The FastDay Forum

I've not cut back on fasting since reaching my goal body fat - I still maintain 4:3. I do this because:
I'm still in harmony with my husband who has about 10lbs more to lose;
I'm playing the percentages that regular fasting has long-term health benefits;
I have a low TDEE that is probably related to my low skeletal muscle mass and I find it easier to continue with 3 FDs a week because it allows more 'normal'-sized non-fast days.

My observation from other fora is that some maintainers have gained up to 15lbs in a single week when they cease fasting during a vacation (I'm assuming that some of that is travel bloat). They lose it when they go back to their rotations but sometimes it takes a while. That said, some people gain 5-10lbs on vacation when they reduce the number of fasts but they manage to shed that within alternate rotations in 2 weeks or so.

10-15 lbs in a single week HAS to be glycogen. Were you to gain that much in water over a short time you'd be risking heart failure. My guess is that when that happens, they also notice their waists swelling, since the liver grows dramatically as glycogen piles on.

When you pack on glycogen it makes you feel really, really fat because it not only swells your waist but your muscles. I came home from my conference feeling obese. Really quite a shock because it was like carbing up after eating very low carb, but I had not been eating anything approaching low carb. Cookies, pancakes, bread etc, on my non-fast days. And yet just 5 days of eating carbs without a fast and whoomph! I feel like an inflated balloon.

And after 2 fasts I'm still not back to feeling slender. So it looks like fasting at some level will have to be part of my ongoing regimen. I wonder if eating at 850 calories rather than 435 on fast days 2 times a week when I get to goal will prevent that glycogen expansion or if I am now stuck with a MUCH higher amount of glycogen storage for life.

I don't eat low carb but the last cruise I went on I gained nine pounds in a fortnight. Even with the huge amounts of alcohol and food I took in this couldn't have been all body fat! I started at four pounds under target (I made an effort in the two weeks before I went to get under target) and ended up as five pounds over target. The following week, with two fasts, I was back to my 147 pound target. I did notice that my ankles and fingers were swollen towards the end of the cruise, something that I never suffer from, and put it down to fluid retention caused by carb overload. I am not fasting at present, just eating mindfully and am currently at target, or within my two pound buffer.

@peebles I completely agree with your comment about feeling obese after your conference - that's how I felt when I came back from holiday last week - absolutely massive and uncomfortable with an extra inch or so on my waist. I was initially slightly concerned at the sheer volume of the weight gain but it happens every time I don't fast or go on holiday and not at other times so I'm not thinking it's heart/renal failure or anything - though the startling gain (my GP described it as 'spectacular' when I mentioned it to her once) is something that sounds like exaggeration when described to others but I assure you it's not. A week in and 2 fasts down and my ankles are back to normal but I'm still heavier than before. I know it will take time (again) but it feels like a sabotage of my weight loss

@LoversGhost and @StowgateResident,

Thanks for weighing in with this information. I think we have discovered something new here which isn't mentioned in the books and possibly isn't known to the researchers. It would be a good idea to warn IF dieters that this will happen so that they won't be shocked when it does.

Those who are on long term maintenance, do any of you find that you had this kind of initial regain happen but that it faded out with time. When I have had glycogen-related weight gain after a stint of very low carb eating I have regained a bit, but over time it has come off without my having to go back to low carbing. But it can be very disturbing to see 3-5 lbs come on all of a sudden, and when that happens it usually terrifies low carb dieters because those cheerleading diet books make it sound like going off the diet will cause fat to come back on, and don't explain about glycogen.

I am surprised at how fast people report weight gain, when off their fasts, but it happens to a lot of us in a mini form weekly. I am up two lbs, then down two lbs frequently. Plus, glycogen is supposed to be three quarters water, which weighs a lot. I know that I haven't eaten 7000 extra calories when this happens, and there is supposed to be a limit to glycogen storing. If somehow we are storing super amounts of glycogen, is there a way to burn it off? Do we need to become more athletic? Is there a way to save/pump up our mitochondria, preferably long term? LOL, should I be doing jumping jacks forty-five minutes after eating? I found this very interesting.

[carorees]

This is a fascinating thread! Thank you @peebles for starting it.

I think there are probably several factors in weight gain when reducing the amount of fasting:
1) Filling glycogen stores, as discussed
2) A gradual increase in average insulin levels resulting in increased fat storage...this could take quite a while to happen
3) A change in diet with an increase in carbohydrates on average resulting in more 1) and 2) above
4) An increased appetite due to fewer fasting sessions
5) An increased calorie intake due to 3) and 4) above

Whether or not you experience a rapid gain, a gradual gain, no gain or continued weight loss when you ease up on fasting depends on all of these factors and as well as that it will depend on how fast you were losing weight before you reduced your fasting. If you reached goal while still losing at a good rate it is possible you will continue to lose weight even on a reduced fasting regimen. If you spent ages getting to target a few grams at a time, reducing your fasting will likely result in weight gain.

For me, maintenance has been about not changing my fasting pattern but allowing a few more carbs into my diet. I am still losing weight very slowly despite being in maintenance. I am not the only one who has continued to lose in maintenance but there are equally many people who cannot reduce their fasting when reaching maintenance.

@carorees,

Thanks for weighing in with your experience. You've done so remarkably well with this approach that it is very good to hear that you are continuing to do so well on maintenance.

The research that was done to establish those textbook numbers about glycogen storage was done, as is so often the case, with healthy young college students and the results are averages. You might find this study particularly interesting because they studied obese people in a diet situation and instead of just giving summary statistics presented ALL the individual results. I found it fascinating.

http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/56/1/292S.long

The other study I found informative was this one: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0026049582900105

I can echo a lot of points in this thread. I'm nowhere near maintenance and I love my carbs on all feed days but when I went to Italy last year I didn't fast for 10 days, my carb intake was insane living on pasta, pizza and booze and I gained 6lbs. As Caro said my previous weight loss was painfully slow if at all and that's why I expected such a large, fast gain but I felt huge, bloated all round my middle and I didn't realise this could be a glycogen thing. It only took a week or two of getting back to 5:2 to get those 6lbs off though. I think I'll be fasting for life TBH, I won't make a habit of eating like I'm on holiday but I can't risk putting weight back on!

Hi @peebles and everyone, I am back from my 3 days of feasting. I did read thru the comments while away, but didn't have time to reply.

So, my weight is 3kg more this morning than 3 days ago. I expect it is mainly glycogen and associated water - thanks for info on this. I probably consumed about 5000 cals more than I needed over the 3 days, almost all carbs - could be more as very difficult to estimate calories for some of the food I ate. I had very few veggies as these were just not available.

But I don't think this tendency to store glycogen, assuming it is, is associated with fasting (for me, anyway). It has always happened to me when I seriously overindulge. I get a huge swollen tummy and feel awful. The difference now is that I use fasting as the antidote. Previously, I would just try to "be good" afterwards, but rarely was. So I assume the glycogen then ended up getting converted to fat, which then took ages to lose. Now I assume that fasting means that this glycogen is what is used as fuel first, and gets consumed quite quickly provided I don't eat much in the days following the overindulgence.

In the past, I noticed that the first kg (or 2?) disappears quite quickly, but the rest can take a bit longer. I will monitor this time and see.

Any luck shifting those extra couple of lbs, peebles - at least 3 of them have gone?

@Sassy1,

No luck shifting that weight at all, so far. I've done three fasts since returning home and my weight this morning after the most recent fast was 140 lbs. I was down to 137 the day I left for my conference, which was also the day after a fast, and I had been bouncing around the 137-low 138 lb level for more than a month before that. My weight this past week on non-fasting days has been 3 lbs higher than it had been before I left, too.

So I really am baffled. I enjoyed my food at the conference, but this was a working conference where we were in sessions from 8:30 in the morning til 10 at night. And though we were served four splendid buffets over 5 days at which I heartily enjoyed the food, I didn't eat all that differently from what I usually eat at the rest of the 11 meals I had to provide for myself.

I am not supposed to be weighing myself every day during this period, just fasting twice a week and then weighing for a single week to get a Libra trend weight the week of the 16th, so I will just go back to eating the way I usually eat and hope that things settle themselves out.

Hi @peebles, I guess giving yourself a bit more time, doing what you usually do, and seeing what happens IS about all you can do but hopefully those 3 lbs will shift in the next short while. Good luck!

Yes I did gain weight after I stopped. Aftr fasting for about 8 months and really getting comfortable with it, I stopped, actually more like "pretended" to fast but not do it properly (ie grazing all day on the 500 calories and not going for a good chunk of time without food). And it was sporadic, one day here and one day there
So yes I gained about 5/6 pounds in as many months. I know this is just a couple of kg, but it's a worrying trend to see it come back with a continuous upward trend rather than up and down which is what maintence means for me. I know I going way over my TDEE almost every day and even though I was working out which made up for the excess calories I was eating, I gained
So I'm back to fasting now, did two days this week and feel much better already!

Motto of the story; don't stop, this is a way of life nota temporary fix. It is sustainable ... I need that tattooed on my forehead

Thanks everyone for the encouragement. I will keep at it, because if nothing else, only by fasting can I continue to enjoy my food during non fast days. My TDEE is so low that without that extra 2000 calories a week of leeway, I pretty much have to starve myself to stay at my chosen weight.

I went clothes shopping today and was appalled by the sight in the mirror. All my body fat everywhere looked really puffy! This contrasted so strangely with how I'd looked just a bit over 2 weeks ago when I had also gone shopping and been so pleased with how I looked in the try on room.

Fat doesn't store glycogen, so I don't know what my subcutaneous fat is doing right now that has it all puffed up, but whatever it is, I'll be glad when it stops. It's really odd how you can feel really skinny or really fat completely separate from what you weigh and how much body fat you have gained or lost.

@Peebles, how disappointing and frustrating for you. Were the shops different? Some shop mirrors are awful! I always look worse in shop mirrors than the ones at home. But I do know what you mean about the puffy look and feeling fat or not independent of what the scales may say. Is the puffy look also to do with water retention? Our bodies and how they react to food are complex things aren't they...