The FastDay Forum

I keep forgetting that I belong in here too!

This will be my third consecutive week on 4:3 and although I've survived them, I can't say I'm finding it easy. Monday mornings seem to be the worst and I'm sat here with a growling stomach and genuine hunger pains It doesn't help that the scales seem to be pretty static overall - have seen some drops but them they boing back up again after a feed day. Of course, I know all about their lies but I'm also human and am hanging in by my fingernails at the moment!

I hear ya Winsome, it's hard to keep positive when you're not seeing any weight loss. Have you tried calorie counting on your feed days? I think I'm going to start as I'm fed up of static scales despite my best efforts too x

@carieoates do you notice a difference now that you have gone sober for October? I tend to have just one glass of wine per week, so there isn't much of a difference for me. I think what is helping me is lowering my overall cals per day, increasing my exercise and keeping my carbs down on fast days (between 20gr and 30gr). I have been keeping track for a while now and trying to analyze what was causing the cycling up and down and I think these three changes will do the trick. Fingers crossed...

[carieoates]

@swan51Hi tag]swan51[/tag]. I think it's all clicked into place nicely for me because I'm back into my work (school) routine. I'm low carbing, I'm logging all of my calories on MFP where my mates debs, Wendydarling and Madcatlady can see. Works wonders honest! Plus with having no alcohol it's easier to to do a proper Friday fast rather than a half fast which is what I was doing.
I've always been a frantic exerciser so now my muscles can see the "light"

Hello fellow 4:3ers yes it is good to be back to 4:3 and good to see @winsome and @carrieoates reporting in and doing so well that is very encouraging for me. You know I had a good fast yesterday Monday, I always do a liquid fast and I walked 10kms without feeling faint or tired or odd in any way. @winsome for me the hard fast day is Fri because I have found that I am so busy all week and that by Fri I am absolutely exhausted am normally asleep by 8 pm but could prob be asleep by 7:30 and I have discovered that when I am tired I am constantly hungry but worse I crave sweets like a maniac. On my fast days I always think I have to find a tent where others are fasting for the day and pop in to ensure I don't fail, however, for me my fast days are normally always fine I manage to do a liquid fast all day with no problem am able to ignore any hunger that may rear its ugly little head, but its my feed days that are my nightmare. I seem to have absolutely no control on my feed days, I start off fine because I am not a breakfast person so for the whole morning I tend to eat nothing but when I do start…. all hell breaks loose and its bread and chocolate and anything else unhealthy I can sink my teeth into. Literally sabotaging and undoing all my efforts on my fast day. I have been fortunate that this WOE is so effective I have lost 6kgs since May but I feel like I would be at my target by this time if I could just practice some self-control on my feed days.
Anyway sorry about the rant but today is a feed day and I am going to try desperately to eat nutritious food and stay away from bread and chocolate.
Has anyone else noticed that their feed days are a problem, just curious?

today is a feed day and I am going to try desperately to eat nutritious food and stay away from bread and chocolate.
Has anyone else noticed that their feed days are a problem, just curious?

Apologies to those who've seen me write this before...

My anecdotal observation from various IF sites is that feeling out of control with food or over-eating on non-fast days is common, @skinnyli.

The
Happy Eaters
website has a forum where people discuss useful books. From various IF sites, my anecdotal impression is that it seems as if the sense of deprivation or restriction that accompanies IF for some people can trigger binge eating episodes (my impression is subjective and from people's reports and they tend to be at the less painful end of the clinical continuum - tho' still distressing), a sense of loss of control around food, or over-eating. One of the books that I've regularly seen recommended and commended is:

How to Have Your Cake and Your Skinny Jeans Too: Stop Binge Eating, Overeating and Dieting For Good Get the Naturally Thin Body You Crave From the Inside Out by Josie Spinardi (it's a Kindle but there's an app. that allows them to be read on phones or computers).

The overviews that I've seen highlight the following points:

The Dieting Triangle of Despair: Diet ---> Binge ---> Beat Self Up for Perceived Lack of Self-Discipline and Resolve to

Diet etc. etc.

Spinardi identifies 7 common reasons why the usual forms of dieting are inappropriate for sustainable, healthy weight loss:
1 Dieting intensifies cravings and preoccupation with food.
2 Dieting makes you eat more, not less. (For every diet there is an equal opposing binge. The extent and ferocity with which you binge is directly proportional to the extent to which you restrict what you eat.)
3 Dieting makes you feel out of control with food.
4 Dieting increases both emotional distress and the likelihood that you'll eat in response to the stress.
5 Dieting creates a whole new category of overeating called "Eating Cuz You Ate."
6 Diets don't model naturally thin eaters' behaviour.
7 Diets do not resolve the real reasons you eat when you're not hungry.

Spinardi emphasises what she calls Hunger-Directed Eating and highlights 5 types of Non-Hunger Eating:
1 Gasping for Food
2 Eating Cuz You Ate (I've blown the FD, I may as well carry on blowing it)
3 Mean Girl Munchies (the hypercritical inner voice that many of us have)
4 Licking Your Wounds
5 Recreational Eating

-----

"When deprivation is involved, not only to the pounds stay put, your feelings of powerlessness soar. So, an eating approach that completely eliminates deprivation is not only favorable, it is crucial to successfully achieving your long-term leanness."

"Binge eating is the natural result of food restriction, while emotional eating is the result of a (completely solvable) deficit in one's emotional management skill set."

[Re: food choices} "Because managing your behavior by an iron will - rather than autopilot - is a constant, energy-draining source of conflict and tension. You're in an undending arm wrestle between "Do It!" and "Don't do it!" The instant you're weakened, distracted, or slightly off your game, your resolve caves in the direction of whatever is the least painful, and most pleasurable in that moment."

"Hunger Directed Eating is not the Eat-When-You're-Hungry-and-Stop-When-You're-Full Diet. This completely undermines the effectiveness of these body-connecting habits by turning them into a diet with two rules--waiting until you're hungry and stopping when you're full. As we've seen, all sorts of things go (terribly) wrong when we introduce rules into our eating. Foremost, it leads directly to more overeating."

"If physical hunger isn't what launched your current eating episode, then how in the world is being satisfied going to be what signals you to stop? Hunger and fullness are like two bookends. If hunger is what starts you eating, then feeling satisfied would naturally be what makes it easy to stop. However, if feeling frustrated with a project at work is what initiated your eating, then what is your signal to stop? When the problem is solved? When the chips and salsa are gone? When you hear someone coming down the hall?"

Some people don't seem to feel deprived or restricted with IF but others do - it's not clear why and it seems that feelings towards fast days can change over time.

As far as I can tell, people tend to pick the bits of the book that work for them and ditch the parts that feel like they'd be onerous (such as her suggestion to check in with yourself after various food choices and meals and record your rating for hunger, mood, energy and concentration at various times tho' that seems to work for some people who use it to collect baseline data about themselves ).

In the past year, I've seen a number of people on a different forum adopt Spinardi's advice in various food areas and they've mostly reported positive changes in their drive to binge or over-eat or they've regained such a sense of calm with food that they describe it as empowerment that they've never previously experienced. And, these are people who are managing to pull off the neat trick of combining this with IF whereby the fasting is an unbreakable contract that they have agreed with themselves rather than perceived as restriction/deprivation.

I've no idea if any of the above might be helpful to you. I've seen several references to her videos on YouTube and they're well received. Good Luck.

[carieoates]

@skinnyli
I have to admit that avid calorie logging has been my saviour the past couple of weeks.
Even though fasting is supposed to reduce the amount of calorie counting we have to do. We must be mindful of where our TDEE allowance is going. It's so easy to forget about that biscuit, lump of cheese etc etc. Also the TDEE is a. Estimation of how many Cals to consume. Do if you're not losing try reducing this on feed days to see if it helps. Mine tells me I can have 2400 which is not in my opinion going to help me lose what I want to.

Thank you so much @SSure I have had a look at Spinardi's book and some others too and perhaps on some subconscious level I do feel like IF is depriving myself in some way even though I find my fast days completely easy to do and feel wonderful the next day.
I will have another read for sure and as you say take the bits from the book that may be relevant to me.
Thanks @carrieoates I do have MFP and will definitely log my calories on all my feed days…. I used to do this and admittedly I was more in control and then I got lazy. So I will go back to doing this and see how I do.
Am willing to do all that I can to beat this.
Thanks so much guys it feels good to have support.

@carieoates, I too use MFP everyday otherwise I would be lost I am also wondering why the TDEE on our tracker is so high
@skinnyli hang in there, girl! I find that the type of food I eat when breaking a fast does make a difference in whether I get the munchies or not. I was on the Dukan diet about three years ago and lost 32 lbs. As you know that is a low carb, low fat, high protein diet. Ever since then I have noticed how sensitive I am to carbs i.e. bloating and weight gain. I am wondering if I messed up my carb processing system (insulin resistance) for life even though I spent only 7 months on the diet Anyway I said all that to say this: I break my fasts with low GI foods like eggs, fish, bacon, ham etc. and that seems to help with the subsequent munchies.
Today I am faced with a challenge. I am attending a cooking class that I had signed up for some time ago and I just know there will be CARBS! The cuisine is Southeast Asian street food (yum, yum) so I know I am in for it. So far, for breakfast I have had coffee and a boiled egg. For lunch I plan to have tinned tuna and loose leaf salad with balsamic dressing. Then I am the mercy of the chef for dinner. Wish me luck!

I have not posted for ages! Lovely to be here again. This WOL really works and I have not had to do 5:2 for a while now. Just had to do 16:8 on a daily basis.

@swan51 Dukan way of eating on feed days is a brilliant idea however, I must say that yesterday I took @carrieoates suggestion of using MFP into account and decided to eat normally. As i said I never eat breakfast and I don't usually eat fast food burgers etc that is rare, my downfall is really chocolate (and I promise you I can consume 1kg of it without any problem no exaggeration), however yesterday I decided that I was going to get a chicken schnitzel roll for lunch and eat all of it which I did and I felt for the first time in a very long time satisfied and full not over full but good. My OH bought me a Cadbury crunchy choc which I was hesitant to eat but thought I will have it as dessert. On tues and Thurs I do acrobatics so I went and did 1 1/2 hrs of acrobatics so I think I at least compensated for the Crunchy choc…. then I had dinner grilled chicken breast and mixed vegetables and once again I was satisfied. I logged my calories on MFP 1148 cals I was blown away, couldn't believe how much I ate and how low in cals it was. Better yet I weighed myself this morning and not 1g on. I think I have discovered where I was going wrong. I had a distorted image of what was high in cals and what was not so on my feed days I would avoid eating maybe just have an orange or a chicken thigh and the result is that I never felt full…. then I would gorge myself on chocolate because I was so hungry and think ok now I have eaten too many cals I can't eat dinner…. but I would be so hungry that I would see the more chocolate in the cupboard or chips and eat it all in a crazy mad hungry way, not realising that the type of food I was eating was making my hunger worse.
Actually I now remember reading a post that Caroline put up ( can't remember where) regarding hunger and not eating enough. So from now on I will continue with liquids on Fast days and 3 well balanced and yes mostly protein meals on feed days and log everything on feed days on MFP.
Again apologies for the long posts… yesterday it was cause I was worried today its cause I am happy.
Thank you all so much for all your helpful suggestions and I would never have discovered my problem without them

At the moment, the 'unbreakable contract with myself' is the only thing getting me
through fast days. On the flip side, successful fast days are the only thing stopping me spiralling into a stress & SAD day/week/month long binge. Today for example (Wednesdays are hard for me) I KNOW that if I break my fast even with a bit of milk in a coffee, I will be tearing up the food cupboards. I've logged on to remind myself that there is a world of support available at times like these.

Next week the children and I will be travelling from Kent to Scotland to visit relatives in Inverness and Glasgow. I don't imagine for one minute that I will be able or inclined to do anything other than go with the flow, so I really don't want to blow this week!

Negative thinking is affecting me at this stage too. I DON'T want to be fat more than I WANT to be thinner than I am currently (which is not thin at all) I guess my eye isn't on a prize so I'm losing focus.

On a positive, when I logged on I was sure I would blow today's fast. Now, I think I'll be ok. Thanks folks

@winsome good luck with the fast today. Just tell yourself you can eat it tomorrow (or in your case next week) always seems to help.
Not wanting to be fat anymore thats my goal / focus and what better goal to have...

On tues and Thurs I do acrobatics so I went and did 1 1/2 hrs of acrobatics

@skinnyli - I've been looking at adult acrobatics and circus stuff recently I've found a place that does aerial work (a hoop, not high wire, aka lyra) and some (modest) contortion and I'm still havering about it. It's on one of my regular fast days too so that's a good reason to maintain my empty stomach for the class. Hmm.

Hi @skinnyli, good job on sailing through your eating day yesterday. I wasn't suggesting that you follow Dukan on your eating day, I was just giving you a little of my background as to the reason why I may be carb-intolerant.
Today I am 1.4 lbs up because of my scrumptious cooking class food last night -- but I expected that. Now on to a spotless fast day.