The FastDay Forum

Greetings!

Just curious as to how everyone does their fast. I started last week and was able to eat some fruit in the morning, salad with lots of veggies and hb egg whites for lunch, and a small piece of fish with vegetables for dinner, followed by some fruit. Lots of water and hot tea, too. Wasn't too bad, could easily do it two days per week.

The book just shows breakfast and lunch menus....and I was wondering if I am potentially slowing weight loss by not having a lot of time really fasting. What do you all think?

Thanks a bunch,

Packerchef

Hi and welcome to this way of life!

This is definitely a lifestyle that is up to YOU (meaning, you are in charge and you make the rules), but my feeling is that the whole fasting thing works better if you only have ONE meal a day, and try to go at least 18 hours with a zero-calorie fast before eating. I read Joel Furhman's 1995 book "Fasting for Health" (something like that), and he talks about giving your body as much of a rest between eating as possible in order to reap the most benefits of fasting.

That being said, if you do break up your day with several meals or snacks, I call it a "reduced calorie day" (not a fast), but you still get great weight-loss benefit from it.

So, whatever you choose to do, good luck and I wish you all the best.

Melinda

Welcome Packerchef!

A lot of us here have just one meal on our fast day, finding it easier to delay eating as long as possible because once you eat you can trigger 'the hunger switch'. I personally just like the convenience of saving my fast day calories until dinner, so that I can usually have the same meal with the rest of the family. But like Melinda said, it's important that you do what works best for you, so experiment! The beauty of 5:2 is that it easily fits in with your lifestyle and that makes it sustainable. Good luck and keep us posted on how you go!

I'm an outlier here in that I have breakfast on fast days: a soft-boiled egg. If you eat multiple meals I'd say keep it low carb--it's less likely to make you hungry. Krista Varady's ADF diet involves eating all the calories at lunch time. As others have said, do what works for you.

I started out having three smaller meals spread through the day, but then 3 weeks in, I had a day where I was just really really hungry once I had eaten and couldnt concentrate, so then switched to saving my calories for my evening meal and since then that has worked well.
It is up to you and both stretegies work in terms of weight loss. I would do whatever is easiest and fits in with your day. It is your life and you will know best what works.

Thanks for all of the responses. I kind of thought that it was a bit too easy the way that we were doing it. We will skip lunch tomorrow and see how that goes.

Cheers,
Packerchef

Welcome! I think you need to experiment and see what works best for you. I started with three meals a day, experimented with one a day, also liquids only and currently I eat twice a day. Because I go to the gym in the morning, I eat breakfast and lunch, so like MaryAnn, a bit of an outlier here, but its working at the moment as I make it work around me, rather than it ruling my life.

Good luck

Well, it was an interesting experiment. I fasted today, and went to take two exams at 3:00pm. By 4:30 I crashed.....shaky, light-headed, etc. And in the middle of a proctored exam that I had to complete. Milky Way to the rescue those 250 calories straightened me out and I finished the tests. Now consuming 150 calories worth of rum and going to bed. Arrgghh.

Packerchef

Well, it was an interesting experiment. I fasted today, and went to take two exams at 3:00pm. By 4:30 I crashed.....shaky, light-headed, etc. And in the middle of a proctored exam that I had to complete. Milky Way to the rescue those 250 calories straightened me out and I finished the tests. Now consuming 150 calories worth of rum and going to bed. Arrgghh.

Packerchef

Make sure you're drinking enough and maybe have a miso soup in the afternoon.

Alternatively, you could just skip breakfast and have a small lunch and dinner, which might work better for you. While a lot of people tend to keep their calories for dinner, there's no hard and fast rule on it.

[carieoates]

Best to see how you feel. It depends if I'm at work or at home. I have a cup of homemade low cal soup at lunch time when I'm at work. I manage to just drink loads of different things when at home. So in summary I have two feeds on a fast day.

I started yesterday and did have 3 meals and I felt ok for it, I pushed myself to eat breakfast later than I normally would, which pushed everything else back a bit, however I did leave work to get the early train so I could eat my tea earlier lol.

it's my second fast day tomorrow so i'll see how I get on with the same method, i'm keeping it low/no carb so I can get as much bang for my buck as possible so to speak

The second good reason for going low carb is that your body has a handy supply of energy in the form of fat. By eating carbs you are giving your body a quick fix supply thats used first, therefore delaying the time it takes your body to start burning fat.

The shakes come in because your body isn't used to switching to fat burning, there is a 'dead' time between carb burning, which its used to, and fat burning, your body, at the moment is very sluggish in switching, hence the shakes. As you and your body adapt to this way of eating your body will re-learn how to quickly switch to fat burning when there are no carbs around.

I started with one evening meal a day so I could eat with my family. But, I didn't have an outside job, or exams to take, so the transition didn't cause me problems.
I now just liquid fast, low or nil calorie drinks through the day, giving myself an allowance of milk for my cups of tea. I did this because it got to the stage where when I had my evening meal I got even more hungry than before the meal, to the extent I was prowling the kitchen hoping to find something else to eat. Well actually I was looking for the mythical cream bun with zero calories, but never found it. It got so bad it was distressing. So I switched to liquids only and felt fine on it.

One main advantage to this Way Of Eating (WOE) is that the diet adapts to you, not you having to adapt to the diet. Keep up your fluids. Many times the shakes and headaches etc are caused by low salt not sugar, so a mug of miso soup, a mug of boullion or a stock cube in water, will raise your salt levels for little or no calories.

Make the diet work for you, swap days so your social life isn't compromised, or your exams messed up. Enjoy it as many of us do.

hi there

I agree with most of whats been said already, however I am not so sure that saying breaking the fast through the day isn't a fast anymore, 500 cal is 500 cal no matter how you spread them, right? and in any case, either are real fasts because then you wouldn't be eating anything at all!

iam one of those that splits calories, mainly lunch and dinner, I cant hack not eating nothing at all day, I eat dinner early around 6pm then that's it till next day around 8am..

anyway,thats my 2 pennies worth! happy fasting everyone

[Tracieknits]

I am in the "dinner only" club. I get waay too hungry all day long if I eat in the morning. So it's nothing but black coffee, tea, water and sparkling water until dinner.

If I eat before then, I pretty much guarantee going way over my calorie limit