The FastDay Forum

Re: 6 months on the 5:2
16 Mar 2013, 12:26

Wk 32 just done for me and I think I have it pretty much sorted now (famous last words!)

A tin of tuna for lunch (130 cals)

An apple when I get home (70 cals)

Evening meal is tuna/poached eggs (350 cals)

A low cal hot choc in the evening (40 cals)

Black coffee and water throughout the day (10 cals)

I quite like tuna, but I can see how I could get bored of it at some point in the future. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it, but I keep reminding myself that it's only a couple of days a week.

I've switched completely away from eating veg on a fast day now and as a result I feel MUCH better in the evenings and I sleep well (no getting up in the middle of the night to go to the lavvie). The missus isn't gassed out either - well not too much anyway.

I've also found that on the 1st morning post fast day, munching on an apple first thing while I'm sorting the breakfast stuff out (2 x weetabix and coffee) gives you a wee bit of a 'rush', it also tastes great and allows me to continue the calorie restriction well into the next day - before I tear into the Friday night takeaway of course:-).

The weight loss has slowed to a crawl now but the average taken at various points over the week still appears to be trending lower.

Week 5:2 and counting....
08 Aug 2013, 09:20

I genuinely believe that fasting could radically transform the nations health

I’m quoting the last line from the BBC Horizon documentary ‘Eat, Fast & Live Longer’ presented my Dr Michael Mosley in August last year.

And I have to say I agree with him 100%. It’s been a remarkable journey for me. The improvement in my state of health, both mentally and physically, has been nothing short of staggering.

So you’ve been doing this 5:2 thing for a year now?

Yup. One whole year of restricting my daily calorie intake to a maximum of only 600 for 2 days per week.

So that’s 104 days out of 365?

Errrr….no. 101 actually. I missed 2 days because we were going out, although I did a liquid on fast for 21 hours until we went out. The other time, we went climbed a hill….

http://boards.fool.co.uk/because-its-th ... 81758.aspx

…and I thought it would look quite bad if I ended up being helicoptered off the hill because I passed out through lack of food.

You could have fasted on anther day though?

Yes, for sure. But I really couldn’t be ersed. I like my Mondays and Thursdays.

It sounds quite tough. Is it?

It is at first, but over the months, I’ve modified it to suit myself as others have done. The bottom line is that it’s all about discipline - and testing yourself just a wee bit. I know there’s a cupboard full of food, or a shop down at the corner, but I can do that the other 5 days of the week. Just not today (or Monday).

When I compare it to my other great ‘give up’ (i.e. smoking), it’s actually very easy. There is no hour after hour of relentless ‘gnawing’ at your brain, chipping away at your resilience. It’s a day. That’s it.

So what does a fast day look like?

I’ve tried many different ways of approaching a fast day and consuming my meager allocation of calories. The fact is, there is no easy way. Only ways that are easier than others.

Initially I tried 600 calories of vegetables (which looks like an impressive pile of grub), but it doesn’t last in your stomach and you get hungry again pretty soon afterwards.

And you fart.

A lot.

Real humdingers too.

This is hilarious for the first few days (or months and months if you’re a juvenile bloke like me), but it soon becomes a bit of a hindrance on your everyday activities. Like standing in the queue at the post office or on public transport. Or at posh dinner parties.

Then I tried 600 calories consisting of all protein rich foods (tuna, eggs etc), but that didn’t work out (literally!) internally.

The one that works best for me is a day consisting of tap water and a couple of black coffees, followed by 300 cals of tuna and poached eggs at about 7pm and two Weetabix and a dash of milk before 10pm. A diet hot chocolate before bedtime finishes off the calorie intake for the day. I find that doing it this way keeps the hunger at bay quite well.

I’ve found the protein rich followed by wholegrain cereal combination gives me a good balance.

Fear of the unknown….

This is by far the greatest issue with fasting. As soon as people begin to feel hungry, we are programmed to eat. As the months have gone by you learn to adapt your day. In the past, if I missed breakfast, I would be climbing the walls by 11.00 am. Now by 7.00pm, I’m peckish, but not starving. In fact the first food of the day seems to make me hungrier. Maybe I should just skip food altogether on a fast day.

At work I find I’m always looking for things to do. Very rarely do I sit around doing nothing. You need to take your mind off food.

What about exercise on a fast day?

For about the first 6 months I would go on my cycle trainer or out on my bike for about 10 miles or so for an utter thrash. It was tough, but not THAT bad. It probably contributed to an accelerated weight loss during that time. These days, I go out for a cycle occasionally on a fast day. Nothing like an intense time trial on a turbo trainer y’understand, more just a pleasant bike ride in the country. I have a few relatively flat routes of about 15-18 miles that I enjoy.

Is it an expensive diet?

Nope. Quite the opposite in fact. Fifteen quid a week I reckon our shopping is down by (that’s for 2 of us).

Dr M talked about a big improvement in his ‘bloods’. How about you?

I can’t comment on an improvement because I didn’t have a blood test before I started out (I was too feart the doctor would tell me not to do it) . However in May 2013 I had my blood pressure taken along with several blood samples and which were tested for a variety of things, including liver function, kidney function, cholesterol, blood sugar and so on.

They all came back well within the normal range – ‘absolutely fine’ to quote my GP. Of course, they might have been normal before I started the 5:2, but it’s good to know that the regime doesn’t seem to have had any adverse effects.

Everyone wants to know about the weight loss. It’s a diet after all

Is it a weight loss diet? Was that Doctor Mosley’s original intention? Well no, not really. It’s a welcome side effect for sure, but it was really all about ‘combating the ravages of aging’ to quote from the documentary. It’s about decreasing the amount of medication that will be required as we get older. It’s about staying healthy as we advance in years.

I’ve never been all that fat. You’ll not see pictures of me in magazines holding the waistband of my old jeans way out in front of me because I’ve lost 30 stone at weightwatchers. No, my situation was most definitely a 21st century problem of creeping consumption couple with a sedentary lifestyle leading to a slowly expanding waistline. At some point in the future, I’d probably expect to find myself with the early stages of type 2 diabetes and I’d probably eventually have to set a cupboard aside in my house for pills. I know plenty of folk that have a ‘pill cupboard’ (or tin) and it’s quite a sobering thought. The worrying thing is, folk just think it’s just what happens to them as they get older an accept it as the norm.

For what it's worth, I haven’t lost any weight since the early part of February. I have a spreadsheet, which I used to carefully update on a weekly basis, charting my progress as I went – from 14 stone all the way down to 12, where I have been since then (plus or minus a few pounds). I haven’t updated the spreadsheet or weighed myself as regularly since then.

Some measurements…..:

Neck size: I remember 2 Christmases ago trying to do up a top button on a 17.5” collar shirt that I only wore on nights out. It nearly choked me to death. Now I can easily get my hand in a 16” collar and pull it off my neck.

BMI: Previously around 28.4 (overweight) now down to BMI 24.05 (Old System) or 23.4 (New System) = ‘Normal’

Waist Size Trouser size – a loose-ish 32” (comfortably less than half my height). Previously I was 36-38” (more than half my height)

Ok, tell me about the asthma….

This has to be the single most startling change I’ve ever experienced since starting this regime.

I’ve had asthma since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Since August last year, I’ve noticed a truly massive improvement. Now this could be down to a few things.

1. The 5:2 regime. Dr Mosley says fasting is anti-inflammatory and could help conditions like asthma.
2. Others have said that the weight loss has meant a reduction in neck fat around the throat area (my collar size has dropped by over 2 inches).
3. Vitamin D. I started taking this at the same time as starting the 5:2. I started taking it as it had been touted as an appetite suppressant, which, at the time, I was (very!) happy to believe. I’ve since read that Vit D may have a lot of untapped potential that scientists are just beginning to discover. One of those potential uses may be in treating people with asthma…http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22570859
4. It could be that my environment has changed in some way and a source of irritation has been removed.
5. It may just be that I’ve ‘grown out of it’. Sometimes the symptoms just disappear for no apparent reason.

So how much has it improved by then?

Well, prior to August last year I took 2 x daily preventative treatments (1 x tablet & 1 x inhaler) plus the traditional blue inhaler as and when required. The tablets were stopped last year when I ran out of them and the other preventative inhaler dose has been halved with a further review in 2 months. I anticipate this will be reduced by half again as I have suffered no ill effects from the first reduction.

The blue inhaler is the one that you keep in your pocket for use when you feel you need it. Since the turn of the year, I have closely monitored usage of this and estimate this has dropped by more than 85% (and a fair chunk of the remaining 15% could be classed as 'habit'). I think there’s real potential for reducing it to zero in the coming 12 months.

After forty years of daily medication I think I will be pretty much ‘drug free’ by the end of 2013…..

Spirometry

In June I had my annual asthma clinic visit. The nurse initially didn’t recognize me since the last visit in June 2012 and remarked on how different I looked. It goes without saying that I was really interested in this test as a true guide to improvement.

The tests are done using a spirometer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirometry

It’s basically a device that you blow into and it records various results on a graph. Some tests are done to measure total lung capacity (a long slow exhalation) and some are done to measure how quickly you can shift the volume in your lungs (rapid exhalations). Your not allowed to take any inhalers in the previous 12 hours before as they do the tests twice – once before, then repeated again after allowing you to take a treatment.

The whole lot is then compared with last year’s results.

Before Treatment

There’s too much data to go into here (and I don’t have a copy of the results anyway), but the basic gist is that (untreated) my results were up from between 15 to 20% across the all the measurements.
Post Treatment

The best results were from where it was shown that the blue inhaler is now a far more effective treatment than it’s ever been – to the point when measured against an expected set of results for a man my age, ethnic group etc, I am now 92% of what ‘normal’ would be (it was 78% last year).

General Health

Well I have to say I feel great. Being a couple of stone lighter helps of course, but I feel more alert, more active and generally just sharper all round.

Sleeping

Sleep is a funny one. Sometimes I fall asleep no bother, sometimes I can lie there in a state of semi sleep. What’s consistent is that I always wake up the next morning feeling great.

The future

I’m going to keep on doing the 5:2.

Creating a calorie deficit of 3600 per week would take at least 3 hours a week of turbo training (or 6 x 1/2 hour sessions). I can’t commit to that. I know I couldn’t have done it for 52 weeks straight.

I have thought of tinkering with it and going to 6:1 or whatever, but the truth is I know I would fail. Just like you think you can stop smoking for 3 months and then think one fag will be alright. Pretty soon I’d be back to my old ways.

Fast days are different. From the moment you wake up they’re different. For me at least there is no other way of approaching this other than full on 5:2. I can’t see anything else having the same range of benefits for me as the 5:2 has had.

It’s as simple as that.

Snorvey

Last edited by Snorvey on 08 Aug 2013, 12:12, edited 1 time in total.

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