The FastDay Forum

or at least greatly minimize it on fast days!

I read about folks being so hungry on fast days, and I know that if my hunger was extremely intense, I could never stick with it.

So this is what I do:

lots and lots of tea with total 1 cup light soy milk (60 calories)

I take a supplement called Garcnia Cambogia. It is very common here in the United States, often under the name Citrimax. It's an all natural supplement made from a plant, and it really does keep me full. I take it in a drink we have here called Fuze Slenderize. I drink 2 a day, and boy does it fill me up. You can also buy capsules of it.

I also take a prebiotic gummy fiber that is only 10 calories per 2 chews. I chew on 6 per day. The fiber keeps me full. Some folks use psyllium for the same reason; psyllium bloats me and makes me feel tired, so I use the fiber candies.

I make a soup out of vegetable broth, curry powder, TVP (texturized vegetable protein instead of using meat; it's high in protein and fiber), and the 0 calorie noodles called Miracle Noodles here in the States. Very filling for less than 100 calories.

I also drink diet root beer and have some roasted sesame seaweed as a snack if I desire (60 calories for the bag), and have a protein drink made out of light soymilk that has 60 calories per cup of soymilk and 45 calories for the added protein powder.

As you can see, I'm vegetarian. Doing all these things on fast days, really alleviates the hunger. When I do get hungry, it just passes after a short while without being unbearable.

I should note that my calories never go over 500 a day on fast days.

Oh, I should add I nibble on the above all day and save my protein drink for the evening before bed, because I hate to go to sleep hungry. I could never just eat one meal a day, but I know many folks do. The thing is, work to find something that will really fill you up and that works with your style of eating. It's dreadful to walk around starving.

Lots of ideas but I think if you stick with it and ignore the hunger in the initial stages, it goes away. Beginning to think it was all in the mind.

For the first few weeks, I used to have a small snack, a bread stick or a few nuts, now it's fine and I need to remember to eat, not ever that hungry. It's worth working out if you are really hungry or just craving something.

The test is do you fancy a lump of fish and some green veg (or whatever wholesome food you want to sub) or is it really a cake/biscuit you fancy?

Not a big fan of Root Beer being a native Brit and moving to the States a decade ago.

My Dad on the other hand loves it. He likes Diet Mug! My Hubby loves Jones root beer which smells great.

Guess I'm a Cherry Dr Pepper kinda gal!

I used to have corn kernels.

I posted the other day about the problem of "grazing" in reference to 5:2 and intermittent fasting but no one has replied

I read in a post back to Jan that we are meant to have a window of 12 hours of nil calorie intake (thus the skip breakfast concept if you do my method of setting aside a "day of week" for fasting. I guess some liquids are allow to avoid dehydration.

So grazing to avoid hunger is ok or not?

So grazing to avoid hunger is ok or not?

I don't eat, I even drink green tea with no milk, so I have no calories and get the longest possible fast. I'm doing 5:2 for the fasting health benefits as well as weight loss, and think the research seems to point to a long proper fast (rather than just reduced calories) being more beneficial.

That said, one of the reasons MM came up with the 5:2 plan of reduced calories rather than proper fasting, was to make it sustainable. If you need to eat small amounts to make it sustainable - well do it. Different things will work for different people. Good research teasing out the benefits of fasting vs reduced calories is still a long way off.

So grazing to avoid hunger is ok or not?

I think it depends on whether you are in it for the health benefits or the weight loss. For the health benefits of IF, grazing is probably not good. But for losing weight I don't think it matters as long as you count the calories.

As for the original question, I try to do things to distract myself from hunger. It's a great time to tidy and do other tasks around the house or office.

I agree with KataMac and MaryAnn but also, for me, dealing with the pangs of hunger on a fast day is helping me to redefine my attitudes towards food and habits of eating - real process of re-education. Discovered that being hungry for a few hours doesn't kill me - who knew?!

Ultimately I think how we do this really depends on our individual needs and goals. We all agreed long ago there's no one single correct way, right?

The hunger pains come and go during a fast day. They normally don't last very long. I have got used to them mostly now, so I sip a bit of water. If that fails, then I try to find something to do to occupy my mind. I don't give in to them as I know they will go away very soon.

Times when I am away from home or out and about, I don't even notice the pains. Being sat at work its very easy to think about food and notice the pains and think about the next meal !

I cannot avoid the 6pm hunger pains as I am crying out for my meal then, so I cook and eat. Never go to bed hungry and the meals fills me up

I think in that post in January, Insulin was mentioned and it was in relation to rapid weight lost not the health benefits

5-2-diet-f7/5-2-diet-rules-t14.html

where Polsonby back in Jan said

Re: What are the 'rules' of 5:2 fasting?

Postby polsonby » 18 Jan 2013, 02:59
Dr M said he tries to maximise the length of time without eating anything on both fast days and normal days - so 12 hours between breakfast and dinner. He said he skips lunch on normal days too. Grazing keeps your blood sugar high so your body is constantly exposed to insulin which is one of the factors in developing type 2 diabetes. The fasting is intended to reduce the blood sugar for long enough to let your insulin drop. I think there is a good bit in the book about this. Anyway - the gaps between food are really important and 12 hour gaps seem to be good



===
It occurred to me that grazing may be the reason so many people complain of speed of weight loss too slow. i.e. if we dont graze is the weight loss faster? to to way the body metabolises the energy within that 12 hour window, anyway i decided on my fast day yesterday to graze a lot less. and 500 grams lost within the 24 hours! I did have my expressos thought throughout the day with a dash of milk


btw, I find in the early months of this forum (early 2013) theres some really "meaty" stuff about the physiology of intermittent fasting worth reading.. The early fasters had a lot to say here and its worth going back to read old posts, often by people no longer on the forum (maybe they reached their goals and left?)

Thanks for that Juliana. Do you remember which thread had the early stuff on the physiology of fasting? I'd quite like to revisit that too.

Thanks for that Juliana. Do you remember which thread had the early stuff on the physiology of fasting? I'd quite like to revisit that too.

this one

5-2-diet-f7/5-2-diet-rules-t14.html

Apart from the usual keeping busy thing, I do find that having a zero calorie fizzy drink does really distract me from feeling hungry. I don't need it always, but if it's a difficult day, I just find that a coke zero cheers me up as it feels somehow 'naughty' even though no calories.

Only problem with coke zero is the ingredients. Coke is poison.

I go for soda water with a bit of lemon. Its an instant fizzy drink and the lemon is a great dieter's friend. That or almond milk and in australia you can get the sugarless one though it takes of nothing.

I do drink tea and coffee with skimmed milk, and sparkling water (nothing added). But other than that, unless I'm really struggling through the afternoon, I seem to be making it to about 5.30pm before feeling I really need to eat. This is a big step forward for me because in the early weeks I was struggling to get to lunchtime.

Keeping busy is the absolute best thing to help ignore/distract from hunger pangs. Talking to other people I know in real life who are doing it, it looks like starting it while not working was one of the toughest things to do... they all find it easier to fast on days when they are at work so constantly busy. I now find that giving myself a task (like last week, I coated our deck in decking protector, which took lots of time but wasn't overly physical) is a great thing to do.

And actually I quite enjoy having a couple of days when I don't have to think about food all day and make decisions about what to eat/cook. We have a few different evening meals that we eat on fast days, and as long as we have the ingredients in the fridge, they can be prepared quite quickly as soon as we decide we are ready to eat. So no difficult decisions there.

Great tips. Thank you everyone.