The FastDay Forum

[Tracieknits]

Sprite zero has two artificial sweeteners, according to Wikipedia. The following ingredients are listed here: carbonated water, citric acid, natural flavors, potassium citrate, and potassium benzoate, aspartame and acesulfame potassium.

Aspartame is also known as Nutrasweet (blue packets). Acesulfame Potassium is also called Ace K.

If you can tolerate seltzer as well, it's a better choice.

Are you sure you are actually overeating? Today is the day after my fast, and my menu looks like this:
B - 2 piece toast, 2 poached eggs, 50g ham, 2 cheese slice, 1 can baked beans
MT - 2 cruskits with cottage cheese
L - cup of soup
- salad with 40g goats cheese, 50g chicken, lettuce, roast capsicum, roast eggplant
AT - 2 cruskits with cottage cheese
Tea - 170g taco mince mix, lettuce, salsa, 50g sour cream, tomato
- low fat low sugar yoghurt
Plus milk in coffees.

Only adds up to less that 1800 calories, I feel STUFFED, but technically not overeating - my TDEE is about 1800, and then on top of that I've earned over 400cal exercising.

I find that my ideas of what is 'enough' - portion control etc, are so skewed from years of dieting, that tracking what I eat on non-fast days helps me put things in perspective.

Hi Annabelle and all! I started fasting 5:2 about a month ago, my husband does it too, so I feel that fasting days are easier with him doing it too. But after a long week of hard work, my husband uses food as a reward, he loves to over indulge ALL weekend long!! And it is hard to refrain from an extra slice of pizza when watching a movie or to have a side salad when he has french fries...

So since I don't know what his cravings will be as the day goes by, I try to compensate by always having healthy snacks available (sliced carrots, cucumber, edamame, apples, etc.) and having a big glass of soluble fiber before we go out to eat.

So keep up the good work! It is hard, but it is worth it and we deserve to be healthy and take care of our body

[wildmissus]

Hi Annabelle, Don't be so hard on yourself (that's my thing). Concentrate on doing one thing at a time. Sounds like you have got fast days under control - make sure you have by by giving it another week or so. Then decide what you want to tackle next, eg. the snacking. I would suggest allowing yourself a snack each day but keeping it until later in the evening so that you can't over do it and remember the whole point on 5:2 is to not exclude anything. The weeks in which I've had good weight loses are the weeks when I haven't thought much about food. The more I think about food the less I lose.

Tracieknits - yeah, I noticed the aspartame on a second look at the ingredients... Well, still one or two cans a week wont kill me in the short run and I am trying to see if I can have seltzer instead. I found lemon-lime flavored seltzer but it comes only in bottles so if I don;t drink the whole bottle (it's just too big) it will lose the fizz and be useless. It seems that the trick for me is to have something carbonated - this prevents nausea somehow. I will keep experimenting...

My second feed day after the fasting day was much better. I was able to avoid candy and snacks (the bad kind) until I came home from work. Then I stumbled a bit (whole bag of caramel corn mini rice cakes) while I was putting the groceries away and fixing dinner, but still it was an improvement. I went back to using My Fitness Pal to track my calories on feed days. Hopefully it will help me be more disciplined. I can't tell you how much it bugs me that I can't control myself!! I guess I am a bit of a control freak!

And I am not buying any more snacks to keep in the house...I am sure my husband will complain about it...

Hi Annabelle, I have similar problems with queasiness - in my case, drinking something salty (oxo) helps.
Is your hubby supportive? Could you ask him not to eat snacks in front of you, or alternatively, not give you more than one of "his" snacks in order to help you stop and regain control?

Hi Annabelle. I felt myself going a little calorie crazy yesterday too. Large portions of dinner and a big slice of pie for dessert. It's more than I would normally eat and I felt very sleepy and full afterwards. I'm going to try eating much more slowly to try to let my brain recognize the "full" signal sooner.
One thought I had about your nausea on fast days. What about 'drinking' all of your calories on fast days? Almond milk is really low in calories and can be blended up with fruit and other things like peanut butter, healthy seeds like hemp or greek yogurt which is high in protein. That could help you get fluids and some nutrients as well.

I don't think you should get hung up about drinking on "fasting" days - if you are thirsty, then drink water, if you aren't then don't.

A lot of the water you normally "drink" when overeating on normal days (including the large proportion in the food itself) is needed to digest the food. Since you are eating very little food (25% of normal?) on fast days, you don't necessarily need it.

Plenty of people do real fasts (i.e. no food at all) with no water at all for weeks with no ill effects.

Don't forget you are 65% water anyway!

wildmissus - you are so right about not thinking of food: on busy days, when I am occupied with things and don't think about food, I find that I am not hungry all the time and eat only when I actually feel hunger. And then I crave 'real' food, not sweets or snacks. My stumbling block is boredom. I start looking for something to eat when I have nothing to do.

HelleninBC: I love smoothies! And I love almond milk (real milk does not agree with me). I make smoothies with almond milk, bananas and berries. They're so good! Sometimes (like when I do a lot of weight training during the week) I add some protein powder or Greek yogurt. But the problem with drinking my calories this way is that I feel hungry sooner. I think my stomach likes to feel the weight of the food Then it thinks it's full.

Geodesic - the problem is I am thirsty but can't drink because I feel queasy if I drink on an empty stomach. I love tea with lemon but it's the worst thing for me to have without food. So far the only liquids I found I can tolerate are coffee (but I don't like black coffee so I have to watch creamer calories) and carbonated drinks. I hope I can drink seltzer instead of diet colas. I will test it on my next fast day.

[wildmissus]

Annabelle, have you tried sparkling water - you can flavour it with lemon or lime. I drink it a lot on fast days as it's more 'filling' than tap water.

Started 5:2 in May 2013, 15 months ago. Within the first 6 weeks I lost 12 pounds and since then have pretty much maintained this within 5 pounds (going up and returning). However, I cannot seem to break the incessant eating on a non-fast day. As much as I try, even with a reasonable breakfast of apple and non-sugary cereal, I start eating by 10.30 and go on for about 12 hours (even longer on some days).

I have tried to stop buying dangerous stuff like sweets and chocolate but cannot give up salt and vinegar crisps (even having a handful of them on the more successful fast days). Am still buying sweets and chocolate when I lapse. The fast days are by no means easy, but I don’t feel so out-of-control and negative.

What is disappointing is that the binging will not cease – even after all this time. I just can’t seem to control it. If wasn’t on the 5:2 I can’t imagine what I would weigh.

I can't get back to where I was and I can't move forward.

I haven’t got much weight to lose, maybe about another 9 pounds, but will probably stay on 5:2 as a lifestyle way of managing my weight. In fact in I didn’t I hate to think what I would weigh.

The point is that my eating is MUCH WORSE than prior to 5:2. I have always struggled with sweet rubishy carbs but now is it very much worse and out of control.

I also find that I am drinking more alcohol. Although it is still within safe limits/recommendations, I drink more than I did, having a glass of wine, pretty much every day on non-fast days.

My cholesterol and waist measurement has dropped, which is fantastic, but the near-binging makes me feel really negative and out of control. I thought it may settle down.

I haven’t read any forum comments in which this problem hasn’t setted down, which leaves me more self-critical/loathing.

To add to this, I am not able to do much exercise other than as much as someone with a serious heart and low-oxygen level can manage.

I AM trying but just can’t seem to manage these overeating consequences. Is there any hope at all for me? Is there anyone still trying to stop overeating 15 months on? I value any views or feedback.

Hi @bluefish too tired to write much and not sure if i have anything helpful to say..but i am 13 months in more or less and still struggle
I guess i always will
Its partly my own bad habits and greed but if you read widely on this forum,you' ll find lots of info on physiological reasons why we overeat..so dont beat yrself up about it..frustrating tho isnt it
Focus on the positives coz if you let negative thoughts too much headspace,its all to easy to forget how well you've done x

I also find that I am drinking more alcohol. Although it is still within safe limits/recommendations, I drink more than I did, having a glass of wine, pretty much every day on non-fast days.

'I also find' seems as if this is something that happens to you. Any chance of changing alcohol into water? After some time you will find this is getting more easy than it seems today.

even with a reasonable breakfast of apple and non-sugary cereal, I start eating by 10.30 and go on for about 12 hours (even longer on some days).

I'm sorry, Bluefish, but I don't consider an apple and cereal to be a reasonable breakfast if you are trying to stop overeating on NFDs.

Have a look at my take on why FDs are so easy compared to NFDs:

http://nobreadisanisland.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/52-diet-intermittent-fasting-aand.html

My advice to anyone who struggles on these days would be to try and cut out breakfast. Try and push it later in the morning to begin with, then cut it out altogether. If you can do without breakfast on a FD, then it should be easy enough to leave it out on other days.

Other tips:
Institute a regime of 'No Snacking!'. If you want a sweet or a treat, have it as part of a meal.
Institute a regime of 'No Late Night Meals!'. After dinner is over, place a sign on the kitchen door, saying, 'Kitchen Closed.'

And don't buy any treats - if you haven't got them in, you can't consume them.

Good luck everyone, you can do this!

B&W

@Bluefish,

My guess is that you have slightly abnormal blood sugar, which is too low to show up on the tests doctors use to scan for diabetes, but high enough to set up roller coaster blood sugars every time you eat a big batch of carbs.

Apples can have a lot of carbs, as does cereal. And if that sends your blood sugar shooting up, then an hour later, you will be ravenously hungry, eat more carbs, surge again, get hungry again, rinse and repeat.

This would explain why you feel better on fast days. Blood sugar stays flat when you don't eat carbs.

If you can get a blood sugar testing meter and strips, you can test at home to see if this is what is happening. If not, you can try doing 2 weeks of an Atkins style low carb diet. Do 3 days of the low carb diet WITHOUT fasting. Eat as much as you want, but keep the carbs to as close to 15 grams a day as you can manage. Then start fasting on your usual schedule.

You may find that the desire to binge has disappeared. In that case, your solution would be to eat a much lower carb intake on feed days, raising your carbs from that very low level only as long as you aren't hungry.

If that doesn't work, you probably should wean yourself off this diet and find one that doesn't make you feel like you are living with an eating disorder. But I have a sneaky suspicion it will work. Those fluctuating blood sugars are what make people who get diagnosed with diabetes gain all that weight in the decades before they are diagnosed.

If you can flatten the blood sugars, you should be able to eliminate that "gotta eat" monster. If not, then there may be some other hormonal thing going on, that this diet is not pushing in the right direction.

Let us know how it turns out!