The FastDay Forum

[wildmissus]

inxs, I hope you don't mind me putting my tuppence worth in.

Take a look at my progress chart -
1st week - great loss, mainly water
2nd week - 2lb on, ate what I wanted, literally - oops
4th week - 2lb on, stopped buying diet food, mmm, full fat food tastes delicious - oops
week before last - 1lb on, making lots of bread in my new breadmaker - oops
last week - 1lb on, beginning to get obsessed about food, just like being on a diet.

The rest of the time I just got on with it, not calorie counting, not spending a lot of time thinking about food.

I don't see this as a diet rather a way of life and although I've been doing this for nearly 3 months I'm still learning things about it and about myself. My attitude to food it changing and that is empowering and I think that is the key to success.

I know we are all different and I hope that your wife finds a way to get what she wants.

Finally - I've never joined a forum before, now I spend so much time on it that I completely forget about snacking.

Yes Boboff, I didn't mind it so much when it was Red Days but the new plan is far too carby for me. Horses for courses I suppose.

With regard to eating whatever you want on 5:2, as someone else said, thats why a lot of us are also looking for the side benefits of weight loss rather than just the rejuvenationg effects isn't it? I'm sure that in DrM's book I have seen reference to the work of Prof Tony Howell & Dr Michelle Harvey. I believe they have been investigating fasting as a means of reducing the risk of breast cancer. In their book they advocate 650cals of high protein on two days with a Mediterranean-style diet on the other days. They do state that their trials showed that, from a purely weight loss point of view, there was no difference in the loss experienced by either 5:2 fasters or people on a weekly calorie controlled regime. The difference was that fasters were showing signs of being able to comply better long term and seemed to find the whole process much easier to live with.

Again, when you read the book hype you see the implication that you can eat whatever you want for 5 days a week. I wonder how much of this stuff is actually via the publishers/publicists to sell the books rather than from the authors themselves.

Boboff made a very important point. The fact that most diets are expensive!!! My GP told me that the best way to lose weight with a problematic thyroid is Dukan diet. When I checked it out, I realised that
a. I'd have to spend half the day in the kitchen cooking my meals and
b. I'd have to spend half of my income on food.
With 5:2 not only I get to eat whatever I fancy but I also get to spend whatever I fancy on food.

I don't think that anybody said "eat as much as you like" although for some people it isn't that much. I ate as much as I wanted yesterday and didn't even reach 1500 calories!
Still, everybody says eat "normally". If that's one pizza for you, my advice would be to eat it but make it yourself! That would cut off half of the Pizza Hut calories...

insx, I joined SW at the beginning of 2011 and from a 3 1/2 stone overweight starting point, lost 1 1/2 stone in the first 12 weeks or so - not bad. It then took me 9 weeks to lose a further 1/2 stone. It then took me another 9 months to lose a further 1/2 stone (you can imagine how the ££ stack up??). SW does work but the boredom factor creeps in and you start slacking (I did anyway). At the start of 2012, I didn't seem to be losing any further weight so I packed SW in and then proceeded to put 1 stone back on during that year. At the start of 2013, I discovered 5:2. Again, it has taken me the same length of time (9 weeks) to lose 1/2 stone from the same starting weight - so you could say they have been like for like. The big difference though is that I still feel totally focused with 5:2 because I'm not bored with it. I can eat 'normally' on 5 days (and that means a healthy balanced diet during non fast week days and relax a bit more at the weekends) and it has somehow curbed my appetite so I'm not snacking between meals anymore. I really believe I will lose a further 1/2 stone in another 9 weeks or so and hopefully go on to lose a further stone which I never achieved with SW.

I don't think Michael Mosley was out to deceive anyone. I think he (and Mimi Spencer) were probably quite fortunate people in that neither of them had particularly great diets beforehand yet managed to be annoyingly slim anyway (we all know people like that). Of course, when they started this regime, the weight dropped off them quite easily. For a lot of us, we do have quite healthy diets in the first place yet struggle to lose just a few pounds and that is the paradox that I don't think we will ever get to the bottom of (maybe Carorees will and become a millionairess!).

[carorees]

I don't think we will ever get to the bottom of (maybe Carorees will and become a millionairess!).

You've spotted my master plan!

[Debs]

I am also going to add in my two penneth worth as well! I have been on a severe calorie restricted diet on and off for the last five years and have lost and put on the same 7kg every time. I was doing it for 6 months before I started this on 14th Feb, since when I have lost no weight. However, i feel liberated. I am not eating food I hate, endless salads and carp tuna, I can go out for a meal and not ask for 'boiled fish no sauce' and enjoy coffee and cake with hubby (who is a healthy weight).
I do have a reasonably healthy diet anyway but the freedom has meant that I can chose to eat or not eat, and more often than not chose something healthy, and more importantly only eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full.
As I have been restricted to 1200 cals a day it is taking a while to adjust, hence no weight loss BUT, I haven't put any on. I want to get my BMI to a healthy level, so another 3kg to go. I am with Ginty and Soonaddsup, count at first and find your own way through as I am. I'm not the skinny bitch I want to be but nor I am piling the weight back on, so that has to be a good start to my better relationship with food.

Although if anyone wants to agree to pay me £5 a week I will send them certificates on every weight loss mile stone.

Just sayin'

I don't think we will ever get to the bottom of (maybe Carorees will and become a millionairess!).

You've spotted my master plan!

Can I come too???

Woah, lots of replies! Kencc, as your post is fresh in my mind, I don't eat like a slim person. I have always eaten loads and whatever I like. I go to pizza hut's buffet and have 8 slices and the ice cream factory afterwards, I eat chips once a week, chocolate in the evening. I'm not particularly active either, my main exercise is cycling to work and back (20 minutes total per day). So I only understand how hard the whole dieting thing is from being married to someone who really wants to lose that weight that has been hanging around for so many years. However, I have gone from 10st to 11st4 in the last few years so I don't mind kerbing it.

Does your wife really want to lose weight? Excuse the curiosity but it seems like you're coaching her to do so. If I'm wrong, please forgive me but just give it a thought...

Yes, TML13, she has wanted to lose weight for the 20+ years I have known her. I came across this and it seemed like a better way. After being on diets for so long, she couldn't quite believe that you could eat what you want (within reason) and lose weight but decided to give it a go. Now she feels like she has wasted 7 weeks when she could have been on a diet. (There is an obvious flaw in this logic, you don't need to tell me.) Funnily enough, she tells me that despite hardly any weight loss, she has lost 3 inches off her belly. Now she tells me!

@Mizztraveller & @insx:
I don't think Dr M or Mimi ever said 'eat whatever you like' on 5 days. I think it's a (deliberate?) misinterpretation of the injunction to 'eat normally' on 5 days. As Tass has pointed out, that might require a bit of re-education and it certainly isn't an invitation to gorge.

"Can I really eat what I like on the off-duty days? Yes. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, no foods are off-limits, none proscribed. On the five days a week when we’re not restricting calories, we both eat freely – fish and chips, roast potatoes, biscuits, cake. The Illinois study certainly found that volunteers encouraged to eat lasagne, pizza and fries during ‘off days’ still lost weight."

Mosley, Michael; Spencer, Mimi (2013-01-10). The Fast Diet: The secret of intermittent fasting � lose weight, stay healthy, live longer (p. 114). Short Books. Kindle Edition."

There is another quote from Mimi that I was thinking of about being able to eat what you like but I can't find it.

Well I stand corrected! So I accept that what Dr M has written is open to misinterpretation. His idea (based on the work of Dr Varady) is that people's appetite does not expand to fill the calorie space left by the fast days, so you can eat as you want without eating too much. This isn't necessarily the case.

[carorees]

I think Michael had been guilty of making an erroneous extrapolation from the ADF studies to 5:2. In the ADF studies the participants would have had to eat 175% of their TDEE on feast days to prevent weight loss. Unsurprisingly even eating pizza etc on feast days did not take them up to that level. However, on 5:2 you only have to eat 130% TDEE on feed days to compensate for fast days...that's a lot more achievable!

She lost THREE inches off her belly and yet she thinks that it is a waste of time? 3 inches is like a size down!!!

Relatively new 5 2er here, but what I love about this is the ability to ENJOY food. It seems like that may be what you are trying to achieve for your wife. Yes I do enjoy eating treats om my feed days, but a lot of thought goes into what foods i will have and I enjoy thinking about it, and when I decide what treat to have, I really savor it and love not feeling guilty about it. For me this is different from constantly trying to stay under a daily limit, then feeling guilty about cheating, then feeling depressed and them eating more because I feel guilty and depressed! Even if I only maintained weight on this (which 4 weeks in I am still losing a little all but the second week),, it is a much more enjoyable way of eating for me.