The FastDay Forum

@lori no, it's all knowledge sharing and the more we know, the better. I'd never heard about the potato hack, so it's thanks to you and @peebles that I am now better informed.
Share away, in my eyes, everyone please.

Thank you Penny. I just don't want to offend anyone or step on any toes. We're all in the same boat after all!

Hi @Lori - interesting re the potatoes. Sometimes some fast days are much more difficult than others, and I feel more hungry. Over time, (I 've been fasting 18 months now) I've noticed that this is usually after I've eaten more carbs than usual in previous days. I don't exclude foods as I've always felt that this WoE was not about exclusion, but management. And I like potatoes, cake, chocolate etc etc (see my signature ) ... However this has meant that I do now eat less of them than previously, and this has led to less of those very hungry fast days.

This has just been proved again over the last week. I didn't fast, as I was looking after two ill parents, and there simply was not the opportunity to either fast, or control my food intake as much as I would have liked. I ate far more carby foods than usual. And this week's fast? Successful, but I definitely felt more peckish than usual. All this is anecdotal but there is a lot about this on the forum, and people like @carorees can explain the science.

However, we'll all be interested to hear how you get on with the potato hack, both on the fast day, not to mention the following days, so do let us know!

@lovemyparrot. Do you have a Sprouts near you?

If we don't share the interesting things that we read and take advantage of others' reading and experience, we won't expand our collective knowledge. Certainly the experience of most here is that high carbs on a fast day makes you more hungry but I don't think anyone has tried the cooked and cooled potatoes route. If you decide to try it please let us know how you get on!

Gosh, I missed a lot of replies before I got online this morning!! Thanks everyone for keeping this thread going - long may it last.
We have a tiny little WF market in Laguna Beach @rawkaren (about 20 mins away) but it is really small (another store bought out by WF a few years ago) and the parking is horrendous, so I guess I will patiently wait to spend some of my hard-earned money there in 2016!! I've been to a couple of their huge stores and mostly just wander about and gaze at everything and try a few "tastes."

After our rain storms last week, we are back in the warm sun again, 78 degs or so, and everyone back in shorts and flip flops again, as Karen mentioned. But, its due to rain again by Thursday so I'm going out and about to make the most of the next couple of days. Fasting today, so I like to go out and keep busy.

Just saw your post @rawkaren - yes, we do have a Sprouts (which I like a lot as its not near as overwhelming at WF)!!! We have TJs too - so I can't really complain - we have a lot of choice.
Will check back in later.

Will do! I'm giving it a go tomorrow and I'll give a report come Thursday morning!

Well @Peebles, I can't say that I disagree with you at all about Whole Foods. You definitely have to read labels very careful and supplement aisles are always a good thing to avoid. Sadly, the next best health food store me is even WORSE with the exact same problems you describe. There's one I could go to that is about 35 minutes away, but sheesh, that's a ride for groceries. So I go to whole foods with an open eye and real labels. I've also noticed every whole foods is different. The one near me has some very different stock than the one near my mother. The deli and cheese areas are fairly radically different, with few offerings that line up. I can't get my son's favorite French jelly at mine, but I can't get my favorite French butter at my mom's, for example.

It's good to not forget that WF is out to make a buck. They will source their frozen organic veggies from China if the price is right, and I'm sorry, but I don't trust certification from that country. They sell an unreasonable amount of starchy, sweet snack foods (and some of them are really delicious) that are by no means healthy.

That being said, we don't get Wegman's here because of a "gentleman's agreement" with Price Chopper, so WF is actually one of the best places to get certain things. Sigh.

I think it is easy to knock Whole Foods and it is certainly a constant topic in the office., especially the cost. Although Draegers Market beats it on extortion by a mile. However I can't get everything I want in Trader Joe's or Sprouts and I can't be bothered to shop in lots of different places, although I have discovered I can get grass fed beef mince in Lucky and Target! I think we should not forget that WF has done alot to raise the standards of supermarket fare in the US more generally and the selection of organic veggies is the best I have seen - even at Farmers Markets (even if we do have to pay a fortune). I agree about the labels @tracieknits and @peebles, but it is all relative. At one of the UK top supermarkets today (Waitrose), and no nitrate free bacon in sight and I have had to order my grass fed beef on line. What keeps me going back to WFM is the Julian's Bakery Low Carb and Paleo Bread.

@Lori,

The issue with potatoes is that if you have any problems at all with your blood sugar, eating potatoes is going to make you much hungrier, not less hungry, on a fast day. Potatoes are very high in carbohydrate, and carbohydrate raises blood sugar. If you raise your blood sugar on a fast day, you are very likely to end up fighting hunger all day long.

Resistant starch is only helpful if you have a completely normal glucose metabolism, because though the starch might be resistant to digestion it eventually DOES digest, and when it does, it raises your blood sugar just as much as any other carb would. So you get a delayed spike, but a spike nonetheless. People with normal glucose metabolisms will be able to process that late spike much better than fast spikes, so the potato might work for them. But this is not true for anyone who is significantly insulin resistant or who has a family history of diabetes (and thus likely a less than completely normal insulin response.)

So if you are having hunger issues on fast days, you might do better moving towards a lower carb intake rather than eating something high carb. This is not posted to in any way give you a hard time about suggesting that approach, only to mention that it may not be doing what the people posting early in that very long discussion thread said it did. I did read the whole freaking thing a while back and don't remember anyone concluding that it was a helpful strategy for fasters.

@Rawkaren , I don't think we have either of the bread products you mentioned at our local WFM. Perhaps they are regional. I've never seen the Julien bread, though I have heard it discussed on LC forums for years. But I'm very fortunate that our local supermarket sells Alvaredo Street breads which are made entirely with the grain berries and are not only very kind to blood sugar but very delicious. They are my very favorite of all the whole grain breads.

Years ago, my son was dating the daughter of the manager of the local WFM. He was a heavy smoker, which astonished me and made me wonder just how much commitment to health the company really had!

peebles wrote: @Lori,
Years ago, my son was dating the daughter of the manager of the local WFM. He was a heavy smoker, which astonished me and made me wonder just how much commitment to health the company really had!

Years ago my daughter was a checker at the Whole (as we refer to it), and was amazed at the number of employees who would endlessly discuss their healthy diets and then go out for a ciggie on their break!

Hey @Lori, really interested to hear how the 'potato fast' goes. I sometimes have steel cut oats (porridge) as my fast day meal which must be high carb. But I don't seem to be any hungrier whether I have that or say, an omelette or poached eggs which are higher protein. I guess we're all different..

Good Morning!
I'm actually looking forward to my Fast day today. I went out for lunch yesterday and ate WAY too much and then last evening I just went from one thing to the next....little bit of this, little bit of that. Sigh... I didn't count calories, and I don't think I went over my TDEE, but it sure was more food than I needed.
I'm heading to boot camp in about an hour and then I'll come home and have my 130 cal egg white protein shake. For lunch I'm going to have the roasted potato slices that I made last night and then more of the same for dinner tonight. I'll let you know if the potato makes me more hungry or if it "kills the beast"

We were supposed to get snow overnight, but I don't see anything out there.

So what's happening with you today? Fasting......feasting....what's the plan?

Wow, lots going on here! I sometimes have a sweet potato as part of my dinner on a fast day, paired with some sort of protein.
My life is extremely chaotic right now. I have some family members with issues, a new boyfriend who I had an argument with last night, and am trying to keep up with work and get ready for Christmas. I'm so tired.
But, I'm fasting today and planning to have a grilled chicken salad for dinner. I hope I can make it.
Have a good day!

I'm fasting today as well. We live up in Mn on a small farm and yesterday we shoved off our pond so we can ice skate