The FastDay Forum

End of third week, six fasts under my belt and the scales this morning have shown a loss, over the three weeks, of eight & three quarter pounds. Am I pleased? Yes very! Down from 12 stone two and one quarter to 11 stone seven and a half pounds. I am 5' 7" so I wasn't looking huge, or even particularly fat but my jeans were increasingly difficult to fasten and my wardrobe choices had reduced!

My husband is also following the 5:2 WOE. That really helps, as long as I can ignore the pleas from about 5pm on fast days, of "Is it time to eat yet?" He has also lost eight and a half pounds in three weeks and claims that his trousers feel less tight, although we didn't measure his waist when we started.

This is the pattern which I normally follow when starting to reduce my calorie intake - I know that from many years of experience of starting diets! Good weight loss in the first two weeks, followed by a steadier one until reaching my target.(or, in many cases, not!) I am still counting and recording calories because I have to find my new 'normal' for non-fasting days but I am off to Germany for a week on Tuesday, so calorie counting will not happen then! We will fast on Monday and then try to fit one in whilst away - very tricky, so it may not happen! The scales will let me know how it goes when I next weigh in.

I am tired of counting calories and yo-yo dieting! I am hoping that this WOE will help us both reduce our cholesterol level, as we are both on statins, and give us a way of eating which we can adopt for life. Long may it, and our new WOL(Way Of Life), continue!

PS A big 'thank you' to Moogie for giving us this forum. It must have taken hours and hours to put together and demonstrates her commitment to the 5:2 WOL. I am really enjoying reading about everyone's progress, problems and queries and the answers to their questions - and typing keeps my fingers busy!

Weigh-in this morning showed another pound lost by me and three pounds by my husband. In the nine weeks that we have been on this new WOE, that means that I have lost 15 lb and he has lost 13 and a half pounds. At 6' 4", he now weighs 14 stone 4 and a half pounds and at 5' 7", I now weigh 11stone 1 and a half pounds.

I gave up weighing and measuring, calorie counting and recording every food /drink item at the end of the third week. I still use my calorie knowledge to add up rough totals in my head occasionally but it is a great feeling to be free of what previously seemed to be a tiresome necessity.

I have found, like many others, that even on non-fasting days I seem to be eating less, I don't snack as often and my food choices are more considered. Having said that, however, I am still likely to binge occasionally but I am able to be more rational about it. I can now shrug my shoulders and put it behind me, rather than agonising about it and thinking that I have 'blown it'.

In our nine weeks we have dealt with a week in Germany where, on one occasion, I ate only half a pizza because I was full and another time refused a piece of cake because i wasn't hungry, both of which I had never done before! We also had a party for thirty-something friends and neighbours to celebrate my husband's 65th birthday and my 64th, which both fell in the same week. This meant a house full of food, weekend guests and lots of leftovers to eat up! Both of these events saw a slight increase in weight, a quarter of a pound both times in my case, slightly more in my husband's, but we got back to fasting immediately afterwards and were very soon back on track.

I see this as a lifetime WOE and an end to yo-yo dieting. We would like to be able to ditch the statins, avoid Type 2 diabetes and, for me, reduce the chance of developing Alztheimers, unlike my poor mother. We shall keep on with our journey - about nine pounds each to lose - and then move to maintenance which, for me, has always been the most challenging part of weight loss over the last forty years.

Good luck to all of you, wherever you are in your WOE journey!

Well done both of you! Love reading about peoples' successes. We'll be seeing you in the maintenance section soon enough.

What fabulous results!
Congratulations and well done - both of you.

Hi Stowgate Resident,

Great to hear how well you are both doing on this new way of life, just a small point, it seems that females over the age of 50 get NO benefit AT ALL from statins. I fall into this group myself and have a cholesterol level of 7 but refuse to take them and my G.P. told me I did not need them. A great book to read which you might find a bit of an eye opener is Dr Malcolm McKendrick's "The Great Cholesterol Con" of course if you are prescribed the statins for a different reason then I am sorry to have bored you to death! My husband came off them last year and is still struggling with the, literally, crippling side effects.

God luck with 5:2 and I look forward to seeing your successes,

Ballerina x

Congratulations for your amazing results. You said you counted calories on your feed days. How much did you eat? Do you exercise?

Thanks for your encouraging responses, everyone!

Ballerina: I am only on statins for (not very) high cholesterol levels , so I will certainly check out the book you mention. My GP is supportive of 5:2 and interested in my progress so I may broach coming off the statins to her, on my next visit.

Einatbl: I only counted any calories for the first three weeks, then I abandoned that whole tiresome process. The rest of my weight loss has been with no counting - not even on fast days, although I do have a fairly good idea of the calorie content of the food that we commonly eat, from years of calorie counting!
I have checked my records - yes I have spreadsheets and everything!- and I averaged 1500 calories on non-fasting days and 480 on fast days during those first three weeks. However, I hadn't been calorie restricting since July 2012 so, judging by my previous (extensive!) experience I would have expected a good initial weight loss.
I don't take any exercise - I am a very indolent person - and my TDEE is 1550 - 1650 depending on which site I use to calculate it.
I hope this info is helpful to you.

Good luck to you all on your next fasts - our's is tomorrow. I must go - I spend far too much time on this forum!

Great progress StowgateResident!
I've lost 14lbs since starting this on 28 January (boast!) and I don't count caolories on my non-fast days either. I haven't worked out my TDEE yet and I don't exercise very much. I had a lot to lose - 3.5 stone - so that probably has something to do with the steady loss. My waist size is reducing more slowly than I would like but I think I'm smaller all over than previously. I think I eat in a more considered way and don't snack in between meals as much as I used to.
I'm happy with this WOE, it just seems to work.
Good luck to you too - think I'm moving Monday's fast to Tuesday this week...

Thank you. This information is helpful. I helps understanding why some of us don't lose as much.

Weighed in today and have lost another pound this week! Total of 16lb now, since starting on Jan 27th. I was hoping to break the 11 stone barrier but weighed in at 11 stone and a quarter of a pound! How irritating is that! However, when this was changed to kg by Moogie's mathematical methods, I was 69.97kg, so at least I have broken the 70 kg barrier! My BMI is under 25 now and I can get my jeans over my hips and fasten them straight from the tumble drier - no more laying on the bed and struggling for me!

My husband has gained half a pound but he has not fasted this week, due to business commitments, and he has eaten out a few times. His total loss now is 13lb. We are not worried about the half a pound gain because we know why it happened and a couple of fasts this week will soon fix it.

We went out for lunch today and I left my roast potatoes, a couple of new potatoes and only ate half my Yorkshire pudding because I was full. Both of us declined a pudding - something which would have been unheard of a few months ago. This WOE is fundamentally changing our attitude to food and long may it continue!

Good luck and keep going, fellow 5:2-ers! Onwards and downwards - with our weight!

Great results Stowgate Resident. Well done and thanks for sharing it with everyone, as it keeps us going when things slow down.

Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah! Weigh-in morning and I have broken the 11 stone barrier! Not by much - I weighed in at 10 stone 13.25 pounds but it makes a huge psychological difference! I lost another pound, making a total of 17 pounds in eleven weeks.

My clever husband lost three and a half pounds, so he is now down to 14 stone 1.5 pounds with a total loss of 16.5 pounds in the same length of time. According to a weight chart that I found in an old magazine, this brings him down from 'overweight' into the 'normal' weight range for a 6'4" male. I am also 'normal' for a 5'7" woman and have been for a couple of weeks - apparently!

We have done this with no exercise worth mentioning and no calorie counting on any days - apart from the first three weeks when I struggled to stop counting! This was after years of yo-yo dieting - from strict calorie reduced diets to over-eating - on a twice yearly cycle (me, that is, not him!.

I really believe that this WOE will enable us both to maintain our weight once we have reached our targets of 13 stone 10 pounds and 10 stone 7 pounds. It's so simple and easy to do, how could it not work?

Good luck to everyone else using this WOE. It's working for us and it should do for you! Onwards and downwards!

Congratulations and best wishes on your success!

Many thanks, LastChance. I've been following your progress with interest, so keep going!

Congratulations StowgateResident and OH. It's so nice to see people progressing.