The FastDay Forum

So on feast days do I stick to my local calorie intake or does it not matter? Just making sure so I don't mess up. Thanks!

Hi there,
I am new to this (both the forum and the 'diet').It is suggested that we return to our recommended daily calorific intake, which is 2500 calories for men. What I did, however, was to calculate my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), which tells me how many calories my body is burning at rest, I then add my exercise and activity and end up with how many calories I should be eating on a feast day. A useful website I found in the UK is http://www.diabetes.co.uk/bmr-calculator.html
Simply put in your stats and it calculates it for you! Hope this helps
Take care,
Claire

normal calories on non-fast days, whatever "normal" is !

I count mine because I easily go over my daily calorie intake.

I haven't been counting on non fast days, but am going to start this week as a trial.
My weight has stayed the same for the past two weeks, but I have lost 4 kg and 2 inches from my waist, so I'm trying not to get too hung up on the numbers.
I need to readjust my intake and number of calories now I have lost the 4 kgs. That means fewer calories, but I have found 500 on fast days more than adequate.
If the reduced numbers affect my sleep then I will increase them again.

[Debs]

I am finding that I can't get near my maintenance calories which according to the calculation is 2025 cals. I managed 1750 today even with 4 Jaffa cakes and a small piece of cake. I was on a calorie restricted diet of approx. 1200 cals per day and this is very liberating!

So Debs are you finding that you are less hungry on feed days now that you are doing 5:2? That's very helpful!

[Debs]

Yes, definitely and I am stopping when full ish. I had a bowl of oatmeal, yoghurt and raspberries for breaks this morning and couldn't finish it, so I've prepared less for tomorrow. More amazing is the Jaffa cake conundrum, ordinarily the whole packet would have been scoffed in one go )

[Debs]

Meant to say I only had four Jaffa cakes!! And that was breakfast, goodness knows what my iPad speller is up to!

[Tracieknits]

I don't count on my days off.

I still have to count my non-fast day calories because, after years of over-eating, I still do not have an instinctive sense of what my "normal" is. On non-fast days I eat as close to my TDEE calories as possible (for me this is approx 2200 cals).

I'm going to try this too this week for the first time as I have stayed the same the last couple of weigh ins.
I have also recalculated the figures now that I have lost 4 kgs so will be reducing my fast days by about 100 calories too.
Hopefully this will kick start things again.
If I go over by a little on non fast days I'm not going to beat myself up about it as I don't want to become obsessed.....

I have been counting on non - fasting days but next week I will be away - so no kitchen scales and no access to my spreadsheet, which averages calories over a week! I am going to see how I go, although I am sure that I won't be able to mentally stop calculating in my head!

I've been on this diet for 4 weeks, not counting anything on Feast days and lost 7lbs, which is Good News. Last week, I lost nothing and I started asking myself about what is supposed to happen on Feast Days? Re-reading Dr.Mosely's book, I got the gist of what he was saying, but there wasn't really an overriding rule.
This post has been really useful, especially the insights around a baseline Diabetes calculator / TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure)

Going forward I'll aim to stick to the TDEE during the calorie figure. Maybe the thing I need to remember is that whilst Feast doesn't quite mean Feast, neither does Fast doesn't quite mean Fast

[carorees]

Maybe the thing I need to remember is that whilst Feast doesn't quite mean Feast, neither does Fast doesn't quite mean Fast

I do think we need to consider a change in terminology but probably its too late now! "Very low calorie day" and "recommended calorie intake day" doesn't have quite the same ring to them somehow!