The FastDay Forum

Just opened my window with smashed avocado on wholegrain toast with black pepper and lemon juice.

Today's window will be closed at 8:00PM because I have trouble to sleep if I eat anything after that

Ooooh yummy yum, chuck some over here honey!
After I ate my 3 squares of 85% and later some prunes last night my sleep lasted from 11.30pm to 2.30am then I was wide awake until 7.30am and got up an hour later. How crackers is that. My worst insomniac night ever.
Must sleep through tonight. Must.

Awesome, carorees, thanks!

My strategy at the moment is to eat between 12:30 and 8:30 at the latest. I believe that we should have a decent interval between our last food and bedtime. Ideally this should be 4 hours to allow the body to switch to fat burning over night and to allow normal cycling of leptin etc. I try, therefore to stop eating before 8:30 most days.

This is my toughest challenge. Skipping breakfast is easy. Even waiting until well after noon to break my fast is easy (especially when I exercise before breaking the fast because that's a good appetite suppressant for me). Stopping my eating by 3 or 4 hours before bedtime is tough for me. Even when I'm not all that hungry, I find myself eating something at 10:30 or even 11:00...

I do think you're right, though -- in my mind part of this gaming* of the daily metabolic cycle is optimized if you are done digesting stuff when you lay down to go to sleep.

I'm totally with you on the flexibility and not letting any of this theory stuff get in the way of enjoying life. You also have a good point about cycling your insulin response with a periodic high-calorie/high-carb day. Unless you're pre-diabetic or Type II diabetic and need more discipline and can't afford the cycling, I imagine the periodic "fun" day will at least not hurt, and it may even help keep your body guessing so it doesn't just adapt to a carb-deprived diet by making your insulin spike at the merest hint of a carb...


*I like the idea of 'gaming' metabolism. It feels like such a 'life-hack'.

When I went into 16:8 it was specifically for 3 days a week from discussion gleaned on the forum around 16:8. My other reason for adopting 16:8 was to control the hours I could eat and thirdly it was nifty to be packing in a few more fasts. This was on top of 5:2. Wendy Darling and I were tandem in our eating fasting plan then.

So point being I was using 16:8 as a tool not to over eat. Am sure I am not the only one who uses/used 16:8 or it's relatives sensibly. I actually didn't eat enough on my weekend, as @Caroees cautions and I concur make sure you do eat up on your feed days to avoid famine reaction.

It effective and good to have the option to choose 16:8 etc, another tool on this WOL journey

Hi All:

I am just back from four plus months of travel. For the first month, I followed 5:2, and lost my usual four pounds. After that, I decided I could not do it any longer (just a personal thing, not that it can't be done).

I therefore knew I had a problem, because in the past I had packed on pounds as a result of my eating and drinking in restaurants for almost every meal (rarely drinking at breakfast, though). What to do?

I thought about what 5:2 had taught me. The main lesson, I decided, was that I could skip one, two or three meals a day, be hungry, but not die.

In analyzing my travel schedule, I decided I rarely had to eat breakfast, more often than not did not have luncheon appointments, but pretty much always had to (and wanted to) eat dinner. So I decided to skip all of the breakfasts and lunches I could, and eat dinner every night.

Dinner was pretty much always at a different time, but the general eating window came to about three hours each day. So in this tent's popular parlance, I was doing 21:3.

I followed '21:3' for a little over 3 months. I gained four pounds (the same four pounds I had lost the first month following 5:2) . My net gain for the entire four plus months was therefore 0. Not bad, I think, especially as the time frame included U.S. Thanksgiving and the Christmas/New Year holidays.

What did I learn? Well, I learned that I could reduce my weight gain by cutting out breakfast and lunch. I learned that eating in only a three hour window each day did not automatically cause me to lose weight - in fact, I gained doing that. I learned that if I walked at lunch, I was less hungry. As many people on this site have learned, skipping breakfast is easy.

So, whatever works given your situation. For mine, 21:3 caused modest weight gain and an overall successful travel period. I'm now back on 5:2 and losing my pound a week - until I travel again.

Good Luck All!

[carieoates]

We are all different and what works for one individual may not work for another. We all speak from our own experiences here, as that's all we've got.

I did like how you put it @carieoates[/tag but we do get passionate. I am grateful we have options and hope we can chill as no matter what we all choose as adults. Not forgetting we are getting some really spectacular results. There is not one right way and things are morphing as we try new things out and as we do we share. Keep what works for you as an individual and lay aside what doesn't. By the way [tag]Caroees I prefer the original name of the tent and it's intent

[carorees]

Look everyone, can we all calm down and be civil here? I'm quite tempted to delete this entire thread. But there have been some useful contributions which I don't want to lose.

I am very glad that@simcoeluv has taken time to explain why he is opposed to the eating window concept. I am very interested in his experience and would like to engage in a meaningful scientific dialog with all who have tried the eating window approach so we can understand more about when it does or doesn't work.

So can I please ask you all to take a measured approach to your posts. If you have a strong opinion about the eating window method, it's important to explain why...if simcoeluv had told us of his experience from the outset, I think a lot of this unpleasantness would have been averted.

It helps no-one if the forum's advice is not based in genuine experience. Clearly many people have success in losing weight with an eating window. Others do not. Let's pool our knowledge and experience to make the forum stronger.

If I see any more mud slinging from any party, I will take action.

[Tracieknits]

I would like to chime in that this is first and foremost a SUPPORT forum. If you can't post something supportive and kind, please don't post. It is NOBODY's job to make sure people are dieting the "correct" way, because what works for one person will NOT work for everyone. Similarly what doesn't work for one person may very well work for another.

There is no reason at all to be rude on this forum. If anyone feels the need to be rude, they can step away from the keyboard or they can get officially "warned" about their behavior. Enough warnings will result in banishment.

[Debs]

I will just add to tracieknit's post that there is no problem challenging someone's presumptions and why they are doing what they are doing, just please think about how you frame your questions, and answers. What sounds fine when you are talking to someone can easily be taken out of context in the written word!

Otherwise I shall set up a 'Boxing Tent' and charge for entry

Awaiting deletion

Late to this thread again, so it has been interesting to catch up on ALL the comments/ideas etc.
I'm another for whom breakfast has generally become a forgotten meal and my eating window is far longer than most of them. Despite schooling myself to fast, skip breakfast, do without refined carbs etc, I cannot go to bed hungry and always have a snack around 10pm. Makes my window a 14:10.
Whatever I've done, it's worked for me, when the likes of SW, WW have failed.
The beauty of this WOE is that it is what you make it. No 'rights', no absolute 'wrongs', just what works for you.

Hurrah, I slept 7 hours last night and have just eaten delicious mashed avacado on GF toast with a little lemon juice.
Today is a whole new adventure :0)

I did 19:5 yesterday - out for a high cal boozy dinner - so it was damage limitation really and well worth it, lovely evening, and the day was easy with the anticipation of my night out. Today is the usual low carb 16:8 - just had lovely ham and eggs - one of my favourites.

My window is going to be a bit longer today I think. I broke my fast at 11:30 as I was eyeing up the malt loaf. I decided to go for a low carb start because I know that if I start my day with carbs I will be snacking all day. So I've had a two egg mushroom omelette to start the day. Behind me my sons are working. The eldest is preparing the chunk of bellypork in the slow cooker and the youngest is washing the car, finally, as so far today it hasn't rained.

[carieoates]

Today is naughty but nice day in our house.
Did my C25K running training this morning, then the hubs made us a massive breakfast at 11.30. He's off playing golf now so wanted fuel. So I had two slices of thick cut bacon and a thick pork sausage - grilled. A spoon full of beans a poached egg and a slice of toast. Nothing now till roast beef dinner at 6.30.
I have a glass of red and we don't do puds so I might have a wagon wheel or a finger of fudge.

Now have about two hours of ironing to do. Ciao.