The FastDay Forum

Is anyone else doing this purely for health reasons rather than to lose weight?

I have been following the plan since around October and I have lost nearly a stone, I wasn't technically overweight to start with but I do feel a lot better now, I never thought that I would get back to the weight I was when I was younger (I was 50 in January)and this is a bonus. However, I don't want to get to be 'scrawny' and I fear that if I lose another few pounds it will be too much.

I have always had to manage my weight, I was a fat teenager and since then have been very focused on health. This is the first time in my life that I have felt that losing weight is too easy.

I believe Michael Mosley is now going 6:1 rather than 5.2 to stop losing weight and I think he was going to see how that affected the various health indicators but not sure that's happened yet.

Hi

I do have about 2 1/2 stone to lose, but I'm trying not to focus on that, just hoping it happens as an aside to the other health benefits. I also have high blood pressure, and family history of heart attacks and strokes - all before they're 55 (and I'm 54), so that's what I'm trying to delay!

I weighed myself prior to starting 2 weeks ago, as well as taking measurements and blood pressure, I will check these again in 6 weeks - but may not bother with the scales as they've been thrown in the garden shed out of sight, I want to reply on how I feel and how my clothes feel.

Good luck and agree it may be better to cut down to one day or two 16 hr fasts a week if you want to stay the same weight.

Yes, husband and I are doing it for health benefits, we've been on it for 6 months and we don't need to lose any further weight. We're flexible and relaxed about doing 6:1 or 5:2 depending on how we feel on the day and our weights have only changed a pound or two over the last couple of months.

[carorees]

That's brilliant Ciderapple!

Do you mind me asking how much weight you lost? I am very interested to know how people get on with weight maintenance using the fasting way of life. You might have seen I have recently posted about the science behind regain of weight following dieting and so it would be really, really great if fasting could prevent this from happening!

We are doing it for both reasons. I'm 58 and other half is 60, both a bit chubby but also in that danger age group for things going wrong. We are monitoring blood pressure too as OH has a history of being high. I hope some day that we will get to monitoring only if the current weight loss continues!

The weight loss is a bonus. I'm doing it because Michael Mosley states that the act of fasting reduces IGF-1 levels which are evident in cases of Dementia. As my dad died of dementia 15 months ago, I am a bit paranoid about going the same way. My memory is lousy but Mum assures me this is due to Menopause and that it will improve afterwards.

[wildmissus]

Mother has type 2 diabetes, grandad died of a stroke, granny 1 died of dementia, granny 2 died of a heart attack. Yes definitely health reasons long term although short term the weight loss has kind of taken over.

Hestia, I'm fasting for health rather than weight loss. For many years I've been at the very low end of the weight spectrum (underweight by most standards). One day a week I do a complete fast (no calories) for at least 32 hours. To avoid losing weight, I eat a bit extra on the other days. After four months I'm still feeling my way into the proper amount of extra food on non-fast days - some weeks it's not been quite enough, other weeks it's been too much. But throughout it all I've stayed within 1 kg of my starting weight, so I'd say it's working out fine.