The 5:2 diet?

Uther

Uther

Uther

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Anyone heard of this diet, seems quite popular. The idea is you eat pretty much what you want five days a week, and on two seperate days limit your intake to 600 calories!
From looking online quote: 'Its fans claim it helps you lose weight, live longer, look younger and even ward off dementia'
Is it another fad diet or could there actually be something to this one?
 
I don't think you really need to ask us about that do you.

For 5 days you eat anything and will most likely create fat, for 2 days you barely sustain yourself and use up any surplus carbohydrate leaving the fat. Yer that will work.
 
There's already a thread on this in the health section (I know this because I posted a similar thread here a couple of weeks back :P)

Currently doing it myself, or rather 50:50 - one day normal diet, one day highly restricted calorie intake. :)
 
Or you can eat a normal diet, drink lots of water and exercise. Yes yes, no need to tell me, crazy idea these days.
 
On the surface this sounds dumb. It doesn't sound much less dumb as I read more about it. If you want to lose weight just eat 1600ish calories a day and walk a mile a day. Simples.
 
simulatorman said:
So pig out, starve, pig out, starve, pig…….

I'd rather have something more balanced.
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regulus said:
Or you can eat a normal diet, drink lots of water and exercise. Yes yes, no need to tell me, crazy idea these days.
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spicypixel said:
On the surface this sounds dumb. It doesn't sound much less dumb as I read more about it. If you want to lose weight just eat 1600ish calories a day and walk a mile a day. Simples.
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Absolutely correct, it is not a long-term replacement for a balanced lifestyle, but as a short-term way of losing weight quickly it is viable.

But because you space out the days you restrict calories, it removes the urge to gorge after a day of restricted intake. Because you do not fast, you get the kick-start of the metabolism so that your body doesn't just last as long as it can.

But, once again, it should not be seen as a long-term lifestyle choice.
 
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The early scientific studies have shown promising results in the lab for reducing weight and certain bad cholesterols, but hardly any real human trials.

Certainly no long term studies of how it might affect longer term human health. It might work well in the short term but longer term you'd be safer with moderate intake and regular exercise until the science and numbers add up.
 
This was on a BBC programme recently. It was going on about the science of restricing calorie intake and optimising nutrition to significantly extend people's life span. Restricting calorie intake was supposed to limit production of a hormone (Insulin-like somethingorother) that induced cells to divide rather than repair.

The diet in the programme involved fasting for fourty eight hours every month but the five:two diet was supposed to be an easier version, iirc.
 
You read this off Yahoo lifestyle section didn't you ;)

It may work because it changes your metabolism because if you cut down your diet and do hardly any exercise, after a few days your body will get used to having "less food to work on" and metabolism will slow down.

Well that's what they say.
 
The diet that is working for me is a low calorie, high protein one.
I basically eat 1200-1400 calories per day, 7 days per week. I will either Swim, go to the Gym or Walk 2-3 miles most days.

When I started all this around 7 weeks ago, I was 122kg. Today, I weighed 108kg.
 
Ugh, these fad diets really boil my ****. Stop reading women's magazines, read about nutrition and exercise instead.
 
i do a similar diet to this.

Eat what I want for 2 days a week (Saturday and Sunday0

Then from Monday to Friday limit my calories to 1000 per day, plus doing the insanity workout 4 days per week and I've been losing a steady 2lbs per week for the past 2 months.
 
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