Tired and restless on fast days

This topic contains 11 replies, has 6 voices, and was last updated by  Pattience 10 years, 1 month ago.

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  • Hi everyone. A bit of help please. I have been on 5:2 for two weeks now. I am really starting to struggle with fast days. I have been having a breakfast, normally two slices of toast and evening meal anything around 300 cals. I drink black coffee and water during the day. I fast Monday and Thursday. My problem is that I start to feel drained toward the end of the day, even after my evening meal and generally feel awful…until the end of a feed day.

    Black coffee is awful, but I don’t like tea and drinks tons of water. Do you think it would be okay to have milk in my coffees all day.

    hi Stuartw and welcome to the forum

    it takes a while for the body to adjust to 5.2 and you have been doing it only 2 weeks, it does get easier though! I am not sure what to suggest, someone will be along soon with some suggestions no doubt, all I can think of is maybe skip breakfast on fast days, I have started to do that and I feel much better by the afternoon, and it’ll save you some calories for the evening too… re the milk I always add some, a tiny little bit wont make a huge difference calories wise…

    I am sorry I cant be much help, give it time.. fasting shouldn’t feel like a chore or dreaded, see how you get on for another week or so!

    good luck πŸ™‚

    Hi Angie090465,

    Thanks for the comments. I will take your lead on the milk as coffee helps me through the day. I am going to persevere with fasting, as the health benefits are too great to ignore.

    Thanks again

    Stuart πŸ™‚

    Good on you Stuartw!!

    πŸ™‚

    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!).

    Hi Stuartw, I have been on the fast diet for 2 weeks now. I always put milk in my coffee. I cannot live without my coffee and definitely would not drink it black. A coffee with a little bit of skimmed milk and 2 sweeteners only clocks in at about 15 calories. So even if you have 2 of them in the day over your allowance it is only 30 cals over. Dont beat yourself up about it, just carry on until you find something that works, and you will probably find that this little adjustment would make your fast days a lot easier. I skip breakfast and have about 3 – 4 coffees in the day and that still eaves me with 460 cals for dinner.

    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.

    Sorry Pattience, but you are wrong on several points. May I suggest you read Michael’s book and his recent posts here?

    “When you fast you run low on blood sugar first…”
    No, you don’t. Out bodies are perfectly capable to keep the blood sugar stable. Recent research has shown that even in people complaining of symptoms of hypoglycaemia the blood sugar is normal. See Michael’s recent post as well, he covered that recently.

    “… low body salts…”
    Again, our bodies are very capable of regulating how much salt you lose. Unless you are exercising in hot climates and lose a lot of electrolytes through sweating,our bodies will compensate a reduced intake but excreting less through the kidneys.

    “…why on fast days it’s best to be able to take it easy and not have to do anything mentally or physically taxing.”
    Again, research does not support this. Certain types of athletes do better when training in a fasted state, their progress is much better then. Short term fasting switches mechanisms on, like the stress response, that actually make you more capable to work out or work hard.

    “As someone said above, its more effective to skip breakfast,…”
    Please read Michael’s recent postings. Meal timing is not as important as most people think, in fact, it is downright unimportant for the actual weight loss part though it might play a role in other aspects of fasting.

    “Some people may prefer two meals but make the bigger one first if you get hungry.”
    What do you base this advice on? There is no research that suggests that the first of two daily meals needs to be larger, or that a larger first meal has any particular effect on weight loss.
    There is research suggesting that skipping breakfast leads to increased weight loss – but only, if you used to eat breakfast. If you were a habitual breakfast skipper, eating breakfast resulted in better weight loss.

    You are also somewhat contradictory in your advice. On the one hand you suggest eating plenty of protein, using olive oil to make salads and fry vegetables in, then you say that people should use low calorie foods. Oil and protein is not low calorie though.

    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.

    I don’t know where to see Michaels recent posts.

    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.

    This is true but i was thinking of the difference in athletes that comes from all the extra hormones and things going on in their bodies that result from the exercise. non-exercises don’t get those benefits and from my experience with doing lots of exercise, i am sure its a significant difference.

    True one size may not fit all but i still think that skipping breakfast and waiting til hunger kicks is going to serve the majority of people better. Anyway its worth trying different approaches to find the one that one that works best for you.

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