AlyssaJoJo wrote: »

Thought I'd get this started for the new week!

Thanks for starting the new post for this week!

Today is my first fast day of the week and my first fast day back since I've been sick (I did fast last week and it feels like I have been aways for years) SO glad to be back. It's strange to actually feel happy to be back fasting, but I have actually missed it

Since I started back in September I had been fasting Mondays and Tuesdays (back to back). I have now decided to fast on Mondays and Wednesdays to make it more manageable, we will see how that goes.

This last weekend was super busy and ended up eating take aways a bit too often (however when I had McDonald's I decided to eat the same thing as my kids, chicken nugget happy meal and not a quarter pounder with cheese meal [little victory]). I was driving all day yesterday, a total of 6 hours to Dover and back. I logged it under exercise just for fun and it said I burnt 700 calories, could that really be right, I'm skeptical.

Hope everyone has a brilliant start to the week!

P.S. A question to all the ladies (men look away now)... How has it been when you have fasted during 'that time of the month'? Has it been more difficult? Have you avoided it?

Today is also a fast day for me. I usually fast Mon, Wed. and Friday. Hope everyone as a good fasting day.

AlyssaJoJo wrote: »

Thought I'd get this started for the new week!

Thanks for starting us off!

Fast day for me today!! After my week vacation and last weeks bust I finally feel "up to" fasting today! I feel geared up and ready to go. Last week I just didn't, so that's why it's important to listen to your body and respect what it has to say! Tomorrow I "get to" eat out twice - lunch and dinner which are both work events so my sodium will be crazy high tomorrow. I also won't be around much tomorrow since I'll be downtown at a convention.

Hope everyone has a great day!!!

thecarbmonster wrote: »

Today's a fast day for me too! Looking forward to dinner :P

Me too!

Seems like a lot of us fast on Mondays! I never did a final weigh in last week, but I checked this morning and was still where I was last Thursday - which hardly ever happens since Sat-Sun are my biggest eating days. So I feel like this will be a good week. I usually eat breakfast even on fast days, but today I didn't, so we'll see how it goes. It's almost 10 and I'm not hungry yet which is good! I did have 2 cups of coffee with cream though!

Forgot to ask- what week is everybody on? I'm starting lucky number 13! Just in time for Halloween

@alyssajojo I totally forgot about coffee! I haven't made it lately since I've been running out the door lucky I even remembered to put on my pants haha!

Hi, I'm just starting and did my first fast today. It wasn't so hard. Just joined this group and love to see all the positive posts. Also have linked to my fitbit flex. i've got all the gadgets, let's see if I have the discipline!

@thecarbmonster week 6 for me!

I'm done eating - clocked in @ 548 calories for the day. Really enjoyed my dinner of hummus + pita + apple slices + yasso bar for dessert, but also excited for regular eating tomorrow!

Fasted yesterday which went well. I went to the gym for the first time on a fast day and felt absolutely no different from when I go on a non-fast day. Not sure why I expected to, really! I did find that it seemed to delay my hunger pangs at lunchtime, which is all to the good as it meant I ate lunch a little later and didn't have my usual fast day 3:30pm hunger gremlins nagging at me.

Planned a really tasty day of food for today, and have my dinner already cooking gently in my slow cooker. By far my favourite meal these days though is breakfast the day after a fast. It just tastes so GOOD.

Neonbeige wrote: »

First fasting day started with a headache, hmpf. But it got better and I hang on :-)

You can do it @neonbeige!

To help get you through the fast days- I have to keep reminding myself to add more things with more volume for lower calories- like greens, soups, etc. It can be mentally relieving to feel like you're eating more on those lower days, as well Also, since I usually save most of my fast calories for dinner, I try to plan something that is also mentally satisfying that I can look forward to- like pasta. I weigh and measure everything so I can enjoy those "naughty" things I used to cut completely out of my diet. Yum!

Side bonus- Instead of two servings of pasta, I'm learning to become more satisfied with just one serving and bulking up the rest of the meal with veggies.

I haven't posted much on the diet (lifestyle) side of things lately, but I've been trying some different things out. This is not strictly 5:2, but does fall under intermittent fasting...the results are interesting (from a "what if" sort of way).

I saw a # of people blowing their weekends out and still getting "OK" losses for the week. So I started opening up my weekends (Fri night, all day Sat, and Sun day). Out of the last 2 weekends I ate over my TDEE on 4 of those days, at least 2 days I was approaching double. The weekend before the last 2 I ate up-to my TDEE for the 3 days. What I'm finding is I will gain anywhere from 10 to 17 lbs on the weekend doing this...I think the reason is that most of my Thursday/Friday fasts are "severe" (>42 hours), but still I keep getting losses. The huge weight gain (from what I can tell) is from my body holding on to everything I touch on Friday night through Sunday...plus the sodium I'm sure. Last week I tried 3 fasts...Sun-Mon was ~42 hours on 600 cal, Tue(mid-day)-Thu was 48 hours on 600 cal, then Fri I did 24 hours on 0 calories. I managed to lose 2.6 lbs, but what's interesting is that when I look back at the week (mentally) it felt very satisfying eating-wise. This week I am trying something new...I started Saturday at midnight, I went to Sunday midnight (24 hours) and ate a meal of ~600 cal, then went to noon Monday (12 hours) and ate one huge meal (about 75% of my TDEE...of unhealthy food...I couldn't eat anymore). Then I went right back into the cycle...I am at hour 23 of my second 36 hours of eating this way. I'm going to see if I can fit four of these 36 hour fasts back to back (ending Saturday morning) with the 1 hour in between to eat the "huge" meal. I don't know if this is sustainable or if it will result in a higher weight loss; right now I still feel good (satisfied w/energy, no dizziness, no headaches), because of the large meal yesterday I almost feel I could go another 6 hours, but I'm going to stick to the plan to see the results.

Why am I doing this? Well, I'm a little bored (smile), but I also want to see what I'm capable of...achieving some of these things allows me to see how my body will react as well as giving me added confidence. I now know that I can handle almost any situation (like the holidays) and I can move fasts to any day of the week, do them back-to-back, or push them to the extremes (my longest is 49 hours on 600 calories) if needed, while still feeling good and still losing weight.

I'll let everyone know how it goes.

thecarbmonster wrote: »

So the past two weeks I've started "officially" bumping up my low/fast day goal to 700-850 and I have noticed a BIG change. I have more energy during the week, I feel more satisfied after meals/day to day, no more late night hunger pangs, etc.

I have wondered about this. Should my TDEE be based on my current weight or the weight I would like to be at? Or somewhere in between? Currently I have my TDEE based on my goal weight and my fast day calories at 500 even though 1/4 of my TDEE is closer to 450.

Not sure that is the best way to implement 5:2. I think this is especially true if one is losing a lot of weight. I wonder if it would easier to succeed if one stair-stepped the TDEE and fast day calories down as one loses weight rather than set the TDEE and fast day calories at the goal weight. They say 500 calories on fast day for women but that really should be set based on how much the woman (or man) weighs. As long as one is at a 3500 calorie deficit per week they will lose 1 lb (theoretically) no matter how many calories they eat. Maybe your TDEE was just too low for your current weight? And now that you are eating more you are feeling better and more able to stick with the plan. I believe 5:2 is about intermitant fasting and not about starving ourselves.

@carbmonster thanks for your suppport! :-) In the end the day got totally bearable. I also saved my calories for dinner. Because for me it´s easier. If I start eating something, I will feel more hungry and restless during the day. If I don´t eat at all it´s like my belly is sleeping :-D I drank a lot though which is a nice side effect and I think helped my headache also.

I did the same you suggest. I had a huge salad with nice toppings like feta, jam and an egg. Yummy. In my mind I already planned dinner for the next fasting day, lol. The cool thing with mfp is, you can plan your meals pretty neatly. Like logging the vegetables/salad and then fill up the calories with the good stuff, haha!

It was absolutely incredible that I could have normal breakfast today and don´t have to restrict myself much on NFD. I set my calories to 1850 which is doable and I will not be upset if I might go over a bit sometimes...Especially when i train...which I have to get back to *sigh* I am a couch potatoe.

Also interesting thing about the calories...It´s a lot of experimenting I guess to find out what fits yoour body.

@orlcam I think this is so cool about this fasting thing. You can try, adjust and see what works best for yourself.

@snaps27 good luck on the new tryout!

@jknight001, i think if you google 5:2, the official website has a calculator??? I'm not sure. I'm an excel nerd so I just looked up the calculation for TDEE and update it each week for my new weight.

I believe your TDEE should be based on your current weight. You definitely want to hit those higher calorie days because it shakes up your metabolism to prevent it getting used to lower calories.

Awesome @neonbeige!!! I do the same