hi guys, i've been reading up on fasting quite a lot recently and to take it one step further than Mike Moseleys 5-2 i have started doing a 1 day water fast then one meal a day during the other 6 days, i started this on a quiet Sunday back in October and have lost 12 kg since then, i feel so good on this W.o.E that sometimes i let the fast go on for 36 hours, so i will have dinner on Saturday then not eat till lunch Monday and i didn't put on or take off any weight over Christmas/NY but ate no carbs (so sad not to have mince pies - but totally worth it. i keep the calories around 1000 per day when i do eat and i have never had so much energy - anyone else fast as well?
1 day Fast: hi guys, i've been reading... - Weight Loss Support
1 day Fast
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Ketogirl
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Sorry but doesn't sound much fun to me. Eating is one of life's great pleasures. I know we are all on here to lose weight, but that's because we all love food! Not eating for 36 hours doesn't sound very healthy to me, but that's just a gut feeling (no pun intended haha!)
in reply to
I'm quiet taken aback by the very low calories?!
This really doesn't seem like a healthy approach to weight loss🤔😕
Ketogirl in reply to
it is one of life's great pleasures i completely agree, but there is also an enormous burden that goes with it, what shall i cook for myself, when will i go and buy it, how do i prepare it, and now there's all the washing up, not to mention stuff like the carbon footprint or factory farmed aspect of it, i think my skin and my stomach are very grateful to me though and i think as i approach goal weight i may drop the 36 hours and go back to the OMAD or 2 if i continue to lose but at least i have learned a new tool to control any potential weight gain.
I have found at some times after I've had quite low calorie intake for a bit; that it's only when I increase the intake that weight starts to come off again!
36 hours seems too long not to eat. Be well! 
Ketogirl in reply to
yes it's odd that isn't it! but then a calorie is not a calorie as 100 calories of watercress is not dealt with by the body in the same way as 100 calories of chocolate brownies - i never really enjoyed breakfast so i only ate at weekends as a brunch so it is no hardship for me to go that extra bit without, i am not suggesting everyone do this i am saying this has really worked for me after years of trying every diet out there! suddenly the weight came off and is still coming off
Presume you are on a ketogenic diet , Ketogirl? Although from what I read this can have short term benefits, it is not really a long-term, sustainable and healthy way of life, surely?
Ketogirl in reply to
that is such a good question Tubby but so far i have not found it hard, my go to was always a slice of cheese or a handful of nuts rather than a biscuit, but i do love bread more than anything and even though i was eating hardly anything at all in an attempt to drop the increasing scale rise, it was only when i stopped eating bread and no sugar in the coffee - going keto that the weight came off - now i make keto bread with almond flour and i have my, forgive the pun, cake and eat it
in reply to Ketogirl
Well Ketogirl, I have to admire your staying power!
kantara71 in reply to
I think that is part of the problem Tubbyteacher, our relationship with food these days. I wake up and am thinking what to have for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We are surrounded by ready meals and processed foods, sugary snacks, cookery programmes on the television etc. And told to eat more carbohydrates than we need to. I am trying to change my mindset to change how I look at food each day. I have lost weight over the past year and this was mainly by reducing carbohydrates in my diet and also making sure I was in calorie deficit over the week. I still have around 25lbs to shift and will be trying IF to help to achieve this but I really want to change my mindset on how I relate to food. I grew up in the 50s and 60s and cannot recall very many obese people, nowadays I see them everywhere? What has changed? Too large a portions and the wrong type of food.
I would have thought that around 1000 calories a day was ok for weight loss, even if you were eating every day, especially following a keto diet, so why do you feel the need to fast for longer than one day a week?
I follow a more low carb, low fat approach and keep carbs to below 50gms a day and this gives a steady weight loss and allows a slightly more flexible and varied diet.
John
i did want to kick start a swift weight loss and now that i am approaching goal weight i can ease off, but i was reading up on autophagy which happens when you fast and have seen amazing results in the quality of my skin and hair and nails i love the absolute cleanness of not eating if that makes sense, one day when i don't have to think about it but know full well i can enjoy 1 2 or 3 meals the following day i have found it really liberating.
in reply to kantara71
IF is doing it for me, Kantara. But I totally get what you are saying about the change in attitudes towards food over the past five decades. Food was rather boring in our household back in the 50's. I can remember my mother making me sit at the table until 3 in the afternoon to try and force me to eat boiled marrow! Yuck!
I love food now and love the variety and love cooking, but as you say, it is hard to keep portion sizes proportionate. And our food comes too cheap nowadays. Bogof offers encourage us to buy too much and also to waste it.
Ok, sermon over. Good luck with the fasting Kantara.
Extended fasting can lead to feelings of euphoria, so you need to be careful that these extended fasts don't lead to anorexia.
The scientific research on the effects of fasting has found health benefits in mice, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of research on humans. I fast occasionally but personally don't feel it's a good idea to do it too often.
Might be a good idea to check that you are losing fat and not muscle?
Penel i see that the studies are really mixed but some studies are really based on severe calorie restriction rather than pure water fasting, i love food far too much to ever be anorexic, promise! i think anorexia is more mental than physical as anorexics think they are fat whereas i can see my BMI on the NHS telling me i need to lose weight, and the NHS BMI calculator encourages people to be closer to 18.5 than it does to be at the top end of 'normal' - someone had already said to me that i might be losing muscle and not fat so i did have that checked and yes i have lost some but it is a tiny proportion to the overall - i'm wondering if all that loose skin (protein) that i would normally expect to see with quite swift weight loss has been gobbled up by all those lovely autophagic vacuoles at work.
blast! Another term to look up now - auotophagic vacuoles?? Still non the wiser 
Think I will have some ice cream
Autophagic vacuoles, also known as lysosomes. Involved in cell metabolism yes, but responsible for avoiding loose skin? I doubt it.
morning sporty girl here is a quote directly from the nephrologists mouth about the loose skin "Think about those bariatric surgery shows on TLC where surgeons remove 20-30 pounds of excess skin after weight loss. Yes, that’s all protein that should have been catabolized. As an aside, in my clinic where we do a lot of intermittent fasting, I have not yet sent a single patient to the plastic surgeon for removal of excess skin, even though weight loss sometime is over 100 pounds." and the whole article on protein is here
intensivedietarymanagement....
and that whole blog is about fasting, IF, autophagy, reversing diabetes, fatty liver the works - i have found him and the science enlightening
I know of people who successfully follow the 16:8 approach of eating as they near their goal, and have used that alongside 5:2 successfully. Eat within an 8 hour window (not restricting calories), fast for 16 hours. Stop eating at 8pm, start eating at midday. They use the calories for 5:2 (500 women, 600 men).
Hats off to you for managing a whole day fast.... mind you, I've never tried it intentionally.... but I always thought I'd never manage 5:2, but found it surprisingly easy!
we have been so indoctrinated to eat 3 meals a day and snack in between times - a way of life that has seen obesity and diabetes (diabesity) rise to unprecedented levels - do people deliberately set out to get fat and unwell? i don't think so, if the government guidelines tell you to eat your five a day, lots of grains little fat, well we do as we are told because it's good for our health and it appears to have been a disaster, we are told we will die if we don't eat and yet animals when they are ill stop eating for a reason, and very sick people want nothing to do with food, our bodies are telling us something here. we none of us know what we can do till we try - hunger pangs feel a lot like stress in that very first day, you can face them down, drink some water and then they go - i think i now have a fasting muscle! you wouldn't do a marathon without a little practice so why would you fast for a day or 2 without a little practice, maybe just skip one meal but don't over compensate at the next, eat as normal - i find it really liberating
I agree about not eating 3 meals a day. I currently eat one a day and one "snack" (like a boiled egg on its own, or full fat yoghurt 100g with some frozen berries).
I actually feel better for it - and like you said in an earlier post, less money spent on food, less time on planning, cooking, preparing, washing up, etc.
I may just try it one day, just to know how it feels! I've done 5:2 plenty! I like to feel that my mental resolve is stronger than the lure of some food!
I think if you can conquer how you behave around food (eg, just because it's available, doesn't mean to say you have to EAT it!) then you are half way to making weight loss easy!
I was once fasting at a conference. I sat watching everyone helping themselves to hot and calorific food at lunchtime (mini samosa, spring rolls, crispy duck, sausage rolls, etc). They asked if I wanted help to get some food and I told them "No, I'm fasting today!" From their shocked expressions, I may well have replied, "No thanks, I'm a raspberry and raspberries don't eat!" 
that's very funny! i saw some pictures at the National Obesity Conference of what lunch was - sandwiches, bag of crisps a diet coke and a snickers bar wha??? oh yes when you say you are fasting you might as well say you have the plague, then people say oh this wont hurt, just have a little, everything in moderation blah blah blah - if you said my doctor has advised me not to eat that they pressure you a little less, but food and hospitality is ingrained in our culture it's hard for us fasters
I'm not sure your method of dieting is that healthy. Certainly not what Health Care Professions Registered Dieticians would advocate or any GP. Unfortunately it's not the guidelines that are wrong, it's simply people don't follow them. Either by ignorance or purpose. Eating is a balance and weight loss should be a balanced approach not cutting out whole food groups or advocating ketosis as a healthy way to lose weight. Ketosis in the long term damages kidneys as it stresses them and can lead to protein and ketones in the urine which can be dangerous
you are completely right, the HCPRD certainly don't recommend it hence the phenomenally high rates of Obesity and diabetes in this country (we are officially the fattest people in Europe) - ketosis is a means to becoming a fat burner rather than a sugar burner, by definition to be in ketosis you will excrete ketones through your urine, hence the use of ketostiks for people wanting to see how much into ketosis they are, as we were burning ketones for energy for much of our 90,000+ years (the last 10,000 have been since agriculture started) i am fairly sure Mother Nature and the human body would not have created something so normal if it were to be harmful - i am in a facebook group where some people have been in ketosis for 15+ years (since doing Atkins) and have no kidney problems, many of these myths about ketosis are spun by the food industry, at last a lot of research is going on in this area of carbohydrate restriction - my guess is in 5 years time sugar will be regarded as every bit as evil as smoking is. Read Gary Taubes his blog or his books
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