Merged Intermittent Fasting -- Good Idea or Not?

pakeha said:
I live as far from the coast as is possible, yet even in my village (in the hill country to the north of Madrid) we have a wide variety of fresh fish daily.
Click to expand...
I don't know what the statistics are now, but around 1992 we had, in Spain, the second highest per capita consumption of fish of any country (the first highest being Japan).
 
Hell, I live less than 2km from a Greek harbour with plenty of active small fishing boats. Fresh fish costs *a small ******** fortune*.

All very well talking about fresh fish when equally nutritious frozen fish - at half the price - can be bought at the supermarket.

Let's not get romantic about nutrition here ;)
 
GlennB said:
Hell, I live less than 2km from a Greek harbour with plenty of active small fishing boats. Fresh fish costs *a small ******** fortune*.

All very well talking about fresh fish when equally nutritious frozen fish - at half the price - can be bought at the supermarket.

Let's not get romantic about nutrition here ;)
Click to expand...

Very true about the great frozen fish available.
 
MikeG said:
Yes, well, sort of......

Dinner doesn't signal the end of your restraint for the day (otherwise, you could eat whatever you wanted for dinner).
Click to expand...
Why the pedantry?
There is nothing confusing about what I said - 600 calories on a fast day.
You actually restrain yourself until breakfast the following day, so from one evening, through the whole of the fast day, and until breakfast the following day, (30-32 hours ish) you only eat 600 calories.
Click to expand...
as I said, 600 calories on fast day.
One of the important lessons of the 5:2 diet is not to be too pedantic, though. ...
Click to expand...
:boggled:
 
Well, there was I being all pleasant and helpful, responding in a friendly manner to your misleading response to someone else's point, and you decide to go and get all snarky......

How about some further reading on the subject?
 
pakeha said:
Just seen, a presentation of under 50 calorie snacks for fasting days
http://www.shape.com/healthy-eating/diet-tips/50-tasty-foods-under-50-calories
Click to expand...

I've found that small snacks like that on fast days are counterproductive -- all they do is whet my appetite. What works best for me is to get all 600 calories in one sitting, an early lunch. That keeps hunger at bay all the way through the evening, and then it's close enough to bedtime that looking forward to breakfast is more pleasurable than actually eating something at that point. (And it turns out that a Chipotle chicken burrito bowl, appropriately assembled, comes in at just a hair above that 600 cal. A happy coincidence!)
 
Buckaroo said:
I've found that small snacks like that on fast days are counterproductive -- all they do is whet my appetite. What works best for me is to get all 600 calories in one sitting, an early lunch. That keeps hunger at bay all the way through the evening, and then it's close enough to bedtime that looking forward to breakfast is more pleasurable than actually eating something at that point. (And it turns out that a Chipotle chicken burrito bowl, appropriately assembled, comes in at just a hair above that 600 cal. A happy coincidence!)
Click to expand...

I started out doing several small (100 cal) "meals" to get me through the day, but have settled on 250-300 around lunch time and then the same at dinner. Going to bed hungry is harder than going to bed "not full". I may try your approach in a pinch, though, if I have to have lunch out for some reason. Thanks for sharing it.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I started out doing several small (100 cal) "meals" to get me through the day, but have settled on 250-300 around lunch time and then the same at dinner. Going to bed hungry is harder than going to bed "not full". I may try your approach in a pinch, though, if I have to have lunch out for some reason. Thanks for sharing it.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I tried the split lunch/dinner method too, but found that it left me hungry for the whole day, while the single-meal method left me satiated through most of the day, and then what hunger came at night was not any worse than the hunger I'd feel after a 250-300 cal mini-meal. Plus, it's closer to what Varady studied in her research, so that's an added bonus.
 
I'm just finishing a 36 hour fast and was impressed by how much more difficult it was to manage my hunger appetite than during a 24 hour fast.

Next time'll be easier, since Ill manage the calorie intake in accordance to my appetite.
 
I have to agree that little bits here and there made it harder than just blowing the whole wad at once when I couldn't stand it anymore (around 1pm). It kinda makes sense since at 1 I've been food free for about 18 hours and putting something substantial in there at that point can easily power me thru to bed time. Snacking throughout the day just annoyed me and made me more aware of being hungry.
 
About 1200 calories has been my min without having constant headaches and being irritable. I'm horrendously hungry the next day, but most of the time I can still keep it to about 2500-3500 calories the day after if I have enough protein. Last weekend though I lost it and probably had 5000 calories Friday and 4000 Saturday.

Also, my workouts are abysmal on fast days and I simply can't do them the day of or after heavy weightlifting. Not that I tried a heavy day on a fast day, but trying it the day after was futile.

I'm still 254 lbs. :(
 
tyr_13 said:
About 1200 calories has been my min without having constant headaches and being irritable. I'm horrendously hungry the next day, but most of the time I can still keep it to about 2500-3500 calories the day after if I have enough protein. Last weekend though I lost it and probably had 5000 calories Friday and 4000 Saturday.

Also, my workouts are abysmal on fast days and I simply can't do them the day of or after heavy weightlifting. Not that I tried a heavy day on a fast day, but trying it the day after was futile.

I'm still 254 lbs. :(
Click to expand...

It may not be the best plan for you. And really, you need to find something that works for you.

In fact, it may not be great for me. I lost a few pound the first week and have maintained that, but not lost much more sense. I have some compounding factors since I am also trying to add some muscle. So, my body shape is slowly improving, but not my weight. At least not yet.

If you look in the running thread you can see my musings about how I need to add more cardio, I just hate it so much!!
 
That could very well be, but it actually felt like I was doing something. As stupid as it sounds, the hunger and headaches were a type of reinforcement that something was happening. That I was doing something.

On the plus side, my pain has somehow motivated my room mates to lose weight as well and they both have more to lose than I ever did. They're my friends and I want them to stay around a long time.

I don't actually hate cardio, but my knee and elbow often cut it short. I have made strides there though. I've been doing a few different lifting exercises for my legs and it's helping my knee tremendously. Maybe I had an uneven build. I'm going to start trying to run again.
 
Here's my plan: I first calculated my BMR and daily caloric need, but for myself at the weight I want to be. Over a period of a few weeks, I've gradually reduced my daily intake to that amount. Now I intend to just maintain that as a weekly average composed of high and low calorie days. I'm also trying to maintain the recommended macronutrient ratios. I occasionally go for 24 hours without eating anything anyway, so now I'm doing it once a week. I figure by the time I reach my target weight, I'll already be used to eating the maintenance amount for that weight, and the occasional low or no calorie days will offset a feast day now and again while still keeping that weekly average. We'll see how it works out.

Once I get my body fat percentage into a safer zone, I intend to complement the diet with a similarly structured excercise routine and gradually bring my average daily activity level up a notch, from "somewhat active" to "active."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom