Fasting to keep calories in check?

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  • Well, I went on myfitnesspal to try and plug in some dinner ideas, and this is what I came up with at 665 calories:

    2 mini wheat pita pizzas (Ragu pizza sauce, mozzarella and 5 slices turkey pepperoni)
    Garden salad (romaine, tomatoes, cucumber, 1 egg and 1tbsp Hormel bacon pieces with 4tbsp Bolthouse Farms blue cheese yogurt dressing)

    That will definitely satisfy me for dinner tonight! I'll have to come up with something else for tomorrow's dinner....luckily I love to cook!!

    Quote: LOL! I did that too! Fasted all day then snarfed down my day's calories during an 8-hour eating window. Somehow I missed the point of eating less.

    I have read Eat Stop Eat by Brad Pilon and then joined the Venus Index community. All these tiny, tiny women who were fasting on that board. They would eat tiny meals under 500 calories! Even women who were as tall as us. I'm still trying to achieve that. I can get down to about 900 calories, as long as there's a lot of leafy greens and fats involved in the meal. This week I'm actually shooting for 24-hour fasts with a single 600-calorie meal. I ate under 1200 calories yesterday, but let myself eat too carby which affected my blood sugar this morning (too high). My body really does better when I cut calories.
  • This just in...more justification for IF

    http://www.latimes.com/news/science/...,1060110.story
  • Very interesting article that makes a lot of sense - it makes me want to start having my meal times between noon and 7pm!

    Quote: This just in...more justification for IF

    http://www.latimes.com/news/science/...,1060110.story
  • Quote: I think the best thing to do in this circumstance is to jump back into your routine as if the high day didn't happen. A higher calorie day every now and then is fine as long as you don't let it turn into multiple higher calorie days.
    I agree with this 100%.

    You will feel so much better if you just move on. I really don't think you should starve for three days.
  • I do this each week, but not for 3 days.
    I start off high on my weigh-in day and go down. So I may have a 2,500 calorie day on day one, (usually around 2,000 though)... and then day 6 I am usually at 1,000 and day 7 I usually hit 700. My budget is 10,000 calories a week.

    I don't eat from 2:30 pm to 9:30 am each Monday night into Tuesday. And I either skip breakfast daily or just have a little fruit up to 100 calories... so I eat lunch and dinner only, and only lunch on Mondays. Truly don't even think about it anymore, and started the fasting thing quite by accident when I just didn't like the way I felt at Zumba Monday nights if I ate before class and never felt like eating after class, so it just naturally happened. But it's working so I'm going with it! LOL
  • Quote: Does anyone here fast any days of the week to keep your calorie count down? I have like 2000 calories left for the week and was contemplating eating only dinner Friday, Saturday and Sunday at around 670 calories each. Any thoughts on this?
    It wouldn't work for me because when I get too hungry my self-control goes out the window.

    F.
  • Hmm... I've never tried fasting as a way to control calories... but. after reading this thread... it might be worth a try.

    Thanks for the idea, ladies!
  • Well, I ended up fasting only on Friday (did not eat until dinner, and ate 670 calories) and I ate my normal 1,200 calories on Saturday and Sunday. Weighed in today and lost 9 pounds! I will continue to either fast or workout big time when I go over my weekly calorie allowance.
  • Quote: I've always wondered about this and thought of doing the fasting myself. Mostly because, most mornings I don't want anything to eat. I'm not 'truly' hungry until around noon. BUT, I force myself to eat some breakfast because for years that's what we were told to do and now I've sorta gotten in the habit to do it even if I'm not very hungry. Right now, I am stalled out and can't seem to get going again so I was once again thinking of doing this!

    My thing is, I'd want a narrow enough window to keep my calories down, but big enough to where if I needed to go out or something, it would be ok.... Maybe only fasting a certain part of the day.... like from 10PM to 1PM. That way, I only had a 9hr. window to eat? Or maybe I could do until 2? My question is, if you've done it before and seen success, why did you quit? And did you allow yourself liquids like water, tea, coffee, etc? Geez... maybe I should start my own thread! LOL
    You just described Intermittent Fasting A lot of people do that here on 3FC.
  • Ohhh!!!! My stupid internet is getting on my nerves and it posted my last post about 3 times and then when I tried to delete the extras, it deleted them all! URGH! But yes, I was thinking of going back to the fasting and wondering now if I should... Sounds like several have been successful!
  • Quote: Thank you so much for your input. I didn't think there would be anything wrong with 3 days of intermittent fasting...as I said before, I can definitely handle it - hunger does not bother me too much like it did before I tried IF. I've just never done IF with calorie counting before (perhaps that's why I didn't lose any weight when I tried it, lol).
    I am on my third day of IF with calorie counting. My calorie budget for the day is 1200. I have been attempting 1200 for some time, but it is difficult to spread over the course of a normal day. IF works for me so far, because it keeps my hunger beneath me, and when I do eat, I can eat a nice, healthy portion, instead of 300 cals. I am doing daily 16 hour fasts followed by 8 hour eating window. Usually 9pm-1pm (fast)

    I also am attempting what some weightlifters do to burn fat, which is save a nice hard workout for the end of my fast. So, for example, yesterday, I was scheduled to break fast at 1pm, and I had planned my meal- three scrambled eggs with cheese, small slice of leftover pizza, hummus. Yum!!! At the 16th hour, I got on the elliptical and worked as hard as I could for 30 minutes. Then I went right in and made my eggs. For me, it worked like a charm. I expect to see a nice drop on the scale after a week or so.

    I would agree with others though, that a high calorie day is not a reason in and of itself for fasting. I would not fast simply in response to a binge or a high calorie event. Your body is WELL capable of recovering, and you could also throw in a nice sweat session to balance it out.

    The thing with Intermittent Fasting that I have been reading is that it is not a haphazard thing you do, rather it is most effective when it is choreographed around your lifestyle and you do it strategically.

    Whatever you choose to do, good luck!

    Edit: I forgot to add that if you do a workout at the end of the fast, it is very important that your next meal is a TON of protein.
  • mrslynah...that actually sounds like a good plan - I have an elliptical at home so I love to hop on it for 30 minutes as long as I incorporate HIIT in the session. I ate dinner at 6pm last night, and I will fast until dinner at 6pm tonight. After work, I'll hop on the elliptical to work out and then eat my dinner (8oz of lemon pepper salmon and a huge salad with an egg). I plan on doing a 24 hour fast twice a week, and skipping breakfast a few times when I'm not on the 24 hour fast - I agree with you, it's not very easy to incorporate 1,200 calories throughout the day as it is in 2 meals! Thanks for the exercise idea!!!
  • Quote: mrslynah...that actually sounds like a good plan - I have an elliptical at home so I love to hop on it for 30 minutes as long as I incorporate HIIT in the session. I ate dinner at 6pm last night, and I will fast until dinner at 6pm tonight. After work, I'll hop on the elliptical to work out and then eat my dinner (8oz of lemon pepper salmon and a huge salad with an egg). I plan on doing a 24 hour fast twice a week, and skipping breakfast a few times when I'm not on the 24 hour fast - I agree with you, it's not very easy to incorporate 1,200 calories throughout the day as it is in 2 meals! Thanks for the exercise idea!!!
    You're welcome! It is definitely working for me! I have finally burned through my plateau and am down a pound since starting three days ago. I expected to lose more the first week, but when I think about it, knowing that it is probably actually fat, rather than water weight, a pound is not bad for three days!
    Keep me updated! And also consider checking into the Eat-Stop-Eat thread, which is full of Intermittent Fasters.