The FastDay Forum

[quote="Melinda_in_NC"]

My intuition says (for me) that I .....................

I've always maintained that this is such a varied and individual thing that we should all do what suits us and not what works for others. Once you've found your own personal holy grail, stick with it, good luck

Ballerina x

The history of eating often during the day is interesting

You can find countless anecdotes on the net... this one with its disclaimer at top saying that it is just that person's experience is an interesting read

http://www.niashanks.com/dark-side-inte ... t-fasting/

and for those not wanting to commit to either daily eating windows or fast "days" her final approach reminds me of what someone i recently met adopts

What I currently do is incredibly simple. I listen to my body, eat when I’m hungry, stop when satisfied and not stuffed, eat a variety of foods that I enjoy, and follow some common sense nutrition guidelines (like eating primarily real, whole foods). That’s it.

Mind you Ms. Shanks has written a book about her method

Every diet I've ever been prescribed came with the mantra "you must eat breakfast, you must eat every three hours, you must have 55% carb in your meals". This is standard diabetic practice in Illinois anyway. My mom lives in OH and has received similar advice and when I was in dietitian school (back in the 80's), that was also the "smart diet" thinking.

Flash forward to the last six months of my life. I discovered I never get hungry before noon, can actually lose weight on 5:2 and FINALLY have my blood sugars close the the range they want. Ballerina, Carorees & everyone else is right - do what works for you, listen to your body and continue to share interesting stories/info here on the forum. We're all winners when we take off the pressure of "have to" do it any one specific way. Enjoy your life

[quote="Juliana.Rivers"]The history of eating often during the day is interesting

You can find countless anecdotes on the net... this one with its disclaimer at top saying that it is just that person's experience is an interesting read

http://www.niashanks.com/dark-side-inte ... t-fasting/

and for those not wanting to commit to either daily eating windows or fast "days" her final approach reminds me of what someone i recently met adopts

What I currently do is incredibly simple. I listen to my body, eat when I’m hungry, stop when satisfied and not stuffed, eat a variety of foods that I enjoy, and follow some common sense nutrition guidelines (like eating primarily real, whole foods). That’s it.


Her quote reminds that we live in a strange world, her approach ( dark side to IF ) and mine are identical, I could have written her précis and yet I do IF within an eating window so whilst she and I are eating in a diametrically opposite fashion we are, in fact, both doing the same thing. Thanks for the link I found it quite interesting but sad that she blamed her problems on IF. She did acknowledge that she has a compulsive nature but still chose to blame IF. Still very interesting reading though, thank you

Ballerina x

I'm currently sitting here (feed day) thinking about the tasty chocolate Weetabix and banana Weetabix in my drawer, but reading this thread has made me realise I'm not actually properly hungry. I just want my Weetabix out of habit and because it tastes nice. And because it's been drilled into me that I must eat breakfast (in fact until a few weeks ago, before I started fasting and realised I can go without food quite happily, I would've doggedly argued that breakfast is the most important meal of the day).

I've got a mini jacket potato with beans and cheese waiting for me at lunch. I'll see how I do without breakfast today! I was sent a big box of sweets for my birthday yesterday too so I imagine saving some calories this morning will help when I inevitably dive into my sweets tonight.

Really interesting read, thank you all

I'm tentatively poking my head and a couple of toes into this tent as my weight is rather static at the moment. By this I mean that I am fluctuating between 11.8 and 11.12 and have been doing so for quite a few weeks. I definitely won't call it a plateau as I can't hand on heart say that I've strictly stuck to the ADF every single week for the last two months. Quite a few weeks have ended up 4:3 and some even 5:2. I absolutely refuse to do back to back fasts and some weeks life gets in the way. One week I did no fasting at all.

At any rate, I feel ready for a slightly alternative approach and having already ditched breakfast for 3-4 days a week doing ADF, this seems sensible.

Perhaps folk would like to cast a judgement as to whether this plan is likely to succeed; I have to admit my head is jumbled slightly after reading lots of your posts on eating windows

Basic plan:
ADF/4:3 with only one 500 calories meal on fast days.
16:8 the other days, 17/7 or 18/6 if I can make it!

My biggest concern is that I like to eat with hubby and he doesn't normally get home until 8pm, but presumably I could plan to eat a snack at say, 2pm, then my meal at 8pm and close my window at 10 having possibly enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner

Any and all thoughts welcomed.

[carorees]

I'd say you should keep an open mind. You might find that doing 4:3 or ADF with 16:8 is too much or it might be fine. If you start getting excessive hunger (not normal fasting-type hunger pangs) it's a sign you're over-doing things and stressing your body too much. I have not really tried 5:2 plus 16:8 but many do it OK. More than 5:2 and with 16:8 might be too much.

You could try allowing yourself a bit more than 500 cals on your 4:3/ADF regimen. I know Krista Varady says her study subjects were able to maintain their weight loss by doing ADF with a 1000 cal allowance. If you added 16:8 on the non-fast days you should continue to lose weight. Or try swapping to 19:5 every day as that would be almost the same.

Personally, doing an average of 17:7 (probably) got me from 81kg down to 65kg without any extra fast days. I have only been maintaining for 3 weeks so it is to soon to be sure but I seem to have stabilized at a fraction under 65 kg.

Thanks Carorees. I don't think I could do 19/5 every day as the children would question it too much. They have eight weeks of school holiday coming up soon so I need a strategy that fits family life. I have no problem fasting while preparing their meals but not sitting down with them for 2/3 meals a day would be very noticeable. Nine year old girls are very impressionable so I'm extremely keen to not get into discussing fasting with them.

So far so good. I fasted on Wednesday and did 16/8 yesterday. Must admit that I was counting the minutes till 12:00 but I didn't then overeat over the rest of the window. Today I again waited till 12:00 before eating and was hungry but not too bad. I'm fasting tomorrow so we'll see how that goes...

[carorees]

As I say @winsome, I lost weight doing approx 17:7 and that fits well with school holidays as it is pretty easy to skip breakfast without kids noticing and start eating at say 12:30pm and then as kids usually eat fairly early you can eat with them at 7pm and still finish eating within a 7 hour window with an option on an extra hour if you really need it (to make it 16:8). Some days will work out that you don't have lunch until 1 or 1:30 due to activities and these are then bonus longer fast days. Even if you simply maintain during the holidays it fits in well with family life without having to plan special meals for you on fast days.

Just leaned my teeth to remind myself my eating window is closed. Depending on the scales tomorrow morning, it will be 16 or 22 hours till I eat again

Well all I managed yesterday was 16:8 but it was a carb heavy buffet late lunch, to much cake again for me, fasting willingly today also very low carb evening meal
Today will probably be a 20:4 maximum.

I'd say you should keep an open mind. You might find that doing 4:3 or ADF with 16:8 is too much or it might be fine. If you start getting excessive hunger (not normal fasting-type hunger pangs) it's a sign you're over-doing things and stressing your body too much. I have not really tried 5:2 plus 16:8 but many do it OK. More than 5:2 and with 16:8 might be too much.

I was trying this (4:3/ADF plus 16:8 on non-fast days) and finding it difficult, but then I eat breakfast on fast days, so perhaps this isn't surprising. I started having my fast day breakfast (a soft-boiled egg) on non-fast days, but otherwise do 16:8. I probably wasn't getting the benefit of a 16h fast, but I was really trying to get non-fast day calories under control, and it did the trick.

Topic bump for @fatty2fitty Great ideas for all here
All my "normal" days have now become more like 18;6 because like many I wake up and listen to my body saying not-hungry and then skip breckie saving both calories and especially carbs
with my overload of cereals.
Good. Luck from Sue.

If I may, I'll join you. I have been really lucky and reached my target weight about 3 weeks ago and haven't really fasted since. But I have skipped breakfast (don't tell my mum !) regularly ( I'm not hungry before about mid day). and thanks to a fitbit I now realise how little exercise I was doing, so I have been walking fast for at least half an hour a day. It seems so far that I can maintain between 60 and 61kg as long as I eat sensibly and keep up the walking. Not really rocket science is it ? I sort of do 16 8 by default now. I'll keep an eye on my weight and try and keep to 16 8 and see what happens. However the neighbours must have wondered why on earth I'm speeding round and round the garden while the dog looks at me as if I'm nuts !

Well done @mrstee haven't you been good and got your reward, keep going, you will never regret it

Ballerina x