The FastDay Forum

This may sound odd, but how do you eat on feast days? Do you eat only when hungry or do you eat to a regular schedule ie 3 meals a day even if you arent hungry? I try to eat only when I am hungry, but when I do this I eat way too little, perhaps only 1 small meal a day and I know that can't be good. I am toying with the idea of eating regularly even if not hungry to make my body get used to a regular schedule after years of disordered eating. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

[janeg]

I think you have hit the nail on the head when you say 'disordered eating'.
The way 5:2 seems to work is by the fairly stiff calorie restriction on the 2 fast days and the other days eating 'normally'.
Now if your 'normal' has been way above your TDEE it and you continue to do this, it may not be particularly successful. Similarly , if you have been a 'serial dieter' and your body has been managing on a much reduced calorie intake for a while and you continue to do this then it may not show good results.
There needs to be a period of adjustment to encourage your body back to 'good' eating habits.
If you don't eat enough, the weight may not shift. Quite a few folk have reported that when they eat more, the weight shifts faster.
For yourself, it may be that eating regularly up to your TDEE will help, but that will take a period of adjustment and obviously, you need to listen to our body.
Thankfully, the fasts seem to help us do that and re-educate us to recognise 'hunger'- and also not to be afraid of that feeling.
Hopefully others will give you some suggestions too. Good luck

[carorees]

Tends to be pretty regular on weekdays due to feeding the family! At weekends it is more disordered.

I recently hit a bit of a plateau/slow down which coincided with me trying to delay breakfast and extend the overnight fast. I went back to eating weekday breakfasts at a normal time and got some more weightloss. I think it's probably best not to combine diets so eat normally as the good doctor said rather than to do 16:8 as well as 5:2!

I find that I now don't really need to snack during the day. So I stick to three meals a day (most of the time). Also I now find that I don't have to eat the first second I go hungry, after all if I can fast for 22-24 hours then I can wait on a normal eating day too. This has helped me make better food choices on a normal eating day as I don't have to just grab something and eat it, I can take the time to prepare/find something better.

Interesting question. I tend to cook a big main meal for the whole family which we eat in the evening. I'll have something little in the morning, mainly because I am in a rush to get the children up and out for school, so it's usually a slice of toast, followed by a cup of coffee when I get back from the school run. And because my 2 year old son is at home all day, we will have snacky bits and bobs for lunch, a toddler picnic, if you will. Usually sandwiches, some fruit, a chocolate bar. It's fairly regular I think, but lunch is a bit hit and miss.

I always used to eat breakfast but since starting 5:2 I prefer to skip it and just have a cup of chai. I fast on Mondays and Thursdays, so on Tuesdays and Wednesdays I eat something like an omelette and baked beans for lunch, sometimes with some homemade bread. Sometimes I have something like a tuna salad. For dinner I have fish or chicken with salad or veg, usually no starch.

Fridays I have the same sort of lunch then curry (salad instead of rice) a small piece of naan bread, red wine and chocolate. Saturdays I might have a bacon sarnie or maybe soup and bread for lunch and then anything goes for dinner, usually with a dessert and wine. Sundays, usually bacon sarnie or egg on toast or similar for lunch and then a lovely roast for dinner. We often have some home baked goodies at weekends too, bread and cake etc, but I don't eat tons of it. When I feel the need to snack, I eat fruit. I have become friends with 10 calorie jelly and 40 calorie hot chocolate. I don't know how but it seems to be working.

I don't usually count calories but I did as an experiment last week and amazingly I was eating below my lowish TDEE. I weigh every day and track the wide variations on the true weight app. It looks scary sometimes but so far I have lost a steady 1lb each week (saying that will wreck it now!!) I think the answer is to relax and enjoy the freedom of choosing to eat instead of not eat but be sensible with portions.

Apologies if my post is too long and hope that helps

Hi Sedalia,
If grazing is your problem then try to eliminate it completely, even on non fast days. You will then be able to know when you are really hungry. Be a little bit strict with yourself until you sort out your eating schedule of three proper meals with no grazing in between. If you know what triggers a binge (usually carbs, sweet or savoury) avoid that particular trigger even for the occasional snack. If you have to nibble, try veggie sticks like cucumber, carrots, celery etc. with a bit of cheese (without the cracker). If you find you can go all day until dinner without eating then I would stick with that on fast days. Have plenty of hot drinks to keep you going! You can do it, good luck!

I eat 3 meals a day with main meal of an evening my husband is diabetic so needs to eat regularly ,so I do the same

On fast days I skip breakfast and have lunch and dinner but on non-fast days I have breakfast as well but during the week at work its only normally a digestive with a cup of coffee and at weekends a bowl of cereal. I've found that I don't tend to snack as much between meals as I don't feel hungry and can ignore the urge to eat just because I'm bored.

I absolutely agree with everyone that has said that this WOE re-educates. I think now before I eat snacks and choose wisely. It's the way I ate as a child, teen and young adult. I got into bad snacking habits as I got busier with family. Meals have always been healthy but snacking became a bad habit. Now I try to only eat chocolate once a week instead of every day. Who needs it?

I eat them same as I always have, 3 meals, maybe a snack on the afternoon (try to stick to fruit).
Yoghurt and fruit in the evening. My appetite hasn't really changed, I can still eat much more than I should which is probably why my weight loss has stopped for now.

On non-fast days, I follow a low-carb WOE.

I eat loads of cheese, butter etc., but this doesn't seem to have stopped me from losing weight.

It all depends on what you eat, not necessarily the amount of calories you ingest.

Calories from sweet foods etc., will do more to prevent weight loss, on non-fasting days, than those from more natural foods.

For this reason, I only count calories on fast days.

One of the main reasons my 'old-fashioned' husband likes 5:2 is that I am regularly eating three meals a day with him and he is feeling the benefits of healthier choices too! When I do the fast days, I base his meal around mine. We don't discuss my eating habits, but he lights up like Battersea Power Station when friends say that I look 10 years younger!

I kind of eat whatever I want, whilst trying not to sabotage myself.
For example yesterday, I had
2 small bananas first thing to break my fast.
Bowl of porridge with skimmed milk and golden syrup at 10.30 for breakfast.
2 oreos during the morning
chicken, mozzarella and pesto panini for lunch
1 more oreo and 2 thorntons chocolates during the afternoon
Chicken burger for dinner which came with a portion of potato wedges of which I only ate 2 wedges and ignored the coleslaw it came with.
Also had:
2 glasses wine
half a bottle of wine
champagne cocktail
3 small bananas when I got in slightly tipsy, which is a lot better than the pizza or kebab it would have been at one time.

This is fairly standard for me, apart from the booze. I have NO IDEA what my TDEE is and I refuse to do 4:3 which I am doing, AND count calories.

I am losing about 1lb a week. Have lost exactly 3 stone now in 13 months but a lot of that was before I discovered this diet, previously I had been counting calories 5 days a week. I also do Jillian Michaels workouts 6 days a week first thing in the morning.
(In case anyone is wondering, my BMI calculation on here is WAY OUT because I entered my info incorrectly when I first registered, it is now 25.0

On feed days I eat when I'm hungry and that tends to be later than typical meal times. So muesli for breakfast which ends up being mid-morning or thereabouts, and a bigger meal mid-afternoon. If I'm hungry at my usual dinnertime at 6:30-7pm, I have small light meal or snack. Sometimes I binge once I have one of the 2 later meals. I'm trying to get that under control

I'm more likely to skip any one of my usual meals on fast or feed days than I have been in the past. If I'm not hungry, I'm comfortable not eating rather than becoming anxious and working it out based on my schedule and my next chance to eat.