The FastDay Forum

Hi @Sassy1,
One small suggestion is to try to drink water as a regular drink during dinner and in evenings. It does take some time (and willpower) to get used to it (for me a couple of months), but after getting used to it, it is a very easy way to save calories. It can be a bit difficult socially at the start as well (visiting people and asking for water to drink), but those around you will get used to that as well (and will accept it after some time if they are nice people ).

Having just come back from six months in the Netherlands, after living 20 years in Australia, I very much noticed the limited amount of water Dutch people drink. Perhaps in Australia we've gone the other way, where no one goes out and about without a bottle of water in hand, kids have them in their prams and school bags, at work we all have a jug on our desks, plus it's free in cafes and restaurants. In Holland a beer costs about as much so why choose water?! We all know it's good for us, and deals with appetite (temporarily), but while travelling it gets harder to drink water as often. Plus you have to pay for using the toilets! BTW @Sassy1, I'm still Dutch enough to love meats and cheese for breakfast, with bread that fills you up. Yum!!

Hi @Sassy1 I hope getting back into 52 the next few weeks produces results for you. Your question re low carb - I do not think I gave up anything I 'loved' and if I did that memory has gone. I feel I just ate them. I feel SO much healthier for not eating them, bright and full of energy and my digestion has improved significantly - no bloated feeling. Like some others I'm no longer tempted by certain carbs. (Low carb for me is cutting out bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, pastry ...). Of course I do eat carbs as they are abundant in all food, I just keep away from those that are tricky for me. Re windows - I guess I do a mixture. During the week I sometimes have a light lunch and then dinner 16:8, or if I skip lunch (not often) it becomes 19:5. It wonder the % of maintainers who are doing a form of low carb and what that is and the % who are not cutting out specific carbs within their TDEE.
I have been a bit drastic .... this last week I strayed from 52 and entered the DODO experimental challenge for 5 day on - day off to get back to 125lbs (only 3lbs loss required) I've also reduced fastday cals to 350 cals, rather than 500. 350 being the lower range on my tracker. The whole purpose of getting back to 125lbs is my knee feels so much better at that weight, who would know 6+ packs of butter could make so much difference, but it does and as I want to enjoy the health benefit that drives my will to do. I'm considering trying to move my maintenance range down a couple of 1lbs for this very reason.
Sassy, I can't remember if you count calories. I do look at the content/cals on packaging but apart from that I'm surfing them, which can make me very mindful of portion sizes too.
Happy belated 2nd anniversary! As you say you are in a good place and had a nice holiday. 7lbs is within your reach, you have done it before!!
PS: wonky idea but I sometimes think I'd like a 2 week retreat with maintainers to see how we manage it differently

Oops. Forgot to post my progress. 2lbs, down this week, 1lb to go to get to 125lbs. But as you see above at some point I'm aiming to lower a couple of pounds for my knee health. hope everyone is well

My weight is staying stubbornly above my maintenance window. I need to stop overdoing it on non-fast days.

Thanks @MaryAnn,@P-JK, @Lizbean, @WMR309, @SSure - more useful suggestions! I will aim to not have lunch if I have a big brekkie when on holidays - maybe just an apple or two to tide me over til dinner. And I will keep up the water intake too - I hope that might be provided on the bus tour??

Liz, a retreat for mainteneers - sounds like a great idea! Could we manage a virtual one I wonder - finding a suitable time of day would be a challenge tho!

On a related note, I have finally read most of Amanda Sainsbury-Salis' "Don't go hungry diet" and a lot of what she says re the science of weight management does make good sense to me. I believe that @Sallyo was trying the "success diary" where you record how hungry you feel before you eat, what you eat, and how satisfied after you eat - until you really understand your body's signals. Any comments Sally? I feel that this approach would be worth me giving it a go, to try to help manage the evening munchies...

I know carorees and others have commented on/ referred to Amanda's work, particularly around the Famine Reaction. I found the Fat Brake material also very interesting, and think this may explain why many maintaineers can "re"lose weight gained over a short term, quite quickly.

The one area she does differ quite a bit with many following IF is on the importance of breakfast. I know that on this forum many mainteneers and others following 5:2 don't have breakfast (I also know that quite a few do have breakfast), and I wonder if for some people, having breakfast may help with weight loss, for the reasons she states. If this is the case, I also wonder if maybe - on this forum - there is too much emphasis on how much not having breakfast has helped, which can encourage other people not to have breakfast - when in fact they may be better with it??? I stopped having breakfast as a result of reading this forum, but started having breakfast again sometime last year when I was probably suffering a famine reaction, and now generally do have breakfast of eggs and rolled oats (separately!!), and I have started adding other foods if I still feel hungry. (But it has not yet help me stop wanting to eat at the other end of the day!!!)

Anyhow, so much to think about!

I think if skipping breakfast is likely to make you overeat later in the day, it's a bad idea. If you are someone who doesn't get hungry until later in the day, I think breakfast is pointless. I am sort of in-between. I need something, but only something small, non-carby, thus my daily soft-boiled egg. I haven't read Salis-Sainsbury's books, so I don't know what her reasoning is...

@MaryAnn, I can't recall all of her reasons off hand, but they include all the traditional reasons for why breakfast has been considered as important but also because most (90%?) of the people on the U.S. National Weightloss Registry who have maintained their loss, eat breakfast.

I'm a breakfast eater - its suits me and I do it because I'm trying to eat in accordance with circadian rhythms. I've mentioned Bill Lagaokos's discussions of this on Calories Proper a number of times. A very readable overview that summarises some of his more technical discussions is in:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/2 ... 19952.html

However, absolutely none of this is relevant if it doesn't suit people or dovetail into their schedules/preferences. I do it because I adopt something supported by evidence if it's not inconceivable that it might apply to me and assist me (and appliance of science has helped me to reduce from 42% body fat to 20% body fat with negligible loss of lean body mass).

I'm officially back down to my target weight of 147 pounds - just in time to go to Madrid on Thursday to visit my younger daughter. Yes, the one who owns an 'English' bakery and cake shop! We also tend to eat out most of the time when we are there so, even though it's only six days, I can imagine what damage it will do to my weight!
Add into that the fact that I spent all day on Saturday baking for an event which happened yesterday and that I now have a cupboard full of 'rejects' and 'off-cuts' of cake, which just have to be eaten before we go away. (I know, I know, I could freeze them but realistically that's not going to happen!)
@Sassy1, I'm not really qualified to give advice on holiday eating as I am of the 'eat what you like and get rid of the weight on your return' brigade but it works for me, so I'm not prepared to change on that! My adoption of this WOL hasn't made any great changes in the way I eat, although I no longer make a dessert or pudding after every dinner, just occasionally on Sundays, and I have cut down on the purchase of biscuits and snack foods but not cut them out entirely. I do eat more vegetables now but there are absolutely no foods which I used to eat and no longer eat - although the amount of them I eat may have changed. I eat breakfast if I feel like, it but occasionally don't bother, and throw in the occasional week or two of fasts when it becomes necessary. Generally I just enjoy my food and my life! This is probably no help to you but I do wish you a very happy holiday, when it comes. It sounds very exciting!

Thanks @StowgateResident, you are one of my role models! After having read Amanda Sainsbury-Salis "Don't go hungry diet", I think you are someone who has a very efficient Fat Brake. You might put on a bit of weight on hols, but you seem to always lose it very quickly.

OOOh! I've never been a role model before! Thank you @Sassy1, although I don't think that I deserve it!

We have such diverse experience of maintenance even within this relatively small group of people.

Recently read: The “After” Myth

I now weigh 117 – 120 pounds (depending on the day), and standing at 5-foot 6-inches, that measurement means that After is very, very here. But, before you congratulate me… I have to come clean with you: I don’t feel like I’m at After. I’m terrified of being at After. And, I don’t like that After is here...

For most of this blog, I’ve spoken strongly about how my relationship with food and myself was what caused my weight struggles. I stand by that. The thing is, the symptoms have resolved faster than I’ve been able to treat the deeper disease. I’ve lost the weight, but I’ve failed to uncover and learn to truly love myself in the process. Truthfully, I have no idea who I am without “needs to lose weight” being one of the primary parts of my identity...

I uncovered myself one pound at a time; now, I must REcover myself…I must DIScover myself. And that…that is the new goal. Not numbers. Not sizes. Not inches.

https://cannebodyhearme.wordpress.com/2 ... fter-myth/

Our experiences will always vary - and that is helpful and encouraging. At the moment, I'm tending more towards needing to recognise that this is a process that will vary and self-correct according to time and circumstances.

I have sneaked in here where I don't belong...for a quick read!

Just want to say how much I admire @stowgateresident for her practical & sensible take on living life whilst following a fasting WOL. Spot on, I'd say!

Am miles away from maintaining...having had a major blip....but am back in the swing of things now and will definitely try to follow the Stowgate Philosophy when I get to maintenance...whenever that is!!

I'm happy to report that in the last 7 days I've hit my target weight (135 lbs) 5 times!! This hasn't happened in ages. My other 2 days were 135.5 and 136.

Thanks, all, for the discussion above. I have changed my consumption of carbs, too. Very rarely eat any potatoes, rice, pasta or white bread. I do like a little dark chocolate after lunch and dinner, but the amount I eat is less than (maybe less than half) of what the package calls a "serving". If there's ice cream in the fridge, I usually have a few spoons of that, too-- iow: "saving" my carbs for things I enjoy, not "wasting" them on said potatoes, etc.

Happy vacations to all those with holidays coming up

[carorees]

@MaryAnn, I can't recall all of her reasons off hand, but they include all the traditional reasons for why breakfast has been considered as important but also because most (90%?) of the people on the U.S. National Weightloss Registry who have maintained their loss, eat breakfast.

The problem with the weightloss registry is that also most of the people who maintained their loss continued on a very regulated and restricted diet with attention to portion sizes and so on. As we know that skipping a meal (or two) is a great way to cut out a load of calories without having to count the little devils and eat mini-meals, then the question is: which meal to skip? If we're not that hungry in the morning and skipping breakfast does not go hand in hand with eating late at night (or having a late breakfast of cake) then skipping breakfast is perhaps one of the easiest meals to skip. However if you like breakfast and can happily skip lunch, do that or indeed have breakfast and lunch and then skip dinner like the CRONies in that documentary on TV the other week.

I think that the bottom line is that "breakfast is just another meal" you can eat it or you can skip it as you choose.