How does this train you to better eating habits? It doesn't.

My doc told me the only "fad" diet or diet book he recommends is "The Dash Diet". It's basically a diet for those with high blood pressure. It's low salt, you eat all the fruits and vegetables you want, limited dairy and meat.

Is anyone still doing this diet. I've tried it for a week. It's going pretty well. I've lost a couple pounds and it seems easy enough. Anybody else?

Okay, its been a while so I'm not sur if you'll even see this - I am on the Fast Diet or the 5:2 diet and LOVE it! It may be because men get to fast with 600 calories whereas women only get 500, I don't know. The fasting days are difficult but not impossible, you still get to eat, just tiny bits. And you can keep telling yourself that you can eat anything you want the next day which gets me through it. I have lost a pound or more a week on this and have been on it for a month. Before this diet I'm pretty sure I ate more than 2000 calories per day but most of it was not junk - just lots of fruit and nuts. I have a sit down, computer job so for most of the day I do not get any exercise. So at first the 2000 calorie limit on the non-fasting days was a bigger problem than the 600 calorie fasting days. But in about a week everything changed and didn't crave snacks as much. The biggest plus to me compared to all other diets is that I saw pounds falling away from the first day. That reward alone makes this diet (actually a life style) very easy to stick to.

I don't really need to lose any weight but I find I don't like conventional eating patterns. They don't feel natural to me. I do intermittent fasting and love it. Heavier eating in the evening is much more suited to me. I do a fasted workout later in the day and eat within a six hour window. I am pretty strict with what I eat as I think what you put in your body is of the utmost importance but it's far from low cal and low fat. There are a ton of videos on fasting on youtube.

Last October I weighed 246 and went on a normal diet and increased my exercise routine and lost 9 pounds by December. On January first I went on the Fast Diet and started losing weight right away. Its now half way through March and I'm down to 218. There are some big surprises along the way on this diet. You get used to it in a few weeks, you notice the hunger but it doesn't bother you as much. The more you want to lose the stricter you need to be about counting calories. I am not so good about that part and I still lose weight.

I will add that it is hard to pay attention and be focused while fasting. I work from home but someone in a busy office may have a problem on low calorie days. It is also hard to keep warm, so folks that work outside during cold weather will notice it.

Mid April and I'm now at 213. I haven't weighed this much since college in the late 70's.

Early May and I am at 211. I seem to be losing a half a pound each week. I am still happy with this diet. I think I can stay on this forever.

Mid June and I've hit 209.

last week of July - 205

Good for you John! That's great progress.

I have been on the Fast Diet for about a year now... I did lose about 10 lbs on it the first couple months... then the weight loss started to slow down until I started a new prescription diet pill.. since then (about 6 months) I'll lost an additional 39 more lbs. I still need to lose about 30 lbs.

I like the diet because it makes me more aware of how many calories I am eating every day of the week. To get through any cravings on diet days, I chew a lot of sugarfree gum. The diet has become easy and I look forward to my low calorie days now.

Just spotted this post. I've done the fast diet and it worked well for me (still does). I just felt the need to respond to one of the early comments asking how this diet trains you to have better eating habits. FWIW, that is one of the things I feel like I learned from this diet. If you are going to limit your calories to 500 a day, you are going to have to learn to make good choices! I did a lot of research and found foods that would fill me up and fit within the program guidelines. And I can tell you that I am not eating processed foods of any kind. Everyhting I eat has good nutrional value. I also previously did the Atkins diet and learned that one critical lesson from his books - processed foods are BAD FOR YOU - he ranted about trans fats before most people even knew what they were. It really irrates me when people pu pu some of these programs when they have no experience with them.

Funny story - my doctor turned his nose up at Atkins, but the next time I got my bloodwork done, he left a message on my machine saying my cholesterol was better than it had ever been, and added "whatever you're doing, keep doing it!"

I agree that the FAST diet makes sense. In our culture, we have become so used to obscene portion sizes It won't kill you to go hungry for short periods.

Limiting your calories so severely is not good for you. An easy way to get your body into "fat burning" mode is to implement an Intermittent Fasting schedule. It has done WONDERS for me and my weight loss journey. :)

I just ordered the book, can't wait to get started!