My experience of the first fast day

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My experience of the first fast day

This topic contains 4 replies, has 3 voices, and was last updated by  its_me 9 years, 8 months ago.

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  • Just like to share my first experience of the fast diet on the forum. I bought the book from my local Asda on Tuesday 17th June and started to read it on Wednesday. Like many I was sceptical, I had just read the Joe Cross Reboot book and was beginning to feel in information overload, as everyone gives amazing claims. Very good book, I thought I would read it and try it sometime, but while reading it late Thursday night I read page 129 and for some reason that seemed to change everything. The section was “Is it too late to start?…Our Advice? Start yesterday.”

    Well, woke up late Friday morning, a bit late to make breakfast (a meal which I can normally give or take), and thought why not make this my first fast day. I don’t mind waiting until evening meal to eat, I had a couple of eggs in I could make scrambled eggs. I knew doing it like this, unplanned, unprepared, was not the way to do it, I would learn from my mistakes and I did make some.

    Everything was going fine until about 2pm when I had a can of 330ml Coconut water, should have read the label first 126 cal, whoops. Another thing I had to be careful of, automatically reaching out for a snack without realising, managed to catch myself everytime, didn’t know I did it so much during the day. Come 4pm tummy rumblings, had a cup of vegetable bouillon, a teaspoon in a mug and half a teaspoon worth to eat. I now know which coffee I can drink black. At around 8pm hadd a couple of scrambled eggs for evening meal and that was it for the day, not 600cal, but like | said I woulod learn from my mistakes. The biggest mistake of all was underestimating how much fluid I needed to drink on a fast day, started to get dehydrated at around 10pm and took almost a litre of water to get over it.

    Woke up with more tummy rumblings at 2am Saturday morning, so had a small handful of dry roasted nuts. Saturday breakfast had a couple of slices of bacon and some of my favourite foods for the rest of the day, surprisingly not as much I though I would want. And went through the day with the clearest of heads I have had for a few years.

    Got weighed this morning and quite surprised.

    Male 44 years old 5’10”
    19th June 114kg
    22nd June 110.5kg
    and didn’t even have to lean back on the scales to get a lower reading. I know the weight loss is probably water weight loss, but it is encouraging to at least see a loss and I got on and off the scales a few times and still the same result.

    Fast days now will probably be a Monday and Thursday and just have to keep thinking that while on a fast day, tomorrow I can eat normally again.

    its_me, congratulations on beginning 5:2, and good for you for just diving in! You are correct that a lot of that first few kilos is probably water, but, not all of it… some of it is fat, and, more importantly, it sounds like you learned a lot very quickly! Average weight loss on 5:2 is about a pound (0.45 kg) a week, for once in my life I have been exactly average, lost 40 pounds (18 kg) in 40 weeks and am now maintaining at a BMI of 20.1 using 6:1.

    Sometimes there can be a few speed bumps along the way — some fast days are harder than others (although I oddly now *miss* fasting two days a week, only one day a week feels very strange) — sometimes weight loss stalls for a few weeks, or the scales even give you a *higher* number one week when you’re sure you’ve done everything right (it’s water weight again) — but intermittent fasting, and specifically 5:2, is the most do-able weight loss method I’ve ever come across, and the bonus is that there are health benefits even when the scales don’t budge, so no fast day is ever wasted 🙂

    Another speed bump people run into has to do with the concept of eating ‘normally’, as a lot of the eating that goes on around us is not really all that normal, and the amount a person needs to eat to maintain his or her weight decreases as the BMI decreases… I found that calculating my TDEE (under the ‘how’ tab at the top of the page) at my goal weight and using non-fasting days to learn how to eat that number of calories in a way that was satisfying to me was a very useful strategy for both losing the weight and getting ready for maintenance.

    Good luck!

    Thank you franfit for those kind words and extra tips, and congrats on the weight loss, so far the only problem at the minute is getting up to 600 calories on my fast days. I normally have one main meal at night, a scrambled egg, some chicken breast and a huge bowl of salad and was surprised to discover it was only about 300 calories, but still felt full after it. Still got a lot to learn.

    Hi its_me

    What Franfit says is important about keeping at around your TDEE on your normal non-fasting days. I have found cutting down carbs has been very beneficial. I read the labels on foods that I buy to see how many carbs they contain. I did a food diary for several weeks & was eating twice as many carbs per day as was recommended so now I really watch my portions of pasta, rice, potatoes & especially bread. I would think nothing of having 3 or 4 slices of french bread with a meal before. So many calories & no nutritional value. On my fast days (Mon & Thurs) I don’t eat any carbs other than the few in salad.

    If you are struggling to consume 600 calories & only want to eat once during your fast day then add a small baked potato to your main meal or a handful of nuts/seeds to the salad? Also a small glass of fresh orange juice with bits (not the concentrated stuff) will give you 100 calories or so.

    I’ve been doing 5:2 properly since March this year & have lost 10 pounds now, about 1 pound weight loss per week is ideal, weight usually creeps on slowly so it’s best to lose it slowly. I don’t drink any water on fast days in fact I never drink water unless it’s really hot which is rare here in Ireland lol. I take a glass of dilute squash (cordial) to drink during the night if I’m thirsty. I have my usual 3-4 large cups of tea/coffee with milk throughout the day & deduct the 50 calories I use in milk so my evening meal is about 450 calories. My last meal is 5-6pm Sunday the next time I eat is my 450 calorie meal about 6pm Monday then I fast again until 9am Tues when I have breakfast so I have 2 fasts of 24hrs and 14hrs broken by the one small meal. Same again for Thursday. If I eat at lunchtime on my fasting day it sets me off picking at food much easier to wait & eat once in the evening I find.

    Good luck!

    Thanks JulieK1967

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