The FastDay Forum

My switch is definitely broken!!!

I don't eat high carb snacks, as I'm cereal intolerant - not just wheat, sadly for me. And I'm chary of serotonin since my insomniac husband tried it. He was awake the whole night long.

Who says one size fits all, even with body chemistry? My doctor says I react wierdly to some medications.

That is really interesting - thanks for posting.

I also love the setting a timer tip. I'll definitely give that a try.

I don't eat high carb snacks, as I'm cereal intolerant - not just wheat, sadly for me. And I'm chary of serotonin since my insomniac husband tried it. He was awake the whole night long.

Who says one size fits all, even with body chemistry? My doctor says I react wierdly to some medications.

One size definitely doesn't fit all! I hear people saying that when they eat carbs they get hungry in two hours. Personally, the only thing that fills me up is pasta and rice. It's good that we are all different though. Life would be so boring otherwise...

There was a post by a Rachel on the previous page which really spoke to me and I would love to see more research on it - whether the amount of time between fasts has any effect. I fasted last Wednesday and Friday, and "feasted" Saturday, Sunday and Monday. I know what she means about Tuesdays being her "danger" days. I couldn't stop snacking yesterday, while I was able to be more restrained on Saturday and Sunday - was it too far between fasts, and was the length of the gap undoing all the good work I had done?

Bumping this post Breadandwine because it makes so much sense to me.

Another tip that helps me a lot with portion sizes is to dish out a small amount of food onto your plate, maybe about 2/3 of the plate.

Then eat with your back to the leftovers or preferably in another room where you can't see them. Then after eating wait a few minutes to see if it was enough or not.

More often that not I have made way too much, and whereas before I would have just eaten the whole lot because it is right in front of me now I can leave the rest if I have truly had enough to eat. Just wrap up the leftovers and you have a nice lunch waiting for tomorrow!

...we shouldn't underestimate the power of our mental states to influence metabolism. When I finish dinner, I say aloud "The kitchen is closed." I do it to remind myself, and anyone else within earshot, that I'm done eating for the day. At some point it becomes automatic. I need to master the meal prep thing, though.

This also shows the real danger of having an alcoholic drink in the evening. It's not the extra calories, which can be allowed for by eating less at dinner. It's the way that drink seems to signal, "It's eating time again!" and I start looking for a snack to go with the drink.

I've just re-read your post, Ubizmo, and what you say chimes exactly with what I've been doing over the last month or so - that is, instituting a 'No Evening Snacking' rule (NES). I eat nothing after my evening meal, and, so far, this has been largely successful.

As you say, it's a question of putting yourself 'In the Zone'!

Quite agree about the alcohol as well - although any drink in the evening will set me off roaming the kitchen. If I have a cup of cocoa, I'll feel like a biscuit, or cake; if it's a glass of wine, it's whatever leftovers I have on the stove - and I almost always have some!

This resonates in some ways. I find it very hard to start eating again the day after a fast, which is why ADF didn't work for me, I wasn't eating enough. But by the second day after a fast my appetite is back to normal.
Apart from to tonight. I was watching a film whilst eating (a big no no I know) and just ate my husbands left over bread roll. As well as being bad calorie wise its also bad because I am wheat intolerant. My tummy is already bloating and my guts are complaining. All because I wasn't 'mindful'.

Thanks for starting this thread, Breadandwine, only just come across it - very interesting.

My descent into uncontrolled eating is generally triggered by one of two things - alcohol (all care abandoned, Binge for Britain), and watching TV (all thought suspended, compulsive snacking). Anyone else do this?

I've got as far as analysing the behaviour but awareness doesn't seem to lead to change. There also seems to be an element of subconscious sabotage when I discover I've lost weight, which completely mystifies me.

None of this seems to have any relation to any real physical hunger, more an emotional thing. Very frustrating and cross-making!

Some of the 'self sabotage' could come from childhood. I was definitely a 'eat all your dinner up to be a good girl' child. Therefore eating everything on my plate was an early imprinted good thing. Then at my age of 50, if you were a skinny child it was a bad thing, you needed more meat on your bones, so having chubby cheeks and plump legs was a good thing. Again an early imprinting on an impressionable mind that being plump was good.

We all still get feel good chemicals that respond to early imprinting, so eating everything on our plate is a subconscious need or trigger for approval. The fact that we are sabotaging our conscious need for weight loss doesn't register till after we have eaten our calorie allowance for the day on one plate.

Bump for an interesting read..

I wish I'd seen this this morning!

I haven't ploughed through all the commentary yet but the concept of the hunger switch resonates with me - i will ceryainky work on keeping it in mind during my feast days.

Thank you!!