The FastDay Forum

My DD has lost about a stone so far doing 19:5 / 20:4 and eating whatever she wants in her ' window'
( usually pretty healthy choices like chicken and avocado but takeaways etc at times )

hi ladies
i wonder if some of you could post examples of your eating plan on 16:8 IF.
i also exercise by using HIIT every day, so if any of you are pretty active, i'd love to hear from you especially.
thank you so much!

[janeg]

Hello @mia77230 and welcome to the forum. There are lots of very active people on the forum - gents too! There was a thread for HIIT where we posted our plans and progress. Might try and resurrect it.
You might like to introduce yourself on the 'Introduce yourself ' thread, and get properly welcomed. You might sneak in here on this thread and miss out.
How are you finding fasting?
Do let us know how you get on .

[carorees]

My typical 16:8 day would be
8am black coffee
1pm 2 eggs scrambled with 50g smoked salmon and greens or avocado with dressing and salad or some vegetable soup. An apple. 3 squares of 70% cocoa chocolate. More black coffee
5pm a couple of handfuls of mixed salted nuts with a cup of tea.
7pm A portion of meat with a large selection of vegetables with butter or sauce. Or courgette pasta with sauce. A glass of wine or water. Natural yoghurt with berries.
10pm a cup of redbush tea.

I lost the second half of my weight on this and plateaued just under my target weight. As you may have spotted it is actually a 17:7 day. Some days the window is shorter others longer but very rarely over 8 or under 5 hours.

Hope that helps.

carorees, do you do that every day? or only limited days? Doesn't it feel like a diet?

[carorees]

Yes, every day @sallyo. It doesn't feel like a diet because I find when I do eat potato, rice or pasta they seem bland and tasteless compared with the lovely veggies I could be filling up with instead! I don't have room in my tum for veggies, protein AND carbs so I choose to drop the carbs. I do have chocolate most days and also I love the nuts (sometimes with a glass of wine rather than tea) before dinner which definitely is not on your usual diet plan! I also have cake and other treats when out with friends. OK, so this weekend I had rather a lot of the cake, wine and other treats, so I will have to be stricter this week to compensate, but normally it doesn't feel like a diet at all.

I'm really glad there's an eating window forum here. Right now I'm on Facebook for the fasting groups (Fast 5/8 Hour Diet, etc) , and Lord I am NOT a Facebook fan. So nice to just log in here. Going back to read all the posts I missed now.

I read on her Every Other Day Diet facebook page that fasting researcher Krista Varady will be doing a study on time restricted fasting this year. I honestly think if the results are decent, "time restricted" fasting will be the next 5:2. Thanks for giving us this forum!

Wow, I'm thrilled to death! I've been using a fasting window for 2 weeks and I am down 4 lbs.!!!! I started with a 16:8, which seems to be okay if I start my window in the morning and go through to early afternoon, but some mornings I have awoke not at all hungry so delayed my fasting window to start around noon or 2 pm, then I change it to an 18:6, so I can "close the kitchen" at a reasonable evening hour.

I've been wanting to add a 500 calorie fast day or two per week, but may not if this continues at even half the rate of loss I've had so far. Most days I've done fairly low carb too -- like around 80 or fewer grams. But not all. And I even snuck in a couple of ice cream cones!

Sure doesn't seem like dieting! It certainly does keep me more conscious of what I am eating though, nothing mindless going on for me -- my bad habit of eating anything, everything, just to keep eating is getting the wind knocked out of it!

Dee

Wowee @drdee, good going. So pleased that your 18/6 and lowish carb is doing the job. There are some on Fast-5 FB group who also do 2 days of 500 cals and I think they must be mad, but maybe they are heavy and impatient for results!

Well done @drdee I used 5:2 and 16:8 when I was losing weight but for maintenance I have really only done 16:8. I eat in a similar way to Carorees and Ballerina and don't think it feels like a diet at all. Just makes me more mindful, then when I do have a social splurge I enjoy it more than ever. I have been on holiday and am now 4lb over my target so am back on 5:2. I fasted today for the first time for a long while and I will do 16:8 tomorrow just because I like eating that way.

My husband is doing 16:8 (or as close as possible) for a time to see if he can shift the 10 lbs. he put on while taking prednisone for a month. He is regular eater (peanut butter-oatmeal for breakfast for sure), so it is a bit of an adjustment for him. However, he is doing okay. We'll see how the weight works out for him. One thing he misses is a glass of wine in the evening. I'm kind of joining him in this, so we'll see what it does to my weight as well. (I am maintaining for right now.) I will report back.

Thank you so much Barbarita and Wendy Darling. Your encouragement helps a lot! I dropped another pound this morning, which keeps my motivation up too. I know these first five pounds are mainly water loss but that's okay, it's still five pounds less on my knees, which I hope to be able to save from surgery by losing weight.

I really don't expect to keep losing on 16:8 or even 18:6, but was looking for a way to curb my constant snacking, especially in the evenings. I've got two good weeks of success at that! I will start by adding a fast day when my weight stops dropping. Til then I am one happy camper!

It's an interesting thing, and I'm sure others have mentioned this too, but when I have some control over my eating I feel like I have control in my life -- when my eating is out of control everything seems like it's a mess!

Wish I knew how to make your names show up in blue so you'd be sure to get my thanks!

Dee

For the month of August, I've committed to doing at least 5:2 (4:3 when social plans permit) and doing 16:8 on the non-fast days.
Having just returned to the fasting fold, I completed my first 500 cal day (well, 567) yesterday. It wasn't bad at all, aside from a bit of trouble falling asleep. I think the fact that I had been trying to keep to some sort of eating window really helped me get through the fast day without feelings of utter desperation. (While off the 5:2 wagon the last year or so, I experimented with Fast-5 and 16:8.)

I really enjoy hearing about the different ways people successfully incorporate the various flavors of fasting into a healthy lifestyle. Ultimately it's the approach that feels least restrictive to each individual that will work.

I feel somewhat nimwhitted here, but I have to ask - if you do 16/8 each day - how much do you eat during the window?
The fasting I have done so far is day 1, dinner as usual and some wine, next day nothing at all (except water and green tea) until dinner when it's max 500cKal, depending on which Hairy Biker recipe I cook and then nothing until lunchtime next day. That made round 36hrs fasting with only 500kcal.
Now when I'm trying for the first time since the thyroid thingee to get back in the saddle, I find it quite hard to fast for such a long time....
What to do what to do?

I feel somewhat nimwhitted here, but I have to ask - if you do 16/8 each day - how much do you eat during the window?

Wolfie, I've been using an 18:6, so a 6-hour window. It's working out that I'm beginning it about noon, although I'm still experimenting with time. When I open my window, I'm usually pretty hungry so I have a big and delicious meal, either a breakfast-type or a dinner, just depending on what sounds good. I try to keep it fairly low carbish, which I consider anything under a 100 g of carbs to be. I might have 5 or 6 ounces of meat or fish, fixed anyway I like, all the veggies I can find in the fridge, lightly sauteed in butter, yogurt and berries with cinnamon. Or I might have bacon and eggs and veggies. If I am generous with the butter, I am not hungry again until very near the end of my six-hour window and then not for a big meal so my favorite second meal is a smoothie with almond milk, protein powder, cinnamon, banana and berries -- other fruit from time to time. It makes a big cold shake that is a delicious treat on a hot day and very filling. If I want "dessert" I have a handful of almonds. In the afternoons I've sometimes added an ice cream cone for a treat or a cookie or two.

I've gone out to eat a couple of times and just switched around my shake and big meal, started my window about 2 pm instead of noon, and eaten whatever I wanted at the restaurant, shying away from grain and processed stuff.

I'm losing on that still, although I'm newly back to Fastday, about 3 weeks in. As long as I lose, I won't add a 500 calorie fast day.

I'm actually getting an 18-hour fast every day this way, which I hope is giving my body some good repair time. I'm in it to lose weight but mostly I want good health again and am now pre-diabetic with arthritis and a few other things that relate to overweight that I am eager to see improve. Your 36 hours with only 500 calories seems hard to me but I do remember from the last time I did 5:2 (successfully for about 6 months), I felt hungrier when I first began than I did after I was into it for a while. Seemed like my body adjusted.

I'm liking the way I'm eating now and think maybe sustainability is the key for me. If it's feeling hard or I'm feeling deprived, I'll quite soon, but so far that isn't happening. But I have a long way to go.

Most important is hang in there with whatever you can do until you work out a plan that suits you! Good luck!

Dee