I F - 5:2 - 4:3 - Maintaining the healthy weight

[TalkinPeace2]

This thread is for those who have been doing IF for quite a while and are now at or nearing their target healthy weight.

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

How to we ensure that this WOE does keep us at the healthy weight long term rather than revert to yoyo games?

I have now been at the same weight for a month. I'm happy with that. I'm also still enjoying the 24 hour fasts because of the clear mindedness I get during them.

How about you?

b&w congratulations!

filly good luck with everything. I may well have given up on fasting if I was in your shoes.

Whoop Whoop to lots of people for lots of reasons.
HAPPY thread :-)

b&w congratulations

Just popping in to say congrats B&W and hope everything goes ok filly, I imagine the stress is definitely a contributing factor to the missing period.

DH and I decided to do a 3 day juice "cleanse" but have mini cheated by adding in a handful of nuts mid afternoon for some protein. Then out for dinner Thursday and back to IF in Friday, when I'll check back in again properly.

We've also started shredding again properly, starting from the beginning and aiming for full consecutive 30days. Managing despite DD back to shitty sleep

B&W Congratulations! Also, love your post on the other thread - I can't manage 4 hours dancing any more and I'm half your age! Looking forward to having such stamina when I've been IFing for as long as you .

both DH and I got home from work really tired tonight and said stuff it - and went out for Prix Fixe dinner with the kids. Ah well. Fast tomorrow :-)

Americas amazing willpower for staying motivated with a poorly sleeping baba! I think you?re a lot more exercise savvy than me but even evil jil says one day of rest a week now. Apparently cirque du soleil have researched it and give their gymnasts/clowns a day off from training, (tricky thing is when it extends to two or three which it is for me!) How does the juicing feel? Your dh seems v supportive J

for me with regards to shred (wont bore with excuses) but I got a pedometer recommended on the other thread and today have walked over 10000 steps so pretty happy! Shred first thing tomorrow!

Have been kinda low carbing today but with the spirit of its not a fast day, so had 70 carbs according to mfp and some bread . Trying to eat mindfully too though. No road kill pheasants, foraging or barefoot frolicking was partaken in

Breadandwine that?s my favourite kind of news! Congratulations I do the nightime breakfast sometimes makes sense to enjoy the meal at leisure the night before and the effects do last into the morning

fillybuster it prob is the stress hopefully it comes soon so one less thing to think about. Rare ((((hug))))

TIP whats prix fixe? Eating out with family and saying sod it is just the right thing to do sometimes

Congrats to B&W I'm jealous of all you grandparents - mine aren't quite ready to give me grandchildren yet, too much single living still to do, but I'm ready when they are .

Working from home today - always tricky food wise - but had made a veggie chilli yesterday and turned the remains into a good hearty soup for lunch then had a skinny pizza for supper - small wholemeal tortilla wrap for the base, topped with a bit of pasta sauce, artichokes, onion, olives, egg and chilli flakes - light sprinkling of hard cheese on top. Yum. Some light grazing during the day, dried fruit, nuts, the odd banana. Not a fast day as such but a sensible eating day - still compensating for the lovely buffet lunch I had on Saturday

Congrats B+W

I managed to eat sensibly yesterday but no shred. I'm going to shred L2 this morning. I was going to do a half fast today but my friend (different friend we are doing a tour) has bought some lovely bacon in specially because she knows we can't get it. It is a true test of willpower.

Giraffes
Prix Fixe is fixed price menu (in this case French)
I have learned that if you go out to anything like Indian, Chinese etc, the set menus are much better value - you get smaller portions of a more balanced meal and are less likely to overeat and will get more veg than most people choose from a buffet or normal menu ...

hello hello..I'm here again after a couple of days out.. and fasting today after a not so good few days and although I haven't weighed i feel that i may have gained a bit around the middle (although it could be a restaurant curry hangover from last night..!)

Also i've completely ed out on Shred , (apart from once this week.). We've been shifting office though (and packing and moving it ourselves) and I'm feeling knackered, (though i must have worked had a good workout for the arm and leg muscles as they are aching now ..) But today we are finally in and unpacked .. and I resisted the 'celebratory' fish n chip lunch)

But the fast today has been fine it was 4:30 before i knew it and i had only eaten a couple of slices of ham , 5 almonds and a cup of miso soup .. just had of my aubergine chickpea and spinach curry and some beetroot , so that's now it for today.. .and I will fast again tomorrow I think .. and Shred also (though I'm still on part one ..

congratulations B&W!! fantastic news !!

So our three day juice cleanse ended up incorporating nuts and raw fruit and vg, so essentially a juice and raw food cleanse. It was great actually. I think we're both going to try to do every Monday as juice/raw food days, so looks like I'll replace one fast day with this so some weeks do 5:2 and others 4:3. dH has already become a bit evangelical about the juicer and a nice additional unforeseen benefit is him getting up with me and the children in the morning to make us all breakfast juices AND totally cleans up afterwards, even wipes the surfaces down! So hopefully juicing will not just boost his immunity but seems to have upped his domestic skills. Yay!

Totally normal day tomorrow - went shopping for a new dress today and while I'm still a medium in Zara I had a NSV that I've gone down a bra size (back, not cup) which means a loss if back fat, double yay.

Fasting Friday and bought in my old favourite frozen chioppino soup.

Laska I'm still on L1 too, I've started again this week. Sod it.

ATB That all sounds fab :) When it stops being so flippin' freezing this side of the pond I will likely embrace the joys of juicing on a fast day again. The only time I managed to get the DH to clean ours he managed to cut himself on it so I doubt he'll be doing that again .

I had the same nsv this week too, smaller boobs too actually but hey, never liked the bigger ones that much anyway...

Shred fail for me too this week - managed Monday but real life and it's difficulties have seriously got in the way this week, ah well. Fasting today on a very interrupted night's sleep (can't believe this used to be the norm for me), almost thought sod it but actually if I don't fast then I'll just try and bump up my energy levels with un-ideal food, and come to think of it that's how I got overweight in the first place! 4ish years of sleep deprivation...

Caffeine though: merrily using some of my calorie allowance on a very large, hot, freshly ground coffee with a good splash of full fat milk. Yum.

Thanks, everybody - it's going to be a long wait until August! And not just for me!

Teaching until 9.00 last night, so it was easy to extend my usual fast - so 26 hours and 20 minutes is now my record.

Love to hear all the stories of success on here - was telling my students all about IF and passing on the links to these threads. Lots of interest out there, everybody seems to know someone who's IFing - we're becoming mainstream, folks!

OK my friends advice time.

I have maintained at 9.4 - 9.8 ish for about 6 weeks now (upper and lower limits, most of the time it's been 9.5-9.7) and have a pretty good idea of what I need to do to keep that. I am tantalizingly now at 9.4 and feel that with a bit of effort I could go down to the goal of a 9st - 9.4lb spread.

While I'm tempted to go for it as I seem to be "in the zone" I do know the dangers of going too low and not being able to sustain - though in the past that has happened when I have "been on a diet" and then started "eating normally". This does feel different. OTOH I am very comfortable with my current food intake and I am a size 14 top, 12 bottom. nice .

OTOH again - I am clearly not the weight I was when I was this size back in the 70's so I want to take the whole 'vanity sizing' thing seriously (don't look at this link if you don't want to be depressed vanity sizing and I can absolutely pinch a lot more than an inch .

So do I hang around a bit longer at this weight or go for it and start doing some calorie restricted fasts?

breadandwine Woop Woop! huge congratulations, grandkids must be great, but your daughters first child somehow super special, (my mum says she is closer to her daughters than her daughters in law, so she got to be fa moe involved with pregnancy etc) My sister also pg with her second and due the same time.....all these pregnancies making me feel very broody....how old is too old?

filly I'm keeping everything crossed for you, and I'm sure it's the stress keeping AF away.

laska your curry sounds delicious, I really want to do some curry cooking soon, my DS (age 4) is alwasy stealing mine, so we need to do some mum and son cooking of interesting flavours.

americas I'm slightly in awe of your healthiness, I'm steadfastly keeping my head down, despite buying shred dvd, and weights, I've not managed to do it again after attempt with DD. But my daughters 7th b'day tomorow and party on Sunday, then hopefully I shall have some time.....ha ha famous last words!

cats what fasts are you doing at the moment? how much more do you think it would take to tip teh balance back in a downwards direction? i don't think there is any harm in trying if you wish to be slimmer, i can definitely pinch more than an inch too, I've also worked out that as things stand I am just maintaining, doing 5:2, but I am really not very careful about tdee on other days, so I'm thinking do I throw in an extra half fast til dinner one day a week and see if that helps, or do I try more consciously to stick to tdee on non fast days, I'm leaning towards the first option, as I enjoy teh feeling of enjoyment i get from savouring my food when I'm really hungry, even if I have 1000 cals day, that might still send me back to losing.

non fast today, and yesterday was a fast, but then I chucked in 2 choc digestives at 9pm in a kind of childish yah boo sucks way, but don't feel guilty!

now for some work, have a good day all.

Morning all,
well as it was really quiet at the gym this morning I hopped onto the clever scales thingy, mainly to get a body fat reading as I am intrigued to see whether the guff in many of the websites really is guff.

According to the scales my BMI is 20.8 and my body fat is 28.2%
According to it my lowest healthy BMI is 18.5 and my lowest body fat 26.7%
BUT
that BMI would make me 6.3kg lighter than I am, whereas the fat measure only allows me to be 0.9kg lighter

So somewhere along the line the two measures are DEEPLY out of kilter.

When I had my whole body scanned (BMI 22.93 body fat 31.9%)
I had 1kg of fat in head and neck and 18.5kg of fat on the rest of me.
So I've lost 5.9kg since then, but only 2.6kg of fat ...
Sorry, but that does not make sense as my skeleton has not changed, nor has my muscle mass.

Which brings me back to why I spent that pound (money)
IGNORE BODY FAT SCALES - work on pinch an inch. Its truer to your build.

talkinpeace but.......those scales aren't massively out in comparison to your full body scan? if someone just wanted a general idea it might be a good thing to do? just don't get too hung up on it maybe?

mumofcrazy
my real concern about "fat measuring scales" is their gross inaccuracy - like by over 10%
I'm a skinnymalink now, but am concerned that those who have lots to lose will assume they have even an iota of accuracy.

hi mumof - I'm doing without-food fasts on at least 2 days for about 16 - 20 hrs depending on the day - then eating healthily but not deliberately restricting to 500cals. If I went back to 3 fast days at 500 cals I know I would lose the rest - assuming I pretty much eat sensibly the rest of the week. To maintain at the lower weight might not be too bad once summer arrives and it's salad season - I do love a good salad! I might think about it for another week - have got some overnight hotel stays coming up for work - always tricky when trying to eat sensibly not to mention the bar and socialising after dinner

cats can I ask how tall you are? I'm 9st 9lbs at the moment (trying to get to 9st6) and already my size 10 bottoms are getting much looser (and they've fitted since I was 10st 1lb!)...I'm also quite (ahem) top heavy, but don't want to lose too much of that....

B&W amazing news!! How exciting! I'm so so so far off the grandchildren stage but already looking forward to it :)

TiP the VirginActive gym team were hanging out my office foyer last week.....according to them I have a BMI of 21.1 and a fat % of 27.3%, but they meased it by getting me to hold some odd little vibrating gizmo, and I must say the whole thing felt very unscientific. The oncologist who gave us my mums results yesterday pointed out that all skin appears as 'fat', so maybe that accounts for some of the results you were seeing?

Mumofcrazynamedkids I just wanted to say how much I love your dcs names...didn't get a chance to respond earlier in the week....

No shredding, and not much excercising for me, although I did have a great 50 mins on Sunday evening (boxercise, cardio and some weights) with the xbox, and felt so good after.

We got my mother's results yesterday. Its not great (in the sense of, its really not a good plan to get brain cancer) but she has managed to get the only type that is even theoretically treatable, so they are going to give that a bash. I got the impression that the statistics are not promising, and they have warned her that the chemotherapy that they need to use is the most unpleasant one of the lot, but I am trying to remain focussed on the fact that they are approaching this as potentially treatable/fixable, and no-one was making doom and gloom noises. She's seeing some of the leading specialists in the country (one advantage of being in central london), so we're definitely not giving up hope. Even so, I suspect the new few months are going to be horrendous...

I'm fasting again today. I briefly touched 9st8lbs earlier in the week, but back up to 9.9.5 as of today...have a dinner party to attend in a posh veggie restaurant tonight, so my plan is to finish a 24 hour fast by 8pm then go out for dinner, but be reasonably controlled...best I could manage as we've got all sorts of family commitments tomorrow and over the weekend that preclude fasting, and I couldn't face it yesterday with my dh having an operation in one hospital and my mum getting her results....

Sorry to hear about your mum Filly fingers and toes all crossed it goes well.

As for me, I'm 5'8" but more your mum's age then yours I think so the weight becomes more stubborn and turns up in different places!

Fillybuster
Get in touch with these people www.brainstrust.org.uk/ as they have lots of information and resources that might be able to help your Mum and You ...

Interesting point about the skin. I still prefer pinch an inch.

cats that was a very interesting link re vanity sizing. I always thought that today's size 10 was the old size 12 but now that I'm in size 10's I can see that I was way out. In my 20-30's I was a size 12 and weighed 8.5 to 9 stone.

I now weigh 10st 4lbs (5'5") and am a size 10 so I guess that according to that link If I weighed around 9st I would be a size 6 which would be the old size 12 (hope you're following this

but I read recently that once you reach middle age you should not attempt to reach the weight of your younger self. And to be honest if I went to 9st now I would be skinny. Everyone says (and I agree) that I look lovely and slim now and I think that to go down so low just to be able to say that I'm now back to old size 12's would be crazy.

I think that I may possibly try to get down to 10st just so's my clothes are very comfortable and that will give me a bit of room for normal fluctuations.
My advice to you would be to forget about the 'old' sizing numbers, take a good look at how you feel and how you look at the size you are now and then decide whether you'd like to drop another few lbs or not. That's what I'm going to do. I'd like to stay here for a few weeks trying to maintain and then perhaps drop those extra 4. We mustn't lose sight of the fact that it's health, fitness and the 'feel good' factor that we're after, not numbers

oh Filly I'm sorry to hear about your mum. Chemo is so tough but you need to be aggressive to fight such an aggressive illness. I hope the treatment works well for her.

B&W Congratulations! Sorry I've only just seen your post, have been a bit busy lately. I bet you are as well now. :) I do think a daughter's baby is just a little tiny more special as mumofcrazy suggests, in terms of any involvement during pregnancy etc. I know I'm closer to my mum than my MIL, and poor MIL is generally relegated to whatever news my DH can remember to pass along (language barrier as well which doesn't help!)

And now I'm just hoping that comment is taken in the spirit it was intended! No doubt if I posted it elsewhere on MN I'd be flamed left right and centre..

Vanity sizing- absolutely. It's disheartening to try on clothes at H&M now, mostly because I know I have do pretty much go up 2 sizes from my normal size. It shouldn't be, of course. I think they're just one of the few retailers which hasn't done as much vanity sizing as others.