The FastDay Forum

@wildmissus, I do not weigh my food or count calories or carbs, but I do write down everything I eat in a diary and it does stop me eating things when I am just peckish because writing it down seems like too much faff and looking back on a long list of this and that which has no nutritional value at all is embarrassing. Kind of "logging lite". Would this help or do you feel you need the whole mfp hog?

@MaryAnn, could it be then that 'diet fatigue' is the turning point where we either go on and succeed or fall of the wagon.

... There is also the reality that losing weight is just what it is, it doesn't change your whole life, ie. not all my problems have gone away just because I have lost weight.

@MaryAnn, @wildmissus - I think this is why the Freedhoff post resonated with me so much - this is for life, and there will be plateaus, and it will change again. But, overall, this is about the healthiest life we love, not the healthiest we can tolerate.

post214703.html?hilit=Freedhoff#p214703

[wildmissus]

@barbarita, I have a little notebook where I log my daily weight and I was wondering if just writing down what I eat would help. It would make sense for me as I'd be firstly shocked at everything I eat and secondly be able to look back and see what I have eaten in good weeks when I lose weight.

That sounds like a good plan, @wildmissus. You'll get an overview of what you are eating without the need to work out calories etc. and it will make you accountable to yourself for what you are choosing to put in your mouth. Let us know how it goes, please.

..., I have a little notebook where I log my daily weight and I was wondering if just writing down what I eat would help. It would make sense for me as I'd be firstly shocked at everything I eat and secondly be able to look back and see what I have eaten in good weeks when I lose weight.

At each temptation to nibble - or worse - to rationalize with "I've been good, I deserve this." - remember to ask youself if this momentary satisfaction is worth trading how you feel. To regress to where you were before.

Dopamine is usually considered the pleasure hormone but it's actually the enticement hormore the brain uses to unconsciously compel you to do something. Knowing this and thinking back: How often has surrendering to a momentary urge ever come anywhere close to matching the level of anticipation that preceeded it?

And if you're going to the trouble to write down everything you eat, it isn't too big a step to consider your hunger levels. Are you eating when you are hungry? How hungry are you? This is what I am trying to do, and after only one day of doing it, last night I was able to leave half my dinner on my plate because I knew I had had enough. It just helps your awareness to actually have to think about it and write it down.

And if you're going to the trouble to write down everything you eat, it isn't too big a step to consider your hunger levels. Are you eating when you are hungry? How hungry are you? This is what I am trying to do, and after only one day of doing it, last night I was able to leave half my dinner on my plate because I knew I had had enough. It just helps your awareness to actually have to think about it and write it down.

@SallyoAs I have put on a couple of kilos in past 6 months, and needing to change something quick, I've done that too. It is not finishing the dinner plate if i dont feel I have to. As I fast 3 days a week, this is a great opportunity for me to just eat it the leftovers for my restrictive calorie intake on my fast day. Really cutting down the size of your dinner meals on non fast days is a great strategy.

I am definitely doing better on IF than other diets I have tried (low carb: I'm looking at you!), but it's not effortless. This community definitely helps, as well as the diet being more sustainable than others.

you are so right there on both things @Maryann.
its probably more sustainable than restricting what you eat every day and hour of your life
it has better results than other diets
this community rocks! dont know what i would do without it.

[Tracieknits]

And if you're going to the trouble to write down everything you eat, it isn't too big a step to consider your hunger levels. Are you eating when you are hungry? How hungry are you? This is what I am trying to do, and after only one day of doing it, last night I was able to leave half my dinner on my plate because I knew I had had enough. It just helps your awareness to actually have to think about it and write it down.

I really think that this is even better than counting calories. But I can see how counting calories is a useful tool to determine whether you are eating over your TDEE or not. In any case, one or the other should be a great way to try to figure out what's going on with your regular eating days and bring that down to where it needs to be. If counting calories is too much of a dreary chore (and I agree it really is), then this simple journaling might just be the thing. I really found it very helpful.

After a bit, writing what you eat is as good as counting calories as you can just skim your eyes down a day's consumption and work out within 10% accuracy just how many calories youve had.

WOW very late to this amazing thread with just a couple of points. Thank you @wildmissus And everyone else for all the wonderful responses lots of food for thought here, scuse the pun.

It is more about the journey and not the destination and maintenance is a key challenge I find.

My past year has been having a crack at persisting at maintaining at a weight which is not what I'd have thought ideal but what my body intends to sit at and might likely be healthy as a woman in my 60s. I have not lost heart with IF but have continued to plod on keeping my stats, fasting when I can mostly fluid only and windows. Trying to inculcate fasting, low carb healthy fats and whole foods while dealing with the binging times.
Hang in wildmissus it's worth it.

Interesting you should say that @gillymary. I am re-reading The Don't Go Hungry for Life book and in the 3rd chapter she writes how to know what your ideal weight is. Something she says about people over 65 - well, I'm only 62, but the point still resonates - are healthier if they have a BMI over 25, like 26 or 27. There are a number of health benefits in being slightly heavier when you are older.

To quote
" There are emerging health benefits of carrying a bit of extra weight in older age, such as a lower risk of fractures due to a higher bone mass and more cushioning in case of falls. Also a little extra weight in older age gives you valuable reserves in case of weight loss due to illness or medication that blunt your appetite. If you are over 65 years of age, many specialists recommend that you should only consider losing weight if your BMI is over about 27 -29 and your weight is interfering with physical functions or you have risk factors for heart disease such as hypertension or high blood lipids.'

I want to lose weight because I want to look like a 20 year old and I think I look fat. But is it possible that I have actually reached my ideal weight?

Chapter 2 talked about the hypothalamus which helps our bodies maintain weight, bringing on the famine reaction when we lose weight too fast, to prevent any weight loss, the set point, where our body decides it wants to stay, and the 'fat break' which stops us from putting on more weight above the set point. The trick of losing weight is to convince your body to let go of the set point and let you lose some more weight. Since I am very healthy - perfect blood pressure! - maybe the weight I am now, is actually the right weight for me. Maybe this set point is it. This doesn't mean I would give up on fasting twice a week, but I can do it for my general health and forget about weight loss altogether. That's a radical idea!

[carorees]

Interesting you should say that @gillymary. I am re-reading The Don't Go Hungry for Life book and in the 3rd chapter she writes how to know what your ideal weight is. Something she says about people over 65 - well, I'm only 62, but the point still resonates - are healthier if they have a BMI over 25, like 26 or 27. There are a number of health benefits in being slightly heavier when you are older.

To quote
" There are emerging health benefits of carrying a bit of extra weight in older age, such as a lower risk of fractures due to a higher bone mass and more cushioning in case of falls. Also a little extra weight in older age gives you valuable reserves in case of weight loss due to illness or medication that blunt your appetite. If you are over 65 years of age, many specialists recommend that you should only consider losing weight if your BMI is over about 27 -29 and your weight is interfering with physical functions or you have risk factors for heart disease such as hypertension or high blood lipids.'

I want to lose weight because I want to look like a 20 year old and I think I look fat. But is it possible that I have actually reached my ideal weight?

Chapter 2 talked about the hypothalamus which helps our bodies maintain weight, bringing on the famine reaction when we lose weight too fast, to prevent any weight loss, the set point, where our body decides it wants to stay, and the 'fat break' which stops us from putting on more weight above the set point. The trick of losing weight is to convince your body to let go of the set point and let you lose some more weight. Since I am very healthy - perfect blood pressure! - maybe the weight I am now, is actually the right weight for me. Maybe this set point is it. This doesn't mean I would give up on fasting twice a week, but I can do it for my general health and forget about weight loss altogether. That's a radical idea!

The problem (or rather one of the problems) with BMI is that it does not take account of where you are storing the fat. I think that even if it is OK to carry more weight as we age, that weight should not be around the waist. Thus if your waist is still bigger than half your height, I would still try to reduce it. This might require tweaking the make up of your food rather than the total calories (i.e., reduce carbs a bit and increase fat), as by lowering insulin resistance you will be more likely to store fat where it is supposed to go (under the skin) and less around your organs where it is so damaging to health.

I wonder what @peebles and @SSure have to say about this?

Hi @wildmissus hope youre enjoying your week off x
5:2 plan is great for belly fat..its where ive lost most,and where people exclaimed about it ( wheres your tummy gone! Etc..) Sadly tum returned 2014 but 2 weeks back on classic 5:2 and its shrinking again.
Been reading this thread carefully,need to rest now after four pages,come back again after!
I must say,i dont think we think enough of the health benefits,which are such an incentive,tho of course we arent sure if they really exist i think most of us including myself get too hung up on weight loss.reading the posts here, i think@MaryBeth is the only one who talks about avoiding diabetes,stroke etc thru 5:2. We need to remember it more!Forgive me if wrong x
@JennyH10 i think you hit the nail on the head about how hard it is to keep our mojos working.
IF might be a great WOE but still a lot of self discipline needed ..specially for those of us who really need to cal count on feed days. As @tracieknitssays,"we all have struggles that are just NO FUN and even though fasting is easier than any other WOE I've been on, it doesn't mean it's effortless."
good luck with radiation Tracie x i hope you can thoroughly enjoy more eating in the fast metabolism time after you have it! X
I must say @Mahalo your phrase "letting go of stored and mostly external energies " really resonates with me ..thanks, i find it very helpful, fits in with my recent thinking..x
Phew so much in this thread ..and still two more pages for me to read ..we should publish a Compendium of All Things IF! X our combined experiences and thoughts and knowledge are phenomenal! X

@carorees, To answer your question about weight loss over 65, there are some large epidemiological studies that have found that weight loss for any reason, including intentional dieting, correlates with greater mortality for people over 70 years of age. Supposedly they adjusted their findings to eliminate people who were thin due to illness before coming to this conclusion. Their data pointed to better health in the mildly overweight level between a 25-27 BMI.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.asp ... eid=200731
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/exc ... deaths.htm

Here's a potential reason why weight loss may be hard on health at that age:

http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/index. ... le&id=5975

It turns out losing weight releases adiponectin into the blood stream and that hormone raises the risk of heart attack.

And then, as you would expect, publication of these studies generated pushback from other analyses that suggested they weren't conclusive. The original article has over 450 citations and I'm too lazy right now to read them. But I think many of them derive from the societal belief that fat has to be bad.

More anecdotally I found it telling that, as I have probably mentioned before, Dr. Nir Barzilai commented to the media some years ago re his study of centenarians that something like half of them had been obese in middle age. A lot of it comes down to genes and luck. Especially once you hit your 60s. I have seen depressing numbers of people in my circle die of cancer who were normal weight and moderately active.

All of which is why at age 66, this is my last diet. I love what 5:2 has done for my blood pressure, which had been a major problem for quite a while. I am not one of that majority who see BP decrease when they cut carbs. Nothing was making mine go down including the few drugs I can take. So I'm very happy that this diet has had such a good effect for me. I am taking 400 mg of Magnesium Citrate daily, but nothing else right now, and seeing normal or near normal BPs almost all the time, including at the doctor's office. That would be worth dieting for, for me, completely ignoring weight, since high blood pressure is so damaging to the brain over time and I am really, really fond of mine!