I have an incurable sweet tooth and its also insatiable so i’ve “quit sweets”. (meaning there are certain low risk situations where i can have them but the rest of the time I abstain). So yesterday was a binge but nothing like the ones i used to do.

The six month thing, gels with what i’ve learnt read about weightloss, set point and the famine reaction from Dr Amanda. She did hard science research on this stuff. i.e. on how leptin causes this famine reaction. I am trying not to elaborate. Her book doesn’t talk about the science but go on in detail about it in layman’s terms. I believe its these research findings that are behind the reasons people find it so hard to keep it off long term. Her work was pretty groundbreaking at the time and there’s still a lot of catch up going on as it filters through to popular knowledge.

Anyway although i hadn’t heard of her then, it was because of knowledge coming from her research that i approached my diet this year. I had heard of the business of how once you lose about 10% of your body weight or fat (I can never remember which is it) the body tends to fight back. And that you need sort of rest periods if you have a lot to lose and why it can be so difficult for the very obese person to reach a skinny level.

Anyway the 6 month thing sounds somewhat similar. But so long as i can refrain from eating sugar and keep trying to stay on the wagon, i think with time i might get past this rocky period.

Today is a fast day and i’ve been pretty good so far, helped i might add by getting up at a reasonable hour and then going back to sleep in the tv chair until midday. Strangely i often feel sleepy on fast days and do this but its not a good idea because i want to stay up late and then i risk going over my fasting calories. I am already over my limit but its ok. Its still less than 800 i think. I’m more concerned about not starting to eat the whole house out.

Food today has been
expresso with half cup milk
nescafe with 1/4 cup milk (my usual amount)
1 cup lentil and chickpea soup lunch
1 banana (because i just found my stash that i had thought i’d left at the supermarket and which were now very ripe)
1 serve of mexican mince with beans and veg in it (that’s where my calorie limit went over)
1 raw carrot
and now i’m having black tea.
I hope that’s the end of it.

I also did my HIIT skipping but not so many step because of sleeping.

Hi there AJDreams
Is that 15g of cooked or uncooked rolled oats?
Day 1 for me and the kids are eating pancakes with maple syrup for dessert…torture!

Unfortunately with small kids, you have to prepare them food all day, although I was interested in the book saying they should be waiting 4 hours between meals. I did it though. And am putting off eating this morning too.

Does anyone have any experience with doing 5:2 during the week, but combining it with a delayed breakfast on the normal days, delaying up to 11am to achieve a 16 hr overnight fast every day? Has this had extra benefits for weight loss for anyone?

Thanks!

Katie, By “during the week”, I take it you mean non-fast days. If you are eating the same calories on a 16:8 days, i would not expect it to increase weightloss.

If you want to increase the speed of weightloss, count calories every day and reduce a little from your TDEE on your non-fast days. Or if you don’t want to count calories, just food log everything. Even doing this will give you some way to monitor your eating. I find food logging perhaps a most important tool.

Another idea you might try if you don’t want to count calories every day is to

1. eat normally on a non-fast day. Log everything. Preferably do it for one week.
2. Next day eat 16:8 and log everything. Again preferably do it for one week.
3. count up the calories using a site like mfp AFTER the two weeks or two days. Then compare if you are eating more with one method. Then follow that method. But frankly, i think even this experiment is no guarantee that you will eat less in one method after you start doing it all the time.