UK Programme on fasting

bonjovibabe

Well, according to MFP my BMR is 1764 kcals per day , and my basic daily needs (as a sedentary person) is 2210 kcals. What do I aim for on feast days? Do you need to eat back your exercise calories or just forget them?

beattie1

I don't have a specific aim on "feast days". I just eat til I'm not hungry - and log what I've had. It usually works out 1400ish - 1600ish. I think it's possible to over-intellectualise here.

prov31jd

bump.

bonjovibabe

I think I may set my limit at 1900kcals for all feast days to start with, leaving me with around a 5000kcal weekly deficit + exercise cals if I earn them. Also gives me a lot of wiggle room for decreasing the cals if that doesn't work, or I need to reduce it as I get smaller and my needs drop. I won't stuff myself though - if I can't reach the 1900 (eat fairly healthily), then so be it!

jansus

I also watched the programme - and for me the message was about allowing your body to rest and prepare on the fasting days and the resulting improvements on glucose ,cholesterol etc and was it IGF?. The message was that it was not about calorie counting as on the non fasting days you could eat what you want. I am just about to go away but on my return I am going to give it a go and it will be interesting as I suffer from thyroid problems and glucose intolerance and it has taken me a whole 12 months to lose 14 lb I have tried everything including recently being on 1100 calories per day . I have regular blodd tests so I guess I will be a good guinea pig.

bonjovibabe

Is there a reason that you can't drink black coffee on fast days instead of/as well as black/herbal tea and water?

beattie1

Is there a reason that you can't drink black coffee on fast days instead of/as well as black/herbal tea and water?

Who says you can't? I drink my normal coffee which has a couple of tablespoons of skimmed milk and a sweetex. Life wouldn't be worth living without it!

bonjovibabe

All I've seen/heard for the fasting days was black/herbal tea or water. I'm doing my first fast day now and enjoying a big mug of black coffee (although I prefer it with milk & sugar (never touch artificial sweeteners)!). I too would not be able to give that up as well lol! Monday is my normal heavy house cleaning day, but I'm going to do the mountain of ironing instead and leave the heavy work until tomorrow when I can eat what I want !

beattie1

As I see it, you have 500 calories to use as you see fit on your low-eating days & I use about 75 of them on the milk in my coffee. I'm sure it's sensible to "spend" them on nutritious food, not junk, & that's what I'm doing. I'm going to try not to eat any fruit today as you get a lot less filling power from fruit compared to vegetables.

steevio_uk

Super bump

Of those who decided to start a long term trial of this, how did it go?

rubyjune27

In response to the last post enquiring how is it going.

I commenced the 5:2 in August and continue to date. I can not tell if it has reduced my chances of developing cancer/heart disease ans Alzheimer's, just have to hope it is working. Where I can experience an unforeseen benefit is getting back on track following a holiday, especially the gluttony I indulged in over Christmas. Once I start my fast day on the Monday I don't want to slip back into poor eating habits. Also by being very controlled two days a week reinforces a belief that I can be controlled on the other days even though I consume considerably more calories

jansus

my weight loss has been very slow - but I have thyroid problems as well- but on a recent visit for blood tests my doctor was quite amazed how my cholesterol and glucose resistance readings were right down. so for that reason mainly I am still sticking to it.