Dr M recommends 2 days of brunch, so effectively 5:2 days. How important is this rather than just having 3 meals that add up to 800 calories all week. The reason I ask is that I am 4 weeks in, have lost 10lb and have been stuck for 5 days, feel constipated and frustrated by the stagnation. I drink gallons of water, am obsessive about weighing everything, add flax seed and chia seeds for fibre and can’t feel I can change anything else. The only thing I am not doing is having brunch instead of breakfast 2 days a week. Would this make any difference. Has anyone else had similar experience?

I think the 2 says of brunch are purely around a working week – several posters on here have written that their normal day is two meals. I do it whenever it best fits my day, as I don;t have a standard weekday/weekend week.
Try the brunch thing – it might work for you.
Quite a lot of people plateau at some point – you may find that while your weight is stable, you still find yourself fitting into smaller clothes, or measurements getting smaller.

Problems with your digestive system are likely to impact your weight – there are lots of previous threads on this -use the search box in the top left hand corner of the web age to search on “Constipation” to locate them.

Thanks I am trying the brunch thing today , so fingers crossed. Thanks for the support.

I’m doing 16:8, so I don’t eat breakfast, just lunch and dinner. A tablespoon of oat fiber dissolved in a pint of water has gotten things moving again for me more than once. The taste and texture are less than pleasant — I literally hold my nose and gulp it down as quickly as possible — but every plateau I’ve hit seems to have been accompanied by at least three days of zero bowel activity, and the oat fiber does the best job of anything I’ve tried to put my intestines back to work when they’ve gone fishin’. A few days of it in a row and we’re off to the races again, without discomfort or suddenness. Just a totally normal morning bathroom experience.

Good luck!

Thanks that is vey helpful. By oat fibre do you mean oat bran? I will certainly give it a go.

Definitely not oat bran. Oat bran is made from the edible jacket of the oat (the bran, if you will) and thus contains the same nutrient profile as, say, breakfast porrige oats. They’re complex carbs, but still carbs and lots of them. Oat fiber is the oat hull (which is indigestible for we poor humans who lack the enzyme for digesting cellulose) ground up into a fine powder. It is entirely composed of insoluble fiber, so has no net carbs.

In addition to being an effective jump-starter of peristalsis, oat fiber is also a most excellent addition to almond meal for making low-carb bread products. I use it to make biscuits (the American kind) and the same flouriness that makes it a bit of a nasty beverage works like magic to give a baked good a more genuine crumb. This recipe, for example, is one of my favorites: http://satisfyingeats.com/breads/cheesy-cheese-garlic-biscuits/. I use the oat fiber in place of coconut flour because it trims carbs and doesn’t add that weird coconut sweetness to what should be a savory product.

It can be a little hard to find even in health food stores, so I get mine from Amazon. This is the brand I buy: https://www.amazon.com/Trim-Healthy-Mama-Non-GMO-Certified/dp/B019PDEUU8/ref=sr_1_3_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1478982270&sr=8-3&keywords=oat+fiber
If you’re in the UK, it looks there are fewer brand options, but it is available on Amazon UK too: https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/87d/NuNaturals-NuGrains-Premium-Grains-Oat-Fiber-454/B00B9JB83O/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1478982851&sr=8-1&keywords=oat+fiber

Hmm… My reply is not posting. Perhaps I have too many links in it? I’m going to try it again with just two.

Definitely not oat bran. Oat bran is made from the edible jacket of the oat (the bran, if you will) and thus contains the same nutrient profile as, say, breakfast porrige oats. They’re complex carbs, but still carbs and lots of them. Oat fiber is the oat hull (which is indigestible for we poor humans who lack the enzyme for digesting cellulose) ground up into a fine powder. It is entirely composed of insoluble fiber, so has no net carbs.

In addition to being an effective jump-starter of peristalsis, oat fiber is also a most excellent addition to almond meal for making low-carb bread products. I use it to make biscuits (the American kind) and the same flouriness that makes it a bit of a nasty beverage works like magic to give a baked good a more genuine crumb. For any low carb bread-like item that calls for coconut flour, I replace it with oat fiber because it trims carbs and doesn’t add that weird coconut sweetness to what should be a savory product.

It can be a little hard to find even in health food stores, so I get mine from Amazon. This is the brand I buy: https://www.amazon.com/Trim-Healthy-Mama-Non-GMO-Certified/dp/B019PDEUU8/ref=sr_1_3_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1478982270&sr=8-3&keywords=oat+fiber
If you’re in the UK, it looks there are fewer brand options, but it is available on Amazon UK too: https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/87d/NuNaturals-NuGrains-Premium-Grains-Oat-Fiber-454/B00B9JB83O/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1478982851&sr=8-1&keywords=oat+fiber

Edit: It worked! I guess two links per post is the limit. Good to know. 🙂

The third link was to one of my favorite biscuit recipes in which I replace the coconut flour with oat fiber: http://satisfyingeats.com/breads/cheesy-cheese-garlic-biscuits/

Thank you that is really useful, great. Yes I am in the UK.

Esnecca
Thank you for the link. I have never heard of oat fibre before and have ordered it this evening from Amazon UK.

Oh hey, here’s a less expensive source in your neck of the woods from a brand I’ve used before and can actually recommend: https://mydiet-shop.co.uk/fibers/741-lifesource-foods-oat-fiber-500.html . I hope it works for you.

Edit: Hi Krysia, I hope it’s effective for you too! Since y’all are going to have pound bags of stuff you only use a tablespoon at a time, here’s one of my favorite recipes for biscuits as I mentioned above.

Garlic Cheddar Biscuits

1/4 cup plus1 tbsp blanched almond flour
2 tbsp oat fiber
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese
2 tbsp chopped fresh chives or any other fresh herbs you have lying around (I’ve used rosemary, thyme, oregano in various quantities)
1/4 cup heavy cream or sour cream (I use sour cream)
1 egg, cold
1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated (around 2 oz)
2 tbsp room temperature butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (about 175 C). In a medium bowl, mix almond flour, oat fiber, baking powder, garlic powder, salt, Parmesan and chives. Add remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly. Scoop 2 tbsp onto a cookie sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper spaced about 3 inches apart. This will make a rather wide, thin biscuit, like the top of a muffin. If you prefer a taller biscuit (and I do), use a muffin pan, each cup sprayed with the shortest burst of non-stick oil and then spread around with a paper towel.

Bake for 16-20 minutes or until biscuits are golden brown. Eat warm out of the oven for premium deliciousness.

This should make 6 biscuits, each one has 146 calories, 1 gram net carb, 1 gram fiber.

Esnecca – Thanks for sharing. Recipe looks great too. Until my oat fibre arrives i’m trying Fybogel and brunch. So love this diet and the future it will bring.