I am starting the 5:2 intermittent fast today (Mondays and Thursdays 500 calories, other days normal healthy food choices). I am also not weighing myself until Sunday.

The first thing I noticed this morning was relief about not fearing whether the scale went up or down a pound this morning.

My plan is to rely on Protein shakes today because they are easy to control and satisfy me.

I'm going to post my experiences in this thread. All are welcome to join me.

It's my second fasting day too when I read this post on Monday I realized I had just made it through the day with less than 600 so I stopped eating for the day. Actually back to my lowest weight on this journey.yea.. I think I will do the 500 spread through the day and move to longer fast when that is no longer working.. good look to us all.

Edited September 11, 201411 yr by intelirish

JW(justwatch),

Interesting method. Your fast actually starts after lunch. If you finish lunch at around 1 pm, and don't eat until Breakfast the following day, you will have gone about 18 hrs with no calorie contained food. I'll be watching your progress. I too go about 18 hrs on my fasts but I fast from dinner on Sunday to a 2 pm shake on Monday and then a 500 cal dinner.

It might be helpful to mix up my current routine to see if I can jog some extra lbs out of this experiment. Next week I'm going to try your method one or two of my 3 days of fasting.

tmf

Ok, well, I had all my food at lunch today and came in for the day just under 500 calories. I have been totally pumped up all day and feeling skinnneeeeee. I even went to Target to try on jackets, and I'm down from a 3x or 4x to a 1x. I actually didn't buy one because I didn't care for the styles. Omg. That's new. Before, if something fit, I bought it in three colors just to be safe. Black, black and black.

And then.

Then I heard back from my divorce attorney about a legal question I had today and without going into specifics, my emotions got all worked up and I'm feeling like $#!t. Like Pavlov's dog, I want food.

Head hunger. I was feeling great. I was feeling happy. Then I felt like crap. And I want to eat.

I'm not going to eat. I'm going out for awhile. I took a walk and I'm going to finish this day strong like it started.

Living well is the best revenge. I'm going to live well!

Good for you -- you're doing great! I fasted today until 5:30 or so then had a shake. Felt tight and probably shouldn't have pushed it. Was not really hungry either -- but figured I needed the protein, etc. Always a mistake for me to think that way. Then I steamed up a bunch of asparagus and a little head of purple cauliflower (from my garden!). Pulling out my dieting expertise, but I'm not on a diet and I can't eat veggies like I used to -- nibbled those asparagus too fast and they are too fibrous. Volume probably too much. So then I decided to have one of my 100 calorie yogurts. Mistake. Big stuck episode and it had to come up. All that asparagus. Damn it all, not a raging success this first fast day but I've learned a few things. If I fast, I'm tighter. If I'm tight don't eat. If I'm not hungry don't push a shake. Oh, I was under some stress, too. Good stress, go figure, but my band seems to read stress as stress. In this case I was booking a little trip at Thanksgiving and getting concert tickets set up. Life is really good -- I'm doing things I didn't before. I'm really living. But all that anticipation and munching asparagus while making arrangements -- recipe for disaster for me. But I'm okay, no big deal. And I succeeded in terms of the daylong fast and under 500 for the evening.

I went out for awhile and I feel better now. Word to the wise. Don't go grocery shopping late on a fast day. I had to go because I was out of dog food. But sheesh. It was hard. I bought some veggies and hummus and promised myself I could have them at breakfast if I really wanted to! Oh and I bought some Dasani Drops water enhancers. Pineapple Coconut and Strawberry Kiwi. The pineapple coconut one is yummy and I pretended I was having myself a piña colada. Ok folks, time for bed!

Fun Friday! I'll have to be careful today. lunch with coworkers followed by evening dinner and drinks with some friends. I didn't plan it both for the same day, but that's how it evolved. So glad it's not a fasting day!

Odd thing is I was quite hungry last night and totally expected to wake up ravenous. Nope. Normal mild hunger waking up. I had some lean beef slices for breakfast and I'm getting ready for my coffee now. This week was much easier than I thought it would be.

so even though i told my self i wasn't going to get on the scale until i'd had at least 4 fasting days. i couldn't resit i had my second yesterday.. don't think i managed to stay quite at 500 cals but didn't wander too far over. and with the metabolic circuit class i take wasn't really a prob.. anyho.. i was down 1.8 on the scale. OMG that's the biggest drop i've had in months usually it's a .3 a .5 but not anything over 1.. i'm so excited. got to behave this weekend and make it through my fast on monday here's to finally breaking that stall..

@@intelirish, congrats on the progress! For me I have been so glad to not get on the scale. I probably will do it on Sunday because I'm so curious, but I feel so much better that I'm sure some weight has come off. Also with a weekly weigh in on Sunday I know my results aren't going to be reflective of any immediately previous fast. Sunday morning is after two days of regular eating.

I got hungry after all this morning and lunch is not for two more hours. So I had some almonds, measured out and counted. The almonds are 240 calories and my breakfast was only about 90 calories. No wonder I was hungry.

Drinking my Water with the flavor drops. It's so easy to drink a lot of water that way. I don't know why I resisted them this long.

Edited September 12, 201411 yr by JustWatchMe

Well, I certainly made the most out of my feast day. Anyway, not gonna stress over it. Had a good meal out with my bestie but the drinks just killed the calorie count for the day. I didn't even finish my dinner. I haven't had Pasta in many weeks. Maybe months. Sent a third of the order home with my friend. But those appletinis....

No regrets though.

Hi there, sounds like a fun night out! I find I usually drop after something like that. And I have to say that even though the scale has been slow of late, my throat and collarbones are showing up. Less chin, more smile! Have a nice weekend. We are having a big family dinner tomorrow so I will be challenged to stop intake by 7:00 but I suppose if I go through Monday until late afternoon it doesn't really matter. I get it that it's good for my body to have these little breaks at intervals and I think I can slip into the routine without having too much rigid thinking going on. All those years of dieting, ugh. It was very self-defeating and my band is all about success.

I'm certainly glad I'm not getting on the scale this morning. Today I'm going to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. And walk, walk, walk. For some reason my arthritis is flaring again. It started yesterday morning in one finger and my knee has been troublesome for about two weeks, but getting worse. The last time I had a horrible flare was after a period of enormous stress in the summer. My body is telling me something. Time to listen.

@@Bandista, I give you a lot of credit for handling all the family events you have this summer. I've been blessed to really only have to worry about myself and my own meals. It does make life simpler.

This week has been amazing and no matter what the scale shows for me tomorrow morning, I'm going to do this 5:2 again on Monday. It was simple and empowering. Just having a simple plan that has its own built in rewards kept me encouraged all week.

So my plan will be to stop eating Sunday by 7pm, and then nothing until my 500 calorie lunch on Monday, and then nothing after that until Breakfast Tuesday. Except coffee with cream. Gotta have my coffee with cream.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone. Super Saturday!

Edited September 13, 201411 yr by JustWatchMe

Happy Slim Sunday! I was nervous about weighing this morning and almost didn't. But I decided before I did that whether it showed a modest or a big loss or even stayed the same, I was determined to stay on course. I feel so good and my jeans were slightly looser yesterday so I was sure I lost something this week.

Between one and two weeks ago I was bouncing between 211-216 daily. Last Sunday I weighed 218.2. This morning I weighed 210.2. I've broken through my bouncing range and this is my lowest weight so far.

I'm really happy I waited a week to see these results. I'm also more determined than ever to keep eating cleanly and use this 5:2 method.

I had a little victory last night. I went to an early movie and didn't buy anything to snack on. As some of you know, I had been in a movie popcorn routine that was doing me no favors. Since I had not had dinner yet and wasn't even hungry, I just told myself if I came out of the movie hungry I could have whatever I wanted for dinner. And I did - low carb and delicious.

So much of this battle is fought between the ears. I think this week helped me strengthen some habit muscles that needed a good workout.

Off to church, then having breakfast at home, then meeting a friend for coffee at Starbucks.

Have great Sunday!

Happy Slim Sunday! I was nervous about weighing this morning and almost didn't. But I decided before I did that whether it showed a modest or a big loss or even stayed the same, I was determined to stay on course. I feel so good and my jeans were slightly looser yesterday so I was sure I lost something this week.

Between one and two weeks ago I was bouncing between 211-216 daily. Last Sunday I weighed 218.2. This morning I weighed 210.2. I've broken through my bouncing range and this is my lowest weight so far.

I'm really happy I waited a week to see these results. I'm also more determined than ever to keep eating cleanly and use this 5:2 method.

I had a little victory last night. I went to an early movie and didn't buy anything to snack on. As some of you know, I had been in a movie popcorn routine that was doing me no favors. Since I had not had dinner yet and wasn't even hungry, I just told myself if I came out of the movie hungry I could have whatever I wanted for dinner. And I did - low carb and delicious.

So much of this battle is fought between the ears. I think this week helped me strengthen some habit muscles that needed a good workout.

Off to church, then having breakfast at home, then meeting a friend for coffee at Starbucks.

Have great Sunday!

This actually made me incredibly happy to read! I'm so glad for your success! You should be so proud and your inspiring!

Well done

Way to go! And you're so right about the battle being between the ears. Have fun today and enjoy tomorrow's break. You will be in the single digits in no time then it's on to Onederland. Yippee!

Alright ya'll... My life is uber stressful right now but I'm going to jump in and try this anyway. Maybe this will give me some much needed control in my life that I feel I'm lacking. I'm not in the green yet and have a fill on October.

I'm going to paraphrase what I've gotten from reading about the 5:2 Fast and you can correct me if this doesn't sound right. 5 days of 'normal' caloric intake/eating and 2 days of 500 calories or less. When fasting, try to stick with 18 hrs between meals. Most people do one meal a day on fast days generally at lunch or dinner. Sometimes, something small (a Protein shake) at lunch, then something larger in the evening.

Questions

1. I feel like I would need the most of the 500 calories on fast day for lunch, but I would also prefer to eat dinner with my husband at night. Should I suck it up and do a shake for lunch and the rest of my calories for dinner to keep some type of family normalcy? (Also note, I'm planning on talking my husband into doing this too so this might be a pointless question.)

2. I saw some arguments that intermittent fasting is more effective if done every other day instead of 5:2. Thoughts on this? I know it can really be whatever you want it to be, but I wanted to see if anyone had done it that way and found it easier or harder.

Anything else I should remember/know/keep in mind before I start doing this?

Also, I don't own a scale so I won't even know if this is working...yikes! I do have one a work though that I might be able to jump on.