The FastDay Forum

@MaryAnn,
I think that my appetite was re-set by a lengthy period of 5:2 eating. I now tend to just eat an evening meal on the vast majority of days. I am simply normally not hungry at all during the day, but I will adapt in order to fit in with whatever is happenning socially. I find though, that if I eat at lunch time I don't want to eat anything later in the day.

Fortunately, even when it is a" feasty" type of meal which I'm eating, I can no longer cope with the volume of food which I might have had in the past, but I'm finding that this way of eating is not resulting in additional weight loss. Now that I'd like to return to losing weight, I think that I will have to combine this approach with calorie counting to ensure that I keep to 4-500 calories twice a week.

[carorees]

@carorees, do you think part of the reason the eating window approach has been successful for you is that your appetite had already been adjusted from doing 5:2 for awhile?

Good question @MaryAnn! It could be the case and I have wondered that myself. I notice that too many 8 hour window days result in an increase in appetite but a good 19-20 hour fast seems to reset things.

Carorees, thank you very much for the great advice!

Wow! @Bracken sounds as though you've reached an ideal situation. Just one meal a day? That's pretty amazing isn't it.

Hi can I join the eating window tent? I've just switched from 5:2 to a form of eating window. I had a very successful first year doing 5:2, losing 11kg. The next year was full of breaks and fast days turning into not-fast days, and I put 3-4 kg on, and then another couple over this December/January. January I was actually quite good with 5:2, but still put on a kilo. So I need to try something else.

Whenever I try and stick to my TDEE, counting calories, I am constantly hungry and thinking about food. If I lower my calories (for weight loss) it's even worse. If I try any of the small breakfast, snack, small lunch, snack, small dinner diets, I am constantly hungry. It's like eating just a little makes me hungrier.

But I can fast no problem. So I am fasting through every day until lunch (midday), eating a decent 600 calorie lunch, then not eating again until dinner (about 6pmish) and again eating a decent 600 calorie dinner - that's the 1200 I need to be eating to lose weight, but without much hunger. My body is used to fasting, so to go until lunch is a doddle, then because it is such a good meal, I don't get hungry again until dinner, and then another good meal, so I go to bed full and don't wake ravenous. Obviously, I can play with calories distribution between the two meals, and can adapt it to social things like afternoon tea or morning tea - but that's the bare basics. This is my fourth day doing it and so far, it'w working well. Will be interesting to see if it stays easy. And that kg I put on in January is gone already, plus some, so that's a good way to stay motivated.

[carorees]

@KataMac of course you are welcome in here.

I've been using an eating window for around 19 months so far during which I have eaten breakfast 3 times and eaten late about 15 times I would guess.

I lost the last 2 stone of the 6.5 and have been maintaining for nearly 9 months.

There are quite a few others using the eating window, some with 5:2, others without.

See you around!

A week of eating window, and it's been very easy. I think my previous 5:2 fasting probably has a lot to do with it - fasting until lunchtime is easy. 2 good meals, no snacking, has so far been easy too. One day I met a friend for lunch, and we ate a lovely but big meal - and that was it for the day, didn't even need/eat dinner, and still found the next day easy to wait until lunch to eat. I'm logging everything on myfitnesspal for now, and I'm hitting all the nutritional needs, and dead on the calories too. Still early days, but so far it's really working well for me. Lost just over a kilo too.

Hi - I did the 16:8 4-5 days per week but found that I wasn't losing - I would just have a skinny Capp in the morning (to survive!) and then have my window from 12-8pm - but didn't really see any results even thought the advice in the 8 Hr Diet book seemed quite compelling - any thoughts???

I think that you still need to be eating few enough calories overall to lose weight. You could try logging all your calories for a couple of weeks, and see if you can see a pattern of "excess" ones, that you could then cut out. I don't think I would lose weight if I just did an 8 hour window, I suspect I would need to cut back to a 5 or 6 hour window for it to impact my overall calories intake.

Hi all, I'm sticking my head round the tent flap as I have a quick question for all you eating-window experts! I am going on a couple of business trips in the next few weeks which are going to screw up my normal 5:2 pattern (I think each week I am travelling I will only be able to manage a single fast). The trips will definitely lend themselves to some eating-window-type action though.

Never having done 16:8 or any other window length, what are your thoughts on how strict to be about small numbers of calories, like putting milk in coffee, if they are consumed outside the eating window? Is that a no-no?? When I'm 5:2ing I don't count milk splashes in hot drinks so I'd find it hard to go without that!

The general consensus on the Fast-5 group is that it varies from person to person how much impact some calories from milk, half-and-half etc consumed during the fasting window have on weight loss. My personal preference is to drink only black coffee and green/herb/spice teas during the Fast. I avoid the fruit ones that might have some honey added as well. These drinks do have a calorie or two in them, I admit, but it's too cold to just drink water! To me, milk is a food and it feels against the spirit of fasting to have any during that time, when I fast I fast, and when I eat I eat.

I've been having milk in my tea, with 5:2 it was what got me through the days (I liquid fasted, so the milk was generally the only calories for 36 hours) but now I'm doing eating window, I think I'm going to have to get out of the habit. I don't like black tea, and no herb tea has ever filled my tea gap, so I'm going to cut back to only 1 tea next week, and hopefully transition into none the week after.

I'm doing a 5:2, eating window combination,

I fast twice a week, Monday and Thursday usually, the three other weekdays I have a 2:30-8:30 window and on the weekends I have a more relaxed window, maybe 1-8:30. I thought windows were odd at first and couldn't conceive of having no food most of the day as I exercise a lot, but I now think its much easier and I am less hungry to eat nothing in the morning and early afternoon. If I start eating early I am hungrier all day and eat a lot more than if I start later. I've only added in the eating windows from last week, so I'll see how it goes.

[carorees]

I was thinking, following the launch of the very useful NOT fasting today chat thread (5-2-diet-chat-f6/not-fasting-today-chat-let-t13885.html) that perhaps the eating window tent should be in the Fasting Today board as we 'window eaters' (sounds like a strange diet!) are fasting every day (but also not fasting every day so I have also left a copy of the thread in the general chat board).

Anyway, with a foot (tent peg?) in each camp, this thread is for those who are eating in a window to chat about their window size today and all things to do with windows (curtains, blinds, swags and tails etc).

Today I am still fasting at 2.45 having been at the top of my maintenance range for a while now I need to put in some longer fasts to get back to the middle ground. I was very hungry at 12 o'clock, it subsided, hungry again at 2 pm, but decided to get back in front of the computer for a while longer. Aiming to break my fast at 3pm which should give me a 5 hour window today. My break fast soup is warming on the stove and smelling delicious! How are my other window chums doing today?

Started at 2.15 with an enormous salad with avocado and smoked salmon - a bit late because it took so long to prepare. Then a coffee with coconut oil, and dessert made with creamed coconut, cocoa powder and flaked almonds. Feeling quite full now, so will have a couple of mugs of Pukka tea, and maybe some nuts or nut butter just before 6, at which point the kitchen will shut.