Hi! Just a quick fly-by today. I'm sooo crazy busy. I'll be away from any type of kitchen, eating place all day, so packed some nuts and fruit for my dinner. Hope it's enough. I'm sure the nuts will sustain me.

Welcome Newbies!!!!!


Have a great IF day, everyone!

Hi all! Hope you've had and continue to have a great IF day. I'm still sticking with a strict Fast 5 plan...I find I can be more compliant if the rules are hard and fast with little wiggle room. Because I have a limited window, I am better about loading my body with healthy choices - those foods usually fill me up so much there is little time and little room in which to consume the bad stuff.

I can't wait til I have 20 days and 20 posts...I do really well with visual motivators so I really want to get a ticker incorporated into my signature.

Fast on IF Friends! :carrot:

hello! I am afraid I need your support. I was not able to complete my IF - I was just crazy hungry by lunchtime and just quit. :( The same was yesterday but I had an intensive weight training with my fitness instructor, so I decided that probably it is not a good idea to fast in the same time.

I will try another fast this Thursday.

Sophia: I wouldn't sweat it. The important thing is that your not giving up completely, and trying again.

I made some fantastic bacon and potato soup. It was probably the tastiest thing I've ever whipped up in the kitchen. Even better, I got to eat my fill and enjoy it. Something I could never do with a traditional 'diet'. I hated cooking for my husband the first time I attempted to make a lifestyle change. I'd always make him something delicious while I limited myself.

I can't remember what variation you are doing. ESE? It can be really hard sometimes. I still go to the lunchroom with my work buddies while they eat. Most days are easy, but every once in a while, someone will make something that looks and/or smells so good and I just keep think please hurry and eat that. Two things that help me is drinking lots of water and I know it sounds crazy, instead of thinking about what I am not eating right now. I think about what my dinner will be, and how much better I will feel eating it knowing I fasted until then.

If you have access to a computer at those times when you just really want to eat, look at the Goal photo album on 3FC. It is a great motivator to me when I feel like giving up.

Good Luck Thursday, I will be fasting with you!

Sophia, I had that problem last week. PMS was making me ravenous, and even on the days I managed to make it through 22 or so hours of fasting, I ended up eating 1300 calories or so in the evening. It was a disaster. Yesterday's fast went exactly as planned, though, now that TOM is ending and my hormones have settled down. Any chance that could have been your issue as well?

Hey there... I'm back at 3FC after a bit of a hiatus and was excited to see this thread. I posted on a similar one back in 2008!!

Anyway, many, many years ago, when I was naturally slim, I naturally ate a Fast 5 lifestyle and I want to get back to that. There's a lot of freedom in not having to think about what you're going to eat three times a day - or all day long!

I started yesterday and ate only from 4 pm to 9 pm; I was pretty hungry by 4 but drank lots of water and tea throughout the day to take my mind off it.

Today I was starving at breakfast time, which is odd for me; I don't normally get hungry in the morning.

Anyway, I'm glad there's a thread here for fasters, it's interesting to read about everyone's experiences :)

So I just wanted to share something that might be of encouragement to some of you! :D This morning getting ready for work, I realized something. I had once lost a significant amount of weight before (from 224 lbs to 165 lbs.) but I seems my body shrunk, but my stomach never really got flat. So anyway, I was looking in the mirror this morning, and I can tell you that since starting ESE, my stomach has really flattened considerably. Just another benefit of IF'ing! :D

Have a great day everyone.

Hi All,

Been away for awhile - it looks like I have alot of reading of posts to catch up on. Things are going well - did a 48 hour fast this weekend without it even being planned and with hubby home. The scale continues to move on down - although I can't tell yet by looking at me. You would think with a loss of 35.4 lbs so far that I would notice something - but all I see it fat me. It could be that I am just depressed that I am not able to still fit in alot of things that I would like to wear in my closet. They say women have 5 different sizes of clothes in there closet - and I do. I so can't wait to be able to wear some of them.

Welcome to all the newbies on this thread. Congrats to all those that have stayed on track and to those that may have gotten off track - just get right back on. This board is full of advice and good support from others who have had good days and bad. We can do this together.

Since I started doing this I have noticed how food just seems to consume our day. Everything seems to revolve around it. Fasting has helped me feel in control.

Do you have any before pics. I couldn't tell after 35 lbs either then i took a pic of me now and one from before and I couldn't believe the difference. When you look at yourself everyday it is hard to see the changes. Same way with my husband, he can't see that I have lost 50 lbs, but the pics don't lie.

Wvu- I don't know how you can sit w/coworkers while they eat lunch. I don't think I could. I used to sit with a few eating bkfast and could almost not stand that. More power to ya!

Sophia- don't be too hard on yourself. Hunger has been hard for me to deal with too and sometimes I do not stick with what I had planned on.

Speaking of that- I have felt like throwing in the towel lately with this, but am not ready. I think I need to be more liberal than I have been with my eating hours. I might go back to ESE with 2 24 hour fasts per week (or 20-22 if that is all I can do). I have eaten too much after fast times on some days so have not been losing. I have read that plenty of you keep calories down on your fasting day (in the evening) and really want to try that. I think that might help my metabolism and fat loss better if I eat "normally" the other days. This week has actually been pretty good (have eaten more meals) and it feels like I have lost some extra fat. I weigh in on fri. My workout routine has also been top notch lately!

Prettylady- keep up the great work. You are doing it right if you have lost 35 lbs! Congrats.

Prettylady41 I know what you mean about not feeling like you have not lost that much. Good point about pics in the response posts. I have to tell you that there are still days I look in the mirror and think "fat." A lot of the battle is mental.

One thing I would suggest... when something gets too big in your closet, pitch it! One way of keeping on track is feeling tightness in your clothes. That is a trigger for me to be more vigilant. If you have the ability to grab something "loose" out of your closet, it lets you get sloppy with it. I know it is a mind game, but it works for me! It meant something to me to say "I'm never, ever going to be big enough to wear that again, and actually getting rid of the stuff reinforces it.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...Tqo/edit?pli=1

Interesting article. Watch the way he calculates calories to lose though! Doesn't work that way for me. Everyone is different. This is based on leangains style too. I prefer Fast 5. However, good info here.

Good morning fellow IF'ers!

Kelleyb - what I love about ESE is that I only have to restrict myself twice a week. I thought I'd start out with ESE, and if I should plateau then I would do fast 5.

Ktucke - I agree about the clothes. For my work clothes I have been taking them in, so kind of the same thing. I actually need to take in a pair that I've already taken in about 6 inches already. Pretty soon, I'll have to pitch them though, only so much you can take in and look right. LOL

One thing I foung interesting about the article you posted is that you multiply your body weight by 12 (or 11), I have always done that, but I use the weight I want to weigh. That is how I came up with eating 1500-1600 calories a day, (when not fasting).

Today is a fasting day. Crossing my fingers for at least .5 lbs lost today, to get me to Onederland. :crossed: