" then focus can switch to that rather than the numbers. Weight loss occurs when the desire to lose weight exceeds the desire to eat, after all.

Starmaker, as soon as I started reading your original post, I knew who you were. I read through your entire blog last Wednesday when I first started 5:2. I chatted with my husband about it afterward and my overall impression was that you were eating too much on feast days to actually lose weight. I even told him your plan would work great for maintenance once I reach my goal weight.

It all boils down to basic math. When left to my own devices, I know that *I* end up gaining almost a pound a week. If I'm basing my concept of "normal" eating on that, then of course I'm only going to maintain when I fast two days a week. Because fasting two days a week is only cutting about 3600 calories (for me anyway), which is just over one pound. In order to actually LOSE weight, I need to eat less than "normal" on feast days as well. So I'm tracking all my food (I use SparkPeople) and trying to get a deficit of about 700 calories even on my feast days instead of the 500 calorie surplus I was consuming before I started trying to lose weight.

I think that for you and I, "normal" eating is a calorie surplus. After all, how else would we have gotten overweight to start with? So, while it would be amazing if we could fast two days a week and eat "normally" five days a week and LOSE weight, it's just not mathematically possible. The good news is, once we are at our goal, we should be able to eat fairly normally and maintain our weight so long as we stick with 5:2.

Hello! Blimey, I had no idea there had been so many replies! Normally I get email notification, and the last time I got that was after the 2nd reply on the thread. So, sorry if you thought I was ignoring all your advice and suggestions! So, for the past week, I've been restricting my calories on feast days to 1510 (as allocated by MFP) and tomorrow is weigh-in day so hopefully there'll have been some movement on the scales. Thanks again for all your advice - I'll keep you posted!