IF, 4:3, 5:2 - Maintaining a healthy weight - Chapter 2

[Breadandwine]

This thread is for those who have been practicing IF (Intermittent Fasting) for quite a while and are now at or nearing their target healthy weight. It's also for anyone who is doing it for the health benefits alone.

How do we experience fasts and balance a stable food intake while having little or no weight to lose?

How do we ensure that this WOL keeps us at the healthy weight long term rather than revert to yoyo games?

Several of us have been stable at our goal weight for a few months, now, and others are joining all the time. Obviously, the more the merrier!

Here is the current main thread for posters practicing IF to lose weight.

There are two other associated threads:
This one, which is an absolute goldmine of Tips and Links on how to practice IF, and the research behind it.

And here is a treasure trove of 5:2 recipes, mostly low calorie for fasting days, but there are also recipes for when you want to treat yourself. And, now we're maintaining, we'll need more of these!

frenchfancy thanks so much for the link. I will check it out when I get back from the gym. Am in between weights sets. AmericasTorturedBrow I ran earlier listening to Mr B's The Next Day album. It's fantastic and a very good beats per minute for running.

It's awesome isn't it? Best work since Heathen, which DD was born to

Our organized training rides are really strict about wearing headphones but I'm getting back into commuting by bike (quite an education on the streets of LA) so need to get the old Walkman out and download The Next Day for some hill climbs....

Good fast day yesterday and feel so good for it. Means I can have my Tuesday treat with DS today of frozen yoghurt after his gym class sans guilt.

Friends over for dinner tomorrow and I'm fasting and one of the friends needs to make a concerted effort to eat more veg, so I'm going to dig out Laska's curry - they're American so also a good excuse to introduce them to curry!

Americas yep agreed, and Heathen was simply splendid. I was reading an interview with Irvine Welsh who was blaming his obsession with The Next Day on stalling the writing of his current novel, so he's had to put the book aside and work on a screenplay of Glue instead .

Those of you not bothered about losing any more weight (for now), do you restrict your fast day calories to 5/600 cals still and if so why?

Another fasting day today - no calories yet and don't plan on breaking my fast until the 23/24 hour mark later - then a 36 hour fast on Thursday. I know I'm maintaining but I really enjoy fasting and old habits die hard.

But I've planned a 500 calorie meal for dinner and then it struck me that restricting the calories isn't necessary... or is it still (for health benefits)?

That's a good question, Bssh.

My son-in-law, back in December wanted to know why the need to restrict calories after a 24 hour fast. The answer is, if you are no longer wishing to lose weight, there is no need. The cells of the body are stressed sufficiently by the 24 hours without food - we think!

I'm doing a 24 hour fast followed by a low calorie meal one day a week, then later in the week a 24 hour fast followed by eating normally. If i was organised enough I'd join the two together on Monday and Tuesday, then I've got 5 days of pigging out indulging myself.

So fasting serves two purposes for me - it allows my cells to repair and me to overeat!

Laska I'll come back to you shortly.

Thanks Breadandwine. Cell repair, 24 hours... yep that makes sense. So 500 cals is neither here nor there. Okay, will eat "normally" tonight but moderately - no binging, but eating just to satisfaction (which actually tends to be a 500 cal meal anyway). The 36er coming up on Thursday will give me another opportunity to stress those cells .

bshh I have still tended to restrict on fast days now I'm maintaining, usually 700 though, rather than 500. This is purely as my TDEE is low >1500 and I find this tricky to stick to all the time as we like quite rich food.
I find if I do this once a week and do a 1000 cal mini fast, I can have the treats at the weekend that I want without feeling guilty.

twoshiney I have had a positive blood test for coeliac (with levels so high, I got the official diagnosis straight away!) and am having the biopsy to assess tissue damage in a couple of weeks. Doc has told me to eat plenty of gluten until then (I'm calling it my last hurrah!). It's strange that I've always felt well, but when I started 5:2 in February, I noticed how much better I felt on fast days, when I ate NO carbs. The blood test picked up why .
I may pick your brains on low cal gluten free food!

Eeurgh!! .. Too many carbs on this £1-a-day diet .... I want to come back to 5:2!!

((Laska)) Its for a good cause.

Fast days : yes, I strictly restrict. Because then I can blow those calories on wine at the weekend!

Thanks TIP and ellen. My TDEE is a little over 2000 cals which gives me more leeway in my indulgences. But I will play it by ear on a week by week basis. I never watched my weight before so now I will always be more vigilant.

ellen Sorry to hear you're coeliac.

On my blog I have a post about gluten free breads and baking:

nobreadisanisland.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/gluten-free-breads-and-baking.html

And I've just posted a low cal gluten free recipe on the 5:2 diet recipe thread.

Laska just read your blog - you're doing very well, I'm so impressed!

The pie looked good, and it should last you most of the way!

But that 200g of lard!?!? You missed a trick there, not making your pastry from s/raising flour - wouldn't need any fat then. Not that I've ever made Tonight I made a lentil and cabbage pie using a soda bread crust. Just flour, salt and water - and I'm surprised just how good it is. I'll put up a blog post about it later. (Won't have the '5:2 diet' tag on it, I'm afraid! )

Still loads of carbs, though!

Laska don't worry, you are doing amazingly well and it's only for 1 week with only a few days to go. If you can do 5:2 with great results for nearly a year then this should be easy for you (says she who's glad that it's not her!!)

fast days I restrict still, although don't worry if I go over by up to 100cals, but that's becasue on normal days I overeat, but now I've started cycling to work again I'm hoping that the tide might change. second fast day of the week today, and definitely finding myself much less hungry in teh days, but can't quite trust myself not to have lunch, and save all my cals for dinner, but maybe todays the day, another coffee with milk would definitely be required though.

sort of fasted today : have discovered that a whole carrot cut into chunks takes about 20 minutes to eat, makes it look like I'm having lunch - so the clients do not freak - and is stuff all calories.

will do the same tomorrow and possibly Friday : leaves calories free for the evening and weekend when I'm hardly burning any because of work.

HI all . Luckily for me VP its only for 5 days and I finish tomorrow . but I wont be fasting probably until next week now (it being a bank holiday), but will definitely have a few days of eating low carb and light after this potato-fest. but its been OK really and I've raised a stunning amount of money . Obviously I've also stunningly outed myself as you now all know who I am and where I work but it was all in a good cause..

B&W will definitely look at your pie crust , though I dont intend to eat any more pastry until I go to Greece later on for my holiday ( but cannot resist the Spanakoptia (cheese and spinach pie) there!

This is just a quick hello again as I'm off for a very early night ..I have a Poll station to run tomorrow so very early start and late night , followed by the count next day .But as I have finally been dragged into the 21stC with a new smartphone after using a very old simple nokia for years , I will try and work out if I can email or post successfully with it if we have a lull in voters (Bound to!!) .

A mini-fast (16:8) that incorporated gluten in the required quantity and came in well under my TDEE. I hope I've got my mojo back!

hhhmmm I slightly sabotaged my fast day, ate the remaining portion of laska's aubergine curry, with an added spoon of low fat cream cheese for creaminess, very good, and then i ate the kids leftover crusts from their scrambled egg on toast.....which of course then properly set my appetite off, so i allowed myself some white chocolate buttons (126 cals) as a one off sugar hit, so i reckon i've gone max 750 cals today, which isn't a disaster as i am just maintaining ish, but you know when you are cross with yourself becasue it isn't what you had planned?

anyway, I may try tip's trick of a carrot for lunch tomorrow and then have an ordinary supper and a glass of with the kids tomorrow, for a half fast.

I love the carrot tip, tip.

mocnk I hate that too, and why I manage to sabotage it?! So annoying, but 750kcal really isn't that bad.

We were going to have friends over for dinner and as I'd planned mushroom and kale lasgane and had baked a fig cake for pudding, thought I'd just do 24hour fast then no restriction dinner. They've now cancelled so I'm going back to 500kcal but seeing as it's only 1.5hours til the children have dinner I may as well make it a 24hour fast too....

This is good as it's my birthday a week on Sunday and have realised we've got foodie things happening almost every night next week, and after a month of abstinence, a lot of drinking!

Morning all,

Have only fasted Sunday this week, but Sunday went well. Not fasting again probably until next week though as I'm cycling 130 miles (or at least attempting to cycle 130 miles) tomorrow. I'm taking a few teams away to Great Yarmouth for a football tour and thought I'd give it a go. It's further than I've ever gone in one day, but at least the winds forecast to be blowing the right way ....that's if you believe the weather forecast.

Tbh really looking forward to getting back to 4:3 next week, the difference in how I feel is staggering when I don't give my body a 'break' period.

Good luck all and Laska well done on seeing your challenge through

Does anyone know where Ezzza is? Haven't seen a post from her since beginning of April.

I've been thinking ...... (DH hates it when I start a sentence with those words as it usually means more work for him ) it will soon be the first year anniversary of the Horizon programme which changed so many of our lives for the better. Would it be good to mark the occasion somehow? I'm not too sure how as everyone getting together would be a geographical nightmare, but maybe we could all put up our photos of us now (again) for just a day (although not sure how to do this myself and possibly each do something really special on a designated day. Perhaps the date of the prog as we all started at different times, and then we could all share what we did to celebrate on here afterwards??

Does this sound OK or a bit daft?

I could go and say hello to Dr Mosely this evening .....
he is speaking at the Discovery Centre in Winchester at 7.30 pm : only 20 mins from here ....

ooh do TiP :-)

I was on the train coming back from a meeting in London the other day and suddenly twigged that 2 women opposite were discussing "it" and trying to decide whether or not to try IF I couldn't resist telling them it works so we had a nice 10 min chat and they were convinced to give it a go. I managed to NOT refer to MM as "St Michael of Mosely" .

Mimi Spencer MN web chat tonight BTW! on 5:2

I stayed home and wrote up my report instead !
had soup for supper and been good by NOT having a drink.
looking forward to a morning at the gym tomorrow : but golly I feel untoned

NSV ALERT!! Bought some American eagle US size 4 jeans off eBay that I was aiming to get into by my birthday (10days time), I tried them today to see how close I am and they fit!

I'm weighing in at 133lbs but am slimmer than I was a month ago so kind of maintaining now I suppose, except the muffin tops still prevail - but I think I just need to exercise those away. Also I've not been drinking alcohol the last 2 weeks and I have a week of birthday celebrations ahead so they might be tight again by the weekend, but then it's 3 weeks til the mammoth bike ride I'm doing for charity so will be focussing on that.

But yay!!!