The FastDay Forum

I did my first fast on Feb 23, 2014 and am pretty sure I have only missed 2 fasts over this period. I was really enthusiastic about the diet for the first seven months, especially since I was losing subcutaneous tummy fat, which I'd never been able to budge before. I got down to 138 lbs which is very close to where I had stalled out on every other diet over the past 18 years. And then stalled. And then started gaining.

I was slightly over 141 lbs today after a good fast yesterday, which means I will be up to 143 after eating anything today. So I am of two minds about what to do next. I had decided to wait until the year was out before making a decision. But the steady upward trend is getting to me. I was able to maintain low carb diet weight losses without this steady increase in the past, so some of my enthusiasm has waned.

I was loving that I didn't have to diet and count eating 5:2 except on my fast days where I logged everything and hit my targets all the time. I'm not about to go back to dieting ever again. I'm too old. Dieting isn't healthy as we head into our 70s. OTOH, going back to watching what I eat every day will be depressing too. It was so nice being able to eat like a normal person for seven long months and get down to a nice slim shape (or as slim as I ever get after having given birth to two very large babies).

I'm content to maintain, but even with 2 fasts a week I am not maintaining, which saddens me. Every week my post-fast weight has been up a little bit. So at the end of the entire year I am down 9-10 lbs give or take, and am at a weight I'm quite happy with, but I will not be happy if it creeps up much further.

I'm thinking it might be time to take a break and go back to eating a more low carb diet for a while, but I've actually upped my carbs eating this way and can't quite face giving up artisanal bread. Another idea is to eat LC 2 days a week and keep fasting 2 days but at a higher calorie level (still low carb.) I will be testing this out for the next few weeks and see how it works out.

The bottom line is that after that first 6 months where most diets work very well for most people, the same forces that stymie weight loss do seem to kick in for those of us who don't have enormous amounts to lose and don't need many calories to function. I would certainly suggest this as a fine diet for someone obese. I also think it is a wonderful vacation from watching what you eat all the time, but the difficulty in maintaining what had been a very easy weight loss gives me pause. I am really starting to worry that I've screwed up my metabolism, because I never had this kind of problem maintaining before.

Sorry this isn't more upbeat, but not upbeat is how I'm feeling right now.

Hi Peebles. This is possibly not the best time to reply to this as I'm in bed coming out of the tail end of flu so not feeling my best. I saw your post a few hours ago and it has been on my mind.

First up - congratulations on where you are now. You are ahead of the game by a very long way and you should be very pleased with that.

Your experience somewhat mirrors my own, although I didn't get a year. After four months, I found I had to go to three fasts a week to maintain and now I just gain. As I write, I have never been so big in my adult life, although I am not obese, just overweight. I am completely lost.

What I know works for me is a)low carb b)regular fasts c)religiously counting calories and d)carb re-feeding carefully once a week with low GL foods. If I do this religiously, then I can make slow progress but it is an utterly miserable way of life.

There have been some fabulous success stories from people who have either had alot to lose or who have not spent a lifetime dieting (like me). I'd really like to hear from folks who have made a success of it from the perma-diet community and track around the upper end of healthy to low end of overweight, because I'm unclear if it is behavioural or metabolic ie once a perma-dieter, always a perma-dieter.

I have even wondered if I fridge raid in my sleep but now I don't have anything in there to raid!

So tonight as I worked myself into a stew, I decided to do something about it and I have written to Krista Varady to ask her if she is interested in doing any research on post menopausal longer term fasters. I think it would be fascinating to get some data so I can get a decent benchmark in my category rather than continually feeling ashamed of myself for failing.

I will let you know how she responds.

[carorees]

I'm sorry that you both are having these issues. I don't have any answers but some questions.

It is said that insulin resistance gets worse as we get older so it could be that any diet apart from a ketogenic one would result in gradual gains over time?

It is also said that it is better to have a slightly higher BMI in our later years so perhaps we need to change our maintenance weight a bit when in our 50s and older. A range of 24 to 27 has been proposed as being appropriate for later life.

Finally, increased stress tends to result in worsening insulin resistance and as dieting and fasting causes stress perhaps trying too hard is counterproductive?

Thoughts?

[carieoates]

Interesting reading both of your posts.
I find it easier to maintain than lose at the moment, but having said that my body feels happy, I'm a bit over a stone down, it's been two years here in June. I have a healthy appetite for food, life and exercise. But when I really try I can lose a few pounds, but I have to really be diligent with counting cals every day. Not something everyone fasting wants to hear, but it's true. I also don't eat many bad carbs anymore, choosing celeriac, polenta and vegetarian days often. I have had mashed potato, chips and bread this week as its half term. So this will also show on my daily tracking app.
As Karen says menopause has a lot to answer for and I believe that it has scuppered many a ladies plans to lose weight around this time.
I wish you both luck in pursuit of that lower BMI. And will take note when I'm in your downbeat mood, that all is not lost. My BMI is 26 by the way. May never get to 24 but I don't care anymore, I'm fitter, healthier, and more mindful about what goes in and what doesn't go in nowadays.

@rawkaren, So sorry to hear you are under the weather. I hope you recover fast from the remainder of your flu! Your experience sounds really depressing. But I'm grateful to you for posting it. It takes courage to not report successes to a diet support group. But I have learned a lot more from people's reporting problems than I ever did from the enthusiasm of those for whom any diet is easy. There is some issue here and we do need to figure out what it is.

@carorees, I'm not insulin resistant. In fact, based on how my body responds to injected insulin I am extremely insulin sensitive, and this was true at age 63 when I weighed not much more than I weigh now, so I don't see why it would be different at age 66. And I had been maintaining a 17% weight loss for a decade, too, and not my first weight loss (I had maintained a 12% weight loss for 3 years before regaining it all.)

So I am thinking that there is something unique going on that is a response to fasting itself, perhaps a stress reaction, though I am not physiologically stressed. At the same time, my historical response to prolonged severe emotional stress (for example, unexpected divorce) has always been to stop eating and lose weight. I eat when I'm happy. And with physiological stress I would expect to see higher blood sugars and blood pressure, especially fasting, which I haven't been seeing. The stress hormones will raise both, and I have experienced dramatic surges in BP due to physiological stress in the past. Those happen very quickly and then take many hours to resolve as once the hormones have been secreted they don't clear quickly for me. So I am not sure I can attribute this issue to physiological stress, either.

The carbs issue is really odd because I was eating more carbs than usual for that 7 months where weight loss proceeded so smoothly. Perhaps it is a relative thing and I have gotten used to eating far more carbs than what used to seem like a lot of carbs back last year. That is one possibility I'm entertaining.

So I will start out by doing the 2 low carb days a week on non fast days (80 g or so as I don't want to get into a ketogenic state.)
These won't be calorie restriction days, just carb restriction days. That leaves me with 3 days of normal eating. I'll see how that goes.

And if it doesn't go, then I think I will stop fasting and try to get back to how I was eating in the past when I maintained so well. My maintenance had been damaged by a health issue and associated medications so there is no reason I should't be able to go back to my old ways. The biggest issue probably is that fasting has boosted what I eat on nonfast days.

[Tracieknits]

Is there any chance that the weight could be related to the extreme cold we've been experiencing? My husband and I have been facing stubborn bodies this past month. I know I also had radiation treatment for my thyroid a few weeks ago, which may have disturbed things, but he didn't. However with temps often well below 0F with the windchill, and sometimes *without* the wind chill, we find ourselves simply eating too much. We're indoors and more sedentary, and we are eating too much comfort food on non-fast days. And we're drinking a bit too much too, more like 3 times a week instead of 1.

So we are really trying to get better behaved on non-fast days, and we are looking forward to the spring thaw that will eventually come.

Dr. Varady has replied to me today. She really likes the idea of this angle of research, so I hope I have seeded an idea there which is good enough! To participate in her trials you have to live near to Chicago as you have to visit the research centre weekly to be weighed and pick up food. So sadly that counts me out. Just wanted to mention in case anyone wanted to put themselves forward.

@carorees. I don't know if I'm insulin resistant. I guess I could get tested next time I have blood work done as it is fairly easy to get done here, but my markers which might give clues are all pretty good - eg cholesterol and triglyceride count. My cortisol is low which I suppose either means I'm not stressed or I have tipped into severe adrenal fatigue. I suspect the former.

I think alot of this is mindset and where one feels happy. Neither Peebles or I are particularly large. If I was coming down from a larger weight I'd probably be happy with where I am but as I'm sitting at an all time high, it is not only psychologically hard but also I just don't feel healthy.

@peebles thts awonderful achievement to have done 102 fasts out of 104
@rawkaren hope you'll soon be well again x great idea getting in touch with Fr V but what a shame you can't take part in her trials..i cant think of anyone on this forum who's in Chicago?
Both you guys have worked so hard and i' m so sorry youre being frustrated in yr efforts. I have no answers,just the sincere hope you find a solution youre happy with x x

Interesting, thanks Peebles for posting.
I share some things in common with yourself and rawkaren and have problems maintaining so I will share my story here. I have dieted on a off for a long while, I lost 25 kilos nearly 10 years ago, from 85 kg to 60 kg, and maintained that loss pretty effortlessly for about 6 years until I had my kids. Three years and two kids later I had gained back 10. I tried going back to weightwatchers (that's what worked for me the first time) but I just couldn't stick to it, tried a few other things then came across fasting, which worked great. I lost about 8/9 kilos in 3/4 months pretty easily, I stopped fasting for two months over the first summer and gained back a couple, and then spent about 6 months getting back down to my ideal weight and losing about 2/3 kilos. Since then I have fasted, tried eating windows, taken breaks, tried low-carb, cutting sugar ... but at best I have maintained, and at the moment my weight is creeping up. At the moment I am working on being more active as I sit at work all day rather than running about after kids like I did when I first started 5:2, but my weight is going up, not down (I hope this is just the exercise effect!!), and I am working on making sure I get good nutritious food. I am not menopausal (or at least I hope not, I'm 35) or insulin resistant.
I know I am still a normal weight (just), and I'm pretty sure that I am not going to regain all the weight I lost 10 years ago, but I am pretty unhappy about where I am at the moment, and I'm not sure whether fasting is the answer, at least for me, the problem is that I don't know what else I can do, apart from to try to keep going, but it's definitely getting harder as time goes on.

Interesting topic @Peebles and @Rawkaren. I can only add ny experiences here. I was 67kg when I started fasting, so just overweight. I was a yo yo dieter when young, gave up diets, put on weight, found I was hypothyroid, medicated and dieting lost weight (from 79kg to 59kg, took 18 months). Then I put on about 1kg a year eating predominately low GI carb, but always ate 1 sugary treat a day. So after 7 ish years I was 67kg and I would try to lose and give up, never got anywhere. My fear was I would creep up and up. Saw Eat, Fast, Live Longer, started 5:2. Of course I lost cos I was cutting calories, but decided I wanted to a) speed it up and b) like Krista Varady's research, so did 4:3. If I did 5:2 I maintained and thought 6:1 wouldn't work as maintenance...well maybe for men during this ‘fasting‘ period I lost 9kg, got to 58kg...in about 8 months I think. I also threw my previous 'healthy' eating out the window. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, 3 days of 500 cals seemed a small price to pay to be able to eat cakes/sweet stuff, BREAD!!, other carbs AND lose weight. So got below goal, people were commenting on how 'skinny' I was and were looking at me as if I had a terminal disease so without a real maintenance plan I foundered, put on 7kg. During this time I had a few goes at fasting and failed, not there mentally. Then July last year I slapped myself resoundingly up the side of the head with the proverbial wet fish. Lost the 7kg fairly easily, if u call eating 500 cals 3 days a week easy then I was at maintenance again. Crossroads. I never see the point in stressing and fretting about what maybe, never seems to help and always seems to produce failure in my experience. So I thought I need to find a solution to this eating business. I felt it may have periods of tough times, but rather than feel defeated, I decided to let this happen and find a solution. I haven't found the solution as yet, however I just keep experimenting, without going into the old freefall when I put on weight. I find 3 days of restricting calories, I lose weight. So this is 1 positive. 1 negative was that I was eating crap that I never ate b4 'fasting'. So my current plan is to try to do 3x1000 cals and cut the crap on the other days, well lessen the crap.

So I would say fasting works for me physically (post menopausal, hypothyroid), however weight maintenance has been in the forefront of my mind for 35 years, it's like a mental affliction, thus it's my mind needs the work. I think I'll be working on this for a long time to come.

Now thyroid: this is a most commonly under diagnosed disease and I can't begin to tell you the battles I have had with close minded doctors over this. A simple blood test can be very inaccurate. If you are hypothyroid and undiagnosed you will have a job losing weight and a job getting it diagnosed! As Karen has said hormonal issues surrounding menopause can also be a weight killer.

So my experience is 3 days of restricted calories does work for me, but it will always be a challenge mentally to restrict myself.

@Peebles, I am sorry to hear that you are continuing to have weight management issues. I don't know if I have anything useful to add.

You appear very knowledgeable on weight management issues, so I am sure I will not say anything that you don't already know or have not already considered.

When you maintained after other weight loss, how did you do it? Was that through calorie counting every day?

How much effort was the calorie counting? Can you make it easier by knowing how many calories in your usual foods (which I am sure you do), planning which of these you will have on a given day, and then working out what you have left for other foods? Which you probably do.

Are there some carbs you haven't yet removed from your diet but you think you can? Can you limit how often and how much you have of your favourite bread?

Can you increase your exercise level in a manageable way - find ways of introducing more movement into your everyday routine?

It seems that for many (most?) of us who have been overweight, that maintaining a lower weight is never going to be easy. We just have to find a weight management strategy that we can live with (yes, I know that is about sustainability, which can be a bit of a mantra).

Eating windows do seem to work well for lots of people - I can't recall if you have tried these? Although I have resisted these, because I do like the freedom to eat whenever in the day I want (though this may end up being a freedom I have to give up!!), they do make sense from the perspective that each day you would be keeping your intake to around your TDEE. The problem, as you acknowledge, with using 5:2 to maintain is that on non-fast days you are eating considerably more than your TDEE - which means that you get used to eating that amount of calories, and if you don't fast, then you will put on weight. (I worked out, for me, that if I didn't have the 2 fast days, and ate on all days the same amount as I do on non-fast days, I would put on a pound in a week. My current challenge is to limit myself to no more than TDEE each day for a week, to see how I go...so far I have gone over by about 100 cals each day, but am accepting that as it is a lot better than exceeding by 500-600 cals!)

@Rawkaren and @Debs (and anyone else struggling) I also feel for you with regard to not being able to find something in this way of eating that works for you longer term. Have you been able to have a detailed face-to-face discussion with someone appropriate about your weight management issues and strategies, to see if this can unearth some explanations and solutions?

And while I have been writing this, there have been some more interesting posts from Nicky and GMH.

I realise I am stating the obvious when I say that hormones and ageing play a significant role in weight management but this varies tremendously between people. I have wondered if one of the reasons that I have been able to get to a fairly low BMI is because my hormone levels seem to stay fairly constant - eg I never suffered from PMT and went through menopause with only the occasional hot flush and no other symptoms that I noticed.

Peebles (and others), do keep us informed about how your strategies go. Maintenance is tricky and it is so useful to hear about the experiences of others.

Good luck and best wishes.

Btw I have some issues myself that I plan to post in the maintenance thread, and will be tagging you for your comment!

[Debs]

Some honest posts here which are much appreciated. This doesn't work for everyone and it is good that we can share our experiences when it doesn't go the way we wish.
I feel for you @peebles and @rawkaren as we constantly struggle with this. Myself and Karen share many similarities around weight loss and I do believe that being around menopause is stuffing us up big time.
I am successfully fasting twice a week, with a 'half arsed fast' of around 1000 cals on a Friday. I have been practising mindful eating on the other days, recording how I feel, how hungry I am and what I feel I want to eat. Carbs have crept back in to my detriment so as well as fasting, mindful eating, I will de carb myself again. Interestingly though, the days I eat mindfully, I find myself eating around my TDEE so my body appears to be telling me the right amount to eat. I also realise that some days it wants sugar, and lots of it. Maybe only one day a month, but I figure that if I give in to it once, it will leave me alone the rest of time. It seems to work.
All I know is that by sharing our experiences here, we can help others in the same boat, rather than glossing over it and pretending that everything is fine.

I am currently around 63kg with a BMI of 26 something, so a way to go to get to a good BMI, and Like Karen it is psychologically irritating more than anything. My weight to be honest, hasn't moved much in 25 odd years, despite dieting on and off the whole time. Perhaps I should learn just to be happy with it, but that is a whole other battle!

[wildmissus]

@Peebles, ditto. I read your post minutes after you wrote it but didn't want to reply straight away as I would have sounded so negative. Thankfully the people I thought would reply have.

I weighed in at 161lbs yesterday. My low was 154lbs on 16th July 2014, my target weight being 150lbs. But what I found most surprising of all was that I first reached 161lbs on 24th August 2013! That is 18 months ago and 7.5 months since I first started fasting! Wow, that was a shock - I've been faffing about for 18 months but for all that time I feel like I've been trying to lose weight, ie. been on a diet!

In your second post you wrote 'I have learned a lot more from people's reporting problems' and 'There is some issue here and we do need to figure out what it is'. I am completely with you here. I want to know how to solve this and get through it. I cannot allow myslef to put on the 30lbs that I have lost and there is no other way of losing weight other than fasting. As @rawkaren has mentioned I know if I am really, really strict then I will lose weight but I will also be miserable. The other thing that also occurred to me was what @Tracieknits said about winter. OK, our weather hasn't been nearly as bad as you guys across the pond but I do get down and fed up in winter, I'm always cold and have no enthusiasm for anything especially getting out and about. Like @Debs, I have a problem with sugar, eating far too much every day. I can't wait for spring to come when I'll naturally want to eat more salads instead of scones, chocolate and cakes.

The one thing I can tell you is that when I first started fasting I was more 'naturally' strict on non fast days - I remember starting a tongue in cheek thread in Feb 2013 about what I should do with a box of chocolates OH gave! This years choccolates were just eaten (by all 4 of us). Also, I feel like I spend every waking moment thinking about food, what I can do to lose weight but then self sabotaging.

I'm sorry that I've not added anything useful but as we all have been saying hopefully all our experiences will help us see a way through this.

I've had a number of discussions with people on this topic and my thinking doesn't have a clear outcome but that's no reason to avoid participating and I'll probably need to break this up into several posts.

I don't see any strong reason why fasting of the sort that most of us practise should have an adverse influence on maintenance outcomes. Eastern Orthodox Churches and Roman Catholics (of previous generations) have strong traditions of fast and abstinence from 120-200 days per year. It's only comparatively recently that I realised that I was brought up to fast on 2 days a week (Wednesday and Friday) with a Eucharistic Fast (nothing before receiving Communion) on Sunday and similarly on a day with a School Mass/House Mass. In addition, there were Holy Days of Obligation, Advent and Lent fasting (and Eastern Orthodox have a Summer fast for reasons I can't now recall), and then additional fasting if your family/community/school was observing a Special Intention/scapular/atoning for dropping the Host/on a pilgrimage or something similar. (I know, this must sound like I was brought up on The Ark, but I wasn't...)

My overall point is that previous generations made lifelong practice of fast and abstinence and it didn't make them fat within the context of their lives. (Currently, there are many faiths or spiritual practices for which regular fasting is a keynote and there's a disappointing lack of clinical research literature about them. The Wikipedia article isn't particularly good but it does give an overview of some of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting ) Abstinence from particular foods was also common. Teachings on the Mortal Sin (there's a concept) of Gluttony meant that there was no over-eating between fasts or after a fast.

That said, it's not unique to this IF board that people are encountering difficulties in maintenance and that this sometimes doesn't show up for several months or a year when somebody manages to gain and then easily lose extra pounds (after a holiday/illness) and then suddenly acquires some extra pounds as if out of the blue and they are stubbornly resistant. The thing is tho' that I'm not sure that this isn't true of any period of weight loss or diet - it's not specific to fasting. If there were a privileged WOE or schedule, I'd hope that it was already beginning to show up in the National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) or similar.

If fasting is 'doing something' adverse to us after a certain period then it would suggest to me that it would have to be in combination with a new environmental, physiological or endocrine stressor - or one that has assumed importance now that other sorts of stressors have disappeared (for the Western World - the toll of infectious disease, some environmental pollutants, regular food insecurity for large amount of the population).

If nutrition is a comparatively young scientific discipline then research about widespread weight management or obesity management is even younger and more inchoate.

A lot may rest on whether fasting/extensive history of weight loss and regain contributes towards a loss of NEAT and a down-regulated metabolism (there isn't a clear picture from the clinical literature that does exist). There seems to be no good way of establishing whether this is true in the near-term. I doubt there is an extensive human history of large swathes of the population voluntarily embarking on weight loss projects and then cycling the regain and losses, particularly in the context of our modern lifestyles.

On a wider point, to what are we comparing our food intake for comparably-sized adults? Previous generations of whom we have vague memories of how much activity they incorporated into their days and what/how much they ate? Previous generations who may well have needed more food not only because they were more active, possibly demonstrated more NEAT (we're unlikely to be able to confirm/refute this) and may well have needed more calories to combat regular exposure to infectious diseases or the long-term consequences of them (e.g., TB).

I'm not sure how useful it is to compare our food intake to that of our contemporaries. Even the people that I know well, I can't estimate their NEAT, nor do I know how they eat when we're not together. Plus, it has to be said that if the national prevalence of eating disorders is anything like as high as official figures report then I must know a lot of people with ED that I'm unaware of - which is understandable given the secrecy/taboo associated with it.

TDEE calculators are a reasonable, theoretical guess but they can only ever be very approximate guidelines. We could very much benefit from a metabolic ward study of perimenopausal and postmenopausal women to see if our intuitions about the generosity of TDEE calculators is correct and whether there are WOE/schedules of eating that cause a substantial downgrade of NEAT and general energy expenditure.

Those of us who are maintaining or struggling to maintain - are you hungry? Are you driven to eat more because you're physically hungry? If so, this might highlight hormonal drives/triggers for difficulties.

For those for whom it isn't very obviously a hormonal drive to hunger* - is there what Gillian Riley calls an addictive desire to over-eat? We/you may experience an emotional desire to eat and we rationalise it to ourselves with more acceptable stories such as, "I'm lonely/tired/in pain/in need of comfort" (and these descriptions may be true) but ultimately, we're experiencing an addictive desire to over-eat in the absence of any physical hunger. Now - eating might be appropriate at those times for all sorts of reasons and those reasons give us emotional cover for not accepting that we're eating because we want to eat, and not for any other reason.

*There is a strong argument that hormones can influence emotions - and I think a number of us can point to trigger foods that are associated with an addictive desire to over-eat and nuts/sugar seem to be common ones. Plus, for people in weight loss mode, the constant sense of deprivation/restriction may well be a strong push towards thinking about and eating salty/sweet food.
As per others, there's also a strong argument that we're being cued to eat for a lot of the day, depending on our environment.