The FastDay Forum

Thank you Sarahg for the book information. I have just looked on Amazon & found a cheap summary of the 8 hour diet by Matt Hamilton & Jill Sinclair & it costs only £2.05 on kindle. As I am wanting a cheap overview it seemed better to get this one rather than the more expensive David Zinczenko one which is £6.64 on kindle but thank you.

Sounds good Wendy darling hope it works for your stall. Another day down

Agree with you there amberenchanted ... Might have to have a breakfast after fast days

Wendydarlling,will be watching your weight loss with Interest .i am trying 16.8 cos it is easy for me to skip breakfast and eat a late lunch ,snack ,then dinner .
Last night I went out with my daughter for dinner.felt very strange and very naughty for me,a lifetime dieter,to share lots of yummy plates with her.i didn't even eat anything unhealthy,but just ate like a normal person not a dieter.even had cheese for dessert.
I don't weigh but waist measurement is now 4/5 cm less than 5 weeks ago and as I don't have a lot to loose that is impressive .

mummybunny2005 wrote:
Here's one for the science nerds (I can post it in the lab too if necessary) - I'd always heard that the later you eat the more likely you are to hold onto the calories as fat. For years dieting gurus said never to eat just before you go to bed. If your window is, say 2pm till 10pm and you go to bed soon after that (and don't eat again till 2 the next afternoon), does this still hold true? This is the reason my husband insists on breakfast, but it seems to me that it's the fast itself that has the benefit, not the time you fast. So even if you do go to bed on a full stomach, if you give yourself the full 16 hours before eating again you're getting as much benefit as if your eating window had been, say, 8am to 4pm.

Does this make sense?

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I would like to comment, not that I see myself as an expert, so please bear with me. This is how I understand it at this point, and I know this will change again in weeks and months , depending on what I read(brain washed by the media) as well as experience through this journey.

1. Yes, the fasting has other effects on your body. One for example is Growth Hormone that gets excreted once your insulin is shut down because you have not had food. For how many hours you'd ask? I would say it depends how much food you had at your last meal and how depleted your liver and muscles(glycogen) was before your meal. GH is the hormone that helps to burn body fat as a source of energy. If you eat every 3 hours, you insulin will stay high and your body will not use body fat(in the nerd section there are more on this subject). IE your liver and pancreas and intestines actually has time to recover, and create new cells. That is why(how I understand) they say GH is the anti aging hormone.

2.You body won't hold onto food in the form of fat. If your stores(blood glucose, liver, muscles) are depleted from glycogen(broken down food) I am SURE your body will appreciate that food and start apply it again to these stores.Yes, eat too much, don't move and it will store it as fat. Again how many hours before it will get stored? I'd like that answer too. That is why one need to look at the amount of calories you do take in in one day. I also feel(and experience) that even going for a walk, will help those stores to get depleted, in case you had too much, to rather use it than store it.

3. My experience is to not eat 2 to 3 hours before going to sleep, especially after a fast, as all your organs are active now and working together to get that food broken down and to its place for storing. My heart rate is higher, I feel restless and my stomach is rumbling. Not that I think it is bad to go to sleep, the sleep will just be more restless if you immediately go to bed.

4. What is the ideal time frame to have the food? Everyone is different what they can manage and still do life. You can fit in alot of calories in 8 hours. Making that time frame shorter, will help to reduce the total calories you eat, without counting as you listen to your body.My rule is, if I am hungry, drink water first.

5.Does your husband exercise on a regular basis? Then there are a few other things I would add to the routine.

6.As BSSH said above, try it, and see how your body reacts, ie shed the fat or not.

As I said it's my opinion and would love to hear what others have to say on it

[carorees]

Several hormones show variations throughout the day-night cycle (this is termed a 'diurnal rhythm'), these include growth hormone, leptin and ghrelin (among others) which are all involved in appetite and what fuel is used for energy. When you eat can affect the diurnal rhythm of the hormones. Exactly how this works I am not clear on (and I don't think that anyone really knows). I'm sure that the length of the overnight fast is important whether it starts at 6pm or 10pm but how important the timing is, I don't know. There is a school of thought that says because we are daytime creatures (not nocturnal like rats and mice that much of the research is done on), we should only eat during daylight hours. Soooo... I'm not sure about the argument for having breakfast in the morning, but there maybe some validity to the idea of not eating late at night.

Thanks UN2NET and Carorees for your input. It's given me a lot to think about. I'm definitely starting 16:8 today - I need to get out of this rut (gained 1 lb+) and I am desperate not to have to start counting calories on my "5" days...

I am going to "open" my window at about 1. DH is out for dinner this evening and I am planning to have a real girlie dinner before 9 of - wait for it - muesli and popcorn! I can't wait.

Just finishing today's 16/8 and tomorrow is another fast day which is the hard part of the regime I feel. Anyway it's working out - as in I am getting my head around the window of eating and feeling better the more I get used to it.

How are my fellow 5:2 + 16:8 travellers faring today

I did 16/8 over the weekend and then a fast day on the Monday which I found a little harder than usual. However I wont grumble too much as I lost more weight than I usually do in a week and I have found my appetite on feed days isnt as voracious as usual. I tried to do 16/8 at work yesterday but I found myself thinking about food and worrying about when to eat as I was going to exercise at lunchtime so I caved in and ate (albeit not a lot).

Today, I had blueberries for breakfast and snacked on dried fruit so far. At the same time I dont want to starve myself in order to lose the weight or surely that defeats the object. Lately a few people I know have called the diet a starvation diet...

I've been on a very long and boring call and have been poking around Google on 16:8. There are quite a few very positive articles and one or two (e.g., Shape) that spew the usual nonsense about that this isn't a sustainable way of losing weight and about needing to eat lots of meals throughout the day to avoid drops in blood sugar blah blah blah. One thing I read in reviews of the Zinczenko book was that he claimed that just 3 days a week of 16:8 can lead to weight loss. I was thinking of reading the book but I have to admit that, given the experiences I've been reading of people on this forum, that sounds unrealistic.

I am in my first day of 16:8, having fasted yesterday. I broke my fast at 1:30 with a bowl of hummus, falafel, pita and lots of raw veggies and salad. It tasted divine. I've been telling myself that if I want to stop and get a cake or muffin or bag of crisps for the train home I can, but I am still so full from lunch I'm not sure I could get through it.

I have been trying 5:2 for a few weeks but find that my weekends are out of control. The past two weekends I managed to gain 10 pounds by Monday morning but I don't understand why that has happened or how it is even possible! The weight has come back off after a couple of fast days but then I turn around and do it all over again the next weekend so I am not making any progess! Yesterday I had a fast day and also did 16:8. I am going to try to do 16:8 7 days a week and continue to fast (under 500) 2 days. I don't know why I have been going crazy on the weekends but something about 5:2 made me want to eat like a horse. Have any of you experienced this?

How many calories should I aim for on my feed days? TDEE, BMR, or somewhere in between?

[Betsysgr8]

Annie2013, aim for TDEE on normal days. Some days a bit more and some days a bit less.

Hello~ is it ok if I jump aboard the 5:2 + 16.8 train? I've read all your posts and this makes so much sense. Fast days are generally ok but I'm eating way too much on feed days & can take or leave breakfast! Will attempt my first 16:8 tomorrow as today was my second fast day of the week.
I may ask a lot of questions but as Miranda would say "bear with.."
Off to bed now... Night, night peeps. Xx

I finished my first 16:8 day and it was a little weird. I ate like a glutton at lunchtime because I had fasted yesterday and had no breakfast. I filled myself up on hummus and falafel and really felt stuffed. I toyed with buying a snack for the train ride home but decided not to as I still felt full. But on the train I felt really sleepy and actually dozed off! I haven't done that in years! Has this happened to anyone else?

"Dinner", such as it was, was typical single girls' fare: a bowl of muesli, a slice of toast with peanut butter and a bowl of popcorn in front of the TV. Heaven, and not even any alcohol involved. I never get to do that but DH is out tonight and tomorrow and I'm fasting tomorrow so that is when I will be sensible.

I definitely need to break my breakfast habit. That won't be easy. But it is good to know that having breakfast isn't actually the essential start to the day we always thought it was.