Gardenfairy, I drink big cups of caffeine-free Herbal teas during the day and that seems to help. The Indian Spice or Bengal Spice by Celestial Seasoning are a couple of my favorites.

I find I’m okay if I eat plenty of high-volume but low-calorie foods on fasting days. Broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, lettuce and the like.

I’m also doing low-ish carb as well. Low-ish because I’m having a few high-carb treats on NFDs. I find that low carb kills the desire to eat everything in sight better than anything else I’ve tried.

Are you eating many simple carbs on NFDs? Your blood sugar could be all over the place, making you ravenous.

Right now I’m probably not a great source since I’m up about 5kg from where I was a couple months ago. (Too much work, too little working out and business trip to the states with too much processed food consumption …) However, I found that increasing the amount of oatmeal I had in the morning actually helped me reduce my overall eating on non-fast days. If you can figure out something that is healthy for you and increase that, it might help.

I also know that eating over 40 grams of fiber really helps me, but it is also really hard to do. It takes a LOT of vegetables to get that much fiber. After an hour of eating it isn’t so enjoyable any more.

Gardenfairy, I have had a binge eating disorder for decades and I too found that on the NDFs I felt driven to overeat. I have slowly wound this back, but it took experimentation and time to figure out what worked for me.

Some people report that eating low carb every day helps their tendency to overeat. It doesn’t work for me and a low carb diet actually makes me quite unwell because the carbs need to be replaced with fat or protein. I have no gall bladder so I can’t eat a high fat diet, and I have IBS that benefits from a high fibre diet – hard to get if you are limiting carbs and eating lots of fat & protein.

For me there are a number of things that have helped:
– I eat a very high fibre diet that’s roughly 40-50g per day (this is twice the recommended amount), but it works for me. I suffered from IBS symptoms for years and this, combined with increased intake of legumes had eliminated those symptoms. The only time the symptoms come back are when I have a day of two where I’ve let my diet lapse and have eaten too little fibre and too much protein & fat instead. I find I don’t get cravings to eat more providing I choose carbohydrates that are whole and high in fibre. I eat a lot of veg & fruit – about 7-10 serves per day. I I don’t eat white processed grains, those I do eat are whole grains and I choose those with the highest fibre percentage. I suspect that the reason these don’t trigger cravings is because these foods are converted into energy more slowly by the digestive system.
– As I just mentioned I eat quite a lot of legumes. I eat them in some form most days. Sometimes they are the main ingredient in a meal, but often it’s just a few lentils added to a soup of some chickpeas made into a hommus dip. I had to build up my intake slowly as my bowel took time to adjust. I suspect this is because the but bacteria profile changed as my diet changed. I also find legumes to be quite filling.
– I use drinks as a substitute for eating. For me this is water, hot tea with milk, iced tea, hot almond milk. All of these are sugar free and help me delay food.
– I use an eating window. I found that the earlier in the day I start eating, the more I am likely to overeat. So I stopped eating breakfast – for me this was easy as I don’t feel hungry first thing in the morning, I ate breakfast out of habit not appetite. I also recognised that some of my worst overeating was in the evening and through the night if I couldn’t sleep. So I set a curfew – once I’ve finished eating dinner I don’t eat again until the next day. I will still drink liquids so if I’m feeling desperate for something I’ll heat some almond milk and add a little cocoa or vanilla. Essentially this means that my eating is confined to approx 11am-8pm, although it sometimes varies by an hour or so. For me, this has been an invaluable tool and over time it has become second nature for me to eat within these time restrictions.
– I focus on appetite. Most of my eating used to have no connection with genuine hunger. I had plenty of mental messages driving me to eat but when I concentrated on my stomach and whether I was really feeling hungry I got a very different message. Every time I want to eat something I ask myself whether I’m genuinely hungry. I’m also trying to eat more slowly than I used to, enjoy each mouthful, and stop when I’m full – this is a work in progress.

What I have noticed through this forum, is that everyone will have their own solution to control eating on NFDs and there is a lot of variety in approaches. It’s important to realise that just because something works for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you. I don’t think there is any way around the need to try things for yourself and find the tools and approaches that help you.