The FastDay Forum

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/2 ... /?hpw&_r=0
This is a link to an interesting article from the New York Times. My personal experience echoes that. After years of CR during which I ate mostly low glycemic foods ( lots of complex carbs and veggies and some lean proteins) in order to get the maximum satiety from a relatively small amount of calories, and didn't experience significant cravings or uncontrollable binges, when I started with the 5:2 WOL and allowed myself some sugary and high glycemic foods which I didn't eat before, I started experiencing those cravings again and even had one evening of a relatively uncontrollable eating. Now I'm eating again the "good" foods and feeling much better.
So basically cakes, biscuits, candies and white bread should be eaten sparingly in order to reduce those binges in these people who experience them.

Though posted three weeks ago I couldn't have read this at a better time. To start, I absolutely know these types of carbs are bad. Not only for the sugar but for their addictive qualities. I have done well with this WOE but the past few weeks I have allowed the nasty carbs to overtake me. Sore throat and cold medicated with popsicles and ice cream. Hot weather= anything that goes between two pieces of bread. Bought a bag of chocolate doughnuts for my grandson as he does not participate in this WOE. Problem, I ate the whole bag at 11p last night. Selfish, selfish grandma! Then to top it all off my downstairs neighbor gave me a gift of European chocolates because I take out the trash and he appreciates it. I am checking myself into a rehab.

The research is interesting but I think it is not just the high GI foods that can cause blood glucose spikes.

Two years ago, I was overweight and wondering why I would feel hungry 2 hours after eating a big bowl of porridge for breakfast. I was literally weak and ravenous 2 hours later and that didn't seem sensible to me. Prior to my experiments with intermittent fasting, I would have said I was starving! I bought a blood glucose monitor and it clearly showed that when I ate after waking, that that bowl of porridge caused a big spike in my blood glucose levels followed by a marked dip down to very low blood glucose levels 2 hours later. It was obvious to me that my ravenous hunger was correlated with the dip in my blood glucose levels. Now when I fasted during the morning and ate that exact same bowl of porridge in the afternoon, my blood glucose profile was much more sensible - there was no massive spike, no big dip, and no signs of ravenous hunger. For whatever reason (perhaps I have high cortisol in the morning or I was already on my way to pre-diabetes), eating when I wake up causes the same pattern. Interestingly when I eat a low-carb breakfast (bacon, eggs, mushrooms), I am not hungry in my stomach but I have this weird hunger that is only in my mind that becomes very irritating and my mind is definitely hyper-aware of food with carbs in them. The best way for me to avoid the whole problem was to skip breakfast and to eat my first meal of the day after midday. After lots of self-experimentation, I worked out what meal pattern made me feel most in control of my food choices and interestingly it also gave me a sensible blood glucose profile. Basically I eat a low carb lunch (mounds of vegetables, lots of chewing, and a good size of protein) followed by a small dessert with a cup of tea. I no longer test my blood glucose regularly but I know to look out for that "2 hour hunger" issue - if any new food combination results in the "2 hour hunger" problem, I avoid it or re-classify it as a dessert.

My experiments with my blood glucose monitor also clearly show that wholegrain bread spikes my blood glucose levels causing similar problems even if I eat it at midday. So I now classify wholegrain bread as a dessert. I now have a more reasonable area-under-the-curve blood glucose profile and I feel I am in control of my food choices.

I am not saying that such a strategy is for everyone (especially if you are the type of person to face-plant into a block of chocolate when you feel hungry), but for me (someone who knows what healthy food is but tends to overdo the portions), it certainly sorted the problem for me.

I think people really should pay more attention to their blood glucose response to their common meals. It really was an eye opener to me that foods considered "healthy" according to the food pyramid was causing me to overeat. Feeling hungry 2 hours after eating a "healthy" meal is not normal in my opinion and, in my case, I think my weight gain was just a side effect of my body's malfunctioning blood glucose response.

Thank you very much for your interesting post. I see myself exactly in your description. No matter what, If I eat a substantial breakfast, after 2 hours or so I am "starving". It happens both with a high and a low carb breakfast; in the latter case maybe it is a psychological response, I don't know, but for sure it makes me think of eating at 10:00 after breakfast at 8:00. I have also started (successfully I may add) to skip breakfast or limit it to water and coffee and, to my surprise, when I really started paying attention, I realized that I am not even hungry in the morning. Now I am curious to understand why it is so for some people and not for others, aside from acknowledging that we are all different. I am not convinced it is related to whether you are overweight to start with: I remember that when I was a teenager of normal weight I had exactly the same effect and would feel very hungry middle of the morning on school days, when I had a breakfast in the morning. Your comment about high cortisol made me curious, forgive the ignorance, but why do you mention it?

This is fascinating - and I need to chew it over (not literally).
I read it after a fast day when I woke 4 am as the weather was very hot - and what I longed for was high GI food! So instead of my usual muesli, fruit, yoghurt and soymilk I had two thick slices of wholegrain bread, butter and home made damson jelly.
Now I'm waiting to see when hunger strikes. The thought of low GI foods just wouldn't appeal at all at this time of the morning.But not good.
i haven't had a blood sugar problem that I've known about about except years ago when a homeopathic doctor (A proper GP too) suggested I would do much better eating little and often to keep my blood sugar/energy levels up. That was often the healthy eating advice 20 years ago. Things change!!

I mentioned cortisol because I also noticed that when I woke up, I literally felt like I was on fire (even on a cold morning were the inside temperature was around 10 degrees Celsius). I would wake up at dawn, feel very hot, jump out of bed, and comfortably get breakfast ready while wearing shorts and tee-shirt for the first hour after waking. After an hour or so, I would suddenly start to feel cold. It made be suspicious that, together with a crazy blood glucose profile to a seemingly sensible breakfast, that I had a high cortisol awakening response. Now that could have been caused by genetics, or as a result of the sleep deprivation caused by having babies, or it could have been as a result of other sources of stress but it seemed to point to a higher than normal cortisol level in the mornings. I never did do a test but I thought it was crazy to be hungry 2 hours after eating so I started to do some reading and experiments to figure out how to stop me feeling ravenous after breakfast. Interestingly, now I have moved breakfast to past midday, it takes me longer to get out of bed and I no longer wake up feeling like I am on fire. I suspect our biochemistry will adapt to new meal patterns and our bodies are very complex (more complex than I can comprehend!) - added to that life (and my level of stress) is always changing so it can be hard to nail down exactly is going on.

I have always wondered if something like someone's cortisol response is an example of what the scientists mean when they say that some people are genetically pre-disposed to obesity. Is it that some people have some genetic programming that responds in a certain way to stressors and certain meal-patterns? As we age and life becomes more stressful, or we change the daily rhythm of our lives, these genetic tendencies that influence our biochemistry, start to lock in an inexorable march down the path to obesity.

Thanks for this very interesting post. This whole WOE is making me reassess what I eat rather than just the quantity. The fast days are a great barometer for which foods satiate and which cause the hunger pangs to return quickly.

Hi Storm,

thanks for your reply. I am no expert, but once the doctor told me that I had unusual low level of cortisol in the morning blood. We thought it was because at the time I was working night shifts and somehow my body rhythms were reversed. It was also a period of high stress at work. Now, after changing job and working normal hours things should have been back to normal, but I have not checked the cortisol. I think it is a good idea to put it in the list for my next blood work. The connection between cortisol levels to "the feeling hungry two hours after breakfast", does not seem to apply to me, since this has always been true for me for as long as I can remember.

As for feeling hot or cold, I am permanently hot, usually friends make fun of my wearing light clothes in winter (in the German winter!). But I had attributed it to my getting closer to menopause.

Things are getting complicated and I have not found a doctor who could explain it all to me. Having said that, 5:2 has already brought great improvements in my life, all for the best, and I am amazed that NO doctors in the 3 continents I have lived ever mentioned the possibility of fasting (maybe not 5:2, which I reckon it's recent, but ADF or IF) to me. All the other unsustainable diets, food pyramids, etc, were mentioned, though.

I guess the best for me is to follow your example and start looking online for some more clues vis-a-vis the connection between morning hunger, cortisol, felling hot and the likes! In the meantime I encourage everyone on the forum to share their experiences with these issues!

So basically cakes, biscuits, candies and white bread should be eaten sparingly in order to reduce those binges in these people who experience them.

I feel as if I am on a 'high' if I eat items with lots of sugar - get a 'buzz' - even a can of coca cola goes straight to my head.

I have numerous food allergies/intolerances and specialists over the years have found by testing that I am addicted to them. Strange that items that have a detrimental effect on my body are the ones I crave the most eg chocolate and wheat!

I have had a similar experience. I lost 25 lbs. on a low-glycemic diet. Then I decided to start 5:2, combining it with the low-glycemic diet. I ended up allowing myself more high glycemic treats on my non fast days, which lead to my completely losing control of the whole thing. I have now been eating whatever I want for a few weeks and was feeling disgusting.

Yesterday I did a liquid fast day and am now feeling like I can get back on track. I think this WOE is great and should be sustainable. I just know that for me, the high glycemic foods are a slippery slope that I really need to avoid if I am going to have continued success.