The FastDay Forum

Can anyone offer any advice tips to stop me from spoiling my fast days?

I've always been a cold blooded person in that i seem to feel the cold more than most and find fires or radiators to be like magnets to me. Since the temperatures have dropped i am really struggling to maintain a fast day because i feel the cold more than ever and crave hot satisfying food!

Currently sat at my desk with under desk heater on and thick woolly socks inside my boots 3 layers of tops on craving a hot chocolate from the drinks machine lol

Oh dear, I sympathise. Its not the greatest time of year to fast is it. I guess the only advice really is to keep drinking hot drinks in the form of herbal tear black coffee, that sort of thing...and to wrap up warm. I guess its easier for me at the moment because I'm not working, so I can just snuggle up in a big cardigan or something similar and sip hot drinks all day. Looking forward to my evening meal!

Sorry, that probably wasn't that helpful. Good luck anyway. Just think, it won't be long before you'll be enjoying your hot meal

Well, I lived through winter here and I found soups were my saviour. I try never to let myself get cold; heat the house well, wear plenty of warm clothes; and nothing beats a hot water bottle and hot baths. I started fasting in the middle of autumn and suffered while you northern hemisphere people were basking in heat. I do feel a great sense of achievement that I got through winter and now we are enjoying salads and sitting around the house at 10 pm with bare feet.

Thanks i guess i'm going to have to fight the cold as well as the hunger and invest in some thermal underwear too

Soups are the answer. Stay warm

[Debs]

I really struggled with cold through winter and fasting. I drank heaps of hot Marmite and tea to keep me warm. Good luck!

I've found soup best too. I blitz it so its thick rather than chunky. Seems to make it more satisfying. Might be my imagination but I find it warming for longer than if I just have something like bouillon or herb tea.

Do you have a microwave at work. You could get one of those wheat bags and sit with it on your knee or down the back of your trousers. I am not on a repair day but I am sitting with a vest, jumper fleece and a body warmer, I also have silver lined trousers that throw your own body heat back at you and a hot water bottle at my back so I fully sympathise with you. Being cold blooded is no fun.

Soups, hot teas etc.
Also don't have a carb heavy meal the night before. Veg, protein and fats the evening before.
I haven't struggled with the fasting days, but I do struggle with carb cravings on my normal days.

Hi TracE, I've a daughter who really feels the cold so I do sympathise.

I've spent most of my life being relatively warm but about two years before I started 5:2 I had a couple of nights when I was seriously cold. My GP thinks it could be lack of B12, we don't eat a lot of red meat.

With 5:2 those feelings of coldness became more frequent so I stopped until the weather became warmer and everything is fine. The weather's now getting colder so I've become more cautious and being retired I don't feel I should take too many risks - though being able to stay at home does help!

Strangely, I've found I'm more likely to feel cold if I'm eating small calorie type meals in a day amounting to 600, but not if fasting totally (though drinking plenty) between 6.30pm one day until our 6pm meal the next.

Even then one day I felt uncomfortably cold so gave up for that day and eat normally.

Wednesday and Saturdays are my normal fasting days, but the other Friday I felt good so made that my fast day.

Julieathome, please could you explain why carb heavy meals aren't a good thing. I'd be really interested, thank you.

The carbs are converted very quickly into sugar in the bloodstream, this causes a sugar overload, which raises your insulin, which then dashes out to mop up the sugar and put it in storage as fat, causing a sugar dip. Think of a roller coaster, an excessive high, followed by an exaggerated low as the insulin has to over react because sugar is actually harmful to the body in excessive amounts.
The sugar dip can be a trigger for feeling cold as the body conserves energy by shutting down heating to the skin and extremities.

Now if you have a decent amount of fat in your last meal, it takes longer to digest in the first place and it doesn't cause the sugar high and subsequent sugar low that carbs do, so therefore shouldn't contribute to the feelings of being cold.
There may be other reasons for feeling the cold, such as a dodgy thyroid, but you don't want to make it worse with high carb meals.

Like everyone else mentioned I'm a "Souper" faster. Other things that are warming for winter...epsom salt baths and "hot" yoga--check it on youtube. It's just yoga that is meant to make you work up a sweat, basically.

I do ok with fasting in the cold. But, the colder it gets; the more likely I am to want to curl up in a blanket on the sofa and forget about being active. I am trying to work on this at the moment.