I find the day after fasting days REALLY hard – anyone relate?

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I find the day after fasting days REALLY hard – anyone relate?

This topic contains 13 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by  Sal47 6 years, 11 months ago.

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  • Fasting days are fine, they are regulated, I know what I’m doing, eating, drinking and I have them down. I’m in the zone.

    The next day however! Not every time, but quite often, is a hollow legged shambles!

    I’m ok until I eat my first thing and then something in my psyche switches and tells my brain that this is the last day I am ever going to be allowed food.

    Even as I am TELLING myself that this is rubbish, the beast inside is screaming “Feed me Seymour!!!!”

    Anyone with me???

    Hi Sal:

    Losing weight is as much mental as physical. If you really, really want to lose weight you will overcome the ‘irrational’ desire to over eat and lose your weight. If you don’t, then there will be an unlimited number of reasons you will come up with to quit trying and go back to where you were.

    Here are some 5:2 tips: https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/the-basics-for-newbies-your-questions-answered/

    Good Luck!

    I have had this sometimes. More so as I am on maintenance.
    My answer is to plan the non fast days with good normal meals and concentrate on not eating between them.
    One day a week I let myself eat beyond my planning, except that I make sure not to have junk food in the house.
    My theory is that our gut microbes are screaming out for their usual diet and our brain gets their signals. But I am coming up to two years of 5:2 and it is still happening. Stubborn gut microbes maybe!

    So what are you eating on your NFDs? Its very hard to break long established eating habits. Its very hard to fight foods that trigger a natural hormone response to “eat more”. Simple carbs, sugar, processed foods will trigger a hormonal response that makes you eat. What foods do you break your fasts with? Choose high fat foods rather than carb based foods. Cheese, low sugar high fat yogurt. Avoid processed grain based foods.

    I forgot to say I’ve been doing the 5:2 For 90 days now as a lifestyle rather than a diet with the happy side effect of some slow and steady weightloss.8 pounds so far. Thanks for all the words of wisdom guys. I’m especially intrigued by the idea of avoiding carbs though….ive been having weetabix which is in case the US doesn’t have it is a slow release high carb delicious breakfast cereal. The idea of a high fat breakfast grosses me out a little tbh……can you explain the benefits of that to me a little more? Thanks x

    And to answer your question, I *try* to eat 3 square meals if the hollow leg syndrome doesn’t get me! I don’t really do desserts or sugary stuff, I have a savoury tooth not a sweet one x

    Well Jason Fung suggests that this is not ‘an irrational desire to eat’, but rather it is an entirely rational evolutionary response for your body to attempt to ‘feast’ following a period of famine.

    I have experienced this on post-fast days, but only following the first fast of the week, not the second.

    I find avoiding refined carbohydrates helps too, but that ‘overeating’ nuts and cheese has not derailed me (30lbs lost, and maintained, for 3 years).

    Re: carbs. They break down to sugars and elevate insulin, more so than fats. And a high fat breakfast could be eggs, avocado, natural yoghurt with nuts and seeds, not a greasy fry up!!

    Im not sure why you think Weetabix is low GI?? Weetabix is highly processed and most of it will be converted into maltose (two glucose rings joined together) in your mouth. Shortly after entering the stomach it will be broken down into glucose and enters the bloodstream. It never makes it to your large intestines so all your poor gut bacteria starves to death.

    Happynow is pretty spot on. I have greek yogurt with a cut up apple or plum. Handful of nuts and pumpkin seeds. Avocado is good. Fried haloumi cheese. You don’t have to avoid carbs, just processed carbs. My simple rule is, if it contains anything with grains in it I avoid it. Bread, cakes, biscuits, breakfast cereals, pasta, pizza etc. Get your carbs from vegetables and some fruit.

    I’m not sure of Weetabix being highly processed – i just know when i eat it, i feel full for longer. If i have fruit or yoghurt, I’m unsatisfied and hungry within 30 minutes.

    For me something like Weetabix is filling yet healthy, thats all, a bowl of 2 with some semi skimmed milk and a tiny bit of sugar to taste is less than 300 calories.

    Filling breakfast for 300 calories is a good deal in my book.

    Today for example (ironically since i started this thread last night) i havent had the munchies at all and my breakfast kept me going till lunch time.

    I dont eat bread or baked goods except occasionally as a weekend treat. I eat a fair amount of protein/ veg in my other daily meals.

    🙂

    Keep eating it if it satiates you for long periods of time. However if its a breakfast cereal its highly processed. Go to a pet food store and by some wheat. Does Weetabix look anything like wheat? To get it to look like that it must have been processed. Sounds like your doing well though. Perhaps have Weetabix as your fastbreaker breakfast the day after a fast and avoid foods that turn you into a hollow leg eater? Personally I use a very simple rule. No grain based foods and eat whole foods. It works for me.

    The ‘adage’ “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” apparently first appeared in a 1917 edition of Good Health, a publication edited by Dr John Harvey Kellogg…

    So a maker of breakfast cereal told us both that we must eat breakfast and that eating grains is good for us…

    And we’ve been repeating it ad infinitum as some sort of universal truth ever since!?

    “Dr” Kellogg was a very disturbed individual with very strange views on sex. He invented breakfast cereal and wanted his “patients” to eat it because he thought it would severely reduce their tendency to self fornicate. As weird as this sounds that’s the origins of breakfast cereal. Feeling a bit randy? Eat Dr Kellogg’s cereal and the temptation will pass.

    Ha ha he was indeed! I dont eat breakfast until quite late – im not hungry first thing. Cant comment on whether eating it interferes with my libido tho ha ha ha!

    I’m going to stick with my weetabix first thing i think – it works well for me – and the higher protein later on…..

    At least some of it is hormonal too i think….nothing quite like adding menopause into the mix for the munchies.

    Thank god for Evening Primrose oil!

    Have a good day everyone!

    Hi Sal47, I am very familiar with the feeling you described after a fast day. I sometimes feel it before a fast day as well when I start to panic that I can’t eat these foods tomorrow. These are some of the thought patterns that are also common for those with a binge eating disorder and have been discussed at length on the following forum thread:
    https://thefastdiet.co.uk/forums/topic/binge-eating-disorder-group/

    For me the most important thing was to allow a minimum of 2 days between fast days. If I don’t my risk of binge eating is much greater. If allow a NFD break of at least 2 days then I seem to settle into a much better eating pattern.

    Hi LJoyce- thanks for your input – i agree totally – i find a two day break between fasting days a must!

    My fasting days are generally Monday and Thursday for the very reason you describe.

    And funnily enough, i was looking at the excellent thread on binge eating yesterday, so thanks for this link too. I wouldnt necessarily describe myself as one NOW, but ive certainly been there in the past, at my heaviest (18 stone) and im not sure the compulsion ever truly leaves you… much like any addiction.

    Thanks for the share anyway. 🙂

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