Week 10 Weigh-In Result and the 5:2 Diet

Well, I put on 0.6lbs last week, and as of Monday, I weighed 197.2lbs.

So basically, I've made no progress at all in the last five weeks. And to be honest, I haven't really been trying. I've still been logging my food on My Fitness Pal, but I haven't been careful about what I've been eating.

But, this week I started turning it around. I did a little mid-week weigh-in this morning, and I'm back to 195.4, so by Monday hopefully I'll be a little lower and back into Weight Loss Territory.

I know for the last few weeks I've been saying things like 'oh, I'm really determined now' and 'I'M IN HARDCORE WEIGHT LOSS MODE FROM NOW ON', but now I actually am. I started feeling really depressed earlier in the week - not the kind of depressed that makes me want to eat, but the sort that makes me desperate to start making some progress.

I've also started reading a book about emotional eating, and it's helping me to bear a few things in mind when I'm bored/tired/lonely/depressed - and I'm trying to hold back from eating during those times, when I know I'm not actually hungry.

Anyway, here's something I haven't talked about before. After the first couple of weeks of trying to lose weight through Being Sensible, I decided to switch to the 5:2 diet. Obviously, in the last 4-5 weeks I haven't been putting much effort in and I wouldn't say that I've been following the diet at all, hence the stall in weight loss. But in the first few weeks, it worked extremely well for me. If you haven't heard of it, it's a slightly easier version of the Alternate Day Fasting diet (which is when you fast every other day). With the 5:2 diet, you just fast two days a week, and have five 'normal' days, when you're supposed to be able to eat whatever you like - except I usually try to stick between 1500 and 1800 on those days, just as a rough guideline so I don't go completely crazy and eat all the foods.

I should mention that the fasting days aren't proper fasting days - I usually have about 500 calories on those days. For guys, you're supposed to have about 600 on those days. Anyway, for those weeks when I've been following the diet, I've been losing weight very comfortably. It's been more like a 6:1 diet for me - in other words, I've usually just been doing one fasting day, and six normal days - and I've still been losing 1.5-3lbs a week.

I know people might be quick to jump on what sounds like just another faddy diet - which I suppose it is, but I've found it quite easy to stick to - and most importantly, it's been WORKING for me - and so I'm going to keep doing it. For me, I find it easier to just have one slightly more painful day in the week where I don't get to eat much and to have all the other days as normal food days, than to have 7 more restrictive days of calorie counting. It's just something that I find easier to deal with, mentally.

So this week, I'm trying to get through the week doing two fasting days instead of one because I desperately want to see some progress after having spent the last month hovering between 195 and 198lbs. Today is a fasting day. I won't lie, these fasting days suck, but I never do the two fasting days in a row so at the end of a fasting day, at least I know there's always a normal day ahead.

Anyway, I'm not advising anyone to follow this diet - I'm just talking about my own experiences of it so far. And as long as it's helping me achieve my goals, I'm going to stick with it. I mean, I know that restricting calories will always work, however you do it - but I've struggled so long to find a way of doing it that actually works for me, so I'm going to keep going with it.

Of course, I have been slacking off in the last month or so, so what went wrong there? Well, I'm putting it down to my issues with emotional eating. I was stressed with work, so I ate. I'm working on cutting those ties right now. It's something I've never really paid attention to before, I've just accepted it as part of who I am. But I've started to realise that I really need to work on it so that maybe one day, I'll be able to function like a normal person and not have my mood dictate whether or not I pig out.

Well, this has been a long and rambly and not-very-coherent post. Hopefully I'll have a good result to report on Monday for my next weigh-in. I'm hoping to finally be below 195 - watch this space!