The FastDay Forum

In a bid to learn a bit more about our community's fasting habits, motivations and other interesting foody/fasting stuff we're going to be running a poll each week and would appreciate it if you could take a moment to cast your vote on the matter!

For our third poll, we are asking:

How did you discover intermittent fasting?

Feel free to reply to explain your answer further, especially if how you found it isn't listed!

Over to you!

I did find out about it online, but initially saw most of the info on the paleo sites and it seemed really difficult and confusing. I put the book on hold at the library, but it took months to get it, during which time I didn't really think about it. Got the book, and two days later, I was doing it! Have not missed a light (fast) day since (April). Note that 16:8, which is favored by paleo advocates, just doesn't work for me; it's too constrained and doesn't allow the kind of flexibility I value in 5:2. And yet yesterday, on my light day, I actually FORGOT to eat my first meal! I work from home, and on a typical light day, I have coffee/green tea/water all day till midafternoon, then have a cuppa veggie broth, then after work (usually 6ish) some greek yogurt and fruit, then 9-10pm ish, dinner (I never go to bed earlier than midnight and always eat late). I got busy after work, had to go to the library, and was at the store (grocery!) with my son and realized, oops, forgot my "snack"! Funnily enough, despite having eaten nothing (and by that point it was about 8pm, nearly 24 hours since I'd last eaten), I had no problem being in the grocery store; when I first started this WOL, I thought that'd be akin to torture.

Hi Moogie i hope you're getting better and that OH and the cats are ok x
I was housesitting for a friend...she always has diet/ health books and magazines which i eagerly scan....so i grabbed MMs book in my clammy paws...but then didnt open it coz it was brand new..so i hotfooted to WH Smith and bought it
Ironically i barely read it! As i found this forum and the rest is a bumpy ride down,up,a bit down again?..a work in progress! X

I am not good at watching TV apart from things I decide in advance to record. But the general chatter after the M Mosley program got me interested and was able to view the programm in full on Youtube, then got the book.....

Some geneticist friends mentioned the research and I looked it up and thought it interesting but in need of more trials. By the time I needed a way to improve my health, and I was changing my weight very slowly using conventional calorie counting and knew that it wasn't a method that suited me, sufficient human trials had been published to persuade me that it was worth implementing.

I didn't see the original programe but heard people talk about it on other programes and the internet so did some research myself and decided it was the way to go for me.

I read a pullout section in the Radio Times just after Christmas 2012 detailing the 5:2 method. I immediately bought the book, then found this forum in January 2013 & details of the the Michael Mosley TV programme on YouTube that I then watched. I also found details here of the TV programme The Men Who Made Us Fat highlighting how why there is now an obesity problem. It was all life changing for me
Thank you for starting this forum Moogie & all the others who were involved at the beginning.

I discovered it on BBC World Web Page :Health. They had Dr. Michael Mosley interviewed about his new diet. That convinced me. I ordered the book from Amaz... and it was only much later that I saw the TV programme here in my country. I am in my 50s and my old diet methods ceased to work. 5:2 helped me to loose my extra kilos. Initially I thought I was going to die when fasting. But now I no longer feel hungry and I look forward to fasts. They bring clarity to my life. This Forum helps me to maintain.

The drivetime broadcaster on our Local ABC radio was talking about a newspaper article on it and that he had started fasting. I googled the article and then found the documentary online and within a week hubby and I started. Best thing we ever did.

I was very late to the initial party not having seen the programme or any publicly if any description on this WOL I must have been in winter hibernation until early April 2013 saw Mimi Spencer's column in a Sunday magazine where she mentioned she'd lost weight on a two days per week diet, looked for the book online sent for it read it and was thinking "I can do 2 days each week" but i had totally given up on the weightloss game got started the next day by way of a trial this went so well I actually did the day after plus one more later in week not even knowing 4:3 existed.

Daily Mail 'sidebar of shame' *blush* - an article about Philip Schofield feeling hungry on the 5:2 diet.

In March of 2013 I read an article in the NY Times and thought that it sounded very promising--I didn't do anything, though, until a friend, a few weeks later, loaned me the book for the weekend. I started 5:2 on Monday and haven't looked back. Then I found this wonderful forum.

Thanks to Moogie, Carorees, all the other moderators, and to all the kind, helpful people here.

Noodle wrote: Daily Mail 'sidebar of shame' *blush* - an article about Philip Schofield feeling hungry on the 5:2 diet.

Do you have a link for it pls @noodle
Wd be interesting to hear what PS has to say...he seems to have done rather well on it
I think maybe Cliff Richard is the original 5:2 er..apparently someone called him chubby when he was young and he's only had one meal a day ever since

Hi Moogie

I began after I read a couple of articles in Time magazine and the London Independent in quick succession, back in Feb 2012, so I've been IFing for 2 and a half years - today as it happens!

Since I have a blog (mainly about breadmaking) it seemed like a good idea to blog about my experiences with IF, which may be of some interest:

http://nobreadisanisland.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/eat-less-live-longer.html

I'll also echo @Marybeth's sentiments above! Thanks a bunch, guys!

Moogie, I have never dieted. I surfed the net last new year as I needed to lose some weight for my arthritis. I found the fast diet site and read, great but then I found your blog and knew I had found a safe place and the best place for me, thank you- big hug