The FastDay Forum

Hi everybody!

First post so I might as well start a journal where I can record my journey. I'm intending to keep this up for the rest of my life if it works and is scientifically proven to work over the coming years.

First up, I'm male, 34 from London UK. I've had weight issues since I was 10 or 11 years old. I eat too much and not good food either. I don't exercise much and I spend a lot of time indoors wathcing TV.

I weighed myself last week and I was 21st5lb which is 299lb or 136kg. I'm 6'2" luckily but that's still awfully overweight. All of it is fat too, no muscle.

So I've been doing the 5:2 fast for about 2 weeks now. I'm finding the fast days easier as I've gone along. Oh, I'm completely fasting generally on those days as I find it easier and I assume it increases the effect. I've been sleeping odd hours though so I've been unsure how long to fast for. I'm going for an average of 30 hours fasting which I think is OK given I'm only drinking water and black tea. I'm wondering how many calories if I have semi skimmed milk in my tea as I usually take it but I reckon I might change to Earl Grey which I prefer black anyway.

I weighed myself today and was disappointed to see I've put on a few pounds which is odd because I've felt good. Maybe it's because I've been enjoying my food more and treating myself. I've been feeling full earlier and stopping but I've also been snacking and eating more meals. I've just been following my instincts but maybe I need to control them better even on my feast days. I think I'm going to keep eating whatever I fancy though for a few months and see what happens. It's too soon to judge just yet.

Anyway, wish me luck. I'll probably be posting more on here in the future and I look forward to getting to know you all.

[Tracieknits]

Welcome to the forums, Tbone!

The body is such a bizarre beast. I know my husband's losses are sometimes tempered by temporary gains. Then he often has a great loss the next week. Hopefully there will be some more posts you can find that will help you with your dilemma.

If this continues, it might be worth just watching what you eat on regular feed days, and try for a bit of moderation. I'm not saying misery, but perhaps stopping at one or two servings of crisps instead of a whole bag Yes, that was my sin yesterday. Crisps. They were lovely. I did manage to not eat the whole bag though, and I'm proud of that.

Welcome to the forums - glad to have you

Thanks Tracie.

Hi tbone
If you complete you details on your tracker that would give you more personal data to guide, also I use my fitness pal an ap to record my cals consumed each day. Again it's a guide

A few people finish their evening meal and do fluids through the next day and don't eat until the following morning even stretching that out. I do 5/2 minimising my cals according to my tracker which calculated it with my provided weight height and BMI.

Anyway keep reading there is a wealth of knowledge here from a large group of people who are here to lose weight and maintain their efforts. welcome and best of luck, it is often an up and down journey but at least you'll find it is in good company and often you will lol with the humour

So, it's week 3 I think and although I've been managing the fast days with not too much bother I've not lost any weight. I've actually managed to gain it. I'm starting to realise that fasting does not automatically make you lose weight if you eat too much unhealthy food on your feast days. At least not for me. Maybe it's because I'm not working right now so spending a lot of time inactive and eating out of boredom and that will change when I start work in a few weeks. Or maybe it's as simple as realising that willpower and healthy eating is still necessary when on a intermittant fasting diet.

Hi tbone
Keep at it. you say that you don't eat healthy on FEAST days, I sometime eat unhealthy too but add an extra day of FASTING. It will work but might take longer

One of the main 'selling points' of intermittant fasting was that you could eat whatever you felt like on feast days. I'm starting to think that this is inaccurate. It will work for some people depending on how much they normally eat but for overeaters like me it doesn't work. I still think the fasting is good for you but it doesn't make you lose weight if you still eat too many calories.

I read the 'you can eat normally on non-fast days' as "eat a normal calorie allowance for your age, weight, height and activity level" - not "eat what YOU personally would normally eat" (which is what has made you overweight in the first place). There's a subtle difference.