The FastDay Forum

So I have been on and off this apple cart for months now but lately I seem to have developed a renewed passion for it and also an ability to increase my willpower.......so it's all good. However, I can fast and that's no problem on my fast days I don't eat anything until 8pm when I have my 500 cals. The reason I do it this way is because as soon as I put any food in my mouth I just can't stop. So lately on my feast days I decided to not eat until noon and then stop at 6pm, in order to curb my calories. I decided to do it this way because of the impulsive eating thing AND as soon as I start counting calories I just can't help going over them. But these time limits work for me. My TDEE is pretty low I think 1600, cos I am short and currently a sahm for the most part. So For the last week I have been doing :

Fast days - about 400cal at 8pm
Feast days - eating window 12-6pm

However, I haven't lost any weight, I know it is only one week, but I am really worried about this thing that we have been told forever about if we don't eat it makes our body absorb the fat in our food and actually causes weight GAIN!!

Does anyone else do it this way? Does it work? A little reassurance greatly received. x

[carorees]

I am really worried about this thing that we have been told forever about if we don't eat it makes our body absorb the fat in our food and actually causes weight GAIN!!

Just think about this statement for a moment. If it were true, then people in famine-struck countries would be getting fat! The real truth is that if we don't eat anything for many days then our bodies try to use less energy in order to slow down the rate of loss but the laws of physics still hold that if you eat less calories than you burn you must lose weight.

Our bodies always absorb the fat in our food (and all the carbohydrates which are mostly turned into fat as well), they store it away in our fat stores and then a few hours after we have finished eating when we have extracted all the nutrients from the food, we start to use the stored carbs and fat for fuel.

The small nugget of truth in the myth of 'starvation mode' is that if we cut down our calories for a prolonged time, our bodies try to conserve energy as I mentioned above. Because of this our TDEE is less than the calculators predict. If you find you have not lost any weight after a month of doing your current fasting method then it is possible that your TDEE is less than you think.

Have you weighed more than once this week? If you just have a snapshot of your weight on one day you don't really know if you have lost weight or not because your weight can vary day to day by up to 2kg depending on how much water your body is holding. As we are mostly water, the scales mostly tell you how much water you have in your body. Carbs, salt, exercise, time of the month can all cause water retention; fasting, low carb diet, and bizarrely drinking enough water, can cause your body water content to drop. So the changes you see on the scale day to day are changes in water content. Hidden behind this is the change in fat weight. As we expect to lose only 1lb a week, and the daily variations are larger than 1lb, it can happen that your fat loss is hidden by the water gain. The only real way to know whether you are really losing fat weight is to weigh daily and plot a trendline on a graph using apps like Libra (android) or True Weight (iOS) OR to weigh less frequently, like once a month, when the fat weight you have lost should be enough to show up against this background of daily variations in water content.


Give it a month before panicking is my advice!

@carorees! You da man when it comes to explaining stuff! Respect! X

Weighing daily and averaging your weight at the end of each week is another good way to see your real weight loss.

@carorees I understand what you are saying about the daily weighing & the trend line but I've always wondered why just weighing once every three weeks wouldn't accomplish the same thing?? For me, weighing every day takes the focus off the health benefits & makes it solely about the number on the scale & then I flail in despair & beat myself about the head - its not pretty. I know everyone needs to do what's best for them, I'm just curious if the daily weighing thing might increase results or some other benefit I haven't considered. Thanks in advance.

I'm with Caroline on this one, a week is not long enough for a positive conclusion but she puts it SO much better than I ever could

Ballerina x

[carorees]

@Mlcdz Yes, as I said at the end of my post, the alternative is to weigh monthly.

My thought is a bit different. Weigh daily. not weekly or monthly. Do this for 30 days keeping notes of whether fast /feast day on each weighting which should be in the morning.

Use Libra app on mobile or progress tracker on this site each and every day. or both.

Do not assess efficacy of this way of eating till day 30. If still not weight loss (unlikely as this may be) reassess and ask for advice here amongst this community.

wow great responses everyone. I have often thought that about the starving people, gosh you're good at explaining things. I think I am going to put this on favourites and keep reading it every day til it's locked in my brain. Thank you all. x x