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

[Talkinpeace]

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?
How do we ensure that we keep ourselves looking great rather than just thin?

Many of us have been maintaining at our original goal weight for a few months, and others are joining all the time.
Obviously, the more the merrier!
It is also worth considering whether a second, leaner target might be achievable.

You'll find the first two maintenance threads and all the main 5:2 threads for posters practicing IF to lose weight here on the Fasting / 5:2 on the diet forum. We're currently on thread no. 23, but there is a new main thread every 2-3 weeks.

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!

PS thanks to Breadandwine (proof that this forum welcomes everybody, not just Mums) for setting up the last thread while my old name that set up the first one was on 'holiday'

Boredom = creativity (eventually) - very important in the summer holidays!

My 7yo, previously disinterested reader, declared himself bored a couple of days ago, then on getting zero response (my usual is more along the lines of "it's not my job to entertain you") settled down and read a chapter book we'd got from the library that morning. I pretended not to notice (or he might have stopped) but inside I was whooping and high fiving the universe.

Sometimes I'm fun mummy - but occasionally enough that it's not expected everyday [evilmumemoticon]. Mostly I like (and expect) them to amuse themselves - that was the point of having 2 close together (So glad that worked out!)

Painting with water in the garden is a great one - big bucket, big brushes: hours of fun!

There should be an opportunity, sometime over the holiday, for a session such as this with your kid(s):

nobreadisanisland.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/breadmaking-with-kids-original.html

Last time I made bread with my GCs, my grandson made an umbilical cord out of bread dough - he's well into pregnancies since my daughter, his Auntie Emma, is now 36 weeks pregnant!

Tomorrow I've been asked to make pizzas in this Dragon outdoor oven at a Halcon Fun Day:

nobreadisanisland.blogspot.co.uk/2011/04/amusing-clay-oven.html

Last time we made 60 pizzas in the morning!

B&W that looks SUCH FUN.
Mine still love a BBQ and then after supper we get old bamboo canes and do 'fire sticks' like giant glowing sparklers that they wave around ... and bamboo burns really slowly and really cool

I'd love to do bread making with DS but that is firmly his and daddy's and the bread maker job

LOL
what about doing plaited / braided bread or funny shaped rolls : so not 'real' bread but 'fun' bread
roll the dough out flat, then spread olive or tomato puree over it, then roll up and bake : silly but fun

Yep, you could certainly leave the serious bread to daddy and DS - while you and DS make pain au chocolat, iced buns, jam doughnuts (baked so they're healthy), etc.

Or for lunch one day 'sizzlers' (a circle of dough with a strip of tomato or mushrooms down the centre and a sprinkle of cheese on the top - fold one side over then the other, but leave the ends open. When they come out of the oven you can hear the cheese sizzling - hence the name!) or smiley face pizzas.

Put any of those terms in the search box on my blog and up they'll come.

Just remembered there's link to a film of me on YouTube making sizzlers on the blog. Watch that with your DS and you'll both want to make 'em!

Inspired!! It'll make a nice change from the various cakes and biscuits we seem to end up making despite my cries for a goats cheese souffle

loving all the suggestions for kids activities, definitely checking out your bread things on youtube Breadandwine but while my son totally entertains himself DD who is ADHD and dyslexic cannot entertain herself in a way that doesn't demand attention from someone else or cause huge amounts of mess and destruction! (like the time she snuck up before anyone was awake and emptied out all the flour and sugar over the kitchen floor to make snow angels, then came down and woke me all covered in flour to excitedly get me to come and see!), she is very demanding, although her and Ds really good friends (like betsy I had mine close together to be friends and it totally paid off!) and bless him he does what he's told even if he finds her narrow selection of games a little repetitive, or likely to get them both in heaps of trouble, but at least they are both imaginitive!

anyway I have 3 days coming up of full on kids, weather forecast good, and no idea what to do, really want to escape somewhere, but I'm not great on my own....i.e. I need another adult and nearly everyone is away. going to have to put my thinking cap on.

great weigh in today, after a NFD yesterday, 10 10, which is 8 pounds lost in just over 4 weeks of being back on track, so should be easily on target for 10 6 in Sept.

americas it's so difficult when there are lots of social things to send you off track, I think for me doing an extra fast last week and then a couple of half fasts too really helped boost me, when I only do 2 fasts and then eat normally over-indulgently for 5 days I just don't get anywhere so I think 2 full fasts and 16:8 or half fasts on other days is a good discipline to get into even if I don't alwasy quite manage. i know you can do it, and when you do lose you really lose lots, so don't worry!

I can only imagine what it would be like to get to the losing without thinking about it that some of you are struggling with, oh to be able to eat olives, nuts cheese and wine to try and keep my cals up! (not that I don't appreciate how worrying/frustrating that must be, finding the balance is so hard!)

Interesting documentary coming up on Thursday 8 August BBC2 9.00pm called "The men who made us thin". Jacques Perretti looks into the diet industry. Has a good review in Radio Times

mocnk I can only eat and drink like that if I skip meals! Otherwise it isn't possible. I love non salted cashews and almonds but they are so high in calories....sadly a glass of is too wet without them.
vp thankyou for the heads up on the diet industry programme next week, I hope it is as good as the one about the men who made us fat.
I'm going to the UK for the weekend for parents golden wedding anniversary I'll report back on how many comments I get saying I'm too thin from older relatives I haven't seen for ages!

Anglaise
just make sure you are tanned and then tell them you are doing athletics training so are lean ...

Thanks TIP I'm going to take my running gear so that will be more proof!

Hope it a nice weekend regardless (then tell them to stick it). Damn I wish I could see the programme, sounds interesting - there are a lot of food industry style docu on Netflix (fat, sick and nearly dead for one) but they're all in that over the top SHOUTY Americanized style and I can't bear watching them anymore. Oh for a sedate and subtly hardcore warning and dark British documentary!

Wednesday was a lovely indulgent day but lots of healthy and yummy food - lunch of an immunity boosting juice with sushi, dinner of soft shell crab followed by halibut and a shit ton of fresh veg and a lush California cheese platter (taken out for dinner by my lovely and wealthy uncle who always splurges on us), I'd have been well within TDEE if it weren't for the pre dinner cocktails, champagne and two bottles of red we sank between 3 of us. But it was delicious!

Yesterday ended up a half fast day as I wasn't massively hungry after such a huge dinner then had to miss my weekly swim and another bad night from DD, think I came in at about 550kcaks before a handful of peanut m&ms before bed, then a second!

Proper fast day today but will save all calls for a protein heavy dinner as I'm hoping to get out for a training ride tomorrow morning, bough of we get ANOTHER bad night I imagine exercise will be put off again.

But feeling much better about myself reigning in control again, and enjoyed Wednesday so much more for it

Anglaise1 I didn't catch the programme about 'the men who made us fat' but it's made by the same guy, Jacques Peretti so I'm looking forward to seeing it

ATB expect the programme will get to youtube maybe??

Interesting thing I just clocked on TDEE
put in my height and weight and then played with age .....
18 years = 1669 calories
28 years = 1613
38 years = 1557
48 years = 1500
58 years = 1444
68 years = 1387
78 years = 1331

Wow! That is an eye opener

ATB I was pretty stunned....
DD is 15 so has been 'managing her weight' and she gave me a bikini that she's too well endowed for that fitted her post breast feeding middle aged mum (size 8 urban outfitters though!)
but a 20 % drop in calorie need just due to age is utterly revealling

Especially when it doesn't change a huge amount for say every 5lbs you lose but goes a long way to explain "middle aged spread"....and why, even though I was a fair amount fatter, why I seem to consume a huge amount less calories in booze now than 10yrs ago - I should be a lot skinnier now than then

tip very interesting, and something to keep an eye on rather than just assuming that my TDEE will always be pretty much the same. damn, get older and we get to eat less yummy food, ah well, at least we're learning the skills now that we have to miss food some of the time in order to get to really indulge and enjoy it at other times. and it' also good lessons to pass onto our children as they grow so hopefully they don't have to learn all this the hard way when they are older.

Hear hear MOCNK! A little delayed gratification goes a long way, and it's easier now we are fairly ancient!

...I remember thinking: when I'm old (like 80 or so!) then I will start smoking, drinking, doing all those things you 'shouldn't' do because they're bad for you. When you're so close to the end, who cares?

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work that way.

My youngest sister died 8 years ago, of cancer. She couldn't eat any of the things, or indulge in any 'bad' habits she would have liked before...they just made her sick. Ditto for my beloved 90 year-old Aunty who died earlier this year. She told me she would LOVE to drink whiskey now, but couldn't! What a pity that was.

I guess I'm saying we do reach a place of acceptance. That when you are finally doing the things you 'should' be doing, because you want to, not because you think you ought...that's a good place to be.

Eating less overall? I'm happy with that. As long as I can eat the things I like...and with 5:2 I can indeed!

That is so interesting TiP; that simple fact by itself could probably account for the creeping weight gain that so many people experience in middle age, never mind all the other additional explanations. I am too idle, but as a keen number cruncher perhaps you could work out roughly how much weight a person would gain who, say, maintained their aged 20 calorie intake and energy output levels into her fifties?
Why isn't everyone made aware of this I wonder?

this article alone
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929282.200-food-vs-you-how-your-dinner-controls-you.html
makes this week's New Scientist worth buying
fascinating and UTTERLY vindicates the choices many of us are making on 5:2

bordercollie
if I have a bored hour I can probably load enough data into a spreadsheet to reverse engineer the formulae and work it out!