The FastDay Forum

Hi all

I'm starting a thread that I will update each month.

Report from the second month:

Still at goal (1/2 pound down on the month) = good
Feeling very active, spring in my step = good
Skin is no less saggy, possibly even more pleated = good really, as someone says, the only cure for crepe would be to re-inflate the balloon and instead I shall wear my wrinkles with pride.

Sticking with 5:2 - not such a struggle as the first month of maintenance = good
But still something I have to force myself to do rather than habit = not so good
Tweaks to what I do - after struggling in the first month, I decided to try a short fast for the first time, having been converted by all the messages on this forum! (during all my time on 5:2 I never fasted and just ate fewer calories on the lean days). This went well for a couple of weeks. On lean days I skipped breakfast and had early lunch (couldn't hang out past noon). Bonus was an extra 15 minutes in bed! But the last 2 lean days I woke up feeling headachy and grouchy and as if a little breakfast would fix it, so I had some food and I did feel better. I will try again - perhaps at a less hectic time of year.

Why maintenance is hard: perhaps because there isn't that reward of stepping on the scales or finding clothes getting looser. I worry because I have been here several times before in my life, and failed. I think 5:2 is easier than the earlier regimes that I failed to stick to, but it doesn't seem as easy as it did a year ago when I was six months into losing. But maybe hindsight is not accurate.

For my record: difficulty-in-sticking-to-it score = 6/10

Best part: breaking into a jog on long country walks. Not being embarrassed by seeing photos of myself. Breakfast after a lean day!

Thanks for a place to post. See you here on the other side of Christmas

kl

Month 3: 8 stone 12 lb, still 1lb below goal. That's 1 pound gained in the month, but with all the feasting that has gone on this month, I'm happy with that.

I think this month has been easier. I've continued my rather watered-down version of 5:2, except for one lean day missed because all the Xmas stuff just made it too hard. I continue with last month's innovation of skipping breakfast on lean days, and yes as Kencc said, it is becoming a habit. I've always been a breakfast fan so that is a big change for me.

I'm paying attention to what it feels like to be hungry. Someone posted asking what hunger is as a feeling and I found it very interesting. I discovered from that post that it was helpful to stop and think about the feeling as something to be experienced, not something that must be fixed as soon as possible or I'll die. I sometimes find myself hungry at the end of a lean day, and I really have to muster the willpower to go to bed by promising myself all the indulgences I might want for breakfast. I no longer find myself unable to sleep due to hunger after a lean day, but if I did, I would eat something - as long as it is after midnight, for me it counts as the next day! I used to have to do this for my first few months on 5:2 (and still lost weight). I now not only sleep well, but find when I wake up the next day, I'm not hungry after all! I still eat breakfast though because I enjoy it.

However today is a lean day, and for the first time in ages I woke up hungry. I can guess why that is - I got home late in the evening and indulged in 2 mince pies before bed. You know how sometimes a leftover just calls to you and says this is the last bit of Xmas, I must be eaten now? Well I don't think kencc will know that call of the leftover but I bet a lot of other people on here do! But I was firm with my no breakfast rule, drank lots of water and the hungry feeling went away.

So overall, very happy with 5:2!

PS, I meant to record my difficulty-with-sticking-to-it score. I'd say still 6/10, because I did fail to stick with one lean day and I've been wildly over-indulgent on the feast days. But I'm finding it easy today,so far! (10/10 would mean I'd given up, 0/10 that I never even thought about maintaining but my weight was staying at goal).

Why maintenance is hard: perhaps because there isn't that reward of stepping on the scales or finding clothes getting looser.

One way of indicating results during maintenance is to calculate your weight gain prevented:
We can do that by comparing our current TDEE with TDEE at the start of using 5:2. You can find current TDEE at the progress tracker. For the TDEE at start: enter a new ‘weigh-in data’ using your weight at the start of 5:2. Check the tracker home and you see the TDEE at start of 5:2. Write it down and delete the new data.
Take the difference between TDEE at start and current TDEE (for me that’s 200), divide it by 1100 and you get the weekly weight gain in kg. It is the weight gain that you would get in a week if you would today have been eating according to you diet at the start of 5:2. So, it is the weight gain that you have prevented by your current successful maintenance strategy (for me that’s 0.18 kg.). In case your weight at start of 5:2 was not stable, but was rising: add the weekly weight gain that you had at the start.
Total weight gain prevented is number of weeks on maintenance times the weekly weight gain prevented. (for me for one month: 4*180=720 grams).
Make sure you update your total weight gain prevented each week by adding another 'weekly weight gain prevented' to your total!

One way of indicating results during maintenance is to calculate your weight gain prevented:

Brilliant suggestion! thank you P-JK.

I shall do the calculations next time I need a motivation-boost, and post it on here.

Month 4: 8 stone 12 lb, still 1lb below goal. That's no change for the month.

5:2 routine: still aiming for 2 lean days a week. In two of the weeks I only managed one lean day, due to interruptions of social life/ work events, and I decided to let it go, whereas before maintenance I would have worked harder and fitted in the 2 days somehow. So the fact that I maintained despite such interruptions is good - it is a WOL I can sustain. I'm still mostly skipping breakfast on the lean days, but if that feels hard, as it did once or twice, I have breakfast. If it feels really really hard, I move the lean day to the next day. That has worked.

Taking PJ-K's motivational tip: my decrease in TDEE is coincidentally the same as his, 200 kcals per day. Multiply by 365 days in a year, divide by 3500 means that if I continued with the same intake as would support my old weight, I'd be regaining at the rate of approx 20 lbs a year, and would be back where I started in less than two years. I know the TDEE formula is a guess at best, and there are many ways in which weight maintenance is more complicated, but it makes you think, doesn't it! No wonder that people who go on temporary diets mostly put it all back on again.

So after 4 months on maintenance, I've prevented a gain of say 7 lbs.

Difficulty-with-sticking-to-it score (0= automatic, 10 = given up). I'd say still 6/10. I think about my weight every day, and I am frequently thinking about food, and when I can eat next. I NEED this forum and come here most days (thank you all). I read with envy the posts from the other maintainers who say this WOL is now second nature to them. But I resist the urge to feel inferior. We are all different and some of us will have a bigger fight than others. I am winning my fight.

And if you are reading this, you are winning yours. Keep going!

But I resist the urge to feel inferior. We are all different and some of us will have a bigger fight than others. I am winning my fight.

And if you are reading this, you are winning yours. Keep going!

Surely the idea to feel inferior would be a very strange reaction. Just because some of us are lucky enough to experience less problems than others doesn't make them superior. You can also turn the issue the other way around: because you have a bigger fight than others, makes it more of an achievement in case you succeed
For those of us to whom weight loss and maintenance comes very easy (me included), it is not much of an achievement at all. (not that I am complaining about that of course )

Month 5: 8 stone 12.5 lb, just half a pound below goal. That's up half a pound for the month. Too close for comfort.

5:2 routine: 2 lean days a week, usually Monday and Friday, but I skipped a lean day once when I seemed stable at 8 stone 10lb. I really enjoyed that day off!

Motivation: By 5 months on maintenance, I've prevented a gain of 8.5 lbs. I get a buzz from seeing the 9 on the scales to the right of the needle, and intend to keep it that way. I keep luxury chocolates at home, and when non-luxury sweet things are offered (which happens a lot, I mix with people who have very bad habits!) I usually find it easy to refuse by thinking about the nice chocolate I'll have later. When I get home later, chances are I can pass on it. I still have 2 left in the (small) box I got for Valentine's Day - pretty new for me to have chocolates in the house at all, let alone for them to survive for nearly a month.

Difficulty-with-sticking-to-it score (0= automatic, 10 = given up). I'd say improved from 6/10 to 5/10. I really thought it was feeling easier, plenty of feasting 5 days a week and the lean days not so hard. But then I had a bit of a shock from the scales. I'd been weighing very often, sometimes daily, and my weight was surprisingly constant ( I say surprisingly because most people seem to report fluctuations)at around 8 stone 11lb, feast day or lean day, sometimes 8 stone 10lb although I didn't record this when I felt it was a temporary low I didn't want to see an up move. When it looked like 8 stone 10 lb might be genuine I decided to skip a lean day. Then suddenly, just when it was time for my monthly weigh-in, the scales turned on me! I had to wait a day and step on and off a few times to finally achieve a number under goal. (This is my smoothing algorithm, LOL.) Hmmm. It looks like a stricter watch on the feast day snacking is required for a while. I'm also not going to skip a lean day unless I see 8 stone 9 lb, as it seems that a bigger buffer is required.

Health record (thought I'd put this on for the record too): I had a cold in the last week - the first since last April I think (which was a month off 5:2 due to holidaying). I'd begun to think maybe 5:2 was a cure for the common cold, but apparently not! But at least this cold had mostly cleared up in 8 days, which is good for me - when I get a cold, it often goes to my chest for weeks.

Wishing success to everyone else, kl

Month 6: 8 stone 13 lb, exactly on goal. That's up half a pound for the month. Definitely too close for comfort! I wouldn't worry in the usual run of things, because if I had put down yesterday's weight it would have been at least a pound less. But the problem is I am about to go on holidays - hence my monthly weigh-in is a day early this month. I would really have preferred to go on holiday with a buffer!

5:2 routine: 2 lean days a week, usually Monday and Friday, but moved to fit in when needed. I was really firm about fitting in the two days a week, since I wasn't happy with how close I was to the goal line last month. I had decided I wouldn't skip a lean day unless I saw 8 stone 9lb, and I didn't get to close to that. But I continued to feast like a medieval monarch on the other 5 days a week. Perhaps too regally!

Motivation: By 6 months on maintenance, I've prevented a gain of 10.5 lbs. I'm happy with my looks and feel healthy. My sandals, worn for the first time since last summer, are a bit loose and my wedding and engagement rings have had to be moved to the middle finger till I can arrange for resizing. Isn't it amazing where our bodies stash away the fat stores! I never thought I had fat fingers.

Difficulty-with-sticking-to-it score (0= automatic, 10 = given up). I'd say improved from 5/10 to 4.5/10. The lean days are still hard, but they feel more and more like a habit - they are what I do. But maybe I do have to be stricter on the feast days. I haven't been, despite comments last month. The thing is, I don't want to feel like I am perpetually on a diet. That has never worked for me in the past. I think I'll just try to be mindful - ask "Am I hungry?" "OK, I'm not hungry, but just how special is this food? Would eating half of it be just as nice?" Don't waste calories on anything that isn't absolutely yummy. And be more active.

Health record: Good, but I did go through a phase of slight dizzy spells. I thought at first that it might be due to alcohol the day before a lean day, but then I also experienced it on lean days with no alcohol for days before, and also on feast days. Then it seemed to go away, and even with quite a lot of alcohol the day before a lean day, due to celebrations, I didn't have any dizziness. So I'm more inclined to think it may have been a slight inner ear problem left over from the cold I had last month.

Wishing success to everyone else, kl

Month 7: 8 stone 12 lb, down a pound. Back in the safety zone, hooray!

5:2 routine: 2 lean days a week, usually Monday and Friday, but moved to fit in when needed. I was good about fitting them in despite holidays/social events. I skipped one at the end of the month when I came up against a demanding Friday, but the scales didn't take revenge!

Motivation: By 7 months on maintenance, I've prevented a gain of 12 lbs. I'm happy with my looks and feel healthy.

Difficulty-with-sticking-to-it score (0= automatic, 10 = given up). I'd say improved from 4.5/10 to 4/10. The lean days are still hard, but they are the price I am happy to pay to feast the other 5 days. Someone on the forum calls their fast days "repair days", which I like. I've found I've begun to think of mine as "rescue days". Sometimes I get that old feeling that I want to eat and eat, and I feel like I'm going to slip back into old ways as I have so often before and put all the weight back on. But then I can relax, knowing that on Monday or Friday I'll be putting a stop to it.

Health record: Good, great really! Even the constipation (sorry for too much information!) which has been a problem ever since I started 5:2 nearly two years ago seems to be fixed, touch wood!

Wishing success to everyone else, kl

Month 8: 8 stone 11.5 lb, down half a pound. great!
5:2 routine: 2 lean days a week, usually Monday and Friday, but moved to fit in when needed. I skipped one.
Motivation: Last summer as I was getting close to goal I replaced my whole wardrobe.
It's nice to get those pretty clothes out as the weather warms up, and to find them fitting well/loose (depending on whether they were bought at start or end of last summer).
Difficulty-with-sticking-to-it score (0= automatic, 10 = given up). I'd say stable at 4/10. The lean days are still hard, but going on them is getting towards automatic.
Health record: Good! Hayfever as is usual for this time of year, but not a bad season for it so far. A brief relapse into constipation mid-month, but mostly fine in that department. Occasional feelings of dizziness which have been around for some months now I think. They don't seem to relate to lean days or not, alcohol or not, so a bit of a mystery. Fingers crossed it is not a brain tumour. (Did I mention I'm a hypochondriac?)

I find it hard to use the site since it moved (can't access from usual computer, despite kind assistance of tech support person), so sorry I haven't been on the forums to offer support to others. I hope you are all getting on well.

best wishes, kl

Well, that slope of the progress tracker is pretty impressive, especially during maintenance. Every reason to be proud. Thanks for keeping a nice record, we really need data and background information from members who are on maintenance

Hi, lovely to see you doing so well. Maintenance is not the easiest thing in the world and like a lot of folk, it was always my undoing but, not with IF.

Ballerina x

Month 9: 8 stone 12.5 lb, up a pound. Frankly relieved to be able to post under goal at month end.
5:2 routine: 2 lean days a week, usually Monday and Friday, but moved to fit in when needed. Two missed because life was just too complicated.
Motivation: The summer weather has been a bit of a problem, because I bought all new summer clothes last year, mostly in the midsummer sales, when I was still a few pounds from goal. So unlike my winter clothes, bought after I was at goal, they have just a bit of wiggle room and don't feel uncomfortably tight if I over-indulge. However, given the length of a typical British summer, this may not be a problem for long!
Difficulty-with-sticking-to-it score (0= automatic, 10 = given up). I'd say stable at 4/10. The lean days are still hard, but going on them is getting towards automatic.
Health record: All good!
I hope everyone else is enjoying success - now I'm logged in, I'll go and have a peek.
kl

Month 10: 8 stone 13 lb, up half a pound. Just managed to scrape back to goal at month end, and went over during the month. I vowed I'd never do that, but it has been a difficult month, lots of travelling for holidays and work. Mostly I didn't have access to scales or internet, hence late post for the month. There was lots of eating out and fitting in the lean days became very hard.
5:2 routine: In theory 2 lean days a week, but I've no idea how many I managed. I don't even know how many days there were in my month, what with crossing the international date line twice!
Motivation: Still strong. First day back home, onto a lean day and back in routine.
Difficulty-with-sticking-to-it score (0= automatic, 10 = given up). maybe slipped back up to 5/10. The lean days are hard. I know some people on here say that they have more energy and clear heads on a fast day, but it doesn't work that way for me. If I have something important on a particular day, where I need to be at my best, I move my lean day to a different, major-event-free day. Last month there weren't enough of those days, and this month is going the same way.
Health record: I had a cold, but it was mostly gone in 5 days. That's good for me, usually if I get a cold it lingers on for weeks. I'm still getting the odd dizzy spell. I had a regular check-up, and my blood pressure, always low, was nearly off the bottom of the scale. So that is probably the cause. I'm eating a bit more salt, see if that helps.
Cheers to all
kl

Well done with your maintenance, @kentishlass, you are certainly setting us all a very good example. Keep the information coming, please, it is useful for those of us who aren't as determined as you!