The FastDay Forum

So on my non fasting days i have allowed myself to eat when I am hungry, to eat what I really want, and have stopped when I am no longer hungry. The odd thing is that I am not coming close to the calories I am allowed.

It that typical?

For me the odd thing is I am eating less than when I was doing just about everything I have tried in the past 3 year. Well really just about anything I have ever tried to get my calories down.

I've found the same thing to be true for me!

I wonder how others will respond. And Thanks for bringing it up. I was wondering if I was an odd duck!

Not for me. I still enjoy pigging out. If I start on chocolate, cookies, pizza and the like, I will eat all of it. I cannot be around sugar or starch. I've stopped bringing bad foods into the house and opt for healthier choices. With no cookies or chocolate around, i have no choice but to gorge on raw carrots or an immense bowl of lettuce.

I am not eating as much, but I'm sure it's because I also fast 19 hours every day, so don't start eating until after 4:30pm.

I am not wanting as much to eat but after spending decades stuffing my face, psychologically I can't convince myself that I am full with smaller amounts. My head takes more convincing than my stomach. LOL!

Excellent I say.

I thought I would see some poster braggin about this who had a BMI of 19 or something, but as you have a "healthy" BMI, then I would say that it is great and one of the benefits said in the book!

You could just double check your calories on feed days to make sure though, as you will be mighty miffed if you think you arn't eating much and then don't loose much.

I think maybe, like me, when you are told you can't have something you want it, but when you can have it, you're like "yeah what ever" (Seriously in my head thats how I talk to myself, weird)

Enjoy and good luck.

heehee, @boboff, I like that "healthy" BMI! Because when I have seen others in threads I checked who were doing 4:3 (there is a thread on Low Carb Friends, and one on Mark's Daily Apple) there were multiple people who said they couldn't get to their up day calories and I always thought the same thing! And I have the same conversations in my own head. It is part of the reason that I keep mass quantities of chocolate in the house, once I had too much to finish and allowed myself to eat it, I rarely touch it, and when I do it is a very small amount.

But I weigh and keep track all the foods I eat.. Oddly though my weight is going up slightly on non-fasting days, even though the calories are below TDEE. But I have often in the past lost weight after a "bad day" and not lost after "being good". So I know that it is the trend that is important.

Also, I tend not to have foods in the house that are binge type things-chips, crackers, cookies,etc. If we want a treat we make it at our house, this allows us to control the ingredients as well as how much of the finished product there is, thus helping to prevent ingestion of mass quantities of garbage.

I seem to have the same issue. I usually eat fairly healthy and find that I am usually far under TDEE. So yesterday, I tried to eat what I thought as unhealthy, lots of carbs (fruits and breads) and no vegetables. Only after I included a beer and 3 shots of tequila did I go 9 calories over TDEE of 1830 cal. This is a very untypical day of eating

exactly! When you consider how much of the past 40 years I have been "on a diet" and think about how much of that time I would have actually been "good" on whatever diet I was on. How in the heck did I eat enough in the time I had left to end up over 100 pounds overweight?

It depends on what your TDEE is. Mine is 1270 so I can't say that I feel full after eating them. Although I'm pretty used to eating around 1200 calories so I can't say that I feel any difference than before, apart from the fact that I can have non-healthy choices and not feel bad about them.

I also haven't felt that "I feel sick if I eat too much" thing that everybody talks about. Like Rufus says, bring me two pizzas and they'll be gone on 20 minutes, with not a single complaint for indigestion later.

I definitely notice that I eat less overall now. And what I do eat is much healthier. I do still eat quite a lot of bread and potatoes, but I don't get carb cravings anymore so I've definitely kicked that. I think it just takes time to adapt. I have a completely different relationship with food now. I don't look forward to it as though it's a hobby or something that my happiness depends on.

Happens to me too, my TDEE is over 2000 but I just can't eat over 1500 sometimes!! Don't know if that's good or bad?!

I don't count calories on non-fasting days, but have to agree that my appetite is drastically diminished. Eating out at lunch today, I couldn't finish my fries and I was too full to even have ice cream for desert - that's never happened before!!

My TDEE is 2200 calories right now. What is happening is that I feel like I am overeating, so I track it to make sure I am doing ok, and then the number is way lower than I expected.

I have added in a bit more carbs than I was doing previous to starting 5:2, but have not really started doing desserts or anything. I have not avoided them, just not interested.

Is the not wanting to eat on "feast days" because of the body's response to this sudden calorie restriction thing?

Is there a doctor in the house here..? At what calorie intake on feast days would we be malnourished if we are generally avoiding calorie dense foods like cake and chocolate ?. Is it not nutrients / proteins that are more important here.

I wonder for our "normal" days the emphasis should not be on calories but on a nutritianally balanced diet. At least the minimum daily needs of protein, carbs, calcium, fibre, fresh food for antioxidants, nutrients like iron, magnesium, etc and of course added to that the sugar/fat treats to keep us sane.

And maybe on the same theme, should we be vitamin supplementing if we are worried?