philimina's Journal, 14 May 2016

Philimina what was your calorie intake on your non-fast days ? There's so many factors that can contribute to the loss/gain when doing 5:2 and its perfectly normal to fail initially as you find your way through it :) Which days do you fast? When do you weigh yourself? I'll assist you to sort it all out so don't stress about it :) 

I had a look at your food diary now and I can see where the problems are as to why you never lose on 5:2. You have alot of undigested food weight still inside you from the 4 non-fast days before your fast day. Those 4 days also exceed your RDI by so much that the extra above 100% RDI add up to another whole day worth of your RDI calories. in the last 7 days before today you have consumed 10 236 calories according to your Food Diary. When you divide that by 7 you get an average of 1 462 calories per day. Your RDI is 1400 calories per day so although you are following 5:2 you have not caused a calorie deficit but actually ate over your daily RDI on average and this has caused you to gain. Hope this helps u understand why your 5:2 never give you good results and please feel free to engage with us to get you on track so it works for you :) 

Not only could excessive calories on a weekly basis prevent you from losing, if your system is sensitive to carbs your body could be in a constant state of inflammation and prevent the body from using stored fat. Hope you can find what works best for you. 

What is the 5:2 you talking about pls  

Also tried it, simply didn't work for me. 

Lisawright have a look at www.thefastdiet.co.uk and you will get loads of info. NankeS it's possible that the calories u consumed on non-fast days were too high and cancelled off he deficit created by your fast days as the case for Philimina. Lots of people make mistakes when they start and then one has to tweak and customize the week to make it give you successful results. One can only learn about their body by failing and understanding why something didn't work. 5:2 can work but if not then one should rather start with 4:3 and then perhaps combine it with 16:8 and if that still doesnt help then add low carb days. It's not a one dimensional solution so experiment and have fun doing so :) 

Thanks BBO and LCFemmeFit for the comments. I appreciate you taking the time to assist. I am a 30-something year old female, weigh 73.3kg and am 1.64m tall. My calculated RDI is actually around 1600 calories but I manually set it to 1400 calories. I did a month of calorie counting at 1600 calories and didn't really lose...  

So I guess I'm still figuring out what my calories should be to lose. It's a little frustrating - I'm trying to average 1500 calories including the fast days but may have to go lower..? Anyhoo I have committed to doing 5:2 for the month of May so will soldier on! Thanks again guys! 

I was just going to say, where does 1400 RDI come from? Couldn't image that that is what FS recommends. That's very low. Mine is 2200, but then I do try and have my days at 80% and less. Good luck for the rest of the month. That's what we do, take advise and soldier on. I hope this week is better.  

Philimina you are most welcome :) Thanks for the additional info. You must take in a few considerations such as you can remain the same weight or even get heavier and still be losing fat. The weight you are seeing on the scales could be mostly the weight of undigested food. Based on my own experience and experimenting I suggest that you add another fast day into your week to make it a 4:3 instead of a 5:2. I fast on Mon, Wed and Fri and I weigh-in on Thursday mornings so that it gives me enough time to digest what I indulge in on the weekend. I make my Tuesdays as low carb days where i keep carbs to under 30g(sometimes under 50g). I also follow 16:8 where I only eat food after midday on days that I eat and stop eating around 8pm. There's so many tweaks you can do to make it more effective. The good thing about 4:3 is that if you mess up a fast day then it automatically becomes a 5:2 week. This happens to me sometimes on a Friday where I sometimes may get social for supper or attend an event. You must also not be disillusioned by the scale. You will feel your results in the way your clothing fits you. Taking measurements of yourself will be a good idea as well. Read my Journal. It will give you good ideas. One of the key ingredients to fat loss is water so make sure you drinking at least 1.5L a day. 

Fatsecret are very generous with their RDI...In the time I've been here there has many numerous complaints about this. If I had to eat the 1900 cals that they recommend for me I would be HUGE! Most women our sort of height don't need that many calories in my opinion unless they are EXTREMELY active. Not just some days, but every day. Older women also don't have the sort of metabolism that say a young woman of 20 would have. I think if we had to be brutally honest with ourselves, most of us just eat far toooo much. Our bodies are happier and respond better when we periodically give it a rest from all the continuous digestion. Then internal healing takes place and we add to our longevity. Just a bit of my own thoughts based on personal experience :-) ;-) 

Philimina, I tend to agree with LCFemmeFit on the calorie count thing... I had put my RDI to 1200cals and if I eat super healthy, according to what works for me (40% protein, 40% carbs and 20% fat); it amounts to 900-1100cals a day. And then I excercise eveyday between 4-20km's of running per day! And I'm not tired or ever hungry... Don't starve u'reself, but stay strong on this battle against the bulge ;-) We're all there with u, also having to constantly figure out what works and what doesn't work. Have faith and keep on trying!!  

Totally in agreement with SkinnyMaringa and LCFemmeFit on the RDI levels. I have found that I only manage to maintain at mine - or even gain slightly. Eeek! 

An important factor to your calories is the macros that make up your calories. Macros are the daily amounts of carbs, protein, fat and fibre. If you are consuming 1600 calories a day and its too high in carbs then you can slow down the rate of weight loss and gain weight even if you stay at your RDI. This also boils down to the sources of your calories since not all carbs are the same. Carbs from fruit and veg are much more healthier than carbs from food made from refined wheat, sweets & chocs. Even the way food is prepared plays a role. I've experimented alot and found that I need to have low carb days to offset the heavy carb days because having a high percentage of carbs every day when trying to lose fat/weight just makes the results harder to achieve. One does not have to give up carbs completely unless they are comfortable in sustaining a Low Carb High Fat lifestyle that requires immense discipline but looking only at the calories will be misleading without taking into consideration what the macros are. The devil is in the detail. 

Agree with you BBO...Just another thing to bear in mind, we girls don't lose consistently like the guys. Hormones, water retention "shark week" before periods all play a part and cause weight fluctuations....so don't get despondent. Consistency is key. You have a caring community here so you can feel safe in the fact that we all face similar challenges or as skinny says "the battle of the bulge". Just reach out and somebody will be able to give you a different perspective :) Keep experimenting and you'll soon discover what exactly gives the best results ;-)