The FastDay Forum

I know this has been mentioned in various posts before. but what is the latest response to the usual objections to 5:2 or fasting.

I encountered this rant from someone on a Facebook group im on where i posted my sister's wonderful frittata saying it was part of my 5:2 fasting regime to eat simple frittata and salad.. anyhow. it went like this.


fasting ? ,,,,,,,,,For people with blood sugar levels that oscillate between too high and too low, not eating for several hours will cause blood sugar levels to plummet, creating hypoglycaemic symptoms, which means that fasting days will be fraught with moodiness, headaches, dizziness, poor concentration and nausea. Also, less disciplined people may be tempted to gorge on the non-fasting days and eat foods such as cakes, chips and pies that are best avoided in any healthy diet.
this diet isn’t recommended for pregnant or breastfeeding women, children or teenagers and people with diagnosed diabetes. If you suffer from a chronic illness, check with your GP to ensure this diet is OK for you
Diet does not instil healthy eating habits.

i just believe in good eating habits , end mild exercise

Ultimately, to lose weight, you need to restrict your kilojoule consumption somewhat. Downsizing your meals is a good place to start; however, you should never feel hungry. It’s important to keep energy levels up by eating regularly.

my rant over [ eat well and walk and drink wine at times]

I responded with this in fb.. but is there something i can add or did i say anything wrong



Everybody has their opinions and i respect yours. Intermittent fasting is not for everyone. I stress this is about intermittent fasting as 5:2ers do not encourage long term fasts of any kind. The support group on the official site and on http://www.fastday.com has much anecdotal and scientific evidence of the positive benefits of IF and countless people who have lost from 2kg to 40 kg and some more. Yes, you must not do it if pregnant or breastfeeding, but with medical supervision it is ok for people with diabetes as stated by many with exactly same in many situations. You may be confusing fasting with choosing to eat nothing for 48 hours which it definitely is NOT. .. hence why i stated elsewhere the title of the book/magazine from which I got the recipe is misleading.

IF has improved the overall health and BMI for countless people in the 2.5 years it has become popular but has been used as a valid healthy lifestyle. It can be called a diet but for us IFers it is a long term lifestyle.

Today, I am on my "eating day" so looking forward to good food but tomorrow is a lean day and I am equally looking forward to that.

So in summary if you are thinking of adopting this lifestyle.. do your research, talk to your GP if you feel you need to (many GPs support it) and make your decisions..

Rant over

Well doneJR! I mulled over what you wrote and i think youve done a great job and managed to get all yr points across very well. Ive tried but cant think of anything to add as i feel youve given a calm,sensible and polite response which gives our perspective on IF very well. X thanks for that ! X

Well doneJR! I mulled over what you wrote and i think youve done a great job and managed to get all yr points across very well. Ive tried but cant think of anything to add as i feel youve given a calm,sensible and polite response which gives our perspective on IF very well. X thanks for that ! X

Thanks Candice, thats sweet of you to say. The stuff that comes out of my head without even thinking about it!

I saw an article somewhere about responses to anti-fasting comments from friends. I can't remember where it was, though. I'll dig around...

I saw an article somewhere about responses to anti-fasting comments from friends. I can't remember where it was, though. I'll dig around...

@Maryann
Mabye his is a thread you mean. find it on the search for word
criticism

5-2-diet-chat-f6/topic6525.html?hilit=criticism

Please consider using one of mine:

1. Do you suppose our caveman ancestors ate three meals a day every day plus desserts and snacks at all hours? Did they sit around most of the day and drive their ox carts everywhere they went? Did they have thousands of different foods tempting them if/when they did go to the market?

[probably not times 3]

2. So you'd agree that they couldn't have eaten three meals a day? Hmmm.

[Let it simmer.]

3. Wouldn't some of those side effects that you'd mentioned earlier have caused them to have gone extinct long ago? (Stone age press headline: T Rex hiding behind bee hive munches tribe of groggy, sticky-fingered humans with headaches.)

[And yet we're all still here.]

4. Do you remember if your grandparents or great-grandparents were seriously overweight or obese? Do you suppose in those tough times that they occasionally skipped a meal or two, maybe even a few times a week to make ends meet? Shouldn't they have died from being so careless?

[And yet again we're still here.]

5. I can easily skip a meal or two at most any time and notice very little difference. Can you?

6. I never get ravenously hungry between meals anymore. Do you?

7. Did you know that fasting leads to continuous energy, often increased energy?

[Biology is truly amazing isn't it? To once again burn fat; being adaptable to a wider variety of conditions as nature intended all along.]

8. You're absolutely right! My doctor is totally shocked with what I'm doing. Besides weighing __ kg/pounds less, many of my blood test numbers are now in their ideal range. They never were before.

[They instead grilled me to learn how to do it.]

9. You should see all of my new outfits!

10. Everything I used to wear hangs like a bed sheet or falls off now so I had to empty my closet and buy all new clothes. Say, would you like to stop by and pick some out before I donate the rest? It seems they might fit.

[Jealousy can be a hell of a motivator.]

11. Don't you hate tossing all night, snoring that keeps you awake, stuffy sinuses in the morning and coughing through breakfast? Funny isn't it. Those don't happen to me anymore.

12. Do you remember what you weighed in high school? Me too. I weigh less now.

[Jab.]

13. Did you see my new age group __ place trophy from my 5K/half/full marathon? Odd that my times are getting better.

14. My knees/hips/joints don't ache anymore...

15. I'm wanting to get out and do more things now...

[Rib poke.]

16. Did you know that I'm now lighter and have a better BMI than __% of the rest of the people in my age group in this country and __% across the globe? Seriously, I hate to admit this: before I started this way of eating I was heavier than __% of them.

17. Oh, and all of those symptoms you mentioned earlier are all very well understood and quite easy to avoid.

18. Duh! Of course people with medical conditions or with higher risk should check with their doctors first.

19. Of course some people can't do it. It's for thinking adults only. Those that are ready for a permanent change.

20. An easy to follow diet is the very first step for an overweight person learning how to have a healthy diet.

21. Did you know that many type 2 diabetics are able to reduce or even stop their medicines completely? They of course need to work closely with their doctors because it can happen very quickly.

How? ...

The process is simple: a couple times a week I eat 1/4 of what I used to eat. That's pretty much it.

And NO! You can't do this for a while and then go back to how you ate before. That's how you got fat and stayed fat in the first place. If nothing else yoyo dieting proves that a body never forgets how to pack it on.

[Hook, line, sinker.]

@ADFnFuel fabulous, you covered all my goal posts too!

You the man @adfnfuel!!

#backofthenet

Ive only had positive or neutral responses to the fact i fast twice a week
Maybe people think,' bout time that podgy article did something about herself!
The only negative was from someone who ( got to hand it to them)- has lost stones! At least five!
She said, very clipped,Just eat chicken and veg! You' ll never be able to keep up the fasting!
Erm....i cdnt keep up the chicken & veg day in day out! X

I have not received negative comments when I discuss face to face but I recognise on line discussions are difficult, so @Juliana.Rivers thank you for raising and asking for help. x

You are all great! It kinda makes me laugh now, all this freakiness about hunger; being hungry isn't pathological. In fact, I've come to rather enjoy a bit of genuine hunger--which I now know I seldom felt before 5:2, at least when not dieting--as seasoning and positive anticipation of a meal, whether on a light or normal day. And I now very seldom "pre-feed" before a meal, I know that being hungry isn't a problem and I won't overeat or pass out.

I saw an article somewhere about responses to anti-fasting comments from friends. I can't remember where it was, though. I'll dig around...

@Maryann
Mabye his is a thread you mean. find it on the search for word
criticism

5-2-diet-chat-f6/topic6525.html?hilit=criticism

nah, I meant an article somewhere. But good to be reminded that we've discussed it here, too.

I've been really lucky that I've only had positive responses about my weight loss and IF from people in my life. I've had a lot of curiosity from people who want to lose weight, since they see that I've lost it and kept it off. Some of them say it's not for them, which is fine--it's definitely not for everyone. I encourage them to give it a go for more than one fast day, but I don't push it too much. If I have doubters, I tend to point them to Krista Varady's research, but I'm surrounded by scientists, so that's the sort of evidence they want to see...

[carorees]

https://www.fastday.com/fasting/dealing ... om-others/

Was that the one you were looking for @MaryAnn?

I haven't told many people about 5:2 mostly because I want to keep the magic to myself and away from people I don't like. (Yeah I'm petty like that. :shrug:) And the few I've told weren't the type to do more than ask a few questions and maybe give it a trial run themselves before deciding it wasn't for them.

I imagine that I'd handle negative comments with my standard "It works for me". Cuz really I've gotten to the point where I don't care what people have to say about my ways of doing things. I found this harder to do on the internet until I decided I had to stop arguing with trolls. It took some practice shrugging it off, but now I rarely get caught up in responding. (Although yesterday I failed when I engaged with some people who were applying grammar rules too rigidly and couldn't see how *wrong* they were! :cough:)

I understand why you responded, @Juliana.Rivers, but in your place I wouldn't have bothered. I'd just keep on posting recipes and making the occasional reference to 5:2 or IF. In my experience that gets the negative Nelly off your back quickest, and you still get interest in IF from others.

Your response was good. One thing to keep in mind when you feel you need to respond is that it's best to write to the lurkers on whatever forum you are on. They are the ones you can reach with logical measured arguments. I think you did that very well, especially with your final comments on checking with a GP and doing research. They are likely to be the ones who will look at IF as a healthy option whether they try it or not.

When all is said and done....what an individual chooses to do is totally their business and no one else's.

I don't believe we should be all that concerned about their opinions on the subject...because the issue is such a personal one. Here's my thinking:-

I have, for many reasons, over eaten for most of my life. Consequently, I am obese. If I choose to do something about it, using the method of my choice (i.e. fasting), people will fall into one of 3 camps:-

Those who rejoice in my success
Those who are threatened by my success/jealous of my success
Those who are neutral towards me anyway

We shouldn't give anyone the power to make us swerve in any way from achieving our goal. Nobody walks beside us 24/7 - we really are on our own. Obviously, I would take on board any genuine concern for my health - but hey, who bothered telling me how much weight I had piled on when I first embarked on fasting? I was 15 stone 8lbs.....and nobody said anything! So ask yourself how anyone has the right to pass any negative comments once you choose to grasp the nettle? More importantly, I think, ask yourself what could be their motivation? I am only human - when I see, for instance @carorees's before & after photos, I do suffer a pang of envy....but it is closely followed by a huge dose of respect for the amazing effort she has put in to get from where she was to where she is now, followed by the realisation that "hey, this fasting lark really does work!", followed by "come on Hazelnut, get on with it!". In other words, it wouldn't occur to me to diss any aspect of fasting...because it has clearly worked for so many people. It worked for me too (nearly 4 stone in 8 months) until my old issues took over and I jacked it in for a while. Ooh, how I have paid the price though! You live & learn.....but life is all about choices and we are lucky to have so much freedom in the making of those choices.....so I would say, go ahead, do what makes you happy......

Almost forgot....when I had shed the weight, I would spend my days receiving compliments from all & sundry, which was most novel! Everyone wanted to know how on earth I had done it....& were universally impressed & a bit inspired by my tales of 5:2. After all, the proof is in the pudding....and all that!

Apologies for blathering on a bit.....hope it makes sense....