The 5:2 diet?

Sleeve88 said:
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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This is pretty much what i am doing at the moment and and on average I'm losing about a 1kg (2lb in old money) per week. When i say average, i mean that some weeks i lose nothing and others i lose 2-3kg. But looking at my chart is works out at about 1kg a week. Also i only have one 'naughty' day per week not two.

I went from 119Kg to 107kg (starting in June with a 4 week break in the middle) and i aim to lose another 10kg in the next 7 weeks.
 
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LordSplodge said:
Exercise more, eat less. The secret (and it isn't really a secret) to losing weight is "Calories In < Calories Out"

Fad diets are used to sell books and videos, nothing more.
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Not always true.

Its quite common for people to eat 1000 cals per day, exercise every day, but not lose any weight.

If you put your body into a catabolic state it will hold onto fat through fear of starvation. The only way round this is to refeed your body, once maybe twice per week, it then kickstarts your metabolism and ensures the weightloss continues.

Plus if you ate say 2000 calories of white bread per day, but your average calorie expenditure was say 2500, you would still struggle to lose weight due the amount of simple carbs you are ingesting.

Not always as black and white as calories out > calories in.
 
Calorie restriction is not about losing weight.

It has been adopted as a fad diet by those interested in losing weight and miracle diets, which is unproductive because now people are dismissing it as a fad.

What it really is, is very simple. Humans did not evolve in a scenario were food was expected to be available every day.

We have a hormone (IGF-1), which tells our body to concentrate on growth (creating new cells) or concentrate on repairing existing cells. The levels of this hormone are high on days we eat, and low on days we either fast, or eat few calories.

If you are always eating (7:0), the levels of this hormone are always high, which on the long term increases your chances of cancer, alzheimers, and many other signs of aging.

If you at least occasionally fast, or restrict your calorie intake (5:2 for example), on those days, this hormone will lower, and your body will concentrate on repairing cells, which on the long term will benefit your body, reducing aging, and lowering the risk of some cancers, etc.

This has been 'known' by some cultures which have historically practiced fasting, although of course, they didnt have a scientific explanation for it then.

Will you lose weight? Well any healthy diet will make you thin, or at least thinner, but thats just a 'side effect' of healthy living, and not what calorie restriction is directly about. Its just been hijacked by the 'get thin at all costs' peeps and made to sound like a crazy diet.

I can understand you guys reacting skeptically to it, but you'd best be served by reading up on it, or watching the recent BBC documentary to understand the science behind it and then make a more qualified judgement.
 
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Heres how you lose weight - eat healthy balanced meals and excercise.

Diets are stupid, as soon as you stop the diet you put back on weight. Real weight loss requires lifestyle change.
 
pitchfork said:
Heres how you lose weight - eat healthy balanced meals and excercise.

Diets are stupid, as soon as you stop the diet you put back on weight. Real weight loss requires lifestyle change.
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5:2 is not a 'diet' you do and then stop. Its not even about losing weight as such. See my post above
 
Trouble with most diets is that they are not sustainable. The 1500-1600 calorie ones for example, it will work for 100+kg range at 1kg a week then weight loss will rapidly slow down as you reach the point where 1600 calories is just about enough to sustain the weight. Few months down the line you may discover there isn't much weight loss any more, and you would need to do much less than 1600 calories for another 12 months or 1600 a week for the next few years if you were to ever reach 80kg range. At which point most of people give up, because you don't want to count calories for years. The whole idea is to lose weight and start eating normally.

Also, with exception of starting weeks, gym and body building exercises are actually bad for weight loss. A - because you might counter gain weight in the process, good weight, muscle weight, but weight never the less and the idea was to unload you skeletal structure from excess weight and give fast effects. B - because muscle building and physical exhaustion will make you crave things, and the idea was to eat as little as pos.

This 5:2 thing, might actually work, because mistake most of us, fatso's do, is that we presume at the end of the weight loss diet is a world where we come back to old portions, habits and just live regular life, whereas the truth is - you would need to keep dieting forever, and let's face it - it's not life if you are to pick salad every time at Pizza Express. With the 5:2, you just need to not pig out two days in the middle of the week. That is - if it works at all.
 
Whenever I do a day's diet I celebrate it the next one by eating pizza and sweets!

keeps me motivated.
 
v0n said:
Trouble with most diets is that they are not sustainable. The 1500-1600 calorie ones for example, it will work for 100+kg range at 1kg a week then weight loss will rapidly slow down as you reach the point where 1600 calories is just about enough to sustain the weight. Few months down the line you may discover there isn't much weight loss any more, and you would need to do much less than 1600 calories for another 12 months or 1600 a week for the next few years if you were to ever reach 80kg range. At which point most of people give up, because you don't want to count calories for years. The whole idea is to lose weight and start eating normally.

Also, with exception of starting weeks, gym and body building exercises are actually bad for weight loss. A - because you might counter gain weight in the process, good weight, muscle weight, but weight never the less and the idea was to unload you skeletal structure from excess weight and give fast effects. B - because muscle building and physical exhaustion will make you crave things, and the idea was to eat as little as pos.

This 5:2 thing, might actually work, because mistake most of us, fatso's do, is that we presume at the end of the weight loss diet is a world where we come back to old portions, habits and just live regular life, whereas the truth is - you would need to keep dieting forever, and let's face it - it's not life if you are to pick salad every time at Pizza Express. With the 5:2, you just need to not pig out two days in the middle of the week. That is - if it works at all.
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By the time you reach a weight that is sustained by 1600 cals per day i would imagine you would have reached your target no?

I would imagine that anyone who needs 1600 cals to maintain their current weight could only weigh around 10 stone at max.
 
Eat what you want for 5 days then have 2 days at 600 calories? For a starter you will get fat regardless of the 2 days at 600 calories because the majority of your weekly calories will be full of crap and high calories as i'm going by 'eat what you want' to be unhealthy calories which negates the live longer aspect of the diet because of the ingredients you will be consuming, secondly, suddenly dropping down to 600 calories isn't a good idea for your body.

But if you want to do it, then good luck on your getting fat and unhealthy goals of 2012 op.

Seriously, stick to a normal, healthy diet and exercise sensibly.
 
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Guys. Once again. 5:2 is not a weight loss programme.

Maybe some are selling the idea as such. Thats not the idea behind it, even if it would probably result it being thin if done indefinitely.
 
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