Doing the 5:2 Fast? Here's What to Eat on Low-Calorie Days | Livestrong.com (2024)

FAQs

How many calories should I eat on a fast day 5:2 diet? ›

There are different versions, but the 5:2 diet involves eating a normal, healthy diet for five days every week and 'fasting' on the remaining two days. On a 'fast' day, you would typically consume between 500 and 600 calories.

A typical 500-calorie fasting day might include oatmeal with fresh blueberries for breakfast, a tangerine for a snack, and a chicken and vegetable stir-fry for dinner. You will drink lots of water and may also have calorie-free beverages such as tea, coffee (no milk or sugar), and club soda.

The 5:2 diet plan aims for a weight loss of 1lb a week for women, and for men you could expect to lose slightly more. The NHS recommend a loss of 1-2lbs a week for healthy and safe weight loss, this amount is also more sustainable.

The New 5:2 approach involves restricting calories to 800 on fasting days, then eating a healthy lower carb, Mediterranean-style diet for the rest of the week. The beauty of intermittent fasting means that as your insulin sensitivity returns, you will feel fuller for longer on smaller portions.

Because the diet involves following a variety of food choices, the results differ from person-to-person. However, people can typically expect to lose between 1 to 2lb or 0.5 to 1kg a week. This result is based on people eating a healthy, balanced diet for 5 days of the week.

It is not recommended to fast on 2 consecutive days; most dieters arrange fasting days to follow a Tuesday and Thursday schedule or something similar. Breaking up fasting days helps manage hunger pangs, which can be tough during the initial few weeks of the diet.

Fresh Fruits

Fruits like apples, pears, papayas, and pomegranates are excellent choices. They are not only low in calories but also rich in vitamins, minerals, and fibre.

So researchers thought burning or cutting 500 calories a day led to losing 1 pound a week. But this isn't true for everyone. In general, if you cut about 500 calories a day from your usual diet, you may lose about ½ to 1 pound a week.

The 5:2 diet is actually very simple to explain. For five days per week, you eat normally and don't have to think about restricting calories. Then, on the other two days, you reduce your calorie intake to a quarter of your daily needs. This is about 500 calories per day for women, and 600 for men.

Best Intermittent Fasting Method For Visceral Belly Fat

14/10 Method: Fast for 14 hours and have a 10-hour eating window daily. That means you restrict your food intake to a specific 10-hour period while abstaining from caloric consumption for the remaining 14 hours.

What happens if I eat 800 calories a day for a month? ›

Major studies have shown that following an 800 calorie a day diet is much more effective than going “slow and steady”. A rapid weight loss plan, with typical weight loss of more than 10kg sustained over 12 months, is shown to achieve a high rate of type 2 diabetes remission.

An 800 calorie diet, is quite simply an ultra low calorie diet. This type of diet is sometimes considered for obese and severely obese people as a way to manage their diabetes. It is also sometimes advised for people about to have surgery.

Focus on low calorie, non-starchy vegetables, which The Fast 800 always encourages you to eat freely, without the need to count calories. Examples include, kale, spinach, broccoli, mushrooms and aubergine/eggplant.

However, the study also stated that participants who followed the 5:2 diet felt more positively about their experience than others who followed the traditional diet. Most people should lose some weight in one to three weeks on the 5:2 diet.

How does the Fast 800 work? The first stage of the diet works on the premise that when we eat refined, typically 'white' carbohydrates, like white bread, pasta and rice, they are easily broken down in the gut to release sugars which, over time, leads to fat accumulation and possible insulin resistance.

Most of the intermittent fasting diets recommend cutting back to 500-600 calories on fasting days. In general, for many people this would be medically safer and easier than not eating at all on those days. Remember to drink enough on fasting days to prevent dehydration.

On fasting days, the dieters need to restrict intake of food to approximately 2000 kilojoules (500 calories) a day for women or 2400 kilojoules (600 calories) for men.

Other forms of IF include twice-a-week fasting and alternate-day fasting, known as the 5:2 method. With the 5:2 method, you generally eat no more than 500–800 calories on 2 days of the week.

As a general rule of thumb, most experts recommend staying under 50 calories to remain fasted, but no studies are confirming the amount. It does, however, depend on what you eat, as certain foods are quicker to kick you out of a fasted state.