The FastDay Forum

Congrats @barbaritaon yr eight month anniv..from what ive seen you write,you're pretty consistent and very positive in yr approach to fasting,feeding and exercise and have a zingy get up n go personality which i think is lovely X
Mmm cake..yeah a slice please! Has anyone had Waitrose passion cake? Delicious for those occasions when it would just be churlish to say no to a bit of cake ( big bit of course)

Quote from George Harrison.."all the world is birthday cake,so take a slice,but not too much!"

Hi @rawkaren I have only just seen your post which was so moving.

As I have posted elsewhere I have had an extremely stressful time at work this year and like you I am living away from home, although not so far. I am sure that this is why I regained 14lbs and it is only in the last few weeks as things have improved that I have been able to start losing some of the excess weight. I wish you all the best and hope you enjoy your time at home

@windsinger123. Thank you. Hopefully yours is just a short stress blip. You have done so fabulously well, you need to think about how far you have come. Good luck

your post @rawkaren stopped me in my tracks

Yes, 5:2 is a diet in the challenging sense and for people that say its an easy new way of life that requires no mindful eating all of the time is either very lucky, has a metabolism that responds immediately or are just a rare human being..

I totally see where you are coming from and wish you well and hope you could consider taking part in the Christmas 2014 challenge coming up soon here. Not with any fantastical hard to achieve goal but something to work towards and maybe incorporate any other diet guideline you may follow.

all the best

Hi Karen,
@rawkaren
I love your bravery and the care you have given so many here.
I agree with you about the way this site is a wonderful support, full of deep hearts and clever minds.
I drifted away from the forum after 3 months when I started struggling, and I too felt like a fraud. I thought I lost my membership badge in some way. (I can't seem to work my old account as well which was Jo_05 you might remember me).

Stress too is part of my life, so I can't use fasting as it triggers binge eating, and unless I have an airtight stress management strategy the fasting yoyos to bingeing for me. So when I get the stress stabilized, I think this is a great approach. My other half and I were supporting each other with it. But i got hit hard by a massive wave of stress and it appears you have as well.
But taking on a job in another country is wildly courageous and adventuresome. I commend your bravery. I hope your other half is better now.

Strangely I'm approaching another wave of stressful activity and it paradoxically it seems to motivate me towards another attempt at healthy actions. I hope my health efforts survive.

I think you should continue to welcome the newcomers Karen. I really appreciated your care when I arrived. I feel inspired by you to keep coming here. I wont be able to join the "fasting today" group but I will find ways to stay connected.
kindly
Johanna

Today is my fastiversary. This post will be a little different from others here, but I think it is important that we record all of our experiences as we continue to learn more about fasting and it’s effects over the long term.

I started this way of eating one year ago today as my blood pressure was just slightly higher than normal and my joints were getting stiff and creaky. At a BMI of 26, I was not outrageously overweight, but at 50 I decided that I needed to get it in check rather than let it get any further. I’m a chronic dieter and my BMI has ranged between 20 and 26 (highest) during my adult life. I had also water fasted once a month for the past 20 years and I liked how it made me feel.

The first six weeks were dreadful from a weight loss point of view. I didn’t really lose anything and considered the entire thing a complete waste of time. However my BP returned to normal after four fasts and for that reason, I thought I would hang on in there.

The first four months life was pretty straightforward. I was not working, apart from the odd bit of consulting, in complete control of my own environment, and I could prepare food from scratch. During the latter part of 2013 I was exercising strenuously most days. I recorded all of my intake on MFP every day so I could stay within my TDEE during 2013. During those 4 months, I lost on average just under a pound a week. I didn’t hit my Christmas target, but having lost a stone I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

At Christmas I got a job in California and was a bit bored with life so thought I would take the plunge, figure out if I liked it enough to move the family over or just treat it as a project. By end April, I had put back on all of the weight I lost despite continuing to fast religiously a minimum once a week but mostly twice a week (I was doing 4:3 during 2013). There are always reasons. Mine was due to overeating my TDEE on non fast days. A combination of no longer counting calories daily, and US portion sizes being much larger than I was used to and quality produce was/is expensive. Eating out as part of the job was an occupational hazard and with a TDEE of just over 1400, it was easy to consume my daily intake in one meal.

To mitigate this, I started 16:8. I gained more weight. This is because I’m a person that needs to eat in the morning rather than the evening even on fast days and going too long every day triggered binge eating at night. I was still doing 5:2.

By mid April, OH developed an illness quite out of the blue which made our monthly commute (we share the burden) extremely stressful. During April and May I probably travelled to the US and UK every two weeks. I can’t even remember how I got through that but I did. By some miracle, I carried on fasting.

By May, my weight gain was making me extremely stressed on top of everything else going on in my life. So I stopped drinking alcohol. I gained more weight. This was because I replaced alcohol calories with sugar calories and I had previously stopped eating sugar (in most forms except fruit) completely.

During June and July I weighed more then when I first started 5:2. I stopped updating my tracker, felt ashamed and a fraud for being on this site and cut back on my contributions. I had stopped welcoming people in the spring because I felt I was a poor example. I started a course of amino acid therapy (self administered) following a book I read by Julia Ross. I thought that it would help my emotionality. It was nothing short of a miracle. My mood improved and I stopped over eating on non-fast days. My weight stabilized and I lost a couple of pounds.

I felt well enough during July to sign up with a personal trainer who is also a nutritionist. The plan is low to medium carb but higher in protein than I’m used to. (I subscribed to low protein to keep IGF-1 down). It’s bang on my TDEE calorie wise, and I’m still fasting twice a week. My weight has bounced up and down the same kilo for the last month – the same behavior as when I first started fasting. I’m gutted.

Positives
I have treated this year as a self experiment and have enjoyed trying all of the different forms of fasting apart from extended fasting.

My blood work and BP is all normal. My joints no longer creak, I have been completely sugar free for most of the time, given up alcohol almost completely (I have had 3 glasses of wine in 4 months). The only dairy I eat is butter and I have even given up sourdough bread which was my only wheat in my diet previously. My carbs were already low to medium, but I know that VLC is not for me. I like my veggies and fruit too much (I used to be a raw vegan). My diet is now very clean. It’s harder when eating out, but I have refined my diet so much over this year, I’m very happy with the quality of what goes into my mouth, even though it costs a fortune to eat well (organic) here in California. The great thing about fasting is that you spend less money so I can afford to buy grass fed steak and hormone free/organic chicken on the days I can eat.

I have signed up to finally complete my degree in nutritional therapy which I started a while back, but didn't finish as I got a great job in another field. I have done so much research whilst I have been here all alone, (out of sheer frustration and often anger), I thought I should get something out of it, and hopefully an alternative ‘career’ when I finally retire.

Negatives
For me this is a ‘diet’, and I’m sorry but I don’t subscribe to how people describe it here. I could cry when I read everyone’s success stories. I’m so happy for you all, but it never happened for me that way. With a low TDEE, post menopausal I have to be mindful of everything I put in my mouth and food preoccupies my thoughts and has more power in my life more than it should. The British Airways crew marvel as to how I can do a 10 hour flight in business class just drinking water when everyone else eats and drinks their entire bodyweight in food and alcohol.

I have done well over 100 fasts in the past 12 months and the difference in weight control all depends on calorie intake on non fast days but also fast days too. Also 25% of 1400 is 350 calories a day as my fast day intake. Not a lot to play with and most of my fast days are between 450 and 500 cals. Whilst I did well during the 2013 phase, I did feel it was a complete grind and counting everyday – well I may as well have just done a straight calorie controlled diet. If I’m off by a couple of hundred calories – it shows on the scale very quickly.

This morning my weight is 500g less than when I started one year ago today. My bodyfat is 3% higher than when I started. However I’m using different scales now so hard to know how accurate that body fat calc truly is. So why am I still here? Frankly it’s the friendship, camaraderie and support I have received from people here who I have never met in person (and some I since have). I’d like to say a few special thank yous. So many people here have inspired me, but these people deserve special gratitude.

@debs, @sue.q, @carieoates, @gillymary, @sallyo, @lovemyparrot, @wendy darling, @ballerina, @manderley, @silverdarling @carorees, @callyanna, @candicemarie, @pennyforthem @azureblue, @nursebean, @maryann, @julieathome, @fatdog,@janeg, @juliana.rivers, @auriga, @wildmissus, @wendyjane, @bobshouse, @creakypete and of course @moogie and the rest of the team for making this site what it is.

I’d stlll like to be part of this site, but I know that for me, fasting is not a weight loss methodology that works for me at this time in my life and I think a year is long enough to know. Besides, my tracker says I will reach my goal on 1st November 2046 However I wholeheartedly subscribe to it as a way of staying healthy and so fasting will always feature in my life. However my journey as a chronic dieter continues and maybe one day I will get to the weight I truly want to be.

Today I fly home for 3 weeks and always lose weight when I go home so stay tuned!

@rawkarenFor the record, when I hit some mega stressors some years ago--which included 9/11 hitting with my very aged parents alone in NYC, important business communications disrupted by anthrax leaving us all terrified to open our mail, all followed by my getting a melanoma diagnosis and my husband being misdiagnosed with a stroke--I gained 30 lbs in one year.

So the fact that you have managed to maintain says a great deal about what a great job you've done.

For me what led to that huge regain was that I had been controlling my diet by being very perfect for a couple years, which mean denying myself most of the food I enjoyed. Faced with all that sudden mortality, I just wanted to eat all the food I'd denied myself for the past several years.

The good thing about 5:2 for me is that I don't have that pent up demand anymore. I might still eat in response to stress, but food is losing a lot of its power because I have been eating so much of it on non fast days.

So the fact that you got through a crazy amount of stress without gaining 50 lbs probably means that strange as it sounds, the diet is working for you.

Karen, you are inspirational. Your staying power in the face of your recent life situations leaves me in awe, frankly. I'm glad that you at least feel some health benefit, as I hope you will always be around. Here's to a reduction in stress and a calmer life this coming year.

[carorees]

Happy Fastiversary @CandiceMarie!

Hoping this year will see you making good progress towards your goal!

Happy Fastiversary from me, too @CandiceMarie! I look forward to reading your posts wherever they may be!

Happy Fastiversary @Candicemarie Well done for all you've achieved in your first year of fasting and the very best of luck to you for a better second year of 5:2

Congratulations on the fastiversary@CandiceMarie and many successful returns of the day

Thank you @debbiejgb @Ssure@Carorees and@Sue.Q xxxx
Ive learnt a lot from all of the members here ..even more from Carorees..
Hoping my second year,armed with so much more info than my first year,will be very successful..and i hope i find some extra willpower and focus this time round! @

Happiest of happy fastiversaries @CandiceMarie

Thanks @callyanna! Hoping to do better in year two,but
I need to find some willpower first!

Yay fastiversary dance for @Candicemarie x