The FastDay Forum

Hi everyone!

I am now on holiday and reliant on a mobile wifi device to connect to the Internet. It is very slow... Can't guarantee I will be able to check in every day (will of course also depend on how busy our days are) but will do my best.

Glad you are joining us @Matillian. Drinking more water is pretty well always a good thing! Do you add a squeeze of lemon juice or some such? I find it easier to drink warm water. Usually when I make a cuppa I also add some of the boiled water to 2/3 glass of cold water, and drink that down straight away. I also try to remember to have a glass of water about half an hour before I eat a meal. Best wishes and good luck! (I hope you don't mind me saying that a 7kg loss in 8 weeks is fairly ambitious, we would suggest that normally about half of that is what to expect on basic 5:2. So please judge your success by how well you stick to your strategies, rather than the resulting weight loss. And of course you never know - you might be like fancyfinch!)

@Margotsylvia - you do seem to have overcome that plateau, you must be pleased. (Btw, the challenge hasn't started yet of course, but very happy for you to post any pre-challenge progress here! )

Yes, @loz17, I live in Melbourne in the Dandenongs (thus my forum name!) Wow, you would have been super fit to lead treks in the Himalayas. Exciting but hard work, I imagine. Have you seen the documentary film "Mountain" - I think you would love it. Unfortunately hard exercise can do damage - did your PhysEd study place much emphasis on that? Your current exercise regime sounds perfect.

@Fancyfinch, you are understandably very pleased with your blood results - a great reward for your dedication and determination! What sources of fibre are you consuming - and how much do you have to eat to get 25g worth? (I have little idea of the actual fibre content of foods, I just assume that eating enough whole foods including lots of veg will give me sufficient...) By all means aim for 1700 cals a day. Calorie counting is more complex than perhaps we think - because of measurement error and because we can never know exactly what the calories are of a food we eat, or how much energy our bodies will convert it into. And our bodies are so complex too - they can subtlety adjust our metabolic rate. Learning to eat according to hunger is the ideal, but as cblasz pointed out, none of us would be here if we could do that.

Best wishes to all!

Hi Sassy1, thanks for your reply. Please enjoy your holiday though.....no need to reply to this. I live in Mentone but have lived in the Dandenongs too. No, PhysEd study placed little emphasis on potential damage from exercise. Never mind. Current exercise regime working out well. Yours sounds like a delightful regime (especially the walking the dog part!) Thanks for mentioning “Mountain”. I hope to see it this weekend...

@sassy1, I confess, I'm more of a noodles, white rice, and chocolates kind of gal. I do eat vegetables, and actually like them, but I tend to like the bad stuff more. Thus, if I am only paying attention to calories, fiber suffers a blow -- I personally need something to reach for to get it in, and 25g is the daily recommended amount for women. I have read in various reputable places, that actually the body does better with far more fiber than that, up to 60g per day and beyond, but let's not get ahead of ourselves, especially since raising fiber levels too much at a time causes much internal distress, lol.

But, I did find that it is very difficult (if not impossible) to get 25g of fiber in less than 550 calories in a way that tastes decent [to me] (thus my 'can eat up to 600 calories on a FD if eating 25g of fiber' rule for this challenge) -- did all sorts of calculations and tests with my calorie counter (which also shows all macro and micronutrients).

I suppose I should clarify that the day i tried to eat 25g was indeed a fasting day. I, too, was unsure what it would look like, thus the test. Ended up being a large plate of rice, beans, carrots, squash, onions, and cabbage, all roasted up with olive oil (I'll take a picture next time). It was tasty, but i couldn't finish my plate. If I had started to eat a bit earlier in the day, I simply could have split it into two meals on my FD, but it was late so I never ended up eating all of it -- now I know.

So, spread out over the course of the day with plenty of veg, I'm sure 25g is quite simple to reach -- it's just not a level that I personally reach without some sort of awareness or effort. There are definitely more veggies and beans in my future.

I know this challenge officially starts tomorrow. But I am waiting for my 1 o'clock break-fast, and writing here makes the time go faster. Today it is especially hard since here in Europe we moved our clocks back one hour. So in yesterday's time it is 20 to two and not 20 to one, as it is today. My rumbling stomach does not know about the clock change.
I have extended my fasting, I now fast for 19 hours and eat within a 5 hour window.

Hi,
Please could I join? I did 5:2 in 2013 - lost 4.5 stones but have put some back on (1.5 st). Fell off the regular fasting wagon some time ago and the bad habits crept back. I tried the 8 wk BSD and lost a stone in the 8 weeks (which was disappointing compared to the people who were apparently losing twice that, but hey....) - also I found it so hard to do and a bit joyless, if I'm honest, So back to 5:2 (done properly) because it worked for me the first time, even though I'm now a menopausal old bat. So my current weight is 73kg and if I could get to 68kg by the end I'd be ecstatic. Final goal is to get to 65kg.

Tomorrow seems a great day to start !

Lovely to have you with us, @loversghost!

Back to the basic 5:2 is my aim as well, let's hope it works for us both!

Just a short note from me at the moment, as you may have read I am on holiday and we are about to pack up the van before moving to our next destination so I can't take much time now for this, and I want to start the actual thread for the challenge.

Best wishes and good luck of course!

Hi, @Sassy1. Sorry that I am late to this challenge but I would like to join you. My end date will be December 16th when I go away on a Christmas cruise. My start date would be yesterday, 5th November, when I weighed in at 153.2 pounds.

My aims would be to:-
1. Remain on track to get back to my target weight of 147 pounds
2. Get at least twenty minutes of walking, on at least five days per week
3. Allow myself only one 'sweet treat' on non-fasting days.
4. Cook dinner 'from scratch' at least five days per week

That sounds plenty to be getting on with!

Great that you can join us @Stowgateresident. Shorter challenges can be good challenges! Your strategies sound good. Best wishes and I will add you now to the list.

Thanks for organising and I'm definitely in. Just returned from a cruise and feel like I must weigh 10 times what I weighed beforehand. My plan is Tues and Thursday and now I have discovered home made bone broth, today has been a breeze. I haven't been on Fast Day site for ages but there is no going back this time. At 48 I want to be healthy and need to shift 2 stones. Carrying this extra weight is not looking good and I don't feel energetic.

So this challenge is just in time and I want to stay on track to w/c 26 March by which time I hope to have sensibly got to ideal weight.

The posts here are really inspiring so this time I'm not falling off the 5:2

Great to have you joining us @Anne London

This is just a short post to say welcome. I am still on holiday and where we are we don't have much internet so will leave making a longer reply until I am home in a few days.

All other challengers - please post (in the other thread) how you went over your first week and the number of stars you have earned. Thanks! I will update once I am home.