The FastDay Forum

Hi, Like you made the reference to AA, I agree that for me, I have to realise that I am like that with food. I am either 100% on track or 100% off track and eating ANYTHING!
So, on my fast days I prefer to do liquid only fasts, saving the 500 calories so it makes me relax a little about the food i have on food days (i still track calories but it makes me less anxious knowing I banked 500 cals!)
I find it really hard to say have 'just 2 tblsp of x,y,z' on a fast day as for me, that would become, oh just a couple more!! but if I say NO to everything, then thats easy, its a NO if anyone asks!! lol
So I have my last meal about 7/8pm the day before, liquids (black coffee, green tea & water) on fast day then nothing till my breakfast about 8am...... so a 36 hour fast
Good luck!! and thanks again for all the support you are showing everyone on the Xmas thread xx

JB x

Hi, Like you made the reference to AA, I agree that for me, I have to realise that I am like that with food. I am either 100% on track or 100% off track and eating ANYTHING!
So, on my fast days I prefer to do liquid only fasts, saving the 500 calories so it makes me relax a little about the food i have on food days (i still track calories but it makes me less anxious knowing I banked 500 cals!)
I find it really hard to say have 'just 2 tblsp of x,y,z' on a fast day as for me, that would become, oh just a couple more!! but if I say NO to everything, then thats easy, its a NO if anyone asks!! lol
So I have my last meal about 7/8pm the day before, liquids (black coffee, green tea & water) on fast day then nothing till my breakfast about 8am...... so a 36 hour fast
Good luck!! and thanks again for all the support you are showing everyone on the Xmas thread xx

JB x

You are welcome JB @juliebulie10 - the 500 calories you do consume on your liquid only fast .. what does it consist of?
have i got that right? you consume 500 calories in that 36 hour period?

This new plan is working... OK so i only tried it one day and lost another 600g with the scales showing less than 72kg for quite some time this morning ...71.9kg.
Yes i know it can be a coincidence

but one day on my 21 hour power fast (no food from night before till 7pm) works!

well i can always look at it in a positive way if it make me feel good . lol

It's great when you get immediate reward for a behaviour change isn't it? May it continue for you.

Btw, the liquid fast that JB refers to means NO CALS during the 36 hour period. She saves them for a non-fast day. That is what I have been trying to do too, but can end up having up to 300 cals with miso, broth, apple, Brazil nuts and choccie... But that is better than the 800cal fast days I had been having when I had a meal...

Yes,... correct. ONLY black coffee, green tea and water in the 36 hours

Although, this last week I have had about 300-500 cals on fast days as I have been on holiday I wanted to sit with the family for 1 meal in the day but just had grilled meat or a plain salad to be low cal as possible

I've lost 4.2lbs (1.9kg) eating this way and so, I might actually continue to have my calorie allowance on my 36 hour fast and see how I go... as long as it doesn't send me on a eating binge (perfer to eat nothing really)

Well done on your loss,... keep going - it suits you!
jb xx

Yes,... correct. ONLY black coffee, green tea and water in the 36 hours

Although, this last week I have had about 300-500 cals on fast days as I have been on holiday I wanted to sit with the family for 1 meal in the day but just had grilled meat or a plain salad to be low cal as possible

I've lost 3.4lbs (1.5kg) eating this way and so, I might actually continue to have my calorie allowance on my 36 hour fast and see how I go... as long as it doesn't send me on a eating binge (perfer to eat nothing really)

Well done on your loss,... keep going - it suits you!
jb xx

wow thats impressive @juliebulie10!

@Juliana.Rivers sorry just noticed ur question. I don't care about how many hours between eating as I'm in it for the weight loss and so it's calorie reduction days. Also I am a non believer in miracle benefits of not eating for a few hours. I think if u do real 4 day + fasts there's benefits, but the only benefit I believe in with not eating for a few hours is weight loss and it's inherent health benefits. So what's most important to me is being able to reduce my calories 3 days a week without feeling I'm on a permanent diet, or that I'm starving all day and can then chow down after being a good girl

@Juliana.Rivers sorry just noticed ur question. I don't care about how many hours between eating as I'm in it for the weight loss and so it's calorie reduction days. Also I am a non believer in miracle benefits of not eating for a few hours. I think if u do real 4 day + fasts there's benefits, but the only benefit I believe in with not eating for a few hours is weight loss and it's inherent health benefits. So what's most important to me is being able to reduce my calories 3 days a week without feeling I'm on a permanent diet, or that I'm starving all day and can then chow down after being a good girl

Totally appreciate what you are saying @GMHand in the long term I will probably stop the power fasting
I know what im doing at the moment is a bit radical but I believe its because i was indeed going over on my fast days and consuming more than 1/4 TDEE just because i was putting things in my mouth. Tried the mints but would alway have a tiny bowl of cottage cheese, a banana, almond milk etc and yes it probably added up.
I havent read many scientific studies of late but im sure someone says that the total hours of fasting is significant. even a tiny bit of food breaks the "good process" happening in your body.
Not sure if i will keep doing this after the Christmas challenge but im liking what im seeing on the scales and will go rough for a bit.

Well its either a big koindink or this plan really works.

2nd 21 hour fast day today and weight this afternoon was another 300 grams loss

its GOING DOWN DOWN DOWN (People in australia will be familiar with that term lol)

Anyone who normally snacks during the fast day or maybe has a light breakfast or lunch (or both) wanna join me in this 21hour thing? i think i need a 21 fasting buddy. you may just speed your weight loss

i did find today a lot easer than the first day i tried the 21 hour fast

Glad to hear it working for you. Apparently it works for me aswell, I lost 1stone or 14lbs or 6.35kg overnight!!!
I think I need to replace the batteries on my scales

Glad to hear it working for you. Apparently it works for me aswell, I lost 1stone or 14lbs or 6.35kg overnight!!!
I think I need to replace the batteries on my scales

ahhhh yes maybe new batteries.

Juliana... your plan is what I have stuck with for a while now and the results are amazing. Thanks for giving it a name! I eat one meal in the evenings 3 days per week. I will continue this until the excess weight is off. On the days I do eat I still skip breakfast and I will not snack after supper anymore... ever. That is just my rule. For me... snacking/small mini meals make me want to eat more.

The science of this includes one very simple fact. When you eat no carbs over that 36 hour period, your body is forced to burn glycogen (the stored form of carbohydrate found mostly in your liver and some in your muscles.) People, on average, store several pounds of glycogen. However, an interesting old study reveals that some people store a lot more glycogen than others, so that the amount of glycogen-associated weight a person loses varies from person to person.

If you are eating a ketogenic low carb diet, that glycogen, once burned off, stays off. If you are cycling back and forth from glycogen burn to glycogen storage, as we often do with intermittant fasting, those pounds will come back as soon as you eat enough carb to refill the glycogen.

Glycogen is not fat, and losing it doesn't change your fat mass, however, it is here that there is disagreement about the worth of losing glycogen. Some low carb fanatics claim that when you no longer are burning glycogen you are more likely to burn fat. OTOH, others, and I am among them, say that if you are eating more calories than you need to maintain TDEE you will burn fat, but it will be that DIETARY fat you are burning.

For me, the real benefit of the prolonged stint of fasting boils down to these factors:

1. You aren't eating the carbs that raise blood sugar. Blood sugar swings make us hungry. No carbs = no hunger for many of us. This makes it much easier to not eat.

2. You rest your digestive organs. When I started 5:2 I had been making a very long, slow recovery from a peculiar esophageal infection that had given me nonstop heart burn. Though the infection had been treated, the soreness lingered. Not eating for long periods of time seemed to be just what my system needed to heal up. I only get heartburn now if I really overdo the eating on feed days, just like a normal person.

3. If you are not good at measuring portions and figuring calories, a complete fast makes certain you aren't eating more than you think. This sounds trivial, but it isn't. When I have helped people analyze why their diets are failing, in the past, I have almost always found that the problem was that they were seriously underestimating how much they are eating because they assumed that the 6 ounce muffin they bought at the bakery had the nutritional load they found in a reference that was based on eating a 2 ounce muffin. (As if there even was such a thing!) Or they were eating 6 ounces of pasta and counting it as 2, a mere difference of 108 grams of carbs and 424 calories.

The science of this includes one very simple fact. When you eat no carbs over that 36 hour period, your body is forced to burn glycogen (the stored form of carbohydrate found mostly in your liver and some in your muscles.) People, on average, store several pounds of glycogen. However, an interesting old study reveals that some people store a lot more glycogen than others, so that the amount of glycogen-associated weight a person loses varies from person to person.

If you are eating a ketogenic low carb diet, that glycogen, once burned off, stays off. If you are cycling back and forth from glycogen burn to glycogen storage, as we often do with intermittant fasting, those pounds will come back as soon as you eat enough carb to refill the glycogen.

Glycogen is not fat, and losing it doesn't change your fat mass, however, it is here that there is disagreement about the worth of losing glycogen. Some low carb fanatics claim that when you no longer are burning glycogen you are more likely to burn fat. OTOH, others, and I am among them, say that if you are eating more calories than you need to maintain TDEE you will burn fat, but it will be that DIETARY fat you are burning.

For me, the real benefit of the prolonged stint of fasting boils down to these factors:

1. You aren't eating the carbs that raise blood sugar. Blood sugar swings make us hungry. No carbs = no hunger for many of us. This makes it much easier to not eat.

2. You rest your digestive organs. When I started 5:2 I had been making a very long, slow recovery from a peculiar esophageal infection that had given me nonstop heart burn. Though the infection had been treated, the soreness lingered. Not eating for long periods of time seemed to be just what my system needed to heal up. I only get heartburn now if I really overdo the eating on feed days, just like a normal person.

3. If you are not good at measuring portions and figuring calories, a complete fast makes certain you aren't eating more than you think. This sounds trivial, but it isn't. When I have helped people analyze why their diets are failing, in the past, I have almost always found that the problem was that they were seriously underestimating how much they are eating because they assumed that the 6 ounce muffin they bought at the bakery had the nutritional load they found in a reference that was based on eating a 2 ounce muffin. (As if there even was such a thing!) Or they were eating 6 ounces of pasta and counting it as 2, a mere difference of 108 grams of carbs and 424 calories.

Thanks @Peebles 3 good reasons to keep doing what im doing then.

Understand point 1 and 3 and indeed 3 is a no brainer as you have nil calories if you consume nothing and it would be really hard to eat >520 calories for me in my tiny 3 hour eating windown

One thing i really noticed is that im less hungry in the evening when ive been fully fasting. this reinforces the fact i wont go over too.

the point 2) resting of digestive organs... can you elaborate there for me Peebles.

Juliana... your plan is what I have stuck with for a while now and the results are amazing. Thanks for giving it a name! I eat one meal in the evenings 3 days per week. I will continue this until the excess weight is off. On the days I do eat I still skip breakfast and I will not snack after supper anymore... ever. That is just my rule. For me... snacking/small mini meals make me want to eat more.

Thanks @Tammae.. do you like the name i give.

3 day a week 21 hour power fasting
or
2 day a week 21 hour power fasting?

i cant make it shorter i dont think as it says it all. and i love the word power as it says it is a bit "special" and maybe more effective