The FastDay Forum

Do you really need the high calorie/carb rice? Better to leave that out on a fast day.
The fish and veg are fine, though above ground greens are lower calorie than below ground carrots, parsnip etc so a more effective way of eating a good helping without busting the calorie count.
A natural yogurt containing probiotics would be more useful too, and comes without added sugar, but watch your calories as it works best when your fast day intake is no more than a quarter of your daily TDEE.
Very best of luck m'dear.
I drink decaffinated real black coffee, water and Pukka teas throughout the day and evening too :0)

On a fast day the usual calorie allowance is 500 for women & 600 for men. That is what my husband & I have always stuck to & as you reduce in weight the idea is that it is 1/4 of your daily TDEE. This guideline will show up on your progress chart if you put your starting stats in. Good luck with your first fast day it is also more filling eating higher protein foods rather than carbohydrates & it's better keeping well hydrated with water.

@Grandma Kate 500 or apparently 700 in your case
of absolutely anything you want at all over how ever many meals you can actually stretch your allowance into.
However as Azureblue said those of us who have been around a while have learned from others that a reduction in carbs especially on your fastdays is extremely beneficial because the carbs are what gives us food cravings and wanting more carbs etc plus your body burns all of your carb intake before moving onto your fat intake so we go into fatburning quicker with carb reduction, fill up on lots of veggies they're far more filling, because if you're not feeling full the chances are your fastday is doomed, well at least its been this way for me.

Thanks everyone for the help. I'm 5'10 and fairly active so 700 is what the TDEE gave me as my fast day calorie count. I'm actually not calculating that much in my day, so it should be OK. It's a bit of suck it and see! The comments about the carbs were very useful and I'll bear that in mind.

Enjoy your Fast day @Grandma Kate - time will fly, and your planned menu sounds delicious.

Hi @RachelB - I love your pics, and I am especially impressed with your WL so far and you have only joined us a few weeks ago. Well done, I need to take notice and get my act together!!

cheers
Maggie

@Grandma Kate. Not wishing to rain in your parade but the usual thing is to calculate your TDEE based on maintenance and sedentary lifestyle otherwise you don't get a sufficient calorie deficit for significant weight loss.

I lost all my weight following 700 cals on a fast day. As I understand it, 500 cals is a rather arbitrary figure. I'm now following a low carb way of life, though the way I've eaten this lunchtime, you might not think it!!

Contemplating fish and chips :0@

Arghhh AzureBlue!

Thanks for the link @Azureblue. Enjoyed reading that. Moroccan chicken soup and toast for dinner.

@Grandma Kate. Not wishing to rain in your parade but the usual thing is to calculate your TDEE based on maintenance and sedentary lifestyle otherwise you don't get a sufficient calorie deficit for significant weight loss.

I disagree that that is the "usual" thing. I think the standard approach advocated by MM is 25% of your real TDEE on fast days. So for @Grandma Kate, that would indeed be 700 calories. If a couple of months down the road, she feels that she can handle eating less on fast days, then she can adjust then.

I'm in maintenance, and eating 25% of my TDEE worked very well for me for 10 months of weight loss. I entered myself as a medium activity person.

Welcome, Kate!

[carorees]

I suggest start at 700 and if the weight loss is too slow or 500 seems easy then go down to that. There are no real hard and fast rules here, just general principles!

We took a couple of grandsons to the zoo yesterday. Camels with two humps were a big hit, as was a collared lemur giving birth in front of us. Seven year old would now love to work in a zoo! Nine year old managed to stop talking about x-box and mine craft for whole minutes at a time. It was fun and brought out the latent teacher in me (hope I didn't bore them with facts too much) but we are a bit out of it today! Glad to fast today too.

I'm new to this forum and fairly new to 5:2. Proud to say I lost 15# since Feb 2014. That came off really quickly but haven't lost hardly any in past 3 weeks or so. Did do some refreshing on diet facts this AM. I had read at some point one could do 'day fast' for 24 hour period, I.e. 7pm to 7 pm. As reading this is not optimum and 'fast day' should be from after dinner one day to breakfast the day after the following day. Oops! I did this initially but started 'cheating' some weeks ago. Back on the straight and narrow next fast day (coming Monday).
Looking forward to participating on this forum as I consider myself a sassy senior (63). Nice to meet you all. I'll be catching up on everyone over the newt few days.

Hallo, good afternoon and welcome penflo, always good to meet a new senior here. We all seem to come at this fasting lark from slightly different angles (hence all the hundreds of threads :0)) and we quite often change things round a bit when we get stuck, but I generally end up back on the 36 hour <300 cals minimum carbs fast to get the full effect, twice a week.
Look forward to chatting with you and best of luck.