I have now done fast days 4 times. I know I hated it the first time but since then it’s been brilliant.
I choose to do my Fast day from dinnertime until dinnertime (from about 8pm – 8pm the next day). This is good for the sort of lifestyle I lead because I can still have dinner with the hubby or go out and have dinner with friends if I’m travelling.
I don’t worry too much about eating 500 calories – I know the principle is that you need your body to go into the mode where it is working on your fatty reserves instead of storing fat. So I generally have a banana or something worth about 150 calories for breakfast and salad for lunch. I absolutely don’t snack in between. I give my body the chance to do its thing. If I can’t find anything I will have nuts or something up to the value of a couple of hundred calories but I am not obsessing over what I’m eating on those fast days – I am generally coming in below 500 calories.
On the non-fast days I am constantly thinking about when my next fast day will be.
There are a few things I have learnt
- I love the feeling of being hungry and choosing not to eat. It feels like on my fast day food has no power over me. I am totally in control. This is a great feeling for me and a surprise because I was actually expecting the opposite. Instead of obsessing over food I am free to do whatever I want because I am not limited by eating.
- I don’t enjoy the other 5 days because there are no restrictions on them. I don’t enjoy eating any more
- When I have dinner I expected to go overboard but actually I eat less at dinnertime on the fast days than I do on the other days. I just don’t want food. In fact my portion sizes have reduced again after already being smaller thanks to Thinking Slimmer.
- My tolerance for crap food has reduced as has my ability to eat in quantity. I am really struggling to find things to eat on the non-fast days. If I eat anything fatty or sweet I feel sick. Clearly my body is cleansing itself and the tolerances built up over time are changing quickly. It is encouraging me more towards clean eating which is definitely a good thing
- Fasting makes me thirsty and I am drinking a lot more. This is also a good thing because I have always had a problem with not drinking enough.
In parallel, as part of my “Beat the body” approach I am also doing the Mutu system. These exercises are really simple and I have found that despite back to back nights on a sleeper train last week I was still able to do my exercise – there was enough room in the cabin. On Friday I will have been doing it for 2 weeks and so will go into Phase 2 of the exercises. I haven’t looked at them yet so it will be interesting to see what that involves.
I am weighing myself randomly and trying to look more at the change in body fat than the pounds I’ve lost. So far, I think, in 2 weeks I have lost over 1% of my body fat which is good. I think I am toning up but I’ve not been in a position to do any clothes size tests due to a mental travel schedule. I am planning another fast day tomorrow so will take some measures after that again.
I will keep you posted on other differences I notice over time. I would definitely recommend the Fast Diet but only if you read the book. Don’t do what I did and do it off the back of other people’s opinions. I think it’s important to understand what you are trying to achieve so that you can make the most of those fast days.
