As I've sworn myself to a life of Weight Watchers, I'm resisting any urges to 'fad' diet. This can be tough in January as there are dozens of new plans on the circuit, and I have been resisting.
However, the 5:2 intermittent fasting thing has piqued my interest over recent months. One of my friends has been doing this since October last year and he loves it (and swears by it, understandable as his weight loss is very impressive) and whilst talking about it to another friend over lunch a few weekends back I thought I should really have a bit more of a research into it and what benefits/drawbacks come with eating in such a way.
We can thank Michael Mosley for this trend, his Horizon documentary about fasting which aired last summer kicked it all off, and watching that documentary you can see why this is something he has adopted and enjoyed. A book which covers a bit more of the science in depth was published during the second week of January, so I downloaded it to get some more information.
Armed with lots of infomation and always keen to try new things, I thought I'd give this a whirl. How hard could it be?
My first attempt was a total write-off. By 7.30pm in the evening I was a mess, I panicked. It nearly triggered a massive binge, but I was able to get myself back in control and just eat a good dinner. I wondered what upset me so much; I think it was going to be the lack of a good dinner but also the psychology behind the word 'fast', I wasn't comfortable with it at all.
My second attempt (a week later) was almost accidental. I realised that I'd had a very low calorie day, and was on course for a low calorie dinner. I totted up my numbers and I'd hit 698 calories for the day. Huh. That wasn't bad. Granted I was a little light headed around 3pm, but it felt exactly the same as a gym buzz does, so I quite liked it. I supposed I tricked my brain into this one, but it inspired me with confidence that this was something I could do after all.
What was really amazing was the day following the fast. The general rule is that you can eat whatever you want on the days around the fast days but my gosh, even the usual amount of food is an eye opener. I ate a standard day of Weight Watchers Plan food and had an extra little treat after dinner. I went for a run too, and still didn't have insatiable hunger, in fact I felt really rather full. How strange.
Seeing as though I'd managed a successful fast day, I felt empowered and brave enough to have another one this week. As I fasted on Tuesday, I chose Thursday as my second fast day, but I planned this one out properly. I like to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and as long as you're clever with what you eat, this can easily be done for 700 calories (I'm aware as a woman I'm supposed to have a 500 calories fast, but my walking commute burns about 300 cals a day, so I figure 200 more won't hurt). My Thursday fast looked like this:
Porridge, skimmed milk power, water and raspberries: 179 calories
Brown rice, vegetables: 268 calories
Quorn fillets and green salad: 270 calories
Daily total: 717 calories
and even then I wasn't hungry in the morning until 10.30am, so my meals were evenly spaced.
Other things I have noted whilst fasting include:
Hunger comes in waves; as in it arrives, swells and subsides. You never get 'more' hungry, which I was convinced I did. If you ignore it (and you can, I say 'shut up, you can have Malteasers tomorrow') it goes away very quickly.
You drink a lot of water; this is very evident on fast days as you feel very thirsty, but I found this no problem to cope with as I easily get through 2 litres of water per day regardless of what I eat.
Sleep gets deeper; I slept for 8 - 8.5 hours on nights following fasts, which was impressive. I slept deeper and felt a lot more invigorated the next day.
Food tastes amazing; seriously amazing. By the time your evening meal appears on a fast day you will not believe how good it tastes.
Sleep gets deeper; I slept for 8 - 8.5 hours on nights following fasts, which was impressive. I slept deeper and felt a lot more invigorated the next day.
Food tastes amazing; seriously amazing. By the time your evening meal appears on a fast day you will not believe how good it tastes.
I'm sure a lot of people get slightly alarmed by an undereat like that, but it is for 1 (or 2 maximum) days per week and then 5 days of total normality. To me it's no different from going for a long run; it puts stress on your body and the recovery makes it work harder and better, which improves your body overall. I refuel myself after a run exactly the same as I do with a fast, so I see no difference whatsoever.
It wasn't a bad week overall, and it feels like something I could do again if I wanted to. I can imagine it being very helpful when you've got a big weekend lined up, or a big weekend to recover from, and the health benefits of eating like this outweigh a little hunger twice a week, that's for sure.
Really nice article. Intermittent fasting seems to be everywhere nowadays! Even with the added 200 calories, would you still say the pangs of hunger were there and difficult to bear? I find caloric restrictions difficult to stick to but really want to try intermittent fasting. I've heard of a version of the diet called 'The 2-day diet;, which apparently does not involve calorie counting, have you heard about it? Would really like your thoughts on the whole calorie counting aspect to these diets.
ReplyDeleteThe hunger was nowhere near unbearable, but I think that's because I ate three times during the day. I don't think I'd get on with just one meal or two.
DeleteI think you only need to really take notice of what you're eating (calorie wise) on the fast days, that's the idea anyway; you're aiming for about 25% of your standard daily intake and I don't think you could achieve that without counting.
I've just googled the 2 Day Diet and it sounds very similar to 5:2 but with added care on the other 5 days. You still have a 650 calorie restriction on 2 days and 1800 on 5 day, so there's still some level of counting involved.
I'm not the biggest fan of calorie counting at all really, as I feel there's so much more going on within a body than just calories in and out; we're a little more complex than that and I feel macros have a big impact on each individual too.
Great read, I watched that documentary too and have been interested in IF since, it something I want to do more research into!
ReplyDeleteIt seems like a less daunting starting point, if you're like me and like having cut off points and set rules, so I'd say if someone is medically sound then it's worth having a go.
DeleteInteresting one.
ReplyDeleteI'm a member of WLR - a calorie counting website and there are a huge number of people on there who do the IF regularly but still count their calories on other days. I appreciate the comment you made in the reply to anonymous, however in my experience of losing weight on a calorie counting basis I would like to say that yes, to begin with, it was all about calories. However, as time goes on I became much more nutritionally aware and so try to make the very best of the calories I have. (Not that I'm here to sing WLR's praises but they show your macros in your daily summary so you can see at a glance if you're on target for a healthy balance). :)
Up to now I've discounted the idea of IF as I find I get not only light headed when hungry, but seriously grumpy. Not good for the Hubster! However - as someone who doesn't sleep at all well I was intrigued by your observation that you slept deeply after a fasting day.
I'm seriously tempted to try it if only for that! I will be really interested to see if it works for me in that respect.
I totally understand that you *should* count calories on *feed* days when trying to lose weight (otherwise you do have the potential to go batshit crazy) but with this plan, the idea was to be a bit more free and easy and not count on those days - the idea being that you'd naturally make better choices and feel your own saiety levels; like a starting point for intuitive eating.
DeleteI got a little light-headed but the grumps were alleviated by my 3 meals. I'm sure this isn't in the true ethos of IF (as I wasn't really giving my body a huge gap between feeds, just less calories really).
I should also point out that I didn't notice a weight loss whilst I did this (only for a week, granted) but I wasn't interested in the weight loss aspect, it was more for the health benefits and also to see if psychologically I was up to the challenge.
(Sorry, a typo drove me insane, had to delete and repost!)
Hi Alex and Tracey,
DeleteThanks so much for your responses. I appreciate the idea of becoming more nutritionally aware and sort of instituting calorie intake, I had never really thought about it like that...mostly I think because the few diets I have tried don't seem to be about adopting long term habits.
I was just wondering whether you think the days you do intermittent fasting matter? For instance the 2-Day Diet seems to stress the idea of doing it consecutively, 2 days in a row, whereas the IF diets like 5:2 and fast diet, don't emphasis that (Alex's second attempt was a week later). Do you think it's easier to do it when the days are far apart or close together?
I was also wondering how you think working out and general fitness can be handled when you're doing intermittent fasting? I haven't really heard much about fitness when it comes to IF.
If a fast meant more than one day at a time, I wouldn't do it, but that's because (as I said in the post) psychologically a fast is hard on me. Knowing I could eat 'normally' the next day was the thing that really made the difference.
DeleteI'd imagine that if you can work out, there's no reason not to. It might take time to adjust to working out on fast days, but I guess it's a personal preference. They do cover exercise in The Fast Diet book, so it might be worth a read for that section.