IF / ADF / 4:3 / 5:2 / 6:1 / 16:8 ~ Maintaining at a healthy weight ~ Chapter 4

[TalkinPeace]

This thread is for those of us 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 many 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 three maintenance threads and all the main 5:2 threads for posters practicing IF to lose weight here Fasting / 5:2 on the diet forum. We're currently on thread no. 35, but there is a new main thread every 2-3 weeks.

There are three 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!

Since I started the last Maintainers thread the importance of exercise has come to the fore, as part of our general health and to help weight loss. BigChocFrenzys thread is here

frenchfancy
I've long been of the opinion that any bought food with less than three ingredients is basically good for you
butter is wonderful stuff - as is olive oil
fats are essential to build brain proteins and reduce depression
fats are not the enemy - unless taken to excess

then again, at school we used to have "snack lunch" which came with a pat of butter - all my dieting friends did not eat it - I ate equal amounts of butter and bread and was skinnier than any of them.

Oooh FF I love butter. I never eat diet stuff, just moderate the good full fat natural things. Breakfast (when not fasting) is toasted baguette or brioche with beurre aux cristaux de sel de mer de Noirmoutier....heaven.

Another butter fan here; always have been. Full-fat all the way for me except for milk which, in its full-fat form, I find too creamy in my mouth.

Full-fat was all I ate when calorie counting in 2012 too.

Yes, butter is amazing. Give me a small chunk of bread with lashings of butter rather than loads of bread with no butter any day! I love my 10% fat Greek yoghurt too. But, like Bssh I can't stand full fat milk and prefer skimmed.

sorry B+W but butter is one of the reasons I could never be vegan and as I don't believe in vegetarianism given the way the dairy industry works

Each to their own, folks. But, FF, if you don't like the dairy industry - why do you support it through eating butter? Presumably you think it's cruel (which is why I have nothing to do with it), yet you countenance that cruelty!

I myself don't think vegetarianism is morally justifiable, which is why I became a vegan. Luckily, I love olive oil and never give butter a thought.

{{I'm interrupting this message to bring you this lovely music website - presently playing Vivaldi. No adverts, just continuous light classical music!}}

B&W
out of interest, what were the decision factors for you to become vegan at 63?

I'm quite open about being a meat eater, but a darned fussy one on prov enance so I hope to save hedgerows by my food choices

PS I luff vegan food, but only some fays a week !

Good for you, TiP - it's all about eating mindfully, isn't it!

I started as a veggie because I was trying to avoid BSE. Once I took the decision to give up meat* I started looking at the dairy industry and was appalled! That cows need to be kept in calf to produce milk, I understood, but my decision was made when I discovered that the calf is taken from the mother straight away after birth - much to the distress of both - and that cows could live to the age of 30, but they're disposed of when their milk yield falls away after the age of 6.

I continued eating goat's and sheep's cheese - because they don't need to continually give birth to produce milk. But then I discovered the cruelty involved with these cheeses - so that was when I became vegan.

I'd also read that chickens are also got rid of when their egg production falls - so eggs were out. Then later on, Jamie and Hugh exposed the gassing of male chicks, which confirmed my decision.

My bottom line is that I don't want another animal to die so that I can live. And, in this day and age, in this society, that's eminently achievable. As I'm proving, you can be vegan and be healthy.

*BTW, I can never understand those who give up eating meat, yet still eat fish - when fish, it seems to me, die a much more miserable death than cows/sheep, etc.

It isn't that I dislike the dairy industry per say B&W more that I don't think eating dairy is any different from eating meat for the reasons you state so it is either be a meat eater or a vegan. We keep our own hens and buy beef from our neighbour who breeds rare breed cattle on the common land. We do what we can for welfare standards. But I'm not giving up my butter.

This butter talk reminds me of the 80's when we were told that margerine was better for us than butter - I still feel a bit angry that we were lied to about that.

Well, I've just had the most wonderful of breakfasts at Betty's in York - poached eggs on buttered crumpets and a fat rascal scone with butter washed down with a pot of tea. The service and atmosphere were great and it was probably the best breakfast I've had for years.

Just drafting my 5:2 review at the moment.

My 5:2 review:

I started 5:2 a year ago today and I've been maintaining a BMI of 21 for six months. I can't speak enough about how my life has changed for the better since I started.

What's changed over the year:

Snacking happens very rarely now, a stark contrast to how I was before I started 5:2. If I want something snack-y I add it to to my meal.

Even though I've been actively seeking and preferring healthy foods, I've now acknowledged (after lying to myself for years when I was overweight) that I'll always love eating some nutritionally-barren foods which is fine.

I keep less crap at home - if it's not there I can't have it.

Realised I don't need so much food to live as I was having for years before I started 5:2.

Emotional overeating has been curbed dramatically and I'm more mindful about what I eat.

Feeling much more relaxed around food.

After three decades of struggling I now finally have the tools to keep my weight under control so for example if it goes up by a few pounds after an indulgent weekend away or something I now exactly what I need to do to lose it.

I feel generally happier within myself and am confident of never getting fat ever again.

For this year I want to maintain my new eating habits and aim to start doing weights along with my cardio at the gym which should give my body more strength and strip away the remaining flab; hopefully I'll end up with a body that I can feel comfortable with when I walk on a beach this summer in just a pair of shorts. Perhaps with the weight lifting my weight will go up another BMI number, but I don't know as up until last summer I'd been overweight for as long as I could remember so it's hard to know at the moment what my ideal weight should be. I'm guessing I could end up around 11 stones 2 (currently 10 stones 9).

I realise and am happy with the fact that I'll be doing some kind of
fasting for the rest of my life. Fasting suits my lifestyle and I feel grateful that I found this WOE/WOL and the support of everyone here .

Southeast that's a wonderful review. Hope you copy it to the main thread to inspire the newbies.

Great review southeast!

I'm the same about veganism or omnivorism - I don't really understand not eating chickens but still eating eggs if it's the welfare that bothers one as the same processes happen regardless of what product you do or don't consume. I'm definately battling with reducing my dairy and cheese consumption since reading about the dairy industry. Butter I adore but have got used to not having it as American butter (and cheese etc etc) is crap tasting

I'm still eating fish and that will be the hardest thing to stop, if I do eventually stop consuming animal products. I don't eat much as it is but god I love sushi.

But I see it as a gradual process and much like fasting I'll be more successful if I approach it gently and make small consistent changes. In already at the point where I barely miss meat at all and don't crave it in the slightest

whereas I had a belly full of pork ribs for supper - but the farm that my butcher buys from is only a few miles from here and I know that they are happy pigs
and now I have happy cats chewing the bones!

could have done without needing to buy a laptop today though ... yashin fracking puters

Everything consumes some other form of life. Mindfulness is good. I grew up in the country knowing exactly where my food came from. I used to say: never eat anything bigger than your head, and: if you can't face killing it yourself, don't eat it. Eating animals that have been raised well & killed humanely, or caught in the wild...well, I have become a hypocritical, fish-eating pseudo-vegetarian, who also eats beef & lamb at Argentine asados

Nice review southeastdweller - it's quite exciting hitting that one year mark isn't it? If it works for a year then there's no reason not to do it for life :)

I made the potato & lentil salad (link above somewhere) served alongside half poussins (sorry vegans ) cooked in stock, wine, rosemary, thyme, celery, bay and lemon and some crispy green salad in vinaigrette. It was sublime, really delightful combination. I made a cherry almond clafoutis with ice cream and kirsch & cherry syrup for pud (I had one of those jars of black cherries in kirsch leftover from xmas). All washed down with prosecco.

Yum yum yum.

I'll be ready for Monday's fast!

I'm def more mindful eating than pure vegan - I don't fundamentally mind consuming animal products, just trying to be much stricter about where they come from, which is harder and much more expensive where I live but not impossible. Current internal struggle is I don't necessarily want to impose my opinions on my family but seeing as I'm the one that meal plans, shops and cooks, am I still prepared to buy stuff I won't eat myself so the DC particularly still are exposed to meat etc (DH is perfectly capable of getting a meat feast lunch during the working week if he wants it!)

Anyway, FD today, very much needed as I just haven stopped eating the last few days but TOTM this am which explains it! Going to drown myself in echinacea and vitamin c as well as I feel a horrid cold coming on

It's my one year anniversary of fasting tomorrow (well, Tuesday, but I fast on Mondays). Can't do nearly as good a summary of what 5:2 has done for me as Betsy and Southeast have done. The 5:2 worked for me but I'm still not a perfect eater. I know I'm generally more aware of what I can and can't eat to avoid putting on weight. I appreciate what I eat on a fast day, so mindfulness is definitely there.
However I can still eat cakes occasionally, and other bad things - the difference being that if I indulge in a cake or cookie, I skip lunch.
I still eat meat and fish, although never on a fast day.
I still snack occasionally and eat far too many unsalted almonds.
I don't like eating food that is calorie barren and have never eaten miso soup or the calorie free noodles or anything else like that. I'd rather not eat than eat something that I don't have any pleasure in eating - even if it is low in calories.
I always hated fast food so not eating that hasn't been a problem.
I think that fasting is good for the mind as well as for the body due to the self discipline involved.

A fatuous question, I know, but if all humans became vegan would there be any farmed animals left?

if all humans became vegan would there be any farmed animals left?
Nope
nor any hedgerows or copses or any of the othe infrastructure associated with animals

go look at the US midwest : 100 miles between trees
no thank you
I'll keep eating free range meat

chunks of India are vegetarian but they use milk and eggs and make cheese and use dung as fuel

to my knowledge there has never been a sustainable vegan food society once food miles and GM are taken into account

Hola fellow 5:2ers

FD today, so 'nil per mouth' until around 8ish tonight. (Works better for me to not eat at all during the day.) Will then have a huge salad with some sort of protein.

Musing upon something I have always remembered reading; a quote from Kate Moss, the english model. She got into a lot of trouble for saying 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'. She was criticised for encouraging anorexia...but in fact she is right! It feels amazing to finally inhabit the body size I am meant to be - minus the layers of fat.

The 5:2 mantra 'you can have it tomorrow - if you still want it' has removed my compulsion to overeat. I can have a small amount of something delicious and not want to eat the entire thing.

That is very un-Argentine. Apart from eating ridiculously late, there is a tendency for people here to put a little on their plate at first, then continue to go back for more, and more, and more...until there is nothing left on the table.

I am practising putting what I am going to eat on my plate all at once and that's it. It can be difficult to finish what i have taken...that's how different my eating has become. I never imagined i would get to the point where. I had to force myself to eat.

I am however eating a very healthy diet - what we think of as 'mediterranean' even though i'm on the wrong continent. Heaps of fresh local veges; home-baked wholemeal bread; olive oil; a little meat, cheese & fish; minimal sugar; hardly any processed or packaged foodstuff...and usually a glass of good red with meals when not on FDs.

Me me me again - sorry. But then I guess what we are all doing here is sharing our own personal experience, so I trust I am forgiven

Argentine diet sounds excellent.

Kate Moss has much less of an eating disorder than people realise. Its bods like Daphne Guinness who are weird. A friend is a model (regularly in the Saturday magazines now) and I know for a fact that she eats loads, but only healthy stuff like you are having wildwater and she is naturally tall and thin.

I've never thought Kate Moss looked toooooo thin though, yes thin but not properly bony and scary like a lot of the catwalk and couture models

Love hearing about your Argentinian life WW!! What's your blog address again?

Am doing a back to back FD - pretty hungry but can't fast again til Saturday as we have friends staying so may as well give it a go. Planning a vegan dinner party Thursday night - will let you know how it goes down!!

ATB A back to back fast well done you, I don't think I could. Good luck with your vegan dinner party on Thursday.
Am struggling enough with one fast day as it is c-c-cold, well compared to what the weather has been like recently. Socks on tonight I think.
Kate Moss looked very thin back in the day when she started and she was being compared to models such as Cindy Crawford and Linda Evangelista (who would probably be considered nearly plus size by today's model standard sadly!). The cigarettes must help her keep slim too.

Just noticed the 'Mumsnet loaf' thread I'm involved with has made it to top billing on 'Discussions of the day'!

Basically, I'm helping the Leics local editor of Mumset make her daily bread.

Heads up to everyone - Horizon is on tonight sugar vs fat apparently the results are shocking and surprising.