The FastDay Forum

I believe we were originally told we could NOT have location-specific topics or tents. It is certainly most disconcerting when nearly every one of my posts ends up at a terrible time for U.K. members and is usually ignored. That is why I rarely post anything these days. Maybe my posts are just so boring . . .

On a brighter note, we are supposed to have a Whole Foods Market opening here soon - I was SO excited 'til I found out it is due to open in the Spring of 2016 - don't know if I can wait that long !!!!!

I'm here! I'm rather new to 5-2 but plan on doing this for the rest of my life. Most of my posts are ignored as well, but I don't mind.

@lovemyparrot and @Canoegal, so sorry your posts have gotten ignored. It may have something to do with the time zones. But you are in the northern hemisphere the same as the Brits. Don't give up, jump up and down and wave till you gals get their attention. And you certainly have not been ignored by your own country women. @peebles and @rawkaren are in the States too.

EDIT:
I don't think ignored is the right word. I'm pretty sure no posts get ignored, overlooked because more posts come after yours during the time difference and yours gets to the bottom of the pile.

[carieoates]

I'm not in the US but I'm here waving to you all.

Hello, big wave from me too! Dashing off to work .........

@lovemyparrot It is certainly a timezone thing to the point I have stopped logging on so much when I'm in the US - No-one is ever around. We need to do what the Australian's do and post more - there are plenty of us to make a noise. I can't believe you have to wait 18 months for Whole Foods. I know some people knock it because it is expensive, but I always end up going back there. I have two near me!

Good Morning from the East Coast!
A nice little winter storm is just getting going here and we have freezing rain. What fun! All rain later and then turning to snow tonight. They're not sure how much we'll get, but I've heard anywhere from 3-12 inches! Yikes! I guess I'll be missing a couple days of boot camp. I may have been able to go today, but I opened the back door and the porch railing was encased in ice. Didn't think it was worth the risk. I have a treadmill that I can get on later.....if I'm so inclined.
I'm glad I get to eat today. Yesterday was ROUGH. I don't know why I was so hungry. I probably ended the day with around 600 calories in total.
Well, it's only 5:15 and I've had a bit of breakfast and a cup of coffee. If I were going to boot camp, I'd be leaving about 5:30. Instead of that, I'm heading for cup of coffee #2!
Should be a fairly busy day at work.....maybe I'll go out for lunch if the weather is not too bad.

What's happening with you?

Morning @Lori. You are up early. I have travelled back to the UK for the holidays, but also got up before 6am as I was worried I'd bump into my California sleep cycle and sleep until mid afternoon!.
I'm also ready to break yesterday's fast with an early lunch!

Good morning,
We have a bit of a storm here too. Freezing rain right now, I guess the roads are treacherous, but then it's going to just be a really miserable rainy day!!
I did great with my fast yesterday (although I've got a lot of things going on in my life that make me not so hungry lately.) I am pretty proud of myself, because my brother is staying with me and brought Oreos with him, usually a weakness for me, but I honesly haven't even really wanted one!
I like the produce at Whole Foods, but it is definitely waaaay out of my price range. I go there maybe once or twice a year to get some things I just can't get anywhere else.
Have a great day everyone!

I've been doing some reading on an alternate day diet thread on another site about something called a "potato hack". I'm not interested in eating only potatoes for 5-7 days, but I'm going to try eating potatoes on my fasting days. The key is to have NO fat with the potato. You can bake or boil them and then chill them for several hours(to build up the resistant starch) before eating. They can be reheated before eating. I'm going to try a baked potato with salsa tomorrow for my fast day lunch. They say they are very satiating and I need that after my "starving" day yesterday! I'm going to give it a try tomorrow. I'll bake my potatoes tonight and chill them for tomorrow. One girl I read about eats 1 1/2 large potatoes a day to stay around 500 cals on her fasting days. Interesting...I'll let you know how it goes.

Good luck @lori. Despite high carb, the resistant starch is supposed to have health benefits and combined with the fact you are having a protein fast too - this can also trigger a form of autophagy, so you will be having a healthy day. Let us know how it goes.

[Tracieknits]

Oooooh, I'm going to go look up this idea of resistant starch

Whole Foods can yield good bargains. They have fantastic sales, so watch the flyers faithfully. They sometimes have 50% off a certain item for one day or three days only. It's nice to have one close by so one can stock up - of course in less densely packed areas (like mine), "close by" can mean 20 minutes by car. Sigh.

Their selection of French cheeses and butters is hard to beat, but they are also quite expensive.

We're expecting that winter storm to start here this afternoon with heavy snow overnight and through tomorrow into Thursday am. Hope that doesn't cancel our Thursday Strength Training class and also hope it doesn't keep people from doing their grocery shopping on Thursday. OH and I have a big shop planned for Friday and I hate it when the store is crowded!

There's no Whole Foods or Trader Joe's near here, but we do have a wonderful regional supermarket (NY state, Pa.) Wegmans--they really emphasize quality and service. http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/store ... clear=true There's also a local natural foods supermarket coop with a small branch downtown near us http://www.greenstar.coop/ As downtown is being revitalized, including the building of more apartment buildings (young people, empty nesters and retirees are clamoring to live downtown) we hope to see more grocery options downtown too.

Good luck to everyone in the storm's path

@Lori, If you read the whole Potato Hack thread, you'll see that over time the people who did it found it didn't produce weight loss. That kind of post is very typical of that site, where people are always looking for some kind of simple miracle weight loss short cut rather than accepting that it is all about calories. That site exists to sell miracle diet products so the moderators encourage that kind of behavior. Conversely, anyone who points out that the miracle cures are bogus (and supports their argument with facts) eventually gets banned. I learned that through personal experience.

The anecdotal research they are basing that Potato idea on is based on one person's anecdotal report of eating nothing but potatoes for some period of time and losing weight. Then some of the paleo people tried it. But the vocal paleo people are all young healthy men with lots of muscle mass and high, male metabolisms, who can lose weight eating damn near anything. (My son lost 30 lbs last year cutting his calories down to 2,500 a day!)

If you just accept that it is about calories and that most of us women don't need too many calories to maintain to say nothing of lose, you'll do a lot better, over the long term, and you will also save yourself from eating a lot of awful and/or expensive fad food!

Re: Weather. After sitting in the cold and dark for 2 days due to the Thanksgiving storm, I am delightfully relaxed about this ice storm. Worst case, we sit in the cold and dark but there will be places open to eat this time, I won't have a turkey sitting out in a snow packed cooler, and my kids aren't driving anywhere! That said, this time of year I always try to talk myself into moving to North Carolina. Then, of course, I remember that I moved back to this area from the South not once but THREE times before in the past, because as awful as the weather is, there is so much I take for granted here that isn't other places!

Re Whole Foods. We have one in our region that doesn't look anywhere as fancy as ones I've seen pictures of online. But I hate it! I ate strict low carb for many years, and when I'd go in there it would astound me how much of what they were selling was pure starch and sugar. I'd see all these overweight women with their carts pilled high with starch, sugar, and obscenely expensive (worthless) supplements, and feel so sad for them. For a person with diabetes that high carb food is particularly toxic.

The other thing that annoys me about WFM is that their foods are packed with "natural flavoring" and other additives which are legal ways of representing MSG. MSG promotes weight gain in people regardless of calorie intake. I couldn't find a single broth there, for example, that didn't have hidden MSG in it. They also sell foods with inorganic phosphates in them, and added inorganic phosphates turn out to be extremely unhealthy for both your cardiovascular system and your kidneys.

Add to that the fact that they market everything by filling the store with a bogus spiritual aura (at least in our area, where a lot of people like to think of themselves as spiritually advanced) and the whole place annoys the heck out of me.

I walk through the WF store on my weekly shopping trips because OH likes one of the breads they sell, and I always sample the cheeses (very few of which are very good), but I rarely buy anything else there. Trader Joe's is in the same shopping center and I always find something I like in there at a much better price and without that annoying aura of sanctity. They too have lots of sugary starchy foods filled with MSG and inorganic phosphates but they don't pretend that overpaying for their food will make you a better person.

Fortunately, we have a community co-op in our town that sells the same merchandise as WF without the mark-ups and the pretension, so that's where I get the few (non-worthless) supplements I use (melatonin and calcium citrate) and things like locally fermented miso, asian sauces, bulk supplies and teas.

Oh yes......I know it's all about calories. I'm simply going to try it on a couple Fast days and see if I feel more satisfied. Yesterday was a such a difficult day that I'm looking for something to make the fast days more doable. I'm not advocating that everyone run out and buy sacks of potatoes.

Lesson learned. I won't be sharing anything I read or find interesting. I guess it's up to each person to do their own research and find their own way.