I successfully lost weight during the winter of 13/14. I find it’s like running, the body needs to get used to the idea it’s doing something it’s not used to. The first mile is always the hardest and sometimes you may need to walk. My advice would be is to slowly increase the pace, so that maybe on one of your fast days you do eat slightly over, but lower it each time. Side effects of this diet is that you will feel grouchy and awful sometimes. Keep yourself busy, maybe do some exercise (releases good hormones, so you get the rush but you also burn calories which increases the defecit even more!).

I see this is a very old thread but I’m going to respond because i am sure others will read through this as i’ve done and want an answer to man’s question.

When you fast you run low on blood sugar first and then on glycogen in your tissues. This is what causes your fatigue. It could also be some dehydration and low body salts so do drink a salty broth at breakfast time if you can. Food is energy. Lack of food results in lack of energy. It’s normal. Hence the reason why on fast days it’s best to be able to take it easy and not have to do anything mentally or physically taxing.

I’d say the restlessness is not part of average fasting and would be something that you’d adjust to. Its probably feeling bored because you are used to eating at certain times or more frequently and so your brain might start preparing you for food. Then food doesn’t come which could result in agitation. But this response will surely change.

Toast for breakfast is not ideal fasting food. It is digested quite fast and does not sustain you for long. As someone said above, its more effective to skip breakfast, then eat your first meal when you start feeling hungry. Make it a big meal but make it nutritious with Low GI carbs, protein and some fat. Make it devoid of or use smaller quantities of foods like bread, pasta, rice and potatoes. Make it mostly vegetables and or protein and ideally, olive oil for cooking or salad. These are the foods that will provide the most nourishment and last you the best for a fast day. I don’t even bother with protein but think i probably should eat a bit more to reduce muscle wasting. I find that eating mainly vegetables serves me really well.

Also milk in coffee is fine if you count it in your 500/600 calories allowance. Milk is not a free food on any diet. I always count 1/4 cup of milk in my coffee since i started measuring it. You might use less but its still got calories and they add up.

Some people may prefer two meals but make the bigger one first if you get hungry. I’d suggest waiting to get hungry – but not ravenous – before you eat your first meal and then eat to satiety on mostly low calorie foods. Bulk is good when fasting. Vegetables are the most bulky. So is soup so i quite like some soup in the evening. But basically the bigger and better my lunch meal the less i need in the evening. So far i haven’t actually been really hungry in the evening. Just more wanting to eat for something to do.

Try a meal like this:
3, 4 or 5 vegetables chopped into bite sized pieces
Steam them with a pinch of salt
Saute them in olive oil about 3 tsp and some garlic.
Add herbs and spices of your preference if you wish.

suitable vegetables: potato (not too much), pumpkin, beetroot, carrot, leafy greens, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, mushrooms (don’t steam), onion, capsicum, beans, peas, celery. Pick the ones you like the most.

This will be around 300 calories. Which leaves plenty left for cups of coffee throughout the day. Or an evening soup.

I do not base my suggestion on eating a big meal at lunch as the first meal for reasons of weightloss in the first instance but to minimise hunger. My approach is to optimise appetite management and nutrition so that you can then maximise weightloss over the long haul.

The upshot of my advice is keep your salt intake up on fast days and a miso broth or similar is a good choice in the morning, drink plenty but there’s no need to drown yourself, eat when hungry and not before, eat a decent sized meal to satisfy your appetite rather than drip feeding yourself through the day – which never really satisfies you. Make your meal low GI carbs, preferably vegetables, and probably protein and some fat. Drink milk in your coffee.

If your glycogen stores are are not large, then we need most of our glycogen and protein for fuelling the brain which can’t consume fat in the short term. And underfueled brain will cause fatigue and slow thinking.

What explanation do you give to the OP for his fatigue?

if i am wrong about the blood sugar that’s fine. I carelessly linked low blood sugar with insulin spikes and low glycogen. Low glycogen in the liver generates hunger (which we can usually make ourselves ignore, and then we get it again but much stronger – the boink, when our tissue stores are depleted. This one will knock us around a lot.

Athletes tend to have very full glycogen stores from previous days eating and they have bigger muscles which hold more fuel than ordinary people so i don’t think they are an ideal comparison to us.

Pattience, on the right hand side of the forum overview you can find links to the most recent posts, Michaels “Food for thought” posts and links to various press articles.

Regarding the OP here: I do not know him therefore I cannot tell the reason for his fatigue. If it was simply due to not eating on a fast day he should not be fatigued until the end of a feeding day. I am sure you agree that a decent meal at the start of a feeding day should remedy something due to simple hunger or low calorie intake.

I know you mean well with your advice, but no one size fits all. While you and I get along fine on just one meal per day, others need to eat several small meals during the day to feel well. A lot of the need to eat is in the head and we are all more likely to stick to an eating regime if we feel good with it.

As regards the glycogen and athletes, it is true that athletes often have larger muscles and that these muscles contain more glycogen depending on the training phase they are in. But muscle glycogen cannot be released into the blood stream, it does not help to maintain blood sugar levels. They are also using more glycogen when exercising so that their muscle stores of glycogen deplete during a fasting day just as they do in non-athletes.