The FastDay Forum

Thought this might make a difference.. Both to keep in check just what we eat on fastdays for everyone in the household (we are all on 4:3) and to remind ourselves how quickly you can consume near 500 calories before dinner!
I used to do this back in April/May 2013 and Ive become a bit blaze about it all.
Won't bother with feast days.. so far I'm up to about 200 calories today. gulp.

Anyone else gone back to strict calorie counting after a break? Did it help?

I think there were times when I stopped counting but was still strict. Lately I count (I use MFP) but sometimes go over 500 by a bit (always less than 600, or even 550).

[carieoates]

I have to also JR.
No harm done , nice to be in control when things start to slip action is required.

Oh I try to be quite firm with my fast days. Having said that, there have bean days when I think that 10g more Cheerios aren't going to make a whole heap of difference (even if I DO go over 500 a little bit). I certainly never go over more than 520. 550 would be a disaster in my mind!

I always count on my fast days as you say its so easy to go over 500
I also have a rough tot up on other days to make sure I'm not going over my tdee, its the only way I can do it otherwise I can so easily eat all the wrong things and be way over = no weight loss

I wish I had the discipline to count calories. The best I can do is estimate the calories in a recipe and a few items (80cal apple, 10cal pickle, 80cal orange, etc) and then stick to those. I try to estimate the calories on the high end of a range to help ensure that I stay at or below 500. But this is my second attempt at 5:2 so I can't say that estimating and hoping for the best is a good way to go about things.

I'm with you on this Juliana.Rivers. I am going to do this too. I used to count, then I got slack and estimated. Now I think I need to go back to counting.

It's working.. i did the big count which was just writing on a 3 column paper on fridge what we ate.. each of us . and tallying.. i was 540 one day and 580 another. Over but only just. boy did i eat less

the results

2 readings yesterday and today of 72.3kg. when i was often seeing 73 point something im over the moon.

and my sis has lowest reading on weight for a year!!!!


yeippee

Starting to try again, getting the gumption, and no, I am not mad at myself.

piper@ It does take some doing to get back into good habits. We are all so busy or may feel as in my case... oh i know about calories in food,. no need to do what the newbies do. well. you get very laid back about what we actually eat on fast days after some months/years. especially after getting good results.. then when the results go bad you can forget it may just be that we are slipping back into over snacking or overeating on main meals.

Once ive got results looking better, i might do something like calorie count first Monday, Wednesday and Friday of every month. its easy to know when a month changes and it will keep me on my toes.

Im feeling if i dont feel those hunger pains, im probably really not fasting properly.

I guess it may be different for the Eating window group as they just modify times of eating.

I have always calorie counted on fast days. I have a list of calorie counts, I weigh and measure and write everything down in a book. I do have a lot of recipes I use and I trust the calorie counts on those. Because I have a cup of tea in the morning and then only clear sugar free fluid until I eat in the evning it is not too onerous

HI Juliana.Rivers. Counting calories tonight. Very hungry and trying to remember how I hung out with hunger in the early days. I have counted calories by weight in roast chicken - with skin- and I reckon I can get away with 250calories, add 50 gm for salad. That's 300 calories. So there's 200 calories left for dessert. Hm.

Being the massively disorganised person that I am, I have always relied on the labels on my fresh soup to keep me posted on how many calories I am eating on a fast day. When I first started fasting, I would split my allowance between lunch & dinner, but now I only eat at dinner time, so there is rarely a day when I am in any danger of going too close to 500 calories. I know this might sound a bit lazy, but it works for me and that's the most important thing.

Since discovering fasting, I love the freedom that a fast day gives me. I can race out of the door first thing in the morning without having to obsess about what and when I will eat....because I know what my plan for the day is! As I write this, I am wondering why I lapsed over the last few months, given that this WOL is so flexible. What a 'nana!! Still, the main thing is I am back. File it under "being human" and move on....