Thanks yoyoma It's great that my bf is along for this.

So, we just got through day 1 of fasting. We stayed on track calorie-wise...but we need to adjust things for day 2 of fasting on Wednesday. I just didn't want to give up my coffee (with sugar/cream), so that was 105 calories already...Here was our menu for today, I want to find more filling foods though.

I had coffee with cream and sugar, bf had a banana
1 cup steamed broccoli and cauliflower
1 cup homemade Tonkinese Pho soup (so good...) with 3 saltine crackers (my bf had 1.5 cups to make his 600 calories)
1 strawberry/banana smoothie
And LOTS of water.

We both are hungry right now, nearly bedtime, we're just so used to making a bunch of popcorn in the evening and watching movies, but there are no calories left...we'll probably have an herbal tea then hit the hay.

I think we'll both be fine with this new way of eating. Just 2 days a week is very feasible. I'm so glad I came across this thread

This thread isn't too active! Shame!
I'll try to continue on though. Today was mine and bf's day 2 of fasting. Our first week on the 5:2 and it was even easier today. I got 480 calories, he got 610 calories:

I had my coffee, he had his banana
For lunch, we had steamed trout with broccoli and cauliflower. We seasoned the trout with lime juice, lemon slices, rosemary and pepper.
We had some air popped popcorn this evening.
He finished the Pho soup from Monday, I had broth with some saltines.
Lots of water too.

I'm not even hungry!

We both noticed that yesterday (our non-fasting day), that we felt better so were more motivated to fast today too.

Everything sounds yummy! This thread does move super slow. I post in a few other threads for that reason, to keep myself on track and motivated. Tomorrow is my fast day and it's been tough, especially in the evening. Hot tea saved me last time.

Perhaps one of the reasons this thread is slow is that we are doing different variants of IF?

Chardonnay, it's fantastic that the 5:2 is working for you! I'm a huge fan of figuring out what works for you and I think it's not just different for different people, but I think it can change for the same person over time.

I love Pho, but I've never made it myself. Usually, when I eat out, I order it without noodles and hog all the bean sprouts. Bean sprouts are a pretty decent stand-in for noodles if I get them in quickly so that they cook a bit. Do you have a recipe that gets the broth to taste right? I know it's a beef broth, but it doesn't taste much like the usual beef broth I could buy.

Zoe, sending willpower dust your way and hoping things get easier. Although I'm loving my current approach, I did break myself in slowly (originally, my eating window started at 10 AM and didn't end until 10 PM!) and the transition period was tougher.

I have just officially moved my ticker down into the 140's after several days of weighing in there!

Yesterday, I ended up not being able to eat until 8:00 PM and oddly, I wasn't even particularly hungry then. I ate a reasonable meal anyway, and then I felt stuffed. Go figure.

I am very pleased with my current eating window approach, but it's super-specific to me. I really love knowing every day that I will be able to eat as much as I want later (but those foods do have to follow my specific eating rules). Also, I am an early bird, so although I generally end up just eating one meal at a normal dinner time, I am rarely at all hungry before I fall asleep. If I do start to get hungry, a cup of decaf with stevia and NFPM does the trick.

Which I guess brings up another point. I also allow myself a few unlimited calorie-containing beverages throughout the day. In my case, I have coffee with stevia and NFPM, tea (with or without addins), low sodium chicken broth, and home-made broths. The coffee is very important to me for the "not being miserable" part.

I do find that from about 4:00 until my eating window opens, I'm best off if I have something to distract myself. It's a very good time for me to get in a walk, do some chores like laundry or vacuuming, or recreational computer time. Some days I also spend part of that time commuting, and I don't mind getting caught in traffic as much as I used to, lol!

Yoyoma, congrats on the new decade! Tea and distractions help me a lot but I have to feed my kids three meals and I make most things from scratch. It's so hard resisting those little bites to taste things.

I love beef pho and make it in giant batches at home. There are lots of online resources for recipes and explaining the process. My first attempt yeilded a slightly fattier broth because I used too many marrow bones but even then it tasted so good!

Ok so.......I am so discouraged. I have been doing WW's for 13 months. I have lost 104lbs. I have 7lbs to my goal of 135 but I want to really get to 130 so I have some play. These last lbs are taking forever. I started the IF last week. I dropped 2.5lbs for that week which I am happy with. I weigh Saturday's. So I weighed 1/25/14 and I was at 141.6. I fast M-W-F and do WW's on Tues and Thurs and weekends. Now on the 25th we did go to Red Robin for dinner. I hate a Boca Cheeseburger and 3 cheese sticks and about 7 fries. I had a small breakfast that day and did a lot of walking at the boat show. No lunch. That was my only cheat meal however I did not consume more calories then if I was to maintain that day. I was 100 calories under in fact. I also work out 6 days a week M-Sat. I alternate between 40 mins of cardio with HIIT and alternate days of strength training and 20 mins of cardio. Today....(I know it's Thursday. Not weigh day) I am up 6oz. I know I know. Small fluctuation. However....My digital scale does say I am down in body fat %. Small consolation. Thing is I was going to implement this fasting protocol to MAINTAIN my weight once I was at goal. Do the same during the week but be a bit freer on weekends. Only indulging really on holiday's, vacations, special events and such. But if I can't lose and only gain although small how am I to maintain? And what the ****? Ugh I cried in the shower. Pathetic. I so just want to get to the maintenance phase so I can just get on with this new "lifestyle". Thoughts???

Too me, a fluctuation within a 5 pound range is maintenance. It's actually quite amazing you didn't go higher with that amount of sodium. The last 10 pounds are notoriously tough so don't let that discourage you. Extremely clean eating is needed so maybe focus on that in addition to calories.

Btw, congratulations on the 104 pounds!!!! That is amazing and inspiring!

Thank you Zoe,

I generally don't have an issue with sodium or at least I haven't. The thing is I want to be able to indulge in the restaurant food every once in awhile on maint. So I guess I am discouraged that if I gain with all this deficit how in the heck can I maintain. I know it's not much and I am thinking I should stop getting on the darn scale. But I do understand what you are saying. The sodium and water do like to play games that is for sure. And again you nailed it as I am now making a grocery list and changing up my eating variety a bit and adding more protein.

Hi CoolMom75 Some herbal tea in the evenings helped me too, evenings are snack time for me...especially since my bf and I love to watch lots of movies. Last night it was nice, I had some sparkling water with a few dashes of Angostura bitters and some fresh lime, almost fooled me into thinking I was having a cocktail lol!

Hi yoyoma It was nice to come home to see all these posts! I hope it keeps up! Congrats on entering the 140's!!! I know what you mean..I'm a fan of finding what works for you, in my case, I just love food and wine too much to eat/drink too little, so the 2 days a week "fast" are great for me because I know I can have some wine and cheese the next day, I don't feel deprived at all. We even talked about trying it M-W-F's because we both feel so much better, our digestion is great and we feel leaner, more energy too! Lol at not minding getting into traffic! I'm the same, as long as my mind is occupied, I don't even think of eating, and I"m with you, have to keep the coffee in for sure. But mine is caloric...I still have cream and sugar, so that's 1/5th of my calories on fasting day.

For the Pho soup, I've never had it in a restaurant, in fact, I'd never heard of it before my bf asked me to make it. I just looked up a recipe online and made it with some changes, my bf said it was delicious (I totally agreed!), but it's using chicken broth...anyway, here's my recipe if you're interested!

Tonkinese Pho Soup:

Ingredients:
2 tsp sesame oil
1 cup of chopped onion
2 tsp finely chopped fresh ginger
1 tbsp fresh lime juice
1 large thinly sliced chicken breast
10 cups chicken stock
1/4 cup of shiitake mushrooms
About 1/4 package of rice vermicelli noodles (probably equivalent to about 1 cup cooked - I used 1/4 of my package to keep the calorie count, the original recipe calls for 4 oz.)
1-2 cups fresh bean sprouts
Big handful chopped fresh cilantro
soy sauce to taste

Directions:
- Heat sesame oil on medium heat, add onions and saute until soft
- Add ginger and cook for a few minutes
- Add lime juice, then chicken, cook for a few minutes, stirring often
- Add chicken broth and bring to a boil
- Add mushrooms, cook on high simmer for 4-5 minutes
- Add noodles and simmer for about 10 minutes
- Lastly, add the bean sprouts and cook to taste (usually I leave them no longer than 2-3 minutes) Add cilantro, mix and let sit for a few minutes then serve.

My version with my ingredients comes to about 5 servings at 245 calories a serving.

Hi jayavery , well, you just started last week...I don't know, I mean, I had 5 un-explicable gained pounds last week...I only weigh once a week, so hopefully on Monday they'll be gone. I can't really give advice on it, considering I just started this week myself. I hope you find what works for you though. I have (currently) 17 pounds to my goal weight, and I'm hoping it's not too long and drawn out.

Yeah i haven't posted in here for like 3 and a bit weeks, mostly because i'm doing a different style of IF to most the people posting so i can't really put much input in.

Update for me though, still have my scales going slowly down, just weighed in at 101kg (222.666...lbs) today, been keeping up with doing activities every week and just started back up some at home exercises. Hoping to hit <100kg before i go on my cruise in 17 days! because that free food is going to be hard to turn down for 9 nights.

Well, allready hit my mini-goal. Weighed in at 99.2kg this morning.

Scale is going down slowly. Might have to start doing 5:2 again. Not sure.

You ate out. Restaurant food is loaded is sodium. Even though you don't add salt to your foods, restaurants do. Honestly, I'd recommend staying far away from the scale and keep doing what you are doing. You are a smaller size than you were years ago. That means it will take a lot longer for you to lose the last whatever pounds. Keep working on it and it will happen.

I did that thing again where I start a fast day but then cave for dinner. i'm going to try again today but wait until dinner for my meal. Sigh.

Hi everyone,

I had a good fast day yesterday. I had just over 500 calories. I woke up with a coffee (75 calories now, I've switched to 5% cream)...for lunch I had a homemade mushroom soup with a few saltines (186 calories); then for dinner I made a slow-cooked modified baked bean recipe. I skipped the maple syrup and brown sugar and made it with kidney beans, vegan bacon, onions, garlic, chicken broth and Dijon. It turned out amazing and was so filling, 325 per serving. Total for the day was 586 calories. I drank lots of water and herbal tea. Doing yoga first thing in the morning is helping me to calm myself and focus on the fast, not on the food I'm missing. So far so good, I've lost 3 pounds since I started a week ago I'm so happy. This is a lifestyle change that will be easy for me to keep up!

Livestrong.com has a great article on IF. Here is the link if you want to read it.

http://www.livestrong.com/blog/inter..._campaign=0205