Day 1 on the California Coast

This topic contains 7 replies, has 5 voices, and was last updated by knittinghippiemom 10 years, 3 months ago.

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knittinghippiemom

6:46 pm
18 Aug 14
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Today is my first fast day – I’m going to try Mondays and Thursdays for now, since they make sense for my schedule anyway. I have about 40lbs to lose. For exercise, I am doing a daily yoga stretching routine and 3 days a week I’ll be doing High Intensity Interval Training – 20 sec sprints x 3. I think I calculated my TDEE on a sedentary lifestyle, but I’m a mom of 3 kids, so I am on my feet a bit more than that between chasing a toddler, cleaning house, etc.
What I’m looking out for while I try out this lifestyle change:
– inches lost, particularly the visceral stomach fat that’s built up over the last year…yuck.
– better energy levels
– decreased food cravings (I read this can take up to 8 weeks?)
– weight loss (obviously)
– potential negative or positive effects on my hormones (previous experience with fasting messed was negative…I’m hoping the 5:2 frequency will be better)

Questions I have for people who have been doing this:
– On the fasting days, do you find you’re better off eating all your calories in one meal, or small meals throughout the day?
– Do you exercise on fast days? If yes, what do you do? HIT or something less intense?

I’ve taken all my measurements, I’m feeling motivated…hoping that by Thanksgiving this year I’ll be enjoying a healthy body and lifestyle.

FlemishCurves

11:39 pm
18 Aug 14
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Hi and welcome,

I’ve been doing this for about 16 months and have lost over 38lbs so far (took the scenery route, as someone put it here so nicely). I also do Mondays and Thursdays and it suits me very well 🙂

I like eating dinner only and drinking water/tea/black coffee during the day. Once I start eating, I get hungry, or even worse, craving the act of eating itself so I try to eat my meal after 7pm. But many people here are grazers.

I do HIIT once or twice a week (I cycle up and down a bridge for intensity) but I never do that on FDs. I think other people do it, but I prefer to do regular cycling/walking/doing stairs/carrying groceries home on FDs and keeping my HIIT for days on which I’ve had something to eat.

I think the best advice is to just play around with it. Try some different approaches and see what works best for you, that’s the beauty of this WOL (Way Of Life), it adapts to your life and disposition where other diets make you adapt to them.

Good luck and don’t be afraid to come and have a whine on difficult days, it might be what gets you through the day.

Amy C.

11:54 pm
18 Aug 14
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I exercise on fasting days, the same as other week days. I thought there was a difference in performance, but ended up deciding there is no difference. I don’t sleep as well the night after fasting all day and find that frustrating.

I do HIT, plus extra exercises for cardio and alternate days with strength exercises using kettle bells, a weighted ball, sandbell and bands.

Start at 20 seconds and work your way up. It isn’t hard at all.

knittinghippiemom

12:57 am
19 Aug 14
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thanks for the support! So far I am finding this to be a totally awesome support community. 🙂
Today I took some time and set up an 8 week challenge calendar for myself, so I can check off each successful day. I’ve found this to be helpful with past challenges. I worked it out so I do Hit on non-fast days (3 days) and yoga 4 days. Though I might do yoga and hit like I did yesterday.

Amy – I read that women tend to get a big uptick in more masculine hunter-gatherer hormones when fasting (which is considered a bit of a downside by some) – not being able to sleep is a common thing with IF and women. I certainly had the same experience when I was doing ADF. I found that taking a bath with epsom salts (magnesium sulphate) helped a lot. Even just doing a foot bath with that stuff made me more sleepy. Here in the US (I don’t know where you are) there’s a supplement called Natural Calm that’s powdered magnesium. People drink it before bed and it supposedly helps. Taking magnesium orally can cause bowel disruption for some, so try the baths first.

Day 1 is almost over for me. I broke up the calories into a few small little snacks and that seemed to feel fine for today.
– Coffee + cream in the AM (54 calories)
– Midday snack was celery, carrots with 2 tsp. almond butter and 1 oz. sauteed chicken breast (195 calories)
– Afternoon snack: a tiny whole grapefruit w/ 3 prunes (127 cal)
– Dinner will be homemade chicken stock and a soft boiled egg (98 cal)

Total: 475 calories

buffyb

2:38 am
19 Aug 14
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Today is my first fast day. I am doing Mondday and Thursday. I had coffee first, smoothie for breakfast, apple slices at 11, lettuce, tomato, cucumber and blue cheese walden farms dressing for lunch. Dinner, 7 garlic shrimp, zuchinni noodles, tomatoes and ff laughing cow cheese. Total calories 485. 6 16 oz bottles of water. Slight head ache tonight. I live in San Diego. Mother of 3, gradmother of 2. I have 40# to lose. Hope this lifestyle change works for me. Book arrives on Thursday. I walk 3 mies 5x a week. Zumba class on Thursday, stretch band for arms, just started to day and will do 4x a week. And Hula hooping. Building up everyday on that one. I love reading the posts. I am obsessed with weighing, so I will weigh every Monday.

knittinghippiemom

5:18 pm
27 Aug 14
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I thought I’d update after my first week. I’ve had ok results but I don’t feel entitled to be excited about them for some reason.

I have a question for experienced FastDieters, so I’ll put that first.

So far my only major complaint is the lack of…ahem…regularity on fast days. I’m not sure how to remedy that without calories, but it’s definitely an annoyance to me. Anyone else have this issue? How did you solve it?

So here’s the rundown on stats:
The first four days last week, I almost immediately dropped 2lbs. It fluctuated a bit up and down once my fast days were over but as of this morning, I’m calling it official. I’ve lost 3lbs (I’ve been at that mark for 2 days now). I checked my measurements from last Monday. As of today, I’m down 2.5″ in the bust area, 1″ in the waist, 1″ in the hips and an inch or so in other places (thighs, upper chest above…I took a lot of measurements ;)). So…decent progress, right? So why do I feel so blah about it? I’m not entirely sure. Maybe I think it has to do with feeling like I’m not eating that great on non-fast days…too much sugar, not enough veg. On some level, I am still chained to this idea of weight loss = deprivation and guilt. Need to work on that.

I’ve been exercising daily and my energy levels are probably better than they have been in 8 years (so basically, the last time I had this much energy I was probably 21/22 and not a mom). I am going to bed a bit later and getting up earlier and not feeling exhausted. I attribute that to exercise. It’s literally changing my life, and I’m hardly doing that much. I do HIT 3x per week and yoga and/or tai chi the other days. The most I’d ever do is 15-20 minutes. But it’s showing everywhere. My weight is high enough that my clothes are just not going to fit better until I get under 170 (6lbs to go), but my legs are more toned and my strength and stamina are slowly improving. The last few days, I’ve been gathering the kids to do jumping jacks together – they think it’s fun and funny. Yesterday we did 4 sets of 50 throughout the day. 🙂

All in all, I am still feeling motivated. 7 weeks to go. 🙂

bayleafoz

8:43 pm
27 Aug 14
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Hi KHM
Regarding regularity, I find that if you make sure to drink at least 2 litres of water per day, plus have lots of steamed green vegetables, you can keep regular. You need to drink plain water as well as coffee etc. to ensure your system works.
Cheers, B 🙂

knittinghippiemom

10:40 pm
27 Aug 14
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I am probably not making 2 litres of water a day. My bottle is 32 oz and I drink 1.5-2 of those per day plus other drinks like tea and coffee (that’s probably 10-12 oz max). I’ll try to get the full 2L in for the next few days and see how it goes on Thursday.