Is it all about the Calories on a fasting day?

This topic contains 7 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by allsmiles 7 years, 8 months ago.

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FastingBernhard

1:39 pm
25 Mar 16
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Hi Community! 🙂

I am on holiday in india and started the 5:2 fasting diet 3 weeks ago.

My question: I found out, that if I eat a dhal fry (approx 200 calories) and ONE roto/japati (100 calories) – eaten twice a day – this sums up to the perfect amount of 600 calories… and I don’t feel very hungry at all. (I leave out breakfast to have an eben longer time between last meal and first fastung-meal). In the books most of the time fruits and vegetables are advised as this reduces the hunger (is this the main reason?). But i am doing really well with my dahl fry & roti approach. So – is it advisable to stick with this eating plan of mine or should i switch to eggs, fruit and vegies for better results? (Didn’t enjoy the times so much when I did it like this) Put differently: Is it all about the calories resp. food that is supposed keeps your hunger away longest OR is it all about the calories and you should simply eat what brings you through the day best?

Thank you very much for your thoughts and sharing your experiences!

All the best,
B

simcoeluv

3:44 pm
25 Mar 16
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Hi Fasting and welcome:

You can eat any foods you want on 5:2. 5:2 is about the number of calories eaten, not the kind of food eaten. If you are happy with what you are doing, keep doing it!

Here are some tips: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-basics-for-newbies-your-questions-answered/

Good Luck!

TrueMirror

6:15 pm
25 Mar 16
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You can have it, you are not fasting though. Fasting is to stay out of food as long as possible, so the best approach is to have one 500 cal. meal a day, the best vegetable and proteins. If you split your food you destroy all fasting benefits, which should come from the fasting. There are many articles on internet about it. Dr. Mosley actually did this fasting to improve his health, 5:2 is just manageable way to lose weight, like cal restrictions, but fasting has health benefits first of all and losing weight is just side effect of it.

FastingBernhard

6:34 pm
25 Mar 16
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@ all: Thanks for the prompt input!

@truemirror: But isn’t two meals actually recommended as the best way to manage the 2 days by Dr. Mosley? In the book I read it says so. ** Any thoughts on this by other readers?** …but even if 1 meal is way better, and I eat 2 dhal (lots of lentils) with a chapati in this one meal this would still be effective, right? It’s more about the calories not the food eaten, right?

By the way – i have an intended 16 hour eating gap between last regular eating day and first fast meal…still not fasting in your opinion? Thanks! 🙂

Simple_Life

6:51 pm
25 Mar 16
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I’m still new to this, finishing my 4th week. I don’t eat anything after my evening meal on a NFD until it is time for the evening meal on FD. I do drink green tea (no sugar or milk) during the day. I try to keep my dinner calories around 500 when I do eat. So that means no calories for close to or a little over 24 hours. I’ve read somewhere on this site that it’s only after the first 12 hours of your fast that your body starts using what you’ve managed to store, so for me, I want to stay in that mode for as long as possible, and I think having any calories during that period (12 hours for me) would stop that.

Hopefully someone else will give some more insight. This works for me. I am down almost 4 pounds in 4 weeks, and I am not expecting more than a pound per week.

TrueMirror

10:34 pm
25 Mar 16
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Hi FastingBernhard, you still lose weight with two meals, too as soon as you go with 500 cal. However if you break the fasting with two meals you actually lose the benefit of fasting, what is better for health. Fasting makes the body healthier and lose weight faster, so fat cells are more accessible.

I am talking about what I know and read, it’s just an advice not mantra for you. If you need to lose a lot of weight do what is the best for you. But fasting is beneficial for you, because body switches to self-repairing regime and the cells of such body tend to repair themselves rather than multiply themselves. I follow 24 hours break between meals and do fasting every other day, so I read Dr. Varady’s book. I watched also that document with Dr. Mosley and if you remember he tried to fast 4 days and it had tremendous results regarding his health, but obviously it’s too hard to follow such fasting for normal working people. So he made it manageable for those, who want to lose weight at the first place.

I think once you do this for a longer time, you will find alone the benefits of the absence of food like having much more energy, better blood pressure, cholesterol and so on. Fasting actually denies all myths about the standards we knew until now, like to have 5 to 6 meal a day. Body simply has no time to repair itself, because spends too much time with food processing. But as I said do what is better for you now and later you can prolong the fasting, you will find out that it’s not that difficult.

RubyQ

5:17 pm
30 Mar 17
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Hi B,
I say stick with it! You are correct that the author himself decided to break his calories into two meals as well. No worries there. I say stick with this and I imagine things will get even easier over time – then you can attempt something like protein and vegetables and see if you are able to do it better then. Ditto with attempting to have it all in one meal.

I haven’t started yet myself, and I’m quite scared to try!!!! Your post encourages me though. I’m going to do whatever works to start and not worry too much about what I specifically eat until later.

allsmiles

5:25 pm
30 Mar 17
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@fastingbernhard yes Dr. Mosley says he splits his two fast meals between breakfast and dinner so that there are large blocks of ‘fasting’ in those 36 hours. I’d say that if the roti+daal combo on FDs is getting you the goals you want (weight loss etc.) then keep at it! If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it 🙂 As simcoeluv mentioned, it’s about calories and not necessarily the type of food eaten.