The FastDay Forum

Trying to get to a goal is mentally way easier than trying to maintain, I mean one is like getting on a plane to a holiday destination, the other is like driving around the block...forever.

Great analogy, @GMH! It reminded me of this post on a maintenance blog @SSure told me about: http://justmaintaining.com/2010/09/29/h ... ld/#more-1

Even though I'm struggling, I would say my experience with IF (mostly 4:3) and low-carb has been the opposite of @peebles. In spite of the fact that I don't like carbs much other than having a sweet tooth, I could never sustain a low carb diet for long, and I'd always go a bit crazy when I came off it. I always gained back the weight, usually pretty quickly! IF I've never really found difficult to stick to. I am experiencing fasting fatigue, but I still mostly stick to my fasts. Overeating on non-fast days has definitely been an issue for me, but I've been chalking it up to some personal issues (my contract ends soon; I still haven't figured out what to do next), though perhaps I'm in denial about what weight loss has done to my endocrine system and hypothalamic circuits. Like @carorees, I'll be really happy to see more long term research. In the meantime, I appreciate hearing about everyone's experiences here.

@MaryAnn great article I'm the same with low/no carbs. I did South Beach diet for 1.5 weeks about 10 times. I NEVER got to phase2 were u could eat some carbs, that took 2 weeks of no carbs. By day 10, I was demented, sculling wine, tearing bread up with my bare hands and growling at any endangered carb I laid eyes on. Did I mention scarfing cakes? It was ugly. Never again.

[janeg]

Very interesting thread.
My experience: fasting for 2 years and 5 months. Lost 10 / 12 kg and lots and lots of centimetres. 1.52m small. weigh monthly, no idea what my tDEE is and don't count calories.
I've been doing 4:3 for ages. Mostly 3 x approx 500 cals, sometimes the Thursday one becomes more of an eating window of about 2 hours.
Loss is glacially slow! In the summer, I hit a spell of being continually hungry. There was no filling me - became a carb and cheese monster and was still humgry.
Went on holiday and ate as and when required. That lasted a month, back to 4:3.
The fasting is easy, I keep thinking about maintenance but am probably doing it without having declared it.
I wonder if it is a mind set. I feel healthy, look much better and ignore the scales. Fasting is habit for me - I eat the same thing on each fast day.
I suppose the WOE is entrenched in what I do now and I hardly think about it and that is why I still do it, despite little weight loss return. Shape is still changing though.
Much food for thought...

You are so right Peebles
I lost weight thd first time by fasting two or three times a week but on non fast days I still ate very little so I really steamed my self thin and then of course if all came back plus a bit more
Honestly I am tired if this
I wish I had never started dieting in my youth
I remember I used to eat almost nothing all day during the week and them enjoy the weekend
So it was a sort of 2/5 and I was slim
But I wrecked my metabolism and now I gain if I just eat normal food. And normal quantities
So I will have to do this forever
Do you have a lot to lose?
Maybe you are at your set point

@P-JK, Alas, exercise doesn't have the same impact on many of us post-menopausal ladies that it does on males and the young. For long periods of time over the past 12 years I have gone to the gym almost daily and done what I could do in the way of exercise without seeing any change in my weight. If anything, exercising ramped up my hunger and made it tougher to maintain.

Agree, that's why I wrote "(by increasing activity level, not only by exercise but also by leading a less 'sitting life')". More active does not imply more exercise in case that doesn't work for you. So more walking around instead of sitting or in my case cycling to work (not on a race bike, but on a ordinary city bike in a low intensity way) could be part of that.

Early days here because I've only been maintaining since last September. I would be gutted to regain and equally gutted if I had to fast rigorously to maintain. As it is, at the moment, I find I can maintain by doing 16:8 most days. Breakfast is a thing of the past for me. I rarely eat before noon, sometimes it's as late as 2pm/3pm. I guesstimate my first meal of the day usually comes in at around 400 to 500 cals which generally leaves me more than enough for an evening meal and a treat or two (my tdee is 1600). In theory I fast on a Monday and Thursday (alongside my husband who is still trying to lose weight) but in reality my calorie intake is usually in the region of 700-800, yesterday more like a 1000. As I only roughly tot up calories in my head however this is a very rough estimate. At the weekends I still 16:8 but indulge far more with food (and wine) but I guess that my intake during the week is low enough to compensate for weekend 'feasting'. Added to this I am definitely more active and walk 2-3 miles each day.

All that said I think maintaining is easier for me because I'm maintaining at a bmi of 26 (at my lowest I reach 25 point something). My decision to stop was that I reached the weight I was at eighteen (I'm 53 now). I also decided I didn't want to lose any more from my bust or face. I'm more than delighted to have shed in the region of 60lbs and be able to slip into size 10/12 clothes instead of 18/20. I have no doubt that had I continued to try and lose weight it would have become a lot harder, not only to lose but to maintain. As it is I don't feel like I'm fighting a battle with my brain to keep the weight off. Maybe because I'm carrying half a stone to a stone more than a 'healthy bmi' suggests I should be means my brain isn't too stressed and therefore isn't fighting me? Also in my favour (I think) is that whilst I dieted in my teens and twenties by my thirties I had given up dieting completely. So before 5:2 I hadn't dieted in about twenty years! Can't help thinking that because I wasn't a yo-yo dieter this has helped in some way.

As Marybeth said we are all different, physically and mentally. We came to this WOE at different weights and with different expectations. Wishing all those struggling an easier time moving forward. And fingers crossed I am still at the same weight this time next year! x

[carorees]

My experience is like Noodle's. It would be interesting to see whether certain categories of people have a harder time than others. I think that a history of previous dieting, chosen maintenance BMI (for lack of a better way of comparing people), age, apple vs pear body shape, time sinice starting fasting and fasting regime could all be relevant.

Maybe we could set up a survey?

I am also post-menopausal, never done HRT, and have been fasting for 17 months, maintaining for 7. In recent months I have averaged 2-3 pounds above my goal weight, which is fine. I love walking and am fortunate to be retired and have plenty of time to do it. Reading through these posts I realise that three other factors may be helping me.

Unlike many, I have not spent a great deal of my life overweight and have not spent much time "on a diet". I was small as a child, got chubby at puberty and lost that after a few years. Was more or less OK until middle-aged spread, which I believe was as much due to comfort eating and inactivity as to physiology. The 50s is a stressful time what with elderly parents and being stuck in jobs that are no longer liked and it is easy to resent naggy media messages about healthy eating and exercise - more uncongenial stuff to do on top of what we already had to! Retirement was not a cure in itself as nothing changed until one year in when I started fasting.

Also, to date, I do not feel any reluctance to stay on my fasting WOE. If I had stayed on 5:2 I may by now have been approaching my Fast days with resentment or dread and failing them. I don't have any desire to eat before 2 pm, or any problem with stopping at 6. I like that I can eat big in that time, and that preparation, cooking and washing up are confined to one session rather than spread over the entire day. Unlike many, I don't crave the carbs I am avoiding. I gave myself permission to indulge over Christmas, but just said "Nah! not that interested".

That's the third factor. What intrigued me about fasting was the promise of health improvements, particularly the hope of avoiding diabetes and all its chums. I have also experienced improvements with aches, twinges and stiffness in the hands. They were not debilitating by any means, but signs of things to come, so it was wonderful when they lessened.

Fingers crossed I still feel like this in another 6 months.

Once I had decided to maintain I set myself an upper weight limit 2lbs[1 kilo]over my lowest weight which I would not exceed. I weigh daily which may be a bit obsessive, but it means that I can keep a check on my weight and if I reach my limit I will skip lunch or cut back a bit all day depending on how I feel.
I haven't done a 'proper' fast for months.
My one big change is that I never eat breakfast[unless I'm on holiday] and I don't miss it so it is no hardship.
When it comes to exercise I walk my dogs daily and that's it.
I guess you would call me old too[68]-just don't do to my face!

[Debs]

Thank you for an interesting thread here. Like many of the ladies here I am peri-menopausal, short and struggling!!!
My BMI is stranded around 26 and I can't shift it for love or money, but I don't feel comfortable with my current weight. At my height 1.52cm, every gram seems to show. I have dieted off and on for most of my life amd suspect that this is catching up with me. I fasted 5:2 for over a year and lost 5kg, but since then have bounced around gaining and losing the same 3kg. I don't know what I can attribute it to, age, stress, menopause etc., but it is driving me crazy.
Some days I can't stop eating, and like Rawkaren need a plan to keep me on the straight and narrow, I find that planning what I am going to eat meticulously helps me, otherwise I obsess over what to eat and can't stop thinking about food. ADF didn't make much of a dent either despite my best efforts, and I think I gain very easily these days.
Answers on a postcard please!!

[carorees]

Serendipitously, a friend shared this article on FB today:

What happens next when your New Year's diet isn't working
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-susan- ... 01044.html

Some good insights in the article, especially:

What's a Healthy Weight?

A healthy weight is a person's natural weight. It's very individual, based primarily on genetics. For instance, if you come from a long line of tall, slim ancestors, you have a good chance of looking like them. If your ancestors are short and stocky, that's what you might see in the mirror. All the healthy eating and exercise in the world can't change that.

4. Have you accepted the natural diversity of body sizes and shapes? Size acceptance is not beating yourself up for your size nor is it just "giving up."

Aim to: Understand the factors that go into you being the size you are and then, if you choose, optimizing your lifestyle to make the most of who you were born to be. That means treating yourself well by eating well, moving your body regularly, getting enough sleep and managing stress.

5. Are you living a full life that isn't focused on how you look? This last step is important because of its relation to stress management. Consistently high levels of stress send many of us to food to cope, simply because food is such a great source of pleasure. Emotional eating, which is another name for stress eating, is part of normal eating and it can be something that actually supports our health -- except when it's our only tool to cope. Then it starts to create more problems than it solves. So much of the stress in women's (and increasingly, men's) lives today comes from worries about eating and weight.

My experience is like Noodle's. It would be interesting to see whether certain categories of people have a harder time than others. I think that a history of previous dieting, chosen maintenance BMI (for lack of a better way of comparing people), age, apple vs pear body shape, time sinice starting fasting and fasting regime could all be relevant.

Maybe we could set up a survey?

I love the idea of a survey on this@carorees ! And I think you've found the factors and I might add hour glass shape as well as stress level and menopause or not.

What trouble me with the research I've seen is that it's mostly men being the subjects as well as the lack of long term perspective. Let's do our own! (But I'm not tech savvy enough to know how...)

Very very interesting topic and really glad it's been brought up , I have only been following this WOE for a few months but there is that small niggling thought at the back of my head of " Ahh heck am I going to have to fast for the rest of my life !"

Reading what @carorees has posted is really thought provoking as I had felt a bit like my body and my genetics were conspiring against me:

1 - I'm female and of a certain age (44)
2 - I am short ( 5ft 2 on a good day)
3 - My TDEE now is fairly low now (1690) and is going to get less
4- I am curvy ..no matter how hard I fight or what I do I curve ..I am never going to be ballerina slim shaped no matter how much I want it .. maybe its time I accepted this and stopped trying to beat myself into something I'm not.

That said I do need to loose weight to try and get to a more acceptable BMI and to help the health issues I have already but the prospect of having to fast twice a week and count calories every day till the end of time is not a good one.

I shall be reading this with much interest

[Tracieknits]

I think that people are so very different, and what works for one doesn't work for all. Similarly, what goes badly for one doesn't necessarily go badly for all.

I think there's a chance that some people do experience the unpleasant changes you are talking about. And perhaps for others, they never reach a point where fasting changes the body for the worse in that regard. We just don't know yet because we don't have enough information.

Things I do know that don't appear to be specific to any weight loss program or method: Being obese is very unhealthy. Maintenance is hard and requires nearly as much diligence as weight loss.

Everyone I know who has maintained a significant weight loss complains that it's a lot of work - nearly as much work as losing it in the first place.

Granted that's not exactly a scientific sample, but it's true for five people I know who have lost 50 pounds or more and kept them off for more than a year or two. They all say you have to look at it as a lifelong effort. This is why I'm so dedicated to slow weight loss and to fasting. If I can find a method of slow weight loss where I lose at least 10 pounds a year, and I can live with it happily, then I know I can maintain as well. In the past two years, I've lost over 20 pounds each year, and it's a lifestyle I feel I can maintain forever. I know I probably will have to if I want to keep my losses.

I can't tell you how many people I saw in Weight Watcher's meetings who showed up after having lost 100 pounds or more from gastric bypass surgery and then managed to regain most or all of that weight. It was at least a dozen different people, and I went to Weight Watchers a few times for anywhere from three to six months at a pop - maybe 15 months total over the past decade.

I have to reply, but as a lay person, as I have no medical knowledge at all, so for what it's worth:
I have moved away from fasting as a way of weight maintenance, as I found I was continuing to lose beyond a point where I was happy.
But that left me with a few choices and some things to prioritise.
1. I didn't want to regain weight. Above all else, this stood head and shoulders.
2. Do I fast one day a week? My appetite wasn't in that one!
3. My TDEE is frighteningly low, so I had to make decisions as to how to get the most bang for my buck, food wise. For the record, I am 65.
I am now very disciplined, doing all those things I vowed I'd NEVER DO!
Every week, I plan meals
I shop with a list
Every morning, I record on MFP what my planned meals are
It is so long since I had pasta, rice etc that I have forgotten their taste
I do not eat till lunchtime
My daily intake is around 1200, with one day around 900 and I aim for 50-60g carbs on a daily basis, as I eat pulses and veg.
Weigh daily and record my weight.
I am lucky in that I do not have a sweet tooth, but occasionally, a chocolate will jump into my mouth, so I must rebalance my intake accordingly.
Friends say they couldn't have such a restricted way of life, but it's not, to me. I have been this weight now for 10 months. I have never before maintained after weight loss. I am lucky that I work from home, as such dedication is time consuming! Oh yes!
I don't exercise, but am on my feet a lot.
Considered eating is now my mantra.

Sorry, it's probably not what you were looking for at all.