To be shocked it’s been this easy to loose weight!

Oh dear! Did you really mean to say this?

I'm finding that even quite infrequent fasting has been enough to drop my hb1ac. I only manage I few mornings a week but this inspiring me to do it more consistently.

It's weird as slimming world was always saying you need regular meals to keep your metabolism ticking over. I wonder if that's not true and it's more about keeping hunger at bay for over eating at lunch? I personally never feel any more hungry. I did a nhs lifestyle eating course and they said you can't make up for lost meals by eating double at the next meal and explained why. I can't remember the details.

I'm also drinking a shot of kefir in the morning. The kids are horrified

Just adding here- when I was loosely doing intermittent fasting years ago, I read that some people dissolve an Oxo cube in boiled water and drink it. This helps a bit with headaches due to the salt it has.
It only has about 10 calories. I used to do it a lot, need to do it more often!

You are missing my point. I am not stressing over food, I know what I'm doing each day. I have kept this up for over a year, and miss it when I stop (eg on holiday). If there was some way I could repair a relationship with food affected by decades of dieting, I would have done it. This is much healthier for me than weighing all my food to calculate the calories.
Fasting isn't exactly a new fad, it's been around for ever. The diet industry won't like it as it does not require any money to be spent on it.

Precisely, it’s not going to help deal with an unhealthy relationship with food, it’s just going to exacerbate and encourage it.

We are so fearful of food we don’t even allow ourselves to think about it.
Thats not “health” at any size is it

Yes I agree it’s extreme and it’s not for me. I do 18:6, sometimes 20:4 and it’s fine, it’s simple and I feel really focussed in the morning which is unlike old me. ED is discussed at the end of that Chatterjee podcast and Dr Fung explains that the research done doesn’t track that it is triggered by fasting. Obviously it’s not to be recommended to someone suffered from anorexia or bulimia. Primarily fasting is aimed at those who are obese as a way to lose weight. The vast majority of people do not have an ED.I think we can all understand there are limitations and contraindications for any diet without saying it’s no good for anyone.

I think a lot of people trying fasting have also tried every other trick in the book - I know I don't have a healthy relationship with food, fasting enables me to think less about food than other diets.

I agree! I have read about the benefits of fasting. However I think in all the excitement there hasn’t been enough focus on the drawbacks for people embarking on (another, probably) restrictive way of eating.
But we know a lot about the negative effects of other kinds of diets in general.

36 hours is really extreme.

I have, I have read a lot about fasting but also I have taken an interest in research that fasting and other diets can be triggers for disordered eating behaviours and reinforce unhealthy attitudes towards food (moralising/demonisinh), and that extreme diets can be damaging mentally and physically in some ways as they work against your body’s natural hormones and hunger cues, cause anxiety and stress over restricting and not “allowing” the body to eat, can cause nutrition issues. Etc.

@EatStopEat the reason there are concerns about the sustainability of this way of eating is that most diets of one kind or another show short term weight loss but long term is very difficult to maintain and the effect that dieting has on the body’s systems means that it’s more likely to gain weight again as soon as you go back to normal eating, which then triggers further unhappiness and a yoto dieting cycle which is even more damaging to your body.
That said, again I’m not here to tell you what to do or pee on your parade, just to encourage caution and awareness.

This way of eating may have physical benefits but can have negative effects for some people eg. it’s not teaching and understanding of your body’s needs or developing a healthy approach to food. An all or nothing mindset is rarely a healthy one.

Personally I am an advocate for healthy relationships with food and body, which is usually less popular and more complicated that “try this one rule to lose fat” but then I don’t really believe that losing fat should always be the main driver of all our attitudes and behaviours and that we should constantly be fighting/punishing our bodies in order to get what we want (which is so hard, if it was easy to lose weight the whole world would be thin and we wouldnt have overweight people with eating disorders) The book Intutitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole is worth a look.

I’m interested in what happens in the body when you’re fasting: repair and healing. Lots of research in this area is exciting.

Just on the shake issue, why not make your own in bulk? I have one of these every day and make up a few days worth in advance. Be aware that you may have to give it a stir after a few days to reconstitute the texture but it tastes exactly the same. I do five portions at a time, put in click top mugs, about 250 mls each.

Berries (frozen is fine)
oats
milled flax and chia seeds
spinach
walnuts and/or almonds
unsweetened protein powder
(if you feel you need to flavour it/sweeten it a bit add a few drops of vanilla extract).

That keeps me going for hours, although I'm not dieting as such, I don't eat much F+V so this gives me a pass!

Best just to eat less and move more.

What do you think fasting is exactly? It's just a means to eat less, so long as overall nutritional needs are being met over a whole period, fasting periods are just a means to mentally find manageable ways to reduce intake. I don't believe it's more than that personally and don't think it will be any more scientifically successful than reducing calories by the same amount another way as you are doing, but it works for a lot of people.

I did gather from Dr Fung and others that fasting to burn off stubborn midriff fat (you will know about this if you're in your 40s+) is more effective than other weight loss strategies. Interested to know if anyone's found this to be the case? I'm not particularly overweight but this is the area I need to lose from most.

drchatterjee.com/why-intermittent-fasting-works-with-dr-jason-fung/

"Eat less move more" is such trite patronising nonsense and what works for one person will not work for another. OP has found something that works for her. You seem to have found something that works for you. Great. No need to come onto a positive thread as if you're some kind of expert and piss all over it

No it’s not bad for you. Listen to or read the research.

Very bad for you. How on Earth are you going to sustain this forever? Best just to eat less and move more. That’s what I’ve done over the last 10 weeks and I’ve got from 11st 6lbs to 10st 4lbs. Aiming for 9st.

I really agree with being able to eat what you want on some days. I do general calorie counting now, though I have done fasting in the past and I love the fact that I can eat a roast dinner/chocolate/jacket potato with butter and full day cheese etc and really enjoy it (it just means I’ve used up a lot of my daily calories in one go at times)

I tried slimming world once and was miserable (and didn’t lose anything!) as I didn’t have any foods to look forward to and all the low fat stuff just meant I never felt satisfied.

When I did do fasting, if I was craving a particular food I would just think to myself : “You can have that tomorrow” and knowing that made it much more manageable! Well done OP

@macaroniandcheeze look up the work of Dr Jason Fung on insulin and fasting.The body holds hundreds of thousands of calories in energy when overweight. When we don’t consume food, the body will switch to using these stores. Obviously it’s not for everyone and should be done carefully.

Each to their own but not eating for 36 hours is alarm bells to me.

If a thin person told you she was starving herself for 36 hours at a time you’d consider it an eating disorder.
But an overweight person is congratulated and encouraged, because we value weight loss above all, over mental and physical health.
As a society we actively encourage disordered eating practices in overweight people and that is quite disturbing when you really think about it.

I’m not trying to piss on anyone’s parade - seriously OP if it works for you, that’s fine. I don’t have individual diet advice to give nor do I know anyone’s medical history on this thread. But it is much more extreme and unsustainable long term than standard 18:6 fasting, and prolonged periods of not eating followed by eating whatever you want is not only building on an unhealthy relationship with food, it’s creating a dysfunctional relationship with your body’s natural hunger and satiety signals and creates anxiety and stress (mental and physical) around restriction and being “allowed” to eat - something our body literally has to do, is programmed to do.

Yes, I can see how a shake would be better on a fast day to keep nutrients up - though I genuinely like green smoothies, they're very energising.

I do OMAD and I love it. I’ve lost 6 stone and feel like a different person. I genuinely feel unwell when I eat during the day now, sluggish and bloated and miserable. It wouldn’t work for everyone but it works brilliantly for me.

Can I ask what ADF stands for?
Well done btw, this is an inspiring thread