The FastDay Forum

[Tracieknits]

Great to see so many new faces!

I have the same experience. I have friends who regularly diet in an all or nothing manner, reducing their calories to 1200 or so a day, every single freaking day - and then look at me like *i* have two heads and like I'm suggesting the craziest thing ever. They've seen me drop 50 lbs, so they KNOW it works. But they're afraid is all I can think.

I'm in New York. I've been on 5:2 for two weeks and am so glad to find a diet I can stick with. At times the fasting days are a challenge but there's always tomorrow!

Not sure why 5:2 hasn't taken off here YET.... Likey since there's no business promoting it.

Anyone else in NYC?

Joan

I have a suspicion - can't imagine why - that @nycnyc2013 is in NYC!

Re: the question of why 5:2 isn't as popular in the U.S.--for one, I think people are afraid of the "fasting" thing, they think they have to starve for days on end (they just stop listening when you say "fasting"). It's one reason I use the term "light day" for myself; I have fasted (juice, 10 days) and it's not the same thing. I believe that the terms you use influence you mentally, which is why I say WOL (way of life), not WOE (because of what it spells ).

Another reason is that Michael Mosley is not well known in the U.S.; till this, I'd never heard of him and I'm pretty conversant with this sort of thing. Someone had said we need to get Dr. Oz on it, but unfortunately, most people in the U.S. who are interested in health issues don't take him seriously. Hmmmm....I can't think of anyone in the U.S. with a similar reputation as MM: popular yet taken seriously.

One thing I am thinking about: as a writer, I'm thinking about offering a magazine an article on 5:2 with my personal story as well as the technical parts. If I do this, I might want to include some additional stories, especially from fellow Americans (since I'd want the American public to take this seriously). Anyone else interested?

One thing I am thinking about: as a writer, I'm thinking about offering a magazine an article on 5:2 with my personal story as well as the technical parts.

I think that is a wonderful idea - yes, do go for it !!!

Good Morning!

Another eating day.......yeah! I did a great job not overeating yesterday and am hoping to do the same today. Once again, I logged my planned food for the day and have several hundred calories I can add in for snacks, or maybe even a beer! Once I feel that I have the portion control in hand, I won't be logging on eating days. I just need to see the number on the scale go down a bit to know I'm on the right track. I read something on the Facebook 5:2 page about not relying on the scale, but instead, having a pair of "Jeans of Truth" that you try on periodically to gauge your progress. Love that idea! My sister said she got rid of her scale years ago and has a pair of "unforgiving" jeans that she uses instead. She said she has flung them across the room on more than one occasion!

Hope you all have an awesome day!

As to awareness of IF in the US, I heard Mosely on the Diane Rehm Show back in 2013. I guess this appearance was not enough to spur great interest here.

Here is a link to the audio if anyone would care to listen to it. h
ttp://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2013-0 ... -fast-diet

Good morning! I'm on my 2nd fast day of the week. Monday went very well so I'm hopping today does also. Not much else going on. We went sledding and ice skating yesterday but probably won't get to that today. Have a great day everyone!

@ferretgal The most famous and serious person that I know of who does IF is Paul Krugman, the economist with the column and blog in the the NY Times. See my post about him here: 5-2-diet-chat-f6/another-nobel-laureate-for-if-t13472.html?hilit=krugman
The article he links to echos what we say on this forum--we're all different and need to find our own way in regards to how we cut back intermittently or any other way.

Here's the link directly to his blog post: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/1 ... egion=Body

Good luck with your article!

This is my second week of fasting. These two weeks have been much busier than usual in terms of social commitments involving food, so I have eaten way more than I would normally on my non-fast days. However, my fast days have been wonderful. I think about food a lot less than I would normally (since I was doing "traditional" dieting with counting calories before). I still plan to count calories most of the time because I don't experience "fullness" and will just keep eating if I don't, but I love the freedom of not thinking about food when I'm fasting.
I mentioned this to my doctor today, and she thought it was a great idea. It's not that I wasn't successful before - since my last physical 16 months ago I lost 52 lbs - but she said it sounded like a good plan.

I just wish I had more energy for exercise. Since I started, I've been tired, but I can't tell if it's work stress, the diet, or too much social stuff! Any one else feel tired? I don't feel tired during the day, just in the evening when I would normally exercise.

[Tracieknits]

I'm always tired lately, but my thyroid is broken, so that's why. But I've never been one who could exercise in the evening. If I don't do it before noon, it's pretty much not happening at all.

Great to see some new faces here from the U.S.!

I think part of the reason that fasting isn't popular here is that no one profits from it. Think of the money that people have been making catering to people who got scared silly about how eating grain would do all those terrible things to them. Or the empires built on gluten free. When there is money for food manufacturers in some diet fad, they make sure that it gets lots of exposure on TV and the health media that they support with their ad dollars.

But a diet that says, "Eat whatever you want, just a lot less of it twice a week." How are you going to turn that into a product line you can charge $$ for at Whole Foods?

@Ferretgal, Do you already have the contacts to write for major magazines? I write and have a pretty decent readership but not in mainstream media. I have been holding off writing about fasting, however, because no diet will get me excited until I see a significant number of people able to stick to it and maintain the weight loss for 3+ years. I am seeing an awful lot of the same one year of success followed by regain to more than they started with pattern just reading this forum. So my enthusiasm, for now is tempered.

I know quite a few people who have stuck to very low carb diets for considerably longer than 3 years, so I know that they can be done, though you really have to study the success stories to find out how. The bestselling books are not much help as they always paint such an unrealistic picture.

But with fasting we just don't have any long term communty yet. I hope this community will turn into that kind of community. But I'm not even sure I will be able to maintain my year's worth of loss at this point.

So for now I'm just doing my diet, listening carefully to the experiences reported by other people earnestly doing theirs, and waiting to see if this diet has anything more to offer the world than the many others out there that most people can do for a brief while and then abandon.

Wise words @peebles. It needs longer in studying reactions and results. Like many other diets, people do very well to begin with, but it is the sustainability that counts and it is this sustainability compared to other diets I'm really interested in. I'm oversensitive to it because 6 months after I started, I became a re-bound eater, ie fast but then eat too much on the re-bound on normal days. I didn't have this behavior before I started 5:2 and so this is new for me and I'm still learning how to manage it or just to resign myself to the fact that this is not a WOE for me. It might be just a phase and we are all different. I have read (it might have been Varaday), that the answer is to fast more frequently, but this seems counter-intuitive to me and I'm not sure I'm willing to try.

Unfortunately, I'm not one of those who has great success when first starting out. I began seriously on Jan 1st and gained .2 the first week and gained 2 lbs the 2nd week! Fasting days are never a problem, but the first 2 weeks I think I may have had too many treats. This week I have logged my food on MFP on "eating" days just to see where I'm at and I seem to come in about 300-500 calories under TDEE. I've been having a beer while making dinner to add a few more calories. I know that isn't ideal, but I found a new Sam Adams that I love and bought a case for the house. Friday is my official weigh in day, but I took a peek at the scale this morning and I'm within 6/10ths of where I started. So, I probably still will have no loss after 3 weeks, but at least I've lost the gain!

Boot camp this morning was a tough legs workout, so that may boost the scale tomorrow. Time to break out the "Jeans of Truth"!

Have a good day everyone!

@rawkaren, I just opened a topic on this subject. Because, like you, after an initial period of success, I am starting to have second thoughts and questioning whether the weight I've lost is sustainable. I have maintained very successfully in the past on a moderate carb diet (100-110 g a day, roughly 1600 calories a day) and done it for a long time, until some medical issues caused regain. Even then I only regained about 7 lbs before embarking on this 5:2 diet and losing 10-12.

Do come join in the discussion, "Does prolonged fasting change us in ways that lead to regain" https://forum.fastday.com/benefits-side-effects-f28/does-prolonged-fasting-change-us-in-ways-that-lead-to-regain-t13735.html

well my 4-3 did not go as planed. Friday I woke up and was starving even though my last fast day was Wednesday; so I ate breakfast and after that I decided the 3rd day was optional and if I felt good today I would try again. Today I'm going to take it one hour at a time. I decided to skip breakfast because I feel good and will go from there. My target goal is 1000 calories for today. We shall see what happens. I LOVE the flexibility of this WOL. I really think this is something I can do forever