End of First Week on 19/5 Fast
Well, at the end of our first week on a 19/5 fasting schedule, our impression is that it is much more difficult than our earlier 23/25 schedule. Even though the fasts are a few hours shorter, we feel more hungry at the end of these fasts than under the other regime. That is logical enough, since we fast twice in every 48 hours this way, whereas the other method only had one fast in 48 hours.
Eating in a five-hour window is a bit strange — we eat our regular main meal at the start of the five-hour window, but we are not really hungry towards the end of that five hour span — yet we know we will soon be hungry, so we eat anyhow. This doesn’t seem like a good idea to me, to eat when you are not hungry is a very bad habit to get into. If we don’t eat, however, we might as well be on a 23/1 schedule — eating one meal per day and fasting 23 hours.
As mentioned earlier, we found the 19/5 fast far too difficult when the five eating hours came in the evening. Changing the schedule so that the eating hours come near the middle of our waking hours makes things much easier. We are just beginning to get hungry at bed-time, and still sleep soundly. If the sleep period were at the very end of the fasting period, I think it might be difficult to get to sleep. Eating between 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM works great, since we sleep from about 1:00 AM to 9:00 AM. Under this schedule I can imagine staying on this diet permanently, but suspect we will prefer going back to our 23/25 schedule in the long-term.
This Fast-5 diet was promoted as a weight-loss diet, and for me that has been the case. Isabel, however, had a bounce-back — hopefully just a temporary set-back. Over the week we were on the 19/5 fasting schedule Isabel gained back 1.4 kilo, while I lost .9 kilo. We will stay on this diet at least one more week before deciding if we will go back to 23/25 right away, or stay on this and try to lose some weight.
