The FastDay Forum

WOW you must be so chuffed, you look great!

I've been maintaining since August (after I beat my target weight by 1kg) & have a really simple strategy:

Monday & Thursday are always potential fasting days but ONLY if I've gone up to or above 63,8kg. If I'm still at 63,3kg or below then I 16:8 instead (after all I don't want to carry on losing!)

As you can tell, I'm a daily weigher, unfortunately that's the only way I can be sure to be in control

Yes, I'm a daily weigher too. It really helps to keep me focused.

Very impressive. You look amazing and I'm sure you feel fantastic. Can you tell us what the difference it has made to you, not weight wise? Like energy etc. notice that your bloods are normal now and that is so good.
Inspirational and well done.

Biggest improvement has been my blood panel-my fasting glucose number went from over 100 (doctor labeled it pre-diabetic range), to an 89. My cholesterol numbers improved as well.

Other things-

I have bad varicose veins in my legs, and they've gotten smaller with the weight loss/don't have as much pain and throbbing in them anymore. This is a biggie, since I've had a blood clot in one of them before.

I also have more energy-I used to wake up feeling fatigued, now I'm getting out of bed before my alarm goes off

Sex drive has really improved (hubby is pretty happy about that one lol)

I'm much more comfortable in my own skin now and I don't stress out about wearing shorts or short sleeved shirts anymore (I used to always wear capris and 3/4 sleeved shirts in the summer). We have a sailboat and last summer I wore a swim suit into the water, without shorts, for the first time in years!

Another biggie is I always used to have very oil skin/adult acne. That's almost totally cleared up.

Monday's Plan (first down day in several months)

Break fast at 11am: (do strength training program beforehand)

-11am: 2 servings of Progresso Light Chicken and Cheese Enchilada soup, with hot sauce (180 calories) DONE

-1pm: cup of diet hot cocoa, with cinnamon (25 calories) DONE

-3pm: Greek yogurt with fruit on the bottom/cherry (100 calories) DONE

-5pm: 2 servings of Progresso Light Vegetable soup (120 calories) DONE

-6:30pm: ADDING in a McDonalds hamburger (I hang out there while daughter is at piano lesson) (250 calories) DONE

Water and diet soda throughout the day: water-6/6 glasses

Total: 675 calories (over a bit, but not bad for my first fasting day in several months!)

Exercise: 30 minutes strength training program DONE

oops, double post

WOW you must be so chuffed, you look great!

I've been maintaining since August (after I beat my target weight by 1kg) & have a really simple strategy:

Monday & Thursday are always potential fasting days but ONLY if I've gone up to or above 63,8kg. If I'm still at 63,3kg or below then I 16:8 instead (after all I don't want to carry on losing!)

As you can tell, I'm a daily weigher, unfortunately that's the only way I can be sure to be in control

This sounds like a really good plan I think the hardest thing with starting maintenance is all the adjusting, until we each find out what works best for us!

Almost 2pm and going good, a little hungry but I'll be heading out in a few to do errands and pick up kids from school, so that will keep me busy (and I'll eat my yogurt in the van yay!).

Been playing with numbers and exploring different ways to do maintenance with IF. Figured out my TDEE number (going by mayo clinic's calculator), and it has me at about 1,900 calories a day. I'm contemplating combining the 5:2 format, with Varady's numbers, and seeing what happens. I really like the 5:2 format, but think 500 calories on those two days will cause weight loss to start back up-which I can't afford to let happen (bmi is already in the 19 range).

So, if I do 2 days at 1,000 calories (M/TH), that would give me around 2,260 calories on the other 5 days. I think I'll try it and see what happens, after I do 500 fasting days, until my weight settles back down in the 119-120lb range. Though, looking at my reflection I don't see a difference from when I was 117/118 and where I am right now (122 yesterday, didn't weigh this morning), except for a small bump in my stomach, so I may just do a 500 day today, and then start the 1,000 experiment on Thursday. At this point I'm just fine tuning things

Sarahjayne, you are looking really slim and fit and have done amazingly well! I like how you are approaching maintenance by trying different approaches to find what suits you best and wish you good luck in your experiments! Let us know how you get on x

Well done Sarah Jayne, you look fantastic

Thanks everyone for the warm welcomes and positive responses!

I purposely did not weigh myself yesterday morning, but I was up to 122/123 on Sunday morning, and I was very curious to see what my first post fasting day weigh in would be. I almost fell off my scale this morning when 118lbs showed up-which is solidly in the middle of my maintenance range: No more bounce I had thought the bounce was weight gain but I also have been having some 'potty' issues, and for some reason the fasting day yesterday got things moving along again So between that and the 675 calorie fasting day, I'm solidly back on track yay!

Because of this I'm now back to maintaining and will do a higher 'repair' day on Thursday-going to try 1,000 calories like Varady recommends and see what happens. I don't like tracking calories on my regular days but following TDEE, with the two weekly repair days factored in, I should be hitting a bit over 2,000 calories on the regular days. Bring on the food

Next repair day-Thursday!

Thanks for posting all this, Sarah Jayne. It really is inspiring for those of us who are just starting with IF. An incredible result. Well done.

(Actually, perhaps I should extend my thanks to all you old hands on the forum who have been the pioneers for us newbies to follow. It is a great site with a wealth of useful information and some really inspirational stories. So, thank you all.)

Well done SarahJane and your photos are a true inspiration - not only have you lost weight, you have great muscle definition which is hard to achieve

And thank you for posting your journey so far, and your plans for maintenance - it gives me some ideas of the kind of things I can try to maintain

At the moment I'm continuing with 5:2 with 1-2 days going over my TDEE so that my body doesn't go into starvation mode. I'm finding that my weight fluctuates 2-3 pounds (128 - 131), but this isn't real fat because this change can happen overnight.

Ideally I'd like to stop fasting and just stick with TDEE every day but I found that this doesn't work for me - I don't mind fasting, I've got used to it but I have to be mindful not to use it as an excuse to overindulge on my normal days and I must admit, I'm still struggling with carbs, on the days I exceed my TDEE, it's exclusively carbs which I know is NOT good

Thanks for sharing and keep us posted on your continued good work

Well done SarahJane and your photos are a true inspiration - not only have you lost weight, you have great muscle definition which is hard to achieve

And thank you for posting your journey so far, and your plans for maintenance - it gives me some ideas of the kind of things I can try to maintain

At the moment I'm continuing with 5:2 with 1-2 days going over my TDEE so that my body doesn't go into starvation mode. I'm finding that my weight fluctuates 2-3 pounds (128 - 131), but this isn't real fat because this change can happen overnight.

Ideally I'd like to stop fasting and just stick with TDEE every day but I found that this doesn't work for me - I don't mind fasting, I've got used to it but I have to be mindful not to use it as an excuse to overindulge on my normal days and I must admit, I'm still struggling with carbs, on the days I exceed my TDEE, it's exclusively carbs which I know is NOT good

Thanks for sharing and keep us posted on your continued good work

I think TDEE is a great number to go by, but I agree it's very hard to stick with it day in and day out. I don't understand how people can eat the same amount of calories every day, without fluctuating That's the great thing about IF and plans like 5:2-it corrects the extra calories that slip in (especially from the weekends lol).

Today is another regular day, but for some reason I have no appetite. Going on 1pm and so far I've had a handful of pretzels and 1/2 of a pb rice krispie bar. Know I need to eat so I'm going to make up a pork, egg, rice and veggie stir fry to get in some protein and calories. I did eat quite a bit yesterday (scale was still at 118lbs this am though), so I might just be full yet from that?