normag:

What kinds of foods are giving you trouble? What kinds of ‘rubbish’ are you eating?

normag:

Well, pretty much everything you mentioned are carbs. I would guess you suffer from a bit of carb addiction.

I have given this advice before, but to my knowledge no one has followed it (it is hard to do if you ‘have to’ eat carbs). Nevertheless, here it is.

Do the Atkins induction phase for one week – that is, eat 20g or less of carbs each day for a week. Then restart 5:2, eating as few carbs as possible on diet days and on non diet days too if you can.

Good Luck!

As long as you continually fall back on, “oh well, may as well start again tomorrow as I’ve ruined my fast day”, you will succumb to eating when you don’t want to.

How to get that mindset that you will fast?

Get rid of the rubbish in the house.
Resist taking that first bite.
Tell yourself – only XX hours until I eat and then wait it out.

While many people easily forgive themselves when they intend to fast, but don’t end up fasting, perhaps it is time to become more stern with yourself.

I discovered there was a part of me that wants the best and generally goes along with fasting, but is afraid of starving. It is like a child within me. I told myself, I promise not to starve, we will eat (we – means the part of me that wants to fast and the part that doesn’t), but not now. Be patient. I promise to eat in XX hours and then tomorrow.

Another suggestion is to read the articles published about the Fast Beach Diet or to get the book and read chapter 4.

Amy:

There is no research that I am aware of that confirms that artificial sweeteners stimulate the brain the way carbs do – in fact, the research is that they do not stimulate the brain at all: http://news.yahoo.com/brains-know-difference-between-carbs-artificial-sweeteners-202736452–spt.html

That is why I did not mention Diet Coke.

normag:

The Atkins induction phase has been successfully and safely used since the 1970s. Studies have proven people can survive and prosper on 20g of carbs or less a day for six months or longer.

5:2 is not always successful with people that have a strong addiction to carbs. They either, like you, find it hard to get through the diet days or, if they do get through one or two diet days they find themselves bingeing. The carb restriction on 5:2 is not severe enough to break or reduce the addiction.

If you do try to go a week, be forewarned that in the middle of the timeframe you may not feel too well – you will experience withdrawal symptoms not unlike alcohol or drug addicts go through – although they won’t last as long or be as terrible as those tend to be.

Good Luck!

normag, have you tried to have just one meal in the evening? Some people are getting an appetite from eating and if that starts in the morning it is not easy to ignore that nagging and fast all day.

Another option is to leave out the refined carbs and eat more protein as simcoeluv already suggested. It does not have to be as extreme as the Atkins induction phase but an egg or small omelette to start the day might be better than muesli.
During the day if you get hungry, try drinking an unsweetened herbal tea instead of water or diet coke. I found a very nice tasty one, peppermint and licorice, tastes like sweets but has no calories.

Play around a bit and see what suits you best.

Most fasters here will tell you that they eat a reasonable amount of protein combined with lots and lots of fibre rich but energy “poor” vegetables.
One of my favourite fast day meals is a 150 g fillet of white fish with either a mound of green beans or a mixed salad of tomato, lettuce and cucumber. I can even have a small teaspoon of tartare sauce with it if I do it right.

Do you have the Fast Diet book? There are some recipes in it that can give you ideas what to cook. Also the recipe section here on the web site has lots of tasty suggestions.

And maybe you need to start on a little more than 500/600 kcal in the beginning and then whittle it down over a few weeks. Not the kick start most people want but better than giving up.

Hi normag, I too have a problem with snacking – anything and everything somtimes. The way I look at it is that even if I go over my 500 calories on a fast day as long as I haven’t eaten as much as I would have normally it’s not all bad. You may have blown the 500 calories for the day but if you can stop at some point the damage may not be too bad. I do my fasts on a Mon and Wed so that I still have Tues and Thurs (I don’t do it at the weekend)but if I have slipped up I try to eat less on those days too. I sometimes feel bad because I don’t seem to have any self control which you still need with this plan. Good luck, and don’t give up. Linda

I hope I am not replying too late to this thread but I have a trick…. I keep counting down to when I can eat again/when I go to bed like Amy suggested….7 hours… 6 hours to bed.

And then, at the same time, I put those I wanted to eat in a plate and tell myself I would be allowed this tomorrow….and then, the next morning, when I look at the plate, I normally don’t feel like to eat again as I don’t feel like to ruin my good work yesterday! 🙂