The FastDay Forum

Yahoo! It happened!!! I know I had seen it come up sometimes "post a new topic" and now it came up, after I had again written to "fasting today" asking for information on how to start a topic.

Lent this year is 18th February - 4th April.
Last Christmas time I succeeded in my "Little Fast", which I had failed totally the year before (unforeseen circumstances).
After my Advent fast I ate quite a lot of Christmas chocolates and lunches and desserts and... Because I lost some weight during my Advent fast Christmas was very easy. I hardly put on any weight.
However, after my full-time eating, I do have some extra weight to loose. In an other useful thread here we have discussed the fact that short people cannot eat as regularly as 'normal' people, because of unavoidable weight gain.
Well, I have found my feeding experiment in January interesting.
I was sooo looking forward to this fasting, though.
And after my first fast day yesterday I woke up, and felt great. Fasting does that to me. Maybe it is all the excess water that I lose from my body that makes me feel so good.
Anyway I feel encouraged about this Lenten Fast.
I wanted to start this thread for anyone else who is doing something similar for Lent. I am skipping breakfast and lunches every day, except on Sunday. How do you Lenten fast?

[carieoates]

This is not something that I would be happy advocating I'm afraid.
Sure we like to reduce calories a few days a week but this seems extreme and does not follow Intermittent fasting guidelines.
If doing for religious reasons then who are we to interfere, but here we eat sensibly and to a healthy TDEE the other days of the week. This calorie reduction does not sit well with me I'm sorry.

The reason Intermittent fasting is so user friendly and popular is because it is not a daily restriction of food.

[Moogie]

This sounds a little like the Fast-5 approach, with a short (5 hour) feeding window each day. I hope you're not restricting your dinner calories at all with this type of fast? Do you only eat dinner or do you eat during the evening as well?
I don't think I could fast like this every day but I do 16:8 on my feed days and sometimes it's more like fast5 if I don't stop for lunch until mid afternoon.

Sounds similar to fasting for Ramadan only not waiting for sundown to break it. That's considered a safe practice so I don't see why this would be different.

I'm not Catholic. Is this a typical Lenten thing? I won't be joining you but I can see the appeal.

Hi Margotsylvia, I started my lent fast yesterday by giving up sugar, which is the main culprit in my diet. Without it I would have quite a healthy diet. I do allow myself fruit in moderation.

I am also considering cutting down drastically my coffee consumption which is somewhere in the region of 6-8 cups per day. I might allow myself two cups in the morning and then switch to herbal tea in the afternoon.

I think during Lent we are supposed to give up something that is not healthy in our life, physically or mentally, make ourselves think about how we live. One year I restricted my TV consumption and resorted to some good books - it is amazing how much time we have when TV and computer don't rule our lives. We can so easily form unhealthy habits without even being aware of them.

I will let you know how I am doing. I started my sugar fast yesterday combining it with a 5:2 fast which helps the sugar craving. Today I am on my first eating day and so far I am doing fine.

As long as you are not restricting calories I don't see anything wrong with this as I often only eat one meal in a day but I never count calories, I just eat till I feel I have had enough food. I have been doing this now for 2 years and have never felt better so, good luck with it.

Ballerina x

P.S. A relative of mine has only ever eaten one meal per day for the whole of his adult life and is in great shape for a73 year old.

Provided you eat properly during your evening meal and are not stunting at this meal as well as skipping the others then there is no problem. I have done Fast-5 every day for nearly 15 months. It is more like 20/4 most days.

Hope it goes well for you.

[Tracieknits]

Sounds similar to fasting for Ramadan only not waiting for sundown to break it. That's considered a safe practice so I don't see why this would be different.

I'm not Catholic. Is this a typical Lenten thing? I won't be joining you but I can see the appeal.

Yes, provided the OP is eating freely at their meal, similar to Ramadan, and not also reducing calories in an extreme way, there's nothing about this that violates our forum rules about posting encouraging extended fasting:

http://forum.fastday.com/important.php

I'm also not Catholic, but I believe my MIL fasts on Fridays until Sundown. I'm pretty sure that more mainstream Catholics simply stick to the "no red meat on Friday" rule for Lenten fasting.

How much do you eat for your one meal?

Hello again everyone!
What a nice bunch of responses. Thank you.
Carioates, I do think this suits the Fasting diet, because it is an eating window approach, and there are umpteen people doing this kind of fasting every day here. I do not do Sundays.
I do eat a snack at 15:00, and a regular supper at supper time. I do not count calories.
Again, this morning, I woke up feeling fantastic. Peaceful and happy. I also woke up early enough to do my morning yoga practice before breakfast. My husband has porridge and bread, I have black tea. So this way of eating is helping me enormously. Recently I have had difficulties in getting up on time. Not today!
I am not a Catholic, but I am a Christian. This will make Easter that much more beautiful.
This is the 38th day and so far I have not been hungry at all, and am relly feeling so well within myself.

Wow! @Margotsylvia it sounds as though its really working out for you. I look forward to hearing about your end results

[carieoates]

Hello again everyone!
What a nice bunch of responses. Thank you.
Carioates, I do think this suits the Fasting diet, because it is an eating window approach, and there are umpteen people doing this kind of fasting every day here. I do not do Sundays.
I do eat a snack at 15:00, and a regular supper at supper time. I do not count calories.

Thats just great then now that you've added that you have a snack and a regular dinner. If you'd said that at the first post I would not have been concerned.
I shall be interested in how you get along
So at day 38 what kind of losses can you report?

I have given up chocolate for Lent - I am not especially religious but I still think it's a good idea to make one focus on what is important and to have a bit of self discipline and I think it's a good concept. So far so good and previously my willpower around chocolate on some days was non existent

I usually eat in this way and have done for a fair few months. Fasting twice a week on limited calories seems to have re-set my appetite, so I am just not hungry during the day. On most days I will eat a " normal" evening meal, eating whatever feels right at the time. If there is a social occasion I might eat at lunch time instead, and very occasionally I will have a substantial breakfast instead, if it seems that breakfast has become a social occasion.

I prefer waiting until the evening though because I think that that suits my body. I am simply not hungry during the day and feel that it is more " natural" to wait until the evening. I don't find it restrictive at all, and I'm not obsessive about it. I think that I am finally eating in a way which is about responding to my body and am breaking away from the "it's lunch time, so I'll eat" mentality. If I really feel hungry, rather than having a passing wave of hunger, I will eat earlier. My view is that because food is constantly available to us we are conditioned to continually graze and, of course we are pressurized by the food industry and by others who promote food or cooking into constant craving. There are social aspects to eating too. Every event in the social calendar, and most in the religious calendar are associated with food. The 5:2 approach has weaned me off that and I am able to think " Am I hungry? " or "Will I be excluding myself socially if I don't eat?" before deciding whether to eat or not.

I have no hard and fast rules about eating. I consider that that is probably the way in which a naturally thin person eats.

Back to the question about Lent...... I was going to give up television. I did that a few years ago and it was a real eye opener. I chose not to do it this year because I wanted to watch Wolf Hall. I am , though, only turning on the TV if there is something specific which I want to watch. I am refraining from alcohol for the period and will go for at least one long walk at the weekend. I see Lent as a time to really be present to oneself, so sometimes it entails adding, rather than removing something. I'm not Roman Catholic either.

Back to the subject of fasting......it is worth remembering that all spiritual traditions build fasting into spiritual practice, but that over-indulgence of anything, including fasting is spiritually, morally, psychologically and physically harmful. In my view, eating once a day does not consitute fasting over-indulgence, although eating one bean a day, would do so. Moderation in all things..........

This is my 4th day Lenten fasting and all is really well. No problems in getting up at 5.45 this morning for yoga, still feeling good, not feeling cold really, not at all hungry.
Carieoatesmy weight is going slowly down. I know this Way of Eating does it, at the end of my Advent Fast I weighed 51.3 kg.
I have been really lax since then ( on purpose, I believe there are different seasons for us humans, I don't like it always the same).
When I started this Lenten fast I weighed 55.6 kg, The next day 54.9, 54.5, and today 54.3. My ideal weight is 51.7 kg, because I am about 5foot 2 and small boned. So still a way to go.
I am not really doing this mainly for weight loss. 5:2 has taught me not to be anxious about food or about my weight anymore. I love the new lease of life, that this way of eating has given me. The basic 5:2 has really changed my life positively and I am a great supporter of it. I just like to experiment what suits me best and share experiences here at the Forum. Good luck to all other Lenten and other Fasters. We're having Pizza tonight for supper/dinner.