The FastDay Forum

I fasted for the first time on Wednesday. I was pleased with my success and pleased that I didn't wake up ravenous on Thursday morning. Since then however, I have been eating non-stop. Totally mindless...without even noticing I'm filling myself with all sorts of snacks, far more than I normally would. Does anyone else have a similar experience? Any tips?

I did this for a while at the beginning and again when I moved onto 36hr fasts, my advice is it will pass, meanwhile try making some cut off points e.g no eating after 7pm, no eating after 3pm until dinner, this worked for me as I learnt from fasting that even when I felt hungry I could deal with it. I also decided if I wanted to eat bad things I had to make them myself (e.g cookies/cakes) and this stopped the impulse eating! Good luck, I think time will sort you out! :0)

I have good days and bad days! But the weight still comes off so I'm wondering whether my body is just totally confused!! lol If I have what I consider to be a "bad munchie day" (we're not talking total blowout, but sometimes I do go a good way over my calorie allowance!) then the next day I find the resolve and have a leaner day where I am a lot more self-disciplined. For me, the key is to keep busy as the devil really does make work for idle hands!!!!

Hi there!
I am fairly new to this WOL but from what the oldtimers say,at the stage you're at - doing your first fasts- just concentrate on settling into getting your fast days securely in place.
Dont worry about what happens on the feed days for now...it seems people do over compensate at first on their feed days..yr brain is giving you a message to eat,eat,eat
In a few weeks when you're used to fasting,the constant need to eat will alter and you won't overeat ( or at least not overeat all the time,we all get attacks oft he munchies at times!)

Thanks for the advice everyone, It's good to know it's not just me. I'll cut myself some slack for the first few days and try to get the snacking under control when I've settled into it a bit.

The biggest thing I have changed is my snacking habit. I do sometimes have cake with a coffee but not very morning and afternoon as I did. It took a while to get to this stage. I have been off plan for ages and have completed my first week back with two fasts of 22 hours each. I am still getting back into the swing but have maintained my feeling that it is ok to be hungry. This really is a life plan and we are changing deeply entrenched habits. Be patient, keep it going and you will conquer the bad habits.

I have the same situation, except its more conscious. On fast days I can very easily stick to the 500cal restraint. But on feast days I get to the end of the day under 500cal again and then think "oh Im nowhere near 2000cal" and then eat a block of chocolate and a Haagen Dazs in one sitting. I'm 3 weeks in and just took a before picture that will give me nightmares.

I may count as an "oldtimer" and I certainly did a lot of overeating on feast days at the start of adopting this way of eating. Sometimes I do it now although I can't eat as much and I tend to choose lower calorie items to binge on.

I just stuck with the "diet" and eventually I overate on feast days less frequently. I still lost weight while overeating just much more slowly.

When I first started I used to eat three tiny meals on fast days and the hunger was very hard to bear. I later switched to just one meal (having read that I "should" probably have been doing that all along) and that was better - once I start eating I want to eat more particularly if the meal doesn't fill me up.

I have been doing 4:3 and that works better for me as the restriction on 3 days helped me to break the overeating cycle. You don't need to do that though - it might be you just need to get in the habit of fasting and not taking the "feasting" too literally.

I think when we are told that we can eat normally on "feast" days what that means is - eat around the standard allowance for someone the same height/ build/ gender/ age/ same level of physical activity and not what I would normally eat, i.e. too much! I've come to the conclusion that it means eating like slim people do and watching friends and colleagues they seem to eat very little quite a lot of the time.