The FastDay Forum

I recall that a year ago @Wildmissus there were many posts like yours where people were having a hard time after doing 5:2 for a considerable while. I'm wondering about post-holiday slump and "winter blues" (SAD) for those of us in the North--perhaps we feel better about it all and do better once Spring and Summer arrive.

Another thought: along with what JulianaRivers said about having a mantra. When I think about maintaining weight or doing exercise, I try to remember to tell myself the reasons for doing it. Exercise, for instance, isn't just about feeling better (and looking better--no flat butt for this septuagenarian); it's mostly about maintaining and increasing strength and agility in order to stay out of prison (aka nursing home)--at least giving myself a much better chance of staying in control of my life.

In regard to controlling and losing weight--it's not just about feeling and looking better. I tell myself it's about avoiding heart disease, diabetes, and other bad things that can lead to years of debility and disease. No guarantee--but a much better chance.

Perhaps improving self talk in this way (answering the question "why am I doing this?") will help.

Keep checking in with the forum--we want you to succeed

[carorees]

Hi @wildmissus

Some thoughts:
Being apple shaped is a fairly sure-fire indicator of insulin-resistance or, in other words, carbohydrate intolerance. I would be interested to know how many grams of carbs you are eating each day? If you use MFP or similar you should be able to get the figures easily. Although I don't think that low carbing is the answer to all weight problems (it's probably much more complicated), I think that if you are insulin resistant lowering carb intake is an essential component of weight management. Late night snacking is particularly bad in this situation...whether it is because late night snacks are almost always carb laden or because our bodies are naturally turning to fat burning overnight and eating carbs then stops this from happening, is not clear. Insulin resistance seems to worsen with age which might be the cumulative effect of having a high carb diet but could also be due to natural changes in our bodies as we age...a decrease in oestrogen in women around the menopause seems to correlate with an increase in insulin resistance. It could be that it is not just diet fatigue at work here!
Eating carbs can be addictive: studies on mice given high sugar or high fat and sugar diets showed withdrawal symptoms in the mice when sugar was withdrawn and addictive behaviour regarding over-eating, particularly of foods high in a combination of fat and sugar (i.e., all those junk foods we all love).
From what you have said I get the impression that your carb intake has gone up since the weight loss phase.
It seems to me that you really need to address the between meal snacks. Just cut them out. But you don't need to give up the treat foods completely...just make sure that you have them as part of the meal...after your soup and bread for example. If you can fast all day on liquids only, surely you can fast between breakfast and lunch and between lunch and dinner? Perhaps you are not eating enough at those meals. Up your meal sizes (and especially the non-carb parts of the meal) and cut out the snacks.
If that doesn't turn things around, review what your carb intake is. Try dropping it by 50g per day by finding some carb laden foods you can do without and so some smart food swaps: e.g., swap some pasta for veggies; swap your porridge for a lower carb breakfast; have nuts instead of crisps.
It could well be that the principle of lose a little, maintain a little is sound. I'm interested to know what SSure and peebles have to say on this. But I do know that in people who have lost weight the brain circuits that encourage hedonic eating (eating for the pleasure of eating) are more active, driving us to eat more: food is more desirable, especially high carb food, we underestimate portion sizes and are slower to feel full. Probably maintaining is the best target when you go through these periods. I am sure that Amanda Salis' ideas are worth trying.
Finally, stress comes in many forms...fasting is a form of stress as is exercise. Over-exercising or over-fasting can be counter-productive. As others have suggested try a change in fasting method or a short break from fasting.

Good luck, we're all rooting for you

I sadly don't have any words of wisdom because it's all been said but thanks for bringing the topic up @wildmissus. I think the idea of lose some then maintain for a bit is a good one and I am going to try because I seem to lose and gain the same 3 kgs and have done for a while which is disheartening. I do know about the fasting fatigue too - I do Mon and Weds and always find the second day the hardest - the cal intake tends to creep up when I get in from work - a biscuit here and there which I never used to do. For what it's worth I always look at your stats and think how well you have done but it is an interesting subject you raise and one which obviously strikes a chord with many of us.

[Tracieknits]

Oh I'm sorry you're dealing with this. Last fall, I was feeling somewhat like this as well, but hubby and I decided to nip it in the bud before it got worse. I got two books by Dr. Amanda Sainsbury-Salis, she's an Australian obesity researcher. Her advice is excellent, even if I don't always follow it. Before eating, you're supposed to stop and check yourself - how hungry are you? You should be legitimately hungry before you eat anything, but not ravenous. Then you need to check yourself as your eating, and stop as soon as you are just satisfied. Granted, that's a lot easier said than done! She suggests journaling, and I did that for a few weeks to get the idea of what she was talking about.

So last fall, I basically incorporated the advice in those books including using my fitbit to get between 8,000 and 12,000 steps a day. Then I logged my calories every day for almost two months, to see how much I was eating and to try to rein in how much I was eating. I used myfitnesspal, which also linked to my fitbit, so if I exercised more, it awarded me more calories. I think the whole thing did an excellent job of reining in the out-of-control aspect I was feeling. I stopped gaining and got mostly back on track until late November (our Thanksgiving). I don't diet between THanksgiving and Christmas. I try not to overdo too much, and I still weigh daily, but I don't diet.

Hubby and I have decided every January we will recommit to our weight loss (or maintenance) and fasting, in part because of the holidays. But we also think it's a good habit to get into. I also find that fasting seems to go better after I've had a solid bit of playtime.

For me, weighing every day is also very key to maintaining. It helps me get my mind in the right place for they day - but of course I'm not terribly obsessive about it and I've seen people on this forum take this idea much too far! I look at the number, and I understand that water plays a HUGE role in any variation. I remember what I ate yesterday (was it salty or too much or was I drinking?) and I make a plan. If my weight was higher, I try to have a couple of extra glasses of water, and maybe skip dessert or eat more vegetables. To be honest, I don't often skip dessert though. If my weight is lower than the day before, I pat myself on the back and usually have more inspiration to behave the next day.

Of course this was all thrown out the window in the last six weeks. I gained back nearly 10 pounds from Thanksgiving through New Years - I had bloodwork coming back saying my T4 levels were too low (which means my metabolism is really slow), but I'm still on thyroid suppressing medication because my doctor wants my TSH higher before my radiation in two weeks. Sigh. So I'm fighting really hard to not gain any more weight. I'm hoping that after the radiation, when my thyroid gets too fast for a few weeks, I can take advantage of that spin and lose these pounds with less effort.

So yes, we all have struggles that are just NO FUN and even though fasting is easier than any other WOE I've been on, it doesn't mean it's effortless. We need to give ourselves vacations and we need to recommit periodically. And you're right, the feed days are as important in this WOE as the fast days.

TL;DR - try logging food on fast days with Myfitnesspal and get a pedometer ;-P

My responses are about to be a little random and take posts out of sequence, plus they're going to drag in some somewhat tangential items, so - my apologies for that.

Is it true that 5:2 dieting or other intermittent fasting just cant be sustained for some people?

My instinct from observing people fasting as a weight loss strategy is that this is true in some contexts and possibly at different periods of someone's life. I continue to be surprised that difficulty with fasting doesn't show up more as a discussion point in the trials that have been done but that seems to be because the drop out rate from fasting for weight change is comparable to calorie restriction and other diets. I also suspect that the screening for these trials reduces their applicability to the wider population.

There are several reasons why I've worded this so awkwardly.

If you have blood sugar related mood disturbances (and these might be so subtle that they're not readily apparent to you) then it's plausible that you find fasting difficult in this state. If you find a WOE that produces blood sugar changes that are within bounds for you, then it's possible that you can fast in this state as you don't have insulin, leptin, or other hormone levels sending signals that make you notice food and want to eat.

It's tedious, and it's something that a lot of us innately rebel against, but a food journal is remarkably helpful in highlighting responses to particular meals and whether or not particular foods have an impact on you. It might seem more straightforward to adopt the popular categorisation of foods as low/high GI/GL but it doesn't always follow that that particular food has that effect on you. Plus, there aren't that many well-established values for foodstuffs for the Insulin Index but a glance through that would show that notionally low GI/GL foods like meat and some dairy can have a high Insulin Index for some people: if you're one of them, you might seem to be eating low carb but still experiencing hormone-driven hunger/desire to over-eat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insulin_index has a good chart.
As ever, all evaluations of these food items can't be the full story of what happens when we eat mixed meals. So, we're back to journals and learning if something triggers appetite.

I'm also of the opinion that there may be something that goes awry for women that is related to hormone cycling during the menstrual cycle (for many reasons) and, for some, during peri-menopause. Some women have observed a benefit from switching their IF schedule so that they observe an eating window while pre-menstrual and switch back to 5:2, 4:3 or ADF on day 2 of their menses (or whenever it is that they typically feel better). I mention this because several of them had decades of struggling with binge-eating during parts of the cycle.

Dr Johnson of the Johnson Up Day Down Day Diet (aka JUDDD) suggests regular weight loss maintenance (WLM) breaks can be useful for people who are struggling with diet fatigue. A fair number of JUDDD people take regular WLM mental health breaks. It's not that they cease to fast, but they eat more on their DD/FD - up to 60% of the calculated TDEE - and observe the rotations until they feel ready to move back to lower calories DD/FD. For some, these breaks last 2 weeks, but others who are currently maintaining losses of >100 lbs, and still have more that they wish to shed, have done this for a year before moving back into 'official' WLM.

Johnson suggests that people who can't face a day's fasting might experiment with window eating or whatever suits them as a change. There's some suggestion that some people just feel better with increased calories, and it allows them time to stabilise at a reduced weight, before moving into another phase. This may also have some hormone relevance in some people: adapting to the hormones that are associated with your changed body fat stores, particularly if these influence your emotional response to eating.

Overall, I've seen a fair number of people for whom fasting didn't take at the first or subsequent attempts - but, whatever hormonal or life shift happened, it worked for them at another time. There are people who were fine fasting, and never had problems with rotations, until vv, they were blindsided by feelings of deprivation/restriction and had to switch to something else.

@wildmissus Here's my perspective. I believe, very strongly that the weight you can maintain for five to ten years is your perfect weight, no matter how much better some lower weight might be in theory. And what I have learned through many, many years of dieting, reading research, and being involved in forums like this one, is that very few women over 45 can achieve the weights they aspire to--or even those they were able to maintain without much effort in their 20s or 30s. This is even truer for those who have had children.

I weighed in the 120s in my 20s and the few times I packed on weight, I found it easy to take it off and maintain. But by my late 50s it was a major achievement to get down to 140. And that was with rigid calorie counting on top of very strict ketogenic dieting and as much exercise as I could do, almost daily for periods as long as 18 months. I was able to maintain between 142-145 lbs, below that, never. And I am not insulin resistant. My thyroid is perfect using every test you can get. But I was contending with menopause which radically changes how our bodies work.

Most diet research is conducted in young people and males. Studies of post-menopausal women confirm that exercise isn't as helpful for them and that weight loss is much more difficult. Our female bodies appear to need a bit of fat. And it must work, because we have longer life expectancies than males of all shapes and sizes.

There is good evidence, too, that for people of both genders in middle age, a BMI in the 25-27 range is healthy, and it gets healthier as we reach our 70s. Weight loss for any reason after that age, including intentional dieting, RAISES the risk of dying.

So it seems to me that diet fatigue might be our body's way of telling us that we need to let go of what is likely to be a diet goal that is no longer realistic--one we won't be able to maintain without setting off all the alarms our bodies have to tell us that we aren't eating enough.

So once we find the level where we can maintain without deprivation, one which allows the occasional treat and indulgence, that should be our goal weight. We should maintain that weight by oscillating back and forth on and off whatever diet we can tolerate, whenever our weight goes up 2 or 3 real fat lbs above that goal. Losing the two or three pounds that accumulate above that realistic goal is doable for most of us, and can be done within a month or two. Above that, ugh. Long periods of stressful dieting and misery. So choose that maintainable weight, enjoy your food without going crazy, and when your weight goes up a few pounds, as it will, spend a month back on your chosen diet.

My last thought is that if a fasting diet, after the first month or two, is making you go out of control on your other days, it may be time to stop fasting and manage your eating a different way for a month or two. I had that happen over my first two months, but the weight loss was so good it wasn't an issue. Tthen I hit a stretch where fasting became very comfortable and I didn't feel like I was dieting. Right now, I'm starting to feel a bit the way you describe, while weight loss has come to a complete halt. I'm taking that as a sign that maybe I need to declare victory and go back into a maintenance mode. My body is fighting too hard to maintain this weight. I will be cutting back a bit on my fasting too, once I reach my Fastiversary next month, and the chances are good that I'll end up closer to 145 than the 140 I'm at now. But that is a lot better than the 152 I got up to last year.

I would also join in with @carorees and others and suggest that carbs may be an issue. Rather than trying to cut back a bit on your carbs, I would suggest doing a strict ketogenic low carb diet for a month or so. What's nice about strict, ketogenic low carb diets, especially if you haven't done one before, is that they usually eliminate hunger completely after the first few days. When this happens, you may find it a real relief not to feel driven to eat by hunger signals. Low carb diets often don't cause much weight loss, because they do not, as the books claim, make it possible to ignore calories. Many people do over eat on them because they are sold with the "calories don't count" message. But what's nice is you won't usually GAIN weight overeating on a strict Low Carb diet. An it is such a nice change not to be hungry!

If you want to try a ketogenic diet keep your carbs under 50 g a day. Look up the carbs in the foods you eat, and be very alert to portion size. Don't guess. Most low carb diets fail because people eat far more carbs than they think they are eating, so their diets aren't really low carb.

Avoid all items sold as low carb diet food. Most have lying labels. Meat, fish, cheese, eggs, Greek yogurt, and some protein powders are safe. Eat a big serving or two of low carb green veggies every day. Avoid processed foods with too much salt and chemicals in them. Stick with the diet for two weeks. Eat as much of the no carb foods as you want. The first two days will be hard but after that most people find it much easier.

I don't recommend long-term ketogenic dieting for anyone save for people who have diabetes and are in the small minority who prefer eating that way. But a few weeks (or months if you can do it) of eating that way will break all the high carb mindless eating habits very effectively. You can then add back carbs, slowly, and small amounts of carbs will feel like a huge indulgence. Many of us find we can manage hunger very well eating between 80 and 110 g a day. Some larger people can eat a lot more without triggering hunger cravings.

If you try this approach, it isn't about weight loss. You may lose a lot of weight at first but much of it and sometimes most of it will be water weight loss that comes from having burnt off your glycogen stores. They come back as soon as you eat over 70-100 grams a day, depending on your size. But it is really nice to extinguish that hunger that many of us get when eating carbs and to learn how much of our hunger is generated by eating those carbs.

Thanks @peebles thats very useful about the lowcarb keto stuff x
So many posts to read,thanks everyone for chipping in...need to come back and read them all
WM, youre quite tall which helps a lot! the lowcarb keto might be worth a try?

On a general point, it seems that, for some of us, we need fewer than 3,500 calories to pack on a pound of body fat (tho' much will always depend on the food source) and we need a deficit of >3,500 calories to shed a pound of body fat.
post214065.html

IF is a form of calorie cycling.

It would be really helpful to have some idea of how many people have been helped by eating above or to the notional TDEE, not reduced calories on their non-fast days at particular points on their weight change journey. Much must depend on the variability of TDEE between individuals and how responsive someone's metabolic rate/output is to calorie intake. E.g. Suppversity's discussion of a recent calorie shifting study:
http://suppversity.blogspot.co.uk/2014/ ... x-fat.html
It's one non-blinded/non-controlled study - and what is needed is enough high-quality, long-term assessments to yield enough useful data to allow a sound systematic review - but it's of some interest as it is elaboration and some confirmation of the previous paper by these authors. The results of this 11:3 day cycle (11 days of calorie restriction, 3 days of non-restricted eating, rinse and repeat x2) report a body fat loss that was 2.6x greater than calculated for overweight/obese women with sedentary lifestyles.

I accept that some people favour abstinence and others moderation. I don't know if this influences whether some people find complete abstinence more manageable (in the short term) than the relative moderation of IF which allows people the freedom to eat whatever they want but not necessarily in appropriate quantities to meet what various writers would describe as an addictive desire to over-eat - or what others would describe as their hormone-drive desire to over-eat.

I've seen people switch to calorie-cycling (similar pattern to that in the study) as a way to switch things up and then move back into an IF pattern when it suits them. Some switched back very quickly as they couldn't manage daily restriction after the relative freedom of IF and the knowledge that, "I can have it tomorrow). But, others found it a useful change of pace, particularly some who had trouble with (what are known as) Up Up and Away Days (non-fast days that got out of control).

I think I have some cognitive dissonance on this point. I'm tempted to say that the thought of restricting my calorie/food intake for 11 consecutive days fills me with dread. But, I didn't anticipate that I'd find myself with a BMR of <900kcals and a TDEE of 1100-1300kcals so I already eat what some people in a comparable demographic for age/size/activity level would consider to be a very restricted intake.

As per @peebles - I wonder if you might benefit from evaluating whether your appetite/desire to over-eat is mitigated by shifting your WOE for a trial period, @WildMissus? I don't know what might fit in well with your family life - whether it's calorie cycling or something like ketogenic. If the latter, then there are several good recipe sites that you might browse to see if it's a good fit to you and your preferences.

[wildmissus]

Thank you so much @carorees, @Ssure, and @peebles, such great information and advice there. I am actually on holiday next week so will have time to spend doing something about this. In real terms I have no idea how many carbs I eat. I have resisted recording everything on MFP, having done nothing more than getting registered on their site but I think it has come time to face the music. My mother has Type 2 diabetes which is always a concern for me but the last time I was tested I wasn't even pre-diabetic but I am aware that my age can change things quite quickly.

A ketogenic diet for a couple of weeks interests me as does calorie cycling as does using a daily fasting window but all of them are a bit scary as I'll be eating every day but that is probably the point - do something different!

I'm going to re-read the detailed posts and this time I'm actually going to do something about this situation.

A ketogenic diet for a couple of weeks interests me as does calorie cycling as does using a daily fasting window but all of them are a bit scary as I'll be eating every day but that is probably the point - do something different!

Not that your head is spinning now For anyone interested in looking at a ketogenic plan (it's relatively easy to add in more carb grammes if you need to back into this): http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/2014/01 ... -plan.html

And there are recipes with appropriate nutrition info. at several sites - this is a good browse: http://www.ruled.me

http://ketodietapp.com/Blog/post/2013/1 ... rshmallows

Thank you for all your responses, I knew this wasn't just about me!

Very apple shaped
My breakfast is usually porridge (300 cals?), lunch is often homemade soup with either good bread and butter or cheese and crackers (700cals?), evening meal is often a Hairy Dieters meal (700 cals?). Total meals = 1700 cals. The other half is coming from 'treats' - biscuits, crisps, chocolate eaten with my meals and in between.

Hey there @wildmissus. Lovely how you took the time to respond to everyone. Just love the community in here.
Firstly... apple shaped is very sexy.
Secondly, my immediate reaction on you saying you eat porridge on a non fast day, every day... Can you switch to something less carby and still be filled? I think ive read it in the forum before but having porridge each and every day is not good.
Egg maybe? Fruit? Yoghurt Protein bars (im into them at the moment) not necessarily to cut the calories.

[janeg]

can't add anything useful...
wet fish anyone?

Thanks for this very helpful thread! I have started reading all posts yesterday and continued today.

I am/was the apple type, too. The problem with this can be that there is a lot of toxic processing going on in the fat stored at the belly. In the nutrition form I started with - "Slim in Sleep" (SiS) - my type was also called the testosterone type (yes, as a female ). The book adviced this type to really cut down on carbs at lunch, too. So carbs were only for breakfast (in a limited amount, 75 grams were it for me, and not combined with proteins then - as I wrote elsewhere SiS is a buzz claim for food combining). C/P/P I followed this strictly from August to October 2014. Then ate carbs for lunch very consciously (and controlled).

What really changed my eating habbits (positively) dramatically and sustainably were the time gaps between eating. 5 hours between meals and (protein) dinner best before 7 p.m. Eating in between was defined "no go". I sticked with it (and still do on non-fast days). It was a matter of training to get used to it. Once I did I really felt it was good for me and the positive impact it had on my "hunger" or imagined hunger.

The impact those SiS months had on me: I felt full of energy. I had only one eating flash in months. (FD have even increased this high-energy-level and I am so happy about it!) Although I am 51 and have irregular menstrual cycles my fat cells melted away visibly. Before that I had thought: "With over 50 I will probably struggle along badly" (that was what I heard and read a lot, too). For myself I can not affirm this, though.

My goal is 63 kg. That was my lowest weight when I went to university. I am still very curious whether this is doable. I will not go there by any means, of course. I chose this because I remember my feeling fit and all energetic back then. Had no allergies, no depression episodes and so on. When I start to feel bad I will let go of that goal.

Here are some things that helped me tremendously on my way: I listened to a mental CD program every day for 100 days. It was an affirming of my (well) being so to speak. During that time I had a very bad professional period. I sticked with my nutrition.

I work with affirmations/mantras every day. (Please let me add here that "(I can,) I will" is a future statement. For myself I would replace the "I will" by "I do". Do is now in the present moment.)

I have bought myself a little treasure chest. I define my weight-loss-phases with small index cards. Right now there are 69 index cards in my chest. Each day I write down on them what I eat and when (not the calories but the amount of food and beverages). This motivates me and gives me stages on my journey. I won't drink alcohol during this actual journey of 10 weeks.

Last but not least I have framed my process as "letting go of stored and mostly external energies". I see it as melting free the person inside these fat cells. Formerly my focus was outside of myself. I wanted to be like "..." (an image/fashion dictate) That has never motivated me enough in the long run. Focusing on my health and well-being has changed a lot for me. And with external energies I mean all those food and drinks taken in for the wrong reasons, coping with emotional (childhood) issues.

I can say now: My life has changed a lot although on the outside I am still a 51 year old woman, single, needing a job and and and. My definition of myself has changed completely by melting away fat cells and living what feels healthy and right for me.

I share this because it may be of interest for others.

Best
Mahalo

PS
I like this community and am very happy that I found you

@wildmissus, I'm still at a good place with light days...normal days can be more problematic. In my blog entries, I hit a decision point a few months ago when my weight loss became glacially slow: 1. Add on more restrictions to lose weight; or 2. Just continue what I've been doing (2 days of 500cals every week without fail; paying little attention to calories on normal days); or 3. Give up.

1. is a problem because my pattern with "diets" is that when they get too onerous, I quit. For example, in 2013 I was doing a "fruit only" in the morning and food combining the rest of the day. Even though my purpose hadn't been to lose weight, I lost about 15 pounds and it was staying off. But...it's not easy, never eating protein and bread together, etc. Then I got it into my head to go off wheat, which I did for a couple of months. Rather than having fabulous results, I lost NO more weight, my skin didn't improve (I have eczema which flares up from time to time)...in other words, no positive results despite draconian dietary restrictions. So, one fine day, it all went out the window; within a couple of months, I'd gained it all back (surprise surprise!). So, I knew if I started restricting my normal days too much, this WOL would be abandoned as well.

2. My current weight is about where I spent a few years, so I'm not surprised to be plateauing here. I try to plan what I'm going to eat ahead of time--almost "fantasizing" hee hee--but it helps when it's actually time to eat, I'm not cramming the nearest bag of chips down my throat--I "save" my appetite for the "real thing." (5:2 has helped me understand and accept that hunger is not an uncontrollable savage beast, that I CAN wait a bit to eat, even on a day that I don't "have to") I'm lucky in that I don't wake up hungry, even the morning after a light day when there's something in the house I'm anxious to "get to," I do wait till I am hungry before I eat it.

An example: I recently discovered a Trader Joe's holiday specialty (thank god it's only holiday!): Chocolate Babka. Gah! (I have the opposite problem of many of you: living alone, I have to make sure I don't eat "the whole thing," at least not all at once. Bits and pieces in the freezer....) I have found that (my thin sister has the same issue, huh) that if I eat something sweet without major protein first thing (first meal, which may not be till late afternoon these days, even on normal days), my blood sugar goes berserk and I feel horrible the rest of the day--so I just don't do that anymore. So, my first meal of the day was a nice omelet with mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, and feta cheese. Since I knew that'd be filling to me, I skipped toast with the omelet...and had a piece of babka for dessert. Interestingly enough, I'm eating more desserts (yummy things I really like) than before 5:2--when I commonly "grazed" all the time and behaved as though hunger was the enemy. Now, I save my appetite (I don't really think about calories except on light days) for something that's worth it.

The one thing I did find was that I'd allowed myself to eat a teeny bit more on light days. I realized that I'd rather be "really strict" on 2 days a week than limit myself on the other 5.

I have realized that I just plan on 5:2ing for the rest of my life. Quitting isn't an option, because that'd mean gaining back the 23+ pounds I've lost and going back to painful knees and feet and trouble walking. If I ever get "skinny" enough to worry about losing too much (pinch me!), I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Yeah, I got a little excited when I thought I was going to keep losing weight and get thinner quicker. But hey, I'm taking the scenic route and it's OK. Hopefully this means I won't have a lot of droopy skin at the end!

Don't really have anything scientific or new to add but for me personally, keeping a food log helped massively. I had a period between September and November where I was eating far too much sweet stuff on non fast days. I put it down to a number of things: crappiness at work, time of year, bad habits creeping back etc Anyway I started logging everything I ate and blogging about it on here. It must have been very boring and I doubt many read it with interest, but it helped to know that if I was going to eat that then I was going to have to publicise it. It also helped me actually think about what I was eating and whether I really wanted/needed it. In other words mindfulness I suppose. I only did it for a couple of weeks but it got me back on track. Then of course Christmas came...needless to say I haven't logged my weight for a while... this weekend I promise.
Hope you find a solution that works for you soon though @wildmissus