The FastDay Forum

I was reading messages on another board where people do alternate day fasting, and was struck by how many people who had been at it for long periods of time reported what sounded to me like bingeing behavior on eating days.

This is a concern for me, because I am still having trouble eating reasonably on my non-fast days, and because I have a long history of maintaining a significant weight loss by eating moderately on a daily basis and know myself pretty well, I am pretty sure that my drive to overeat which is getting stronger, not weaker, must be physiological.

In particular, I am really craving carby, sugary stuff, which I have had a good handle on in the past. My blood sugars are in decent shape right now, so I don't think it is blood sugar swings driving this behavior. Instead, I think it must be a side effect of fasting, probably something hormonal, by which I mean not the female hormones but the appetite-related ones, leptin, ghrelin, peptide YY.

Research I have done in the past suggests that there is no diet that actually affects these hormones in the way you'd like to affect them--i.e. keeps them from pushing you to regain lost fat. The claims that various diets do this are usually based on studies with major design flaws.

My take is that we are the descendents of several hundred millions years of critters who survived millions of famines and as a result our brains are optimized to ensure that we will survive the next one. My guess is that my brain (which modulates the flow of the appetite hormones based on feedback it gets from fat cells, gut cells, etc) has decided that I may be looking at an oncoming famine and is taking steps to ensure I have adequate fat supplies to survive if it worsens.

Whatever the explanation, I have a concern going forward that maintenance may be tough if I have changed my hormone balance in such a way as to impel me to get the fat back.

Any thoughts here? I know some people say that they are eating less on eating days, but these seem to be people who may have gained weight through dramatic amounts of overeating who may be eating less than they used to but actually eating more than TDD were they to tote up their actual intake.

I would really like to hear your ideas and experiences on this issue. I'm not asking for advice on how to eat, but rather looking at the long-term feasibility of this diet for the average person, with the knowledge in mind that all the much-touted popular diets, low carb included, fail miserably when measured against the question, "How many people who lose weight on these diets can maintain that weight loss, and if they don't do they end up in worse shape than they were before dieting?"

The reason for that isn't personal weakness, it's this dratted physiological imperative to stay alive through fluctuating food supplies. But some diets seem to teach bad food habits to people--like eating all that fat on LC, which is perfectly healthy as long as people are actually eating LC, but toxic when their carbs creep back up and they keep eating it. (Which sadly, research shows to be the common case.)

So my concern is that I don't want to "learn" to eat the way I am eating after fasts right now when I am no longer fasting away 2000 calories a week!

Hi very interesting post, I am not at a maintenance phase yet so not sure I can answer but am off to think about your questions, no doubt someone more knowledgable than me will be along shortly.

Have a look through the forums for 're-feeding'.
Going from the top of my head. The intermittant nature of 5:2 or 4:3 and variations thereof, try to keep your body fooled into thinking there is plenty of food going around and in most parts succeed.

When the hormones do stall the weight loss you can try re-feeding, which is a week or so of not fasting and eating plenty of good food. It doesn't mean pig out on treacle tarts and sweets/candy. But moderate amounts of protein, plenty of good fats and loads of vegetables. (note I haven't said lots of carbs, you don't need carbs, the body is quite capable of turning your fat into energy).

Well, in my case I did find at the beginning of this year that I was finding it harder and harder to 'eat normally' and even had problems sticking to fast days although I was pretty much at my target weight, and found it difficult to keep to my decided weight because of this. I tried adding more fast days and being stricter and found myself waking up the day after a fast and putting my hand in the peanut butter jar at 7am and then basically eating badly all day, so in about April I decided to try an eating window, which made things better but I didn't lose any weight after the first couple of weeks. I then read a few things, about fasting and stress among other things, and as that made sense to me I decided to ease off on the eating window every day and go back to 5:2, but eating a late light lunch and a light dinner, and that's working for me at the moment, I'm not having any urges to binge or eating when I'm not actually hungry.
Not sure what to make of all that but there was definately a period there where I felt I was not in control of my eating, and that hasn't happened to me in years, even before 5:2 I didn't binge or eat a lot of rubbish.
I suppose my point is yes I do think something happened to me as a result of fasting/weight loss and my body being stressed out, though I'm not sure what, and that easing off on the strict fasting and trying something else or even giving up on fasting for a while might be just what you need to get back on track.

Thankfully this WOE is so flexible it 'allows' or even encourages you to try and find what works for you.

No shaming as in WW groups when everyone finds out you've put on 2lb and the instructors, being so ignorant about what they are pushing, that they can't even explain why you put on the weight. So you sit there going bright red as your presumed lack of willpower is brought to the fore. Nothing about excessive exercise adding water weight, or hormonal problems. Or a myriad other reasons why someone who was being diligent could put on weight, just the assumption that you must have sneaked in 6,000 extra calories somewhere.

[carorees]

I think that Dr Amanda Salis who is investigating what she calls the famine effect might be the person with most knowledge on this subject.

I think that overdoing fasting or any calorie restriction increases cortisol. How much fasting affects leptin and ghrelin is not known. The lack of hunger that occurs with mild fasting suggests that fasting is different from simple calorie restriction. However, cortisol will build up with too frequent fasting especially if you have other stressors in your life. The cortisol increase stimulates appetite. So even without knowing what happens with leptin, etc. We can predict that too much fasting is possible and would cause over eating.

For this reason, in the fasting pages of the site I have suggested cutting back on fasting if you find hunger levels building after weeks or months of reduced appetite.

https://www.fastday.com/fasting/why-do- ... fast-days/

https://www.fastday.com/fasting/should- ... essed-out/

I also suggested a guideline for how often to fast based on (I think) an article by Brad Pilon

Use this general guide to how often to fast:

if you’re fasting 5–7 times per week keep the fasts less than 16–18 hours.

if you’re fasting 3–4 times per week fasts can be up to 20 hours long

if you’re fasting 1–2 times per week fasts can be up to 24 hours long

if you’re fasting once a week it can be up to 60 hours long.

I can only give you my personal experience about maintaining.

After reaching my interim goal about a year ago, I maintained for several months by fasting only once every week or two. Then I decided to lose another 4 pounds to get to a "nice round number". When that was accomplished, I started scheduling fast days only when the scale began to creep up. Since the third week of March this year, I have not fasted at all because my weight consistently hovers within a pound or two (over and under) my goal weight. This requires daily weighing in order to know what's happening--some people can't abide daily weighing, I know.

Soon after starting this WOE, I found that I filled up a lot faster on non-fast days--could not eat the same amounts as I could before. This remains true now, even though I've gone so long without fasting. I have changed my eating habits, though. I hardly ever eat potatoes, white bread, pasta, etc. I still eat dark chocolate, ice cream and desserts with lots of flavor, as opposed to overly sweet flavors.

Did I see that you are doing ADF? This is just too stressful for some people. Maybe 5:2 would suit you better even if if slows weight loss somewhat.

Hope you find an answer.

[carorees]

Oh, and my personal experience is that 8 months of 5:2 and 12 months of daily 16:8 and a loss of 41kg has not lead to bingeing. I have had days when I'm hungrier than others but no overall increase in hunger.

I'm not bingeing, but I am wanting alot of carb, and eating it too...
I'm interested in your theory, but for me think it is more likely to be a combination of discovering a fantastic bakery, and the reaching of my initial target subconsciously lowering my will-power.
Interesting thread!

Hi peebs ,i can relate coz i had a period some months ago of extremely intense hunger,unlike the passing pangs we get on fast days..the drive to eat and eat was impossible to ignore..i was just so very unrelentlessly hungry!
Caro told me it could maybe be the famine effect and to eat normally for a while,which i did,and it didnt take very long before those strong feelings passed and i was fasting again as usual
The clue is in the unmistakable urge to eat,that doesnt stop..as if yr body is just refusing to conform to the self control you're trying to impose..
Its physiology isnt it..Centuries of our bodies being conditioned to withstand famine cannot be overcome by mere willpower,its just too strong..
but in my case, soon as i had a week or so of ( very enjoyable) eating healthily and well,i could return to my regime..my body had got the message No Famine ...No Need To Worry..For Now!
At the time it happened, i had been very strict on non fast days,mainly eating below my TDEE which i think led to body wanting to redress the balance, and then being pacified when it got the message that there was no shortage after all.
We have to keep fooling our bodies,and the key seems to be mixing it up as we do on here Fingers crossed anyway it works long long term or we are all up sh** creek without a paddle x

[wildmissus]

What an interesting topic. Here's my experiences.

Before 5:2 I very occasionally binged to the extent that I was sick and often overate to the extent that I felt sick.

I've been switching between 5:2 and 4:3 zero cal liquid fasts and I have never felt hungry when fasting (well not since the first few fasts). I have had a few failed fasts through cravings not hunger. When I reach target I can't imagine not fasting.

I do eat too many white carbs on non fast days because I can and because I crave them. I have not binged since I started 5:2.

I had a light bulb moment a couple of weeks ago when I realised that on fast days when I tell myself 'I can have it tomorrow' I am thinking about chocolate, biscuits, cakes! I feel I have given myself a psychological problem and need to change my thinking to looking forward to eating the 'healthy' food I love tomorrow instead of the white carb rubbish. I feel that it is down to this attitude that I haven't really lost any weight since last August and not got off the last 7-10 lbs. That of course means that I have maintained for that period of time.

This is interesting. Thanks for sharing your insights!

@marybeth I'm doing 5:2 but had been reading a subforum somewhere else that was all people rather fanatically doing ADF. I had tried that once and lasted a week. Much too intense for me!

What is so strange to me is that on past diets I denied myself so much that it made sense I'd want to eat the stuff I'd been denied for months. But with 5:2 I'm not denying myelf anything and getting to eat all the treats. So I would expect that to extinguish the cravings, as usually I only crave stuff I can't have.

At any rate, I'll hang in for another few pounds if they are possible but keep in mind that it might be time to maintain for a few weeks if I find myself continuing to pound the peanut butter-- which is striking quite close to home!

I haven't really gotten my head around this yet. When I first started, and I've more or less been doing 4:3 the whole time, I was doing really well on non-fast days. I think there was probably some appetite reduction, and there was lots of healthy food around because I hadn't quite gotten the hang of planning fast day meals. And, as you say, I was one in the obese category, so my "normal" was OTT to start with.

After I reached goal, which unfortunately coincided with Xmas and a long holiday trip, I never really got non-fast days back on track. Rather than eating mindfully, or normally, or whatever, they became an excuse to eat crap. Sweets mostly, I do have a rather bad sweet tooth. I don't think I was in Salis-esque famine reaction mode. I think it was more emotional eating, and not eating mindfully, only when I needed to.

I have some good days now, but it is still a struggle. I've found that planning non-fast days helps. Good square healthy meals means I'm less likely to snack on the stuff I shouldn't have. I try to keep cherry tomatoes and berries and things like that around for snacking when the mood hits.

I've toyed with the idea of not having 500 cal days at all anymore, and just doing 16:8 every day, but I haven't been brave enough yet. Another business trip/holiday meant I'm way above goal again, so I want to get back to a good weight before experimenting much...

interesting string, thanks everyone, esp peebles & caroline! Yes, physiology contributes, and so does psychocology & sociology I think. I have been a long term binger for emotional reasons and now after 8 months on IF (currently ADF - or nearly!) I find my bingeing has an added degree of mindfulness (harm minimization in D & A parlance), if that's not too bizarre a concept, and is overall less frequent & less intense. I have times when I'm tighter & lighter on replenish days, and times when I eat heaps of crap, depending largely on my emotional state. For me, I did get into famine mode a la Amanda Salis when had just started HIIT, and had to go to bed the morning after a fast day. But these days it's all pretty cool in my energy levels. And, just to sneak in a little celebration: In pilates there's an exercise called scissors, where you curl your upper body up and using your lower deep abs, swing both legs up and down (like scissors!) - I always had trouble doing it and needed arm extensions. NOW I can grasp below my knee as my leg comes towards me, no worries! As well as curl up more. I am so happy with IF!!

[Debs]

What an interesting thread, and one that resonates strongly with me. I have been doing ADF with mixed results, usually failing when I desperately crave carbs after a few days. That, combined with stress at work means that I haven't done too well recently. The last few days I have been doing sort of 16:8, having a very late brekky and a very late lunch. This has kept me going without feeling the need to eat in the evenings.
I have realised that ADF is too stressful for me at the moment, but haven't yet figured out the best food for me to eat in order to satisfy my cravings but not eat rubbish. We just need to be kind to ourselves!