The FastDay Forum

So I started fasting in August basically to lose 10 "vanity" pounds I'd put on after surgery. 5:2 came pretty easily, and I've lost 10 pounds in 11 weeks. I'm now at a healthy BMI (low-normal range), and I really don't feel like I have any weight I need to lose at this point. In fact, I don't like the way I look when I'm too thin and feel like further 5:2 would take me to that "too skinny" place.

By all rights, I should certainly be moving over to the maintenance phase at this point. Nevertheless, I find myself wanting to keep going now that I'm in the habit of 5:2. It actually kind of concerns me, because some of my thoughts are borderline disordered in my opinion! I've never really dieted before, but the regimented approach of 5:2 really appeals to me. I love the feeling of control and satisfaction I get in refusing food and overcoming hunger pangs on fast days and waking up the morning after a successful fast and knowing I held firm. I feel like I have more energy on fast days and almost crave the alert feeling I have during a fast. I did a 4:3 fast last week just because I felt like I could and I wanted to-- crazy!

I was thinking about this last night, and I realized that anorexics use some of this same kind of "control" and "craving" language to describe their disorders. I still eat and indulge normally on non-fast days, so I don't feel like I've crossed any lines, but I am slightly concerned about this vein of thinking. There's a fine line between laudable self-control and disordered thinking, in my opinion!

I've always loved food and scoffed at dieters, juice fasters and too-skinny celebrities, and never in a million years did I think I'd feel "addicted" to extreme calorie restriction! Anyway-- I'm going to force myself to switch to maintenance regardless, just to quell these impulses. Thanks for listening!

Hi @ewoodwor, your situation is not one we read about often!! I am a little hesitant to comment as I lack any expertise in the area, but I would hope that the fact that you're aware of your "addiction" should prevent it from becoming a cause for concern. And the fact that you can talk about it.
Certainly join the others in the maintenance tent for support.
Maybe you could consider doing 19:5 to get the feeling of fasting everyday?
It could also be that it is early days for you with this way of eating and the novelty hasn't worn off. You had relatively quick loss for someone who started (I assume) in the healthy BMI range.
It sounds like you could be a "naturally slim" person if you have not really had any weight issues before, which may have helped with your return to your optimal weight after surgery.

PS I will admit that I have had moments when I am doing 5:2 successfully and feel so good that I think I will just keep going and lose more weight, but my love of eating always stops this happening!!!

I think lots of us love that feeling of success when we've completed a fastday.
I wake next day feeling rested in my tum and v pleased with myself that ive ( hopefully) done something to help my health in the longterm. And also,happy that ive been able to exercise self control.
It often crosses my mind that a non faster could come on this forum and assume we have eating disorders,as fasting twice,three times a week,or every other day is viewed by lots of folk as extreme behaviour.
But i think if we eat to or close to TDEE on feed days,(or over a little! ) it proves we are deffo not leaning towards anorexia!
The fact we call fast days' fast & repair' and feed days i think of as' replenish' days,shows (i hope ) that we are looking for health benefits not just weight loss.
Like has already been said i think,pop over to the maintainers' tent..the guys there are int he same enviable position as you - and want to stay that way! also,they want to enjoy the alleged health benefits from fasting so they perhaps do 6:1 each week x

I dont see doing 5:2 strictly (1/4 TDEE 2 days as week, and no less) a problem or a harmful addiction. Indeed the positive health benefits of intermittent fasting means it should be encouraged. One would need to monitor their BMI to ensure they are not going under any positive level or visually becoming too "skinny" as you put it. And if one does lose more weight than necessary, follow the recommendations in the maintenance tent .. im guessing its increasing the calorie intake on fast days or cutting to 1 day a week, whichever is "better".

The word “addiction” is often used to refer to any behaviour that is out of control in some way, and I dont believe that continuing intermittent fasting in a postive, focussed or passionate way need be a bad thing.

As some people put it, the fast days rest the gut and there are so many benefits to continuing fast days I dont see it either an addiction or a disorder, (my opinion of course)
Once i reach my maintenance weight nirvana, I plan to continue to do 5:2 ad infinitum.. remember MM says it makes you smarter and live longer

I love the feeling of control and satisfaction I get in refusing food and overcoming hunger pangs on fast days and waking up the morning after a successful fast and knowing I held firm. ..I did a 4:3 fast last week just because I felt like I could and I wanted to-- crazy!

I was thinking about this last night, and I realized that anorexics use some of this same kind of "control" and "craving" language to describe their disorders. I still eat and indulge normally on non-fast days, so I don't feel like I've crossed any lines... There's a fine line between laudable self-control and disordered thinking, in my opinion!

...Anyway-- I'm going to force myself to switch to maintenance regardless, just to quell these impulses. Thanks for listening!

Hi @ewoodwor - You have good insight into the way that your thoughts are tending and only you can interpret them in the light of your life experience. It is sometimes difficult to disentangle the normal language of experience from clinical definitions (hence the comparatively recent kerfuffle about the DSM V which many people argued had crossed the border into medicalising everyday experience).
However, I have to agree that 'laudable self control' v. 'disordered thinking' will always depend upon perspective which must be coloured by the knowledge of someone's actions and the context of them. (I remember reading something recently that stated that anyone who could give you a ballpark calorie count for a foodstuff was 'diet obsessed' - whereas others would argue that if people have no idea at all then, depending upon personal circumstances, they're being 'reckless'.)
Are you aware of any health benefits from following a 5:2 IF pattern?
Anyway, good luck making the transition to maintenance levels and I hope that it's comfortable for you.

[Tracieknits]

I think it is laudable that you are stopping yourself on that fine line as you call it. I hope that you are able to sail into maintenance easily and not regain -- for some, maintenance can be as hard or harder than losing weight!

I have no doubt that with your level of self-appraisal, you'll do just fine.

As others have said, it is good that you have such a high level of self-awareness and can reflect on your behaviours and question your motives. At the end of the day, only you can tell what is behind your newly-discovered love of fasting.

If you check out the maintenance threads you will see that some members rarely fast at all now. For them fasting is all about reaching and maintaining a healthy weight. Others have to keep fasting at a 5:2 or even 4:3 level to maintain, or choose to do so by compensating with eating more on normal days so that they do not become underweight. It depends on whether you believe there are health benefits from fasting over and beyond just not being overweight - "resting the gut", or spending time in repair mode. If you do believe this then it will guide your maintenance strategy.

I also think it is important to be as committed to not going below a minimum weight as it was to losing weight and have a plan in place to put on a few pounds if this happens.

I also think it is important to be as committed to not going below a minimum weight as it was to losing weight and have a plan in place to put on a few pounds if this happens.

Just to say that by and large I agree with this tho' my caveat will be that much depends on your personal circumstances. I'm at the low end of a 'normal' BMI but (as detailed in signature and elsewhere) I have low muscle mass and a relatively high amount of body fat - so I am committed to maintaining a body fat level that doesn't compromise my metabolic health while attempting to maintain as much of my lean body mass/skeletal muscle as I can. In my particular set of circumstances, altho' it's a fine balancing act, 'putting on a few pounds' would cause metabolic perturbation because it would be body fat (I'd embrace it with open arms if it were muscle/LBM).

BMI and weight are useful measures for discussions of public health but tend to lose their usefulness for individuals (unless they're at the extremes).

Good points @ssure, I just stuck to discussing weight to keep it simple. It's a crude rule of thumb, so is BMI.
Some might prefer to set a minimum body fat percentage or waist circumference - as long as there is something that will set off alarm bells and nip in the bud a temptation to think that smaller is always better.

The question that distinguishes addiction from other behaviors is really, "Who's in charge?" If you are doing things you didn't really want to do, the behavior is in charge and that could suggest it is addiction.

But what also makes a behavior an addiction is that doing it is having negative consequences. Loving our children isn't an addiction though we do it no matter what they might do. Loving someone who beats us, is. Eating chocolate cake is only an addiction when we continue to do it long after realizing that eating it in our usual quantity is likely to leave us with diabetic kidney disease.

My body loves fasting and after a week like this past one where I ate a lot every day, taking a fast day felt wonderful. If I hadn't been able to eat at the conference I just attended, that would have raised alarm bells in my mind, because the meals I shared with peers were an important part of the conference and the food, which I had paid for in the conference fee, was exceptional for hotel fare.

So as long as you are fasting when you have decided to fast for reasons that make sense to you and as long as there isn't any evidence that you are harming yourself by fasting, I don't see any reason for concern.

If those who love you start telling you that you are overdoing it, or if you decide not to fast and then when the day comes find yourself feeling like you HAVE to fast, well then there probably is.

I have seen 5:2 frequently referred to as a diet. From the start, after watching the Horizons program, Eat, Fast & live longer I thought of it as a way of living to enhance health and the loss of extra pounds just a side benefit. I thought I might have to reduce to 1 fast a week but so far I am still doing 2 fasts while maintaining my goal weight. No addiction here, just the new normal.

I love the feeling of control and satisfaction I get in refusing food and overcoming hunger pangs on fast days and waking up the morning after a successful fast and knowing I held firm.

I was thinking about this last night, and I realized that anorexics use some of this same kind of "control" and "craving" language to describe their disorders.

I was anorexic in my late teens/early twenties and the "control and satisfaction in refusing food" was precisely one of my main thoughts at the time. Its been a long time and I know it won't happen to me again. I don't think you sound anywhere near being anorexic (especially as you can recognize the signs), but everyone should remember to be really careful !!!!!

@ewoodwor Great that you think about your motivation for fasting - many of us could do with reflecting on our relationship with food. Like you I have reached my target weight only recently and I understand you very well. Having felt helpless with the inevitable weight gain over the past decade I am so pleased that I can do something about my weight - i admit that I too like that feeling of control. The trick is to find a sustainable way of maintaining which can be different for each of us.
We now have to find that pleasure of control in working out the best way to maintain and keep healthy. If you like fasting then fasting two days a week and making up the calories on 5 eating days (making sure to eat a balanced diet) could still give you that satisfaction that you are in control of your ideal weight.

I love the feeling of control and satisfaction I get in refusing food and overcoming hunger pangs on fast days and waking up the morning after a successful fast and knowing I held firm.

I have seen longer periods of abstention from fasting after reaching goal (basically the first three months of this year) and I am currently in another one (last fast beginning of September). Reason: I made a solemn pledge to stay within my maintenance range of 2 kg. So I will not fast when close to the lower boundary. I do experience the occasional longing for a fast day, especially as I started it for health reasons. However, I like good food, it is never a problem 'not to fast', so I never really feel 'addicted'. I did consider to eat more than I used to do on non-fast days in order to 'enable' fasting, but somehow that felt strange and I never did.
Some observations and suggestions:
- You can 'feel in control' by not having to fast and stay 'on target' as well! You do not have to actively do something to be in control. Actually, the most powerful are those who 'get it their way' by anticipation of others (and have to do nothing to get it their way). So relax and enjoy the fact that you can be in control just like that.
- Even at times when I was not fasting, I kept visiting this forum en enjoyed participating as well. At some time, after a couple of months without a fast, I was asking the fundamental question: Am I still a faster? I realised that all I had accomplished, as well as my easy maintenance was the result of 5:2, so the answer was pretty clear:
You don't have to fast 2 days a week to be a happy faster!

The question that distinguishes addiction from other behaviors is really, "Who's in charge?" If you are doing things you didn't really want to do, the behavior is in charge and that could suggest it is addiction.

But what also makes a behavior an addiction is that doing it is having negative consequences. Loving our children isn't an addiction though we do it no matter what they might do. Loving someone who beats us, is. Eating chocolate cake is only an addiction when we continue to do it long after realizing that eating it in our usual quantity is likely to leave us with diabetic kidney disease.

My body loves fasting and after a week like this past one where I ate a lot every day, taking a fast day felt wonderful. If I hadn't been able to eat at the conference I just attended, that would have raised alarm bells in my mind, because the meals I shared with peers were an important part of the conference and the food, which I had paid for in the conference fee, was exceptional for hotel fare.

So as long as you are fasting when you have decided to fast for reasons that make sense to you and as long as there isn't any evidence that you are harming yourself by fasting, I don't see any reason for concern.

If those who love you start telling you that you are overdoing it, or if you decide not to fast and then when the day comes find yourself feeling like you HAVE to fast, well then there probably is.

Awesome and clear response @peebles. thanks