The FastDay Forum

My first day tomorrow. I currently weigh 14st 8lb and my BMI is 29.9.

I'm a 40 year old male with three young kids (5, 2 and 1 month old) who's weight has been steadily creeping upwards since my 20s.

I haven't really made much effort to shift the surplus weight. I'm fairly fit thanks to cycling but with the arrival of the kids my free time has been eaten up.

I enjoy my food and this is what makes dieting so hard. Although I've only dieted twice before I find the deprvation hard. I've also observed many friends who've lost stones only to put it back on a few years later.

I'm hoping that the Fast Diet is a life style change that will allow me to break my cycle of being overweight. I like the fact that it is backed up by science and I am also interest in the health improvement benefits.

I'll be fasting normally on Monday or Thursday but I will be flexible for social or work reasons. (This is something that attracts me to the fast diet.) My plan for my fast days is to have a breakfast of muesli with skimmed milk. This is my normal breakfast and I beleive I can restrict it to 200 calories with a cup of tea with skimmed milk. I'll skip lunch, hydrating at work with water or black coffee. So that leaves 400 cals for tea which I've worked out that I can eat what the family is having if I pass on the carbs and bulk it up with veg/salad.

Ideally my wife would be joining me as she is also overweight but she's breast feeding so I'm on my own.

PS I've eaten 6 dark chocolate digestives this evening. I may be trying to compensate!

Hi silent_dancer and welcome!

Congrats on the new baby and on finding this new way of eating. Your wife is doing the right thing in waiting until she has finished breastfeeding before starting.

And don't worry about the choccy biccies, it's natural to try and overcompensate for the first few days/weeks. The novelty soon wears off.

Its the morning after the first fast.

It wasn't too bad. Certainly the avoiding food bit was easy and easier to manage than on a normal diet. With a normal diet you notice more what you are missing out on and pine for it. For example a donut offered by a colleague is easy to refuse as I know i can eat one on a non-fast day, whereas on a normal diet I feel I would be missing out more and trying to sneak one in.

For breakfast I had muesli and skimmed milk (150 cal). I skipped lunch and then for tea I had two sausages, pak choi, carrots and brocoli with gravy (est 315 cal). Everyone else had mashed potatoes with theirs. With a couple of cups of tea with milk I was well under 500 cal. My wife very kindly bought a pots of chopped melon and pineapple for desert but I decided to skip as it was simpler.

The toughest patch was at one o'clock when I normally have lunch and talk turned to food as colleagues were walking to the local Tesco Express to buy sandwiches. As I walked out the building I could smell acooked lunch being served to visitors. The guest food at work is a big temptaion as we have an award winning chef. The walk helped and with some fizzy water a couple of ibuprofen and some Smints the cravings and headache went away.

My breakfast this morning wasn't the joyous afair that some have writen about. I was rather underwhelmed with the couple of slices of toast and honey.

All in all it wasn't too bad and I can see myself sticking to this.

[janeg]

Good for you on your first fast silent-dancer. Remember that as a man you can have up to 600cals. Hope your next one is as easy.

Morning Silence Dancer,

It’s my first day on the diet today and I hope it go as well as you. It’s nice to see a fellow guy on here. I am on Holiday this week and plan to do my Fast day like you on Monday and Thursday as these are my busiest days at work.

I am in my mid 40s and need to lose some weight mainly for health reason as both my parents have health issues that I would like to try and keep away from.

My meal plan today is to have no breakfast except for a cup of herbal tea and a coffee, this is not too hard as I don’t have breakfast normally. Lunch will be Carrot Curry soup (91 Cal) and a rice cake (33 Cal) then for dinner Chicken Tandoori (246 Cal) and Steamed Veg (90 Cal) and for supper a rice cake again (33 Cal) = total 455 Cal’s.
While typing this I have realised that this is my normal daily eating except for the pig out at night on Cheese and Bread and Biscuits and chocolates habit so might have to change.

I will see how I get on and then suggest the diet to my parents especially my mother who admits she needs to lose a few stones.