However, a number of people who do Fast-5 have issues with getting too hungry, esp. when they first start. Over the years I've compiled a list of things that have helped people, and I'm listing them here.
Poor Man's Soda
1. Get a glass of water or cooled tea/coffee, or water with chopped ginger in it.
2. You can add Torani syrup to this, if you want flavor (diet if you are fasting, sugary otherwise). Or you can add a squeeze of lemon/lime and a twist of peel (what I do: I love lemon! I also have some dried lemon slices from Nuts Online, and those work).
3. Add one jigger (one ounce) of vinegar. Cider vinegar is said by some to be the best for you.
4. Add 1/4 tsp. of baking soda.
5. Stir.
6. Let it set about a minute.
After a minute it will be sparkling and bubbly, like soda pop.
This doesn't seem to keep well, even in sealed bottles, so you have to add the vinegar and soda at the end. You can make up the rest of it before, and keep it in the fridge.
This is basically how soda pop got started in the 1800's or so. They used phosphate, not bicarbonate, but it's the same kind of acid/base reaction that produces CO2. These days they use CO2 cartridges or tanks. They are selling the CO2 cartridges these days in the grocery stores ... it's the next new thing ... but Poor Man's Soda is way cheaper.
Anyway, vinegar does good things for your appetite, blood sugar, blood pressure, and weight loss, in studies. So it's a twofer. Keeping hydrated, and having enough electrolytes, goes a long way to allowing you to feel good while not eating.
Eating Order
If you tend to gorge, start your eating period with a big salad and/or soup. Salad is full of green stuff, which your body really needs, and good polysaccharides. I use a vinegar/garlic/oil dressing too, and add chopped roasted nuts or smoked salmon sometimes. Vinegar is known to help with blood sugar, when taken with a meal. Eating something light first sets up you stomach enzymes for the main meal, and sets up your insulin levels to receive food. In studies, this seems to cause less "blood sugar spike" after a meal. I think it also makes you full longer.
After your soup/salad course, have your meat/cooked vegie course. Have something YUMMY and spiced the way you like it. Make sure there is enough protein: human beings don't need a huge amount of protein, but if there isn't enough you'll get hungrier the next day. I like to have lots of vegies. Probably half you food should be vegetable matter of some kind. My usual mix is something like a cup of steamed rice or potato (white or sweet), 2 cups vegies, 5-6 oz of fish or chicken. That's about all I can eat in one sitting, and it's very satisfying.
Later, when/if you get hungry again, you can have dessert. That's when I'd have my fruit, or fruit cobbler, pumpkin pie, roasted nuts.
Best foods for avoiding hunger
Some foods tend to stimulate appetite, esp. the next day when you are trying not to eat! Other foods keep you full longer. Here is a list of what has helped people, in email lists and in studies.
1. Fish and eggs. That's my favorite ... developed countries that have the highest fish and egg consumption, also have the skinniest people!
2. Get enough protein. This kind of goes with #1. But it seems people eat less when they eat more protein. Protein tends to be the "stop" button for meals.
3. Get enough fat. Some people swear by very high-fat low-carb diets. This doesn't work for me personally, and even if it did, I don't want to live that way. But, it is something you can try. At any rate, going really LOW fat isn't a great idea either. Fat carries flavor, helps vitamins be absorbed, and makes a person satiated.
4. Use GOOD fat. Trans fats and rancid fats are not good for your body at all, and I think inflammation might trigger appetite in at least some people. I use enough fat to do the cooking, coconut oil, olive oil, or bacon fat. And seseme oil for flavor. On salads, I use olive oil.
5. Stay hydrated. Thirst can come across as hunger, and make you hungry.
6. Get enough electrolytes. If you drink lots of water, or tea or coffee, you tend to lose electrolytes. This can make you shaky and send your heartbeat wonky. That is one reason I tend to use the Poor Man's Soda in addition to water.
7. Get vitamins. I think it's important to get enough vitamins, and some of them are difficult to get from food. This is especially true of Vit B, C, D, calcium, and magnesium. And it's even more true when you are eating "less". So in the morning I take B complex, 500 mg C, Cal/Mag/D/K mix (from Costco), and another magnesium. This has solved a couple of health issues I have had (specifically tetany in my feet and heart palpitations). I take these in the AM, along with konjac/psyllium so they set well on my stomach if needed. More and more, I can take them without the konjac mix, so I'm guessing my stomach is in better shape than it was.
8. Avoid iron. People talk about "carbs" raising insulin levels. But get this: iron raises insulin levels too. These latest studies showing people who take multivitamins don't live as long ... that is to be expected, when they take multivitamins with iron. Fortunately iron is pretty easy to avoid (it's in a section further down).
9. Get enough polysaccharide. Polysaccharides are required for a good mix of gut bacteria, which affects your appetite in a big way. Also, polys slow down digestion, so you both digest your food more thoroughly and stay full longer. Polys feed the butyrate-producing bacteria in your lower gut, which helps prevent gut cancer. I use the word "polysaccharide" instead of "soluble fiber" to avoid the confusion with the grain-bran fiber some people take. Grain-bran is rather tough on the gut, although it is an iron blocker which is a good thing. I don't like grain fiber myself (see section below on getting fiber).
10. Avoid "dry" starches. This sounds weird, but in animal studies, the form of the starch has a big effect on how the starch is digested. Think of how a cracker dissolves in water, but a strand of pasta does not. Bread was invented, it is thought, in order to make beer, because it feeds yeast so readily. But dry starches are easy to gorge on too (think: eating a whole bag of potato chips!). And most of the dry starchy foods have added iron, and too much salt and sugar.
11. Avoid wheat gluten. Wheat/spelt/barley/rye ... they all contain an undigestible peptide string that sticks to the villi in your gut, and very likely has hormonal or opiate effects on a lot of people. This is getting more press these days (see the book, "Wheat Belly").
Avoiding Iron
There are people who are actually low on iron, esp. people who have been vegan for some time, or have bleeding issues. If you are in that category, you DO need iron. Thing is, how do you know what category you are in? There isn't a good test for this: iron levels in the blood fluctuate, like blood sugar levels do. If you are low in blood cells, there are multiple reasons for that too. However, if you get a ferritin level test, and it is over 100 ... your iron levels are high for sure, and avoiding iron will likely make you live longer and feel better. There has been a lot written about this, including books like "The Iron Factor of Aging" and Ray Peat's article.
1. Take iron blockers with your meals. Iron blockers include: chili, turmeric, coffee, tea, calcium (milk, or a calcium pill).
2. Avoid cast iron pans.
3. Do not mix fruit and meat in the same meal. Don't take Vit C with a meat meal.
4. Avoid multivitamins with iron. Of course, do not take vitamins with iron added.
5. Avoid "fortified" foods. Iron is added to most starchy foods in the US, even rice! There are huge amounts of iron in most breakfast foods.
6. Donate blood. The life you save may be your own! If you can donate blood, do it. In studies, blood donors are less likely to get Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
7. Taking iron chelators. If you iron levels are high, and esp. if you can't donate blood, taking iron chelators helps. Iron chelators include turmeric, green tea, and IP6.
Getting Fiber
Lately there have been people saying fiber is not only not needed, it is downright dangerous, and wasn't eaten in our past. OK, that is simply not true. We have stool samples from thousands of years ago, and our ancestors ate a LOT of fiber, both as plant fibers and stuff like fish scales, fur, small bones.
Bran fiber isn't good stuff though, in my book. It's irritating to the gut, and about as digestible as wood chips. The outer husk of grain is designed mainly to keep animals from eating the grain, so I think it is designed to be irritating stuff to eat. The best thing I know about it is that it is an iron-blocker, so eating "whole grain" foods is good for blocking iron in the meal. Also it makes food digest slower, like any fiber. But there are better ways to do this.
The best fiber seems to be konjac, or glucomannan. This is sold as a powder, and can be used to thicken soups, make tempura batter stick, mix with water to help the gut, made into puddings, or eaten as noodles. You can buy the noodles premade and use them instead of other noodles. I think the goo in aloe vera is a kind of glucomannan also.
The next best fibers include: psyllium, pectin, and all the gooey stuff that is in vegetables and fruits and beans. When you eat these foods, you get fiber! Basically aim for half your plate being full of these.
Handy foods to keep around
These are the things I keep around to snack on during my eating period, if I need to snack. The trick is to stay away from the potato chips and other "dry" starches, which are nutritionally poor and, I think, tend to stimulate the appetite. Also, having these around will make your meals tastier and more interesting.
1. Chopped, fresh roasted nuts. Basically buy some raw nuts, and roast them slowly to perfection. Then chop them up, put them in a bag, and keep them in the freezer. Roasted nuts go rancid very quickly, but they keep well in the freezer. Then you can add them to green beans, salads, fruit salads, whatever.
2. Pickled foods. Pickles, kimchi, fermented green beans ... anything sour! They add flavor. Also they have next to no calories, so you can snack on them while fasting.
3. Pickled eggs. These are rather yummy, and easy to make in bulk (search the net for recipes: I just add some hard-boiled eggs to leftover pickle juice. This only works once for one batch of old pickle juice, but we eat a lot of pickles so it's not an issue).
4. Canned or dried fish: I don't do canned foods much, but canned sardines and oysters are my quick snack and travel food. Dried shrimp can be eaten as a snack, and whole dried baby fish (they are better pan-roasted or fried though). Dried ground shrimp is a great flavoring for many dishes too.
5. Frozen smoked salmon: Smoked salmon doesn't keep well, but you can freeze it in small chunks to add to salads or have with rice and kimchi for a quick meal.
6. Chopped frozen bacon: Using bacon in sauteed anything is really nice. I buy "bacon pieces" (which are cheap) or just chop up some packaged bacon into little pieces, and keep it loosely frozen so I can grab some when I'm ready to cook.
7. Steamed rice and baked potatoes: I think those are the best "basics" for a meal, and can be turned into many quick dinners. But, they take time to make. So I make a big batch of both, and use it as needed.
8. Broth: Same as for rice. Make a batch of broth at the beginning of the week, and use as needed. I don't do super-long-cooked broth. Usually just some chicken wings in a clay pot on low heat, for a couple of hours. It's the stuff in skin and cartilage that makes the thick gel, not the bones themselves.
9. Really good spices. Learning to use spices is one of the big things in cooking. Penzy's Ozark Seasoning makes just about any sauteed food taste professional. Raw garlic is one of my staples too, and raw ginger. Garlic I buy peeled, at Costco. Ginger I buy anywhere, slice it, and store in sushi vinegar so it's handy.
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