The FastDay Forum

It feels really great to be finally able to write something in this section of the forum, but my final long term target weight has just been achieved this morning, and I feel that this is a good place to celebrate that achievement. If you have read my latest blog entry, you will see that my weight as of this morning's official weekly weigh-in is 11 stone 6 pounds, which now takes me to below 11 and a half stone at an official Monday morning weekly weigh-in for only the first time ever.

When I first started this WOL, my BMI was slightly above 25 and in the overweight range. Now, my BMI is just over 24 (sometimes dropping to below 24 on fasting days) and in the healthy range, albeit at the top end of the healthy range. However, my body fat percentage is very low at 12.88%, and is actually at the bottom of the healthy range for that. That means that it would not be a good idea for me to continue to lose yet more weight over and above what I have already lost, especially now that I am managing to consistently maintain a healthy BMI.

I came into this WOL with a weight of 12 stone and with that, I calculated that my ideal weight should be around 11 and a half stone or just below that. Because of that, I would be looking to maintain a weight from now on which is less than 11 and a half stone, without going below 11 stone at any of my official weekly weigh-ins. I have come very close to 11 stone on one of my fasting days and I am aware that this means that my weight could still drop to below 11 stone on one or two of those occasions. To me though, that doesn't really matter as long as I can keep my weight at my weekly official weigh-ins to between 11 stone and 11 and a half stone.

As part of that process, I will now be moving away from 5:2 and onto 6:1 as this should help to remove a lot of the stress from the situation (which is very important since my blood pressure is still running quite high). I will be doing that by continuing to weigh myself daily and then adjusting my calorie intake accordingly on the next day (if that is a feeding day) if there has been a big weight gain. This morning's weigh-in results have shown that I can do that quite successfully, and that I can then lose any regained weight as a result with that tactic. With that, I know that I am capable of dealing with 6:1, and am looking forward to putting that in practice.

My fasting day will continue to be on a Monday which is always important since weekends don't normally bear well for me on this WOL, and the fasting day on a Monday will help me to get that out of my system. However, I will no longer be fasting on a Thursday (although that might still end up being a reduced calorie feeding day, depending on how things pan out with my daily weigh-ins). That then leads me on to the purpose of this post, which will be to continue the journal that I started under the Progress Diaries and Journals section of this forum, where I had been reporting my weight loss journey on a weekly basis until now.

Just as with my other thread in there, this will be only only thread in this section of the forum and it will continue to take the same format. That means that I will continue to report on my highest and lowest weights of each week as before, along with the weekly changes in my weight, waist size and body fat content. The only difference is that this will all be reported as a reply to this thread on each week, instead of on that other above mentioned thread and as usual, you will always be able to get more details of my progress in my daily bog entries.

And so, the first such summary in this section of the forum shows that I have lost two pounds since this time last week along with 0.1 inches from my waist size. My current weight is 72.8kg (11 stone 6 inches) and my current waist size is 30.9 inches. My lowest weight of last week was the 70.8kg which I recorded on Friday, and the highest weight of the week was the 73.8kg which I recorded last Monday. That is a difference of 3.0kg overall, between my highest and lowest weights of the week.

Congrats John! I hope to join the maintainers one day too.

Congrats John! I hope to join the maintainers one day too.

I'm sure that as long as you keep drinking those bullet-proof coffees, you will get there as well.

Well done John, you deserve your success as we know you have struggled at times. Good luck with your maintenance programme.

A few weeks ago, I didn't even think that it was possible to do 6:1, especially with the recent struggles that I've had which at one point, even led me to do a 4:3 week in sheer panic. However, I also remembered that in my very first week of this WOL, I did a 6:1 week because I wasn't quite ready at that point to do a full fasting day at the beginning of that week, and yet I still went on to lose weight during that week.

That in turn has given me something to hold onto in terms of my confidence in my ability to switch to 6:1. Tonight, I have just completed my first fasting day under my new 6:1 regime but now, I am realising that this is actually the easiest part of the week for me as I have now fasted on more than enough occasions to know how to get through that, and with the knowledge that this always generates a guaranteed weight loss for me at the next morning's weigh-in.

However, it is when I wake up tomorrow and realise that every day for the rest of this week will now be a feeding day because of that (including yet another dreaded weekend), that the extent of the challenge ahead of me will hit home. However, this WOL has now provided me with the tools to deal with that such as 16:8 days and reduced calorie days (a fasting day is really just a reduced calorie day taken to extremes), and that is why I am now looking forward to that challenge.

This week's summary shows that I have lost nearly two since this time last week. This is the second 6:1 week that I've had under this WOL and on both occasions, I have lost weight with that. Yet, that hasn't always been the case with 5:2 and so, it's funny how it can work out like that. Anyway, my current weight is 72.1kg which is 0.7kg less than what it was at this time last week.

My highest weight of the week was the 72.8kg which I reported last Monday, but the lowest weight of the week was 70.4kg (11 stone 1 pound) which I recorded on Friday. That once again set a new all time record for my lowest ever weight but rather unusually, this has not come after a fasting day on this occasion, and this is the first such occasion where this has been the case for me.

Overall, that amounts to a difference of 2.4kg between my lowest and highest weights of the week. My waist size is down by 0.2cm from this time last week, and my body fat percentage is down by 0.31% The big news though, is that my blood pressure readings are a lot better this week than what they have been for a while with most of my systolic blood pressure readings being in the 130s, with one of these readings even being in the 120s.

This week's summary showed that I have had an overall weight gain, but only by 0.2kg which is less than half a pound. At this time last week, I was 72.1kg and at this morning's weigh-in, I was 72.3kg. Both of those weights are reported as 11 stone 5 pounds when that is reported to the nearest pound and so for all intents and purposes, I can safely say that I have successfully maintained the weight during the last week, that I am trying to stick to.

This has been a very unusual week for different reasons once again. This, the lowest weight of the week was recorded not just on one single day, but was shared by two successive days. That was indeed, the 70.0kg (which is almost bang on 11 stone) which was recorded on Thursday and Friday. My highest weight of the week, also wasn't recorded on any one single day and was recorded on two consecutive days. That is of course, my current weight of 72.3kg (which is 11 stone 5 pounds) which was also recorded yesterday morning.

Nevertheless, the official weight of 70.0kg which I submitted to the monthly weigh-in which Carorees is looking after on this forum, is the correct weight for that since that was my actual weight at the exact time when I submitted that. Nevertheless, the weight difference between my lowest and highest weights for this week is 2.3kg which is down by 0.5kg from last week's weight difference. My waist size is down by 0.6cm from this time last week, and my body fat percentage has gone down by 0.67% from where it was at this time last week.

I'm a little bit late with my weight maintenance report for this week, but I have been a bit busy this morning. The past week has been a roller-coaster one which started with my usual fasting day last Monday. I started off at a slightly higher weight than on the previous week and for most of the time, that continued the case, despite the fact that I was eating very carefully and sensibly throughout that period.

On Friday though, that cautious approach finally paid off as my weight dropped to both below 70kg, and below 11 stone for only the first time ever on Friday morning. AT that point, my weight was 69.5kg which is 10 stone 13 pounds. However, my actual aim with weight maintenance is to try to stay between 11 stone, and 11 and a half stone. As I had now gone below that minimum value of 11 stone and therefore, outside of my maintenance range, I acted by increasing my calorie intake by quite a bit and eating a lot of things which wouldn't exactly ever be recommended for a low carb diet.

However, that then started a rapid weight gain which saw me gain six pounds on Saturday morning, followed by a further three pounds by Sunday morning. That meant that in just two days, I had gone from being below my maintenance limits at 10 stone 13 pounds, to now being above those limits at 11 stone 8 pounds. I then did a restricted calorie day on Sunday, and that has brought my weight down to 72.1kg, which is 11 stone 5 pounds. My lowest weight of the week was therefore, the 69.5kg which I recorded on Friday, with my highest weight being the 73.6kg which I recorded yesterday. Overall, that is a difference of 4.1kg between my highest and lowest weights of the week.

Today's results show that I am still within my maintenance limits and despite those massive weight gains over Friday and Saturday, today's result still amounts to an overall weight loss over the last week, of 0.2kg. That comes after a slight (but smaller) overall weight gain over the previous week and so to all intents and purposes, my weight maintenance programme is still going really well.

My waist size has shown a slight gain of 0.1 inches with a slight rise in my body fat percentage to just over 12%. However, that has come after slight reductions in that area last week and so even there, my maintenance program is still working really well. However, the most important thing just now is my blood pressure. This morning's results showed my systolic blood pressure to be consistently in the 130s which despite being in the pre-hypertension range, is a lot better than what I was getting with the standard 5:2 routine.

When you also bear in mind that yesterday wasn't a fasting day (although it was a reduced calorie one), that should hopefully prove those doubters on this forum wrong, who were suggesting that 6:1 wasn't working for me. The reality of the situation is that 6:1 DOES work for me when I combine that with my daily weigh-ins because I can see straight away whether or not, I need to have a restricted calorie day without necessarily having to through in that second fasting day.

Since my target weight was achieved today once again, I am now happy to report that I have now once again returned to weight maintenance mode and a 6:1 routine. My weight last week was 75.7kg (11 stone 13 pounds), but that has dropped to 72.3kg (11 stone 5 pounds) this morning which is an overall weekly weight loss of 3.4kg (about 8 pounds). My waist size has gone down from 31.6 inches to 30.9 inches which is a loss of 0.7 inches. My body fat percentage has gone down by 0.81% from 13.84% last week to 13.01% this week and my blood pressure reading for this week isn't too bad either with the best reading being 132 over 83 with a pulse of 55.

My highest weight of the week is obviously the 75.7kg (11 stone 13 pounds) which I recorded a week ago, whilst my lowest weight of the week was the 71.4kg (11 stone 3 pounds) which I recorded on both Thursday and Friday. That is a difference of 4.3kg, or a massive 10 pounds. Anyway, I have just uploaded my latest blog post which gives more details about the last week's progress and you can see that by clicking on the link that is shown below on my signature.

I can happily report that weight maintenance is still going well for me after my first week back on 6:1. The results have showed that my weight is down by 0.8kg (nearly 2 pounds) since this time last week which means that I am still within my weight maintenance range and further away from the top of that range. My waist size is down by 0.1cm since this time last week and my best blood pressure reading this morning was 132 over 75 with a pulse of 51. However, my body fat percentage is up by 0.13% from this time last week.

My lowest weight of the week was on measured on Thursday and that was 70.3kg (11 stone 1 pound) whereas my highest weight of the week was 72.3kg (11 stone 5 pounds) which was measured on three different days last week (Monday, Saturday and Sunday). That is a difference of exactly 2.0kg between my highest and lowest weights of the week which is my smallest weight range over an entire week for quite a while. That in turn shows that my weight is beginning to stabilise a bit more now that I am back into my weight maintenance mode.

However, I did not weigh myself on Friday and that was because I had a big eating binge on Thursday and didn't want to face the resulting inevitable weight gain on the following morning. Last Monday was my fasting day and whilst last Wednesday wasn't a fasting day, that was a reduced calorie day (described nicely by one of the new forum members on a recent blog post as a 'fad' day. All of the other days were normal feeding days and so, it was nice to have been able to lose weight yesterday without making any concious effort to do so.

However, even an overall weight loss over a whole week is not necessarily going to be due to a loss of body fat and there are so many other factors which can lead to a weight loss. In my case, the fact that my body fat percentage has gone up slightly means that this week's weight loss can't have been caused by a loss of body fat, and is more likely to have been caused by a loss of water from the body. That is important because it is actually the body fat content which is the most important measurement over and above my weight and even my waist size.

At first glance, the fact that both my weight and waist size have come down would point to the fact that I could maybe afford to experiment with not fasting this week to see what happens. However, the fact that my body fat percentage has gone up a bit means that I can't really conduct that experiment as I don't really want that to continue to go upwards. That means that if anything, I will actually be looking to reign things in a little bit. That would look at first glance as though my weight might come down even further. However, it is also equally likely that this might not not have been the case as the other factors which cause my weight to fluctuate balance themselves out over time.

That means that today will continue to be a fasting day, with this week being another 6:1 week. If on the other hand, my body fat percentage had come down, I might then have considered conducting that experiment of not fasting even if that had been accompanied by an overall weight gain over the whole week.