The FastDay Forum

Something my wife and I will try this week -- instead of a 5:2 where we eat 500/600 kcal after 22-24 hour fast (nothing until evening meal except water and other zero-calorie drinks like black coffee), we will try a 4:3 where we eat 1000/1200 kcal after 22-24 hour fast.

The weekly math comes out the same -- as 2x75% calorie restriction is the same as a 3x50% calorie restriction. It leaves fewer days to overshoot when not tracking, it gives one more day of fasting stress to do its thing, and it may help address what I'm finding to be the more-difficult part of fast days: once we break our fast, the rest of the night is pretty tough to get through with only 500/600 kcal.

Some issues I do see with this is that it does take away some of the flexibility of 5:2 (screw up one day, just go the next day, no big deal), but it may help in other ways, such as it would be less-easy to blow through a 1000/1200 kcal limit if you managed to make it 22-24 hours without eating anything. (I'm wondering, in fact, if it may be difficult to get 1200 kcal down in that 3-4 hour period...)

Anyone see any other problems with trying something like this? Is there anything sacred about the 25% limit that kills the effect if you go to 50% (assuming, of course, that you eat nothing for that 22-24 hours before breaking the fast)?

BruceE,

This looks like a very worthwhile experiment and it will be interesting to hear what the results are for both you and your wife.

Yep would be interested to see how you get on

I think by default this is what Dr M, and a couple of other long timers might do when they skip breakfast and lunch and just eat in the evening.

Good Luck

[Tracieknits]

Yes, this experiment is the result of us having a charity gala tomorrow night, where it would be nearly impossible to stick to 500 calories politely, as well as obligations the rest of the week which basically make it nearly impossible to do a proper 5:2 this week any day but Wednesday. So necessity is the mother of invention

Here's hoping and at the very least, we figure it's better than only one day of 5:2

So, after a week's experiment I found that appetite was MUCH easier to control on fasting nights this way. It is almost "difficult" (though certainly not impossible) to eat 1200 kcal in the last 3-4 hours of the day if you've fasted since the night before. Because of this, we tended to be less-diligent in actually counting every last calorie, and you lose that sense of discipline on a fast day that you get when doing the 600 kcal restriction.

Jury's still out on overall effectiveness, though. I gained a pound this week instead of losing 1-2 pounds, but I won't let one week's scale results tell me anything. On paper it ought to work.

I do ADF, no eating all day and then having whatever I want at night. Losing weight fairly rapidly. The issue is that I'm losing lean mass as well as fat, which is really frustrating. It may not be how I'm fasting that's the problem and more what I'm eating though. Let us know how you go in the next week

[Tracieknits]

We both gained a pound, but I have thyroid problems and my blood levels showed low thyroid a couple of weeks ago, so I'm sure that's at least partly to blame.

We're going to end up having to do this again this week, since we have too many family obligations (family coming into town on Wednesday and then we fly out to visit more family on Friday). The only other alternative would be to fast 5:2 two days in a row and I don't think I'm strong enough for that.