The FastDay Forum

[Betsysgr8]

Juliana, I don't think anybody is saying they aren't eating enough nutrionally. It's just that we are full with less food because our stomachs are shrinking just a bit. The emphasis I have seen on this forum has been to eat a sensible and healthy meal most of the time but not to call it a disaster if you have a major blow-out once in awhile.

Agreed. I actually crave "healthy". Healthy tends to be lower calorie though.

I am now seven weeks in to 5:2. For the first 3 or 4 weeks I felt a bit sick sometimes, more on Feast days than Fast days, and was not eating a lot, but now (unfortunately)? in the last week I have found my appetite and taste has gone back to "normal" for me. This means too much of a liking for cake, bread and all things carb!
So I will now need to be very careful on my feast days to keep within my TDEE to continue losing at my nice steady weight loss of around 1/2 kilo a week.
I notice Caroline and others recommending to vary your feast day cals within the week so I think I will try this.

now I am done with my second week, I notice I sort of naturally do end up with 2 fast days, 2 moderate days fairly well below TDEE, 2 days pretty close to TDEE, and 1 that tends to go over. Not totally planned, but I like it.

I know that, personally, I've noticed that I get full on a lot less food than I did before. On fasting days I'm surprised that I'm satisfied (not stuffed by any stretch, but satisfied) with a single 600cal meal after a full day of not eating anything.

I also notice that I don't eat snacks like I used to. Not a complete abstinence from snacking (on feed days), but I don't snack nearly as often as I used to and when I do the snacks are probably half as large as they used to be, or even smaller.

This WOE really seems to shine in hunger-management, IMO. I think it does it in two ways, at least for me -- first I may be as hungry as I used to be, but the hunger doesn't bother me as much and I can not-eat when I'm hungry, and more importantly I can stop eating in spite of still being hungry. Second is that my calorie prioritization on fasting days to eat more high-volume, lower-calorie-dense foods has started to take away my sweet tooth and when I eat desserts now I prefer the less-sweet to the more-sweet dishes.