The FastDay Forum

69 and a 1/2 guy. 6 years ago I had chest pains start when mowing the yard. Long story short, I lost weight and kept it off (50bls) and started walking regularly. My goal is to weigh what the CDC says is "normal" for my height and stay mobile and active for the next 10 or 15 years. I've done lots of research about fasting and since that's what is easiest for me.... well, here I am. I'm starting the third week, of what I suppose we call intermittent fasting A couple of days the first time then three next and this time I'm on day four. No real plans, I'm just doing what feels comfortable and what seems to work for me. The idea is to get the pounds off and reset what my brain and the rest of my body consider normal. That's it in a nut shell, thus far 12 lbs in the two weeks and 34 more pounds to go. We'll see what happens when I get there. I know the first pounds are easiest but that's what I like about fasting, it is or it isn't. I feel fine today so I might shoot for 5 days this go around.
Thanks for being here, good support can make huge difference with things like this.

Welcome @Roscoe! You sound very motivated and as if you know what fasting is all about. Nothing like a health scare to help us make some changes to our lifestyle... You have lost a lot of weight very quickly, and I know it is tempting to keep adding in more and more fast days. Just watch for signs that this is no longer working for you (eg starting to feel hungry all the time, eating some foods you don't want to more than occasionally). Quick weight loss is not always as sustainable as slower weight loss, so do also examine your normal eating habits and work out how you can change these to help you retain your weight loss.

Good luck and best wishes.

I hear you. So far I fell just fine. I've kind of decided two days fasting and eating at the end of the 2nd day. That should be 3 lbs a week. for another 30 lbs (2.14 stone) to get down to 160 lbs. (11.42 stone) Then the real challenge begins. Staying around that weight and not letting it creep back up. I think I could work on up to more days in a row but I don't see any need things seem to be working pretty well as they are. I haven't had any chest discomfort since ....... maybe a month ago or longer. The weather hasn't been helping, it turned cold and it's pretty cool again today which causes me to feel cold but it's manageable. My dog and I walk a mile most everyday and I do some exercises for old folks. I got some real doctor scales at the 2nd hand shop .. the kind that use wights and not springs or stress gauges so they are accurate and easy to read. The idea is to get healthier and certainly not to worsen my health. LOL, you'd think I grew a third eye the way people react when they ask how I'm losing the weight. So far, so good... we'll see how it works out. I'm trying to get enough fiber and nutrients. I never thought I'd like spinach but it's pretty tasty. Hunger isn't a problem but I could tell I'd better start eating something on the 4th day and if two days works out that ought to be good enough. Dog walking time.... Thanks for the support and if I can do it, you can do it!

Welcome Roscoe!

Keeping at goal weight requires eating much differently than we did before (that over time caused all the weight gain.) Going low-carb, high fat - Paleo, for example, is one way to go. Favorite recipes will likely need modified - or at least eaten far less often and in lesser quantity. Tip: start early.

3 pounds a week is optimistic for fasting just two days a week. I'd managed 10 pounds a month in the first 4 months with ADF. A rough calculation is 2,000/3500 = .57 pound per day IF you were to do full 24 hour, liquid-only fasts. But, as already mentioned previously and above, there are good reasons to proceed more slowly.

Early weight loss occurs at a higher rate as the body releases water (and salt) that it doesn't need for digestion. Every commercial weight loss system depends on this fact for their marketing campaigns. (BTW, being cold is a symptom of needing to add a salty drink during the day to compensate - just for a week or so, as your body adjusts. Your doctor's opinion on this matters!). Also there's a conveyor belt effect that the food-not-eaten (which weighs something) isn't being "conveyed" through the digestive tract.

Exercise is good to retain muscle, but nearly worthless for weight loss. (Don't tell your dog!)

Daily weighing is very useful to see trends and to recognize how much our weight can change during the day. A 3 pound variance from morning to evening is common.

Instead of telling others about fasting - just let your results do it for you.

Hi again @roscoe

Lots of good points from ADFnFuel! There can be negative reaction from others re fasting, so may be better not to mention it.

Re how often to fast, it depends on what works for you, but whatever you do, stick with it a while before making changes, then assess how it is going and tweak as necessary - even by taking a break from fasting for a week, which can help if you are feeling weary of it. Not that it sounds like you will be for a while!

Re what you eat, certainly reducing the amount of (added) sugar is a good thing. But I am not a supporter of low carb/ high fat (in which I differ from a lot of people in this forum) - I believe that whole grains, starchy vegetables and a range of fruit are important for a balanced diet and healthy digestive system. But I do acknowledge that lots of people seem/ are healthy following low carb/ high fat diets. I guess it comes down to what works for you and your body.

It's great that you are walking the dog and doing appropriate exercises. Gradually increasing how much you walk and reducing the amount of time you are just sitting can be good too - a pedometer is very useful for helping with this.

Best wishes for all continuing well!

LOL, My dog and I have been walking for 6 years now. I roughly calculated 25lbs worth of calories over the years. I have or had stable angina and when I started walking a 1/4 mile was the most I could go. I was scheduled for an angiogram and most like a couple of stints 6 years ago back then but some guy with a heart attack bumped me to the back of the list. I was all prepped, IV, hospital gown ready to go but I did some deep thinking and decided to lose weight and start walking and told the nurse I was out of there, They called to rescheduled me but I never went back. I also lost 50 lbs back then and have kept that off. Today I mowed the yard with no problems, it was 6 years ago when the chest pains first showed up while mowing the yard, I'll always wonder what would have happened then if I'd gone to the emergency room like we are supposed to when that happens. It's all kind of weird but it takes what it takes to get us here.
My food intake while fasting is much higher low calorie fiber and NO sugar except what is in some of the food. Whole grains, lots of veggies, some bean and some fruit. I make my own "bread" with whole wheat flour and oatmeal but till I get to where I want and need to be weight wise I'll cut way back on that. What I'm shooting for is eating 500 to 750 calories every other day. It's just easier for me to not eat than to try and eat small amounts. Thus far I still feel OK, I made it to day four a while back and I could tell I'd pushed it to far and ate some. When walking the dog this morning I picked up some pecans and ate a few.... oops 100 calories but healthy calories. I didn't weigh today but I will tomorrow or later this evening.
So far it's still going well and I'm going to have to find my belt I can tell, baggy pants aren't cool on an old man. LOL So what I'm doing is actually consecutive two day fasts with 500 to 750 calories intake on the 2nd day then doing it again and again.. We shall see how it goes.

Re what you eat, certainly reducing the amount of (added) sugar is a good thing. But I am not a supporter of low carb/ high fat (in which I differ from a lot of people in this forum) - I believe that whole grains, starchy vegetables and a range of fruit are important for a balanced diet and healthy digestive system. But I do acknowledge that lots of people seem/ are healthy following low carb/ high fat diets. I guess it comes down to what works for you and your body.

Good points in which the deciding factor - which way to proceed when uncertain (and who wasn't when we started?) - may be the existence of metabolic syndrome: high blood pressure, central body fat (waist circumference greater than 1/2 your height), high fasting glucose, low HDL, high triglycerides. All easily measured.

These are all effectively addressed with fasting; for which the overall efficiency can be enhanced even further by moving to a low carb, high-fat lifestyle. Why? Low carb and fasting combine to alleviate insulin resistance; low carb eliminates hunger - those sugar highs and lows - by not triggering insulin; high fat adds to satiety (feeling full) while adjusting the carb/fat/protein ratio.

Then, as the met-syn numbers improve (approaching normal BMI range as a rough measure, for example), whole grains, starchy veggies, and fruit can be reintroducing depending on ones tolerance of them, of course.

Edit: Corrected error of identifying high LDL as a component of met-syn,. It is not. Replaced it with the missing entry: high fasting blood glucose.

Hi again @Roscoe

Wonderful that you have kept off that first loss of 50lbs (wow!) and are motivated to lose more. I think that being able to avoid surgery is a good thing, glad it seems to have worked for you. And great that over the years you have been increasing the amount of exercise you have been doing

It does sound though as if you are not eating very much at all, or am I misreading your post? Only 500-750 cals every other day?? This is very low cal and this degree of fasting is not supported by this forum. Of course, it is your choice and I have no professional training on health matters, but from my reading I do have concerns about your body getting adequate nutrition from such a diet and what the long term outcome may be. So do take care!

And @ADFnFuel, I do acknowledge the points you made, but a) just because low carb/ high fat might generally be optimal for losing weight, diet is not just about losing weight - LCHF might not be good for other aspects of your body - you may be missing important nutrients and for me, certainly, it upset my digestive system, b) many people don' t end up sticking to it but still keep trying to and then get in that diet cycle and c) many people think this should be a lifelong commitment. I believe if people just significantly reduced added sugar in their diet, and processed foods in general, and added in some fasting, then for most there would not be any need to make further changes to what they ate in order to lose weight. Not always easy to do of course!!

Back again .... I just weighed .... 192 lbs. I would have preferred 189 but it is what it is. I was working on a balky lawnmower a couple of days ago and flat ran out of energy trying to start it. So I upped the calories some and yesterday spent all day getting my taxes completed and in the mail. So today I had a couple of hundred calories for breakfast, walked the dog and I'm going to get that mower running. I can see I better get better at fixing those old cranky mowers or eat a bit more, maybe both, lol. I was really dragging my butt the other day when that old mower wouldn't start.
All in all I feel great .. getting the taxes in the mail probably has as much to do with that as anything.
The meal this morning was a bag of frozen veggies peppers and onions fried with just a bit of olive oil, and an egg mixed in with them and a little bit of butter on top. Should be around 200 calories allowing some for the olive oil and butter.
When I was in college (almost 50 years ago) we did a behavior modification thing in some psychology class. I remember losing quite a bit of weight at that time with a strict diet. I'm finding it might not be so easy now since I'm older. I'll get it it, but it might take a bit longer than I was hoping.

And here I thought we'd chased you off, given Sassy and my extended (and potentially boring) side discussion.

Ahh yes, 4-cycle engines. A test: Do you recall what the 4-cycles are? *

Hey, don't forget the "intermittent part" of the diet. Most important to eat periodically to keep one's metabolism guessing about whether its experiencing feast or famine.

Multiday famines have their place in that they "insist" that the body hasten its (mitochondrial) conversion to fat burning. In the earliest of 5:2 days these can be very hard - hunger!! with a capital H - because we're so use to frequent feasting (an unending sequence of 3 meals, snacks, desserts...for decades even). Few believe it, but by becoming fat-adapted, they're literally no effort at all.

As I recall, psych class tended to emphasize conviction and determination as in: "Say NO to [blah, blah]....". (Please, insert your favorite blah, blah.) Another more practical approach is mental "ju jitsu". Ever just watch (as in, being very curious about) an itch rather than just scratch it? It works in other domains as well.


* = Answer: "Suck, squeeze, BANG, blow!" representing intake, compression, ignition and exhaust. Fixing any engine always requires considering three critical things: compression, spark and fuel.

Lovely to read your long posts @roscoe! I can't contribute to any technical discussion on lawnmowers, though I do enjoy lawn mowing, much more rewarding than housecleaning!!

Try not to have too many expectations on what the scales will be saying. Focus on what you are doing in the here and now to look after your body, and the results will follow.

Btw I do hope the side discussion wasn't too boring... ADFnFuel has lots of good advice, I agree with him on many things! I like the idea of a jujitsu approach to dealing with temptation.

Continued best wishes.

I'm still functioning! I finally got below 189 lbs the other day but I haven't seen it since. I weighed a while ago and 192, it bounces around but the trend is down ... looks like the easy part is over and it will be slow going but I'm hanging in. I never did get that balky lawnmower to run, but I got a couple others running in the meantime and thinking about tearing into the balky one again. Temp is 91 F (32.8 C) this afternoon so I'll have to wait till it cools off a bit before my dog Maggie and I take our walk. I did mow the west yard this morning and I felt a bit weak but that's not unusual, no chest discomfort and that is a good thing. All in all I guess I'm doing OK but I thought I'd be 5 lbs less by now. Oh well, it will happen eventually. I ate a can of carrots and a can of green beans a while ago. 175 total calories, I didn't add any butter this time, I'll eat some more later. I've been cleaning out the food I had around a little bit at a time, There's some ice cream that I haven't touched and the neighbor's dog may get that along with some for my dogs. All in all I'm sure glad I finally got around to addressing this extra weight. Most people say I look fine and don't need to lose anymore but the if I'm going to be around for another 10 years and enjoying it I know I'd better. I'll probably go see mom at the nursing home tomorrow, some of those people aren't much older than me and it's a pretty good motivator to stay the course. Some are there for rehab from strokes. I guess that's about it for today, Oh yeah, I cut way down on sugar months ago but I'd still eat some, now and then, only sugar if it's added to something I eat and I don't eat much of anything with sugar. Well under the 9 teaspoons (38 grams) recommended for men. What I'm missing most are bananas and potatoes. I'll probably get a couple of bananas but I know me and I'd better not get any potatoes, at least not yet.
That's about it for now,

Good to hear about your progress. Butter is a good additive because it tends to add to satiety of otherwise limited meals.

Re: That mower - a three step process to troubleshoot it: Pull the spark plug and lay it on the cylinder fins inserted into its cap and verify that it sparks when you pull the starter. Move the plug out of the way, turn the mower off, then put your thumb firmly over the spark plug hole to seal it and pull the starter again. If it pushes your thumb off the hole there's enough compression to run. Last step: pour a couple drops of gasoline (petrol) down the spark plug hole, reinstall the plug, turn the mower on, and try the starter again. If it starts then dies after a few seconds, the carburetor is plugged. If it keeps running, go mow something.

Say hi to mom for us (I miss mine.). Oh I can see from here that Maggie wants that ice cream... after the walk.

Good to hear from you again @Roscoe! You are doing okay, just stick with it. Good for you keeping the sugar intake low - I assume maybe the savoury foods are more your weakness if you are avoiding potatoes?? As you have probably guessed, I think bananas and potatoes are good nutritious foods, in moderation (and not fried!!).

Spend as much time with your mum as is reasonable. Parents are so special and for many of us there is a big hole in our lives once they are gone. I didn't appreciate what others had gone through til my parents died. I miss them every day and often find it hard to believe that they are no longer around.

I'm hanging in, 189 lbs. this morning. My old body must have switched to efficiency mode, the pounds are coming off slow now, but they will have to come off sooner or later. I was watching a commercial in the TV a while ago, some juicy hamburger loaded with cheese and bacon and I was so detached all I could think of was the scales going up instead of down. What I remember the most from the last fast food burger I ate was how sweet the bun tasted, they must put a lot of sugar in those buns. That was a couple of years ago. My dog and I walk past three fast food places on our normal walk, I suppose the people at the drive thru's and those walking into the places think I'm as crazy walking a dog as I think they are for eating at those places. I did go visit mom and she was in fine form, she has dementia or Alzheimer's and it's like she is on an acid trip but never makes it back. I go to lunch with her and there are others in the dining room and it's nice to chat with the ones that carry a conversation. A 101 year old lady told me her reason for living so long was "hard work". A 96 year old said his secret was a shot of good whiskey every day. Mom? She started going into detail about an ex wife of mine from 50 years ago and well, it was entertaining to the others at the table but not for me. Oh well, that's my mom. I'm hoping if her condition is genetic those genes don't show up with me, at least not for a while yet.
So yesterday I did really well on the calories, mainly because I fell asleep early and missed eating any supper, I'll take it! Although food tastes good I'm not really hungry, I eat more out of habit than because of hunger, that's going to have to change permanently. I remember when I was a kid and we would get called for supper and we had to stop playing and "come eat" and then only eating some of what was on the plate and pushing food around on the plate so I wouldn't have to eat any more. I don't know what happened over the years but those natural eat only what you need tendencies are long gone.
And that damn lawnmower, I never did get it running...............yet. Everything checks out but it won't run, I put it aside while I think about it some more. Seems my body and that lawnmower are both defying the laws of physics.
So here I am still, making progress on weight, below the 190 lb. barrier and working on the 180's now.