I started intermittent fasting and like it.

OAS5

I started intermittent fasting last Saturday so I'm a week in and I quite like it. Now I am not an expert on the subject but I don't eat past 8 PM and then first meal of the day 11:30 AM. I assume that counts but in any event it's what I am doing and it's not as hard as I thought it would be and it's a sense of accomplishment. I did it just to change this up and try something different.

Maxxitt

It "counts" and for what it's worth, I find that my hunger schedule tends to follow whatever my eating schedule is so that a longer window before the first meal of the day is completely fine for me. Now, the research about benefits from IF beyond helping fewer calories feel satisfying continues to be pretty mixed at this point, but there is little question among folks who have longer faster windows each day that calorie deficits are easier to manage.

purplebobkat

I like IF too, as i find it an easy way to control my appetite.

Congrats on finding something that you can use to help you do something you want to do. 🤗

OAS5

Thank you guys. I should have mentioned I have lost 75 pounds, just 15 more to go. I just wanted to try something new, something different to see if I can do it. I get hungry sometimes in the morning but it quickly goes away somehow. I'm gonna keep at it cause I kinda like it.

joyanna2016

Since 2/13 I have been doing intermittent fasting for the first time in my life and I ❤ it. It goes against everything I've believed my whole dieting life and I think it may be a Godsend for me. I know I'm somewhat in the honeymoon phase still and that I'll have struggles with it as well as any other plan, but I just like the idea that I don't have to worry at all about what to eat until 3:30. My eating window is 3:30 til I'm out of calories...usually about 10 or 11pm. I know this late of an eating window wouldn't work for everybody because it could lend itself to eating unhealthy things but so far so good with me!

lgfrie

I've been doing IF more or less continuously since May 2019, which in the IF world makes me a grizzled old veteran of intermittent fasting. I like it a lot and, though I think with time I will loosen it up a bit as far as how many days per month I do IF (currently around 28, but likely to decline to 23-24 down the road), I think I will stick with this WOE long-long term. For reference I'm down 71 lbs into a 128 lb weight loss effort.

It was a great eye-opening epiphany for me the extent to which the body and mind adapt to the eating schedule, such that the hunger signals get sent right before meal time but not much of the rest of the time. I was previously an enormous nighttime snacker/binger (the reason i got into IF in the first place) and would also wake up starving and eat huge breakfasts. Within a few days of starting 16:8 IF, I was waking up with absolutely no appetite or interest in food whatsoever; the awareness that I should maybe be eating something wouldn't even start until 10 or 15 minutes before my eating window of 11 am to 7 pm. As far as at night, that took a while to adapt to, but there too, I got used to the complete absence of food after 7 pm and my internal signals telling me to eat at night mostly shut down. Never 100 %, but substantially. In all honesty I'd still like to binge around 9-11 pm but IF has made it much easier not to, and it's more of an eat out of boredom thing than a true hunger/craving like before.

One day out of the blue in November I decided to try tightening the window to 18:6 - noon to 6 pm - and found it quite a bit easier and better than 16:8. The extra 2 hrs of fasting got quickly absorbed into the general "this is the time period when I'm not eating" period, and my mind adapted in a day or two to the new schedule so that I had 2 more hours per day when I wasn't thinking about food. It may not sound like a big deal, but that gave me 6 hours instead of 8 to use allllll of my calories for the day, which left me with even more satisfying, huge meals within the window. I eventually hit a mid-point of noon to 7 pm which fit my schedule a bit better, and that's where I've remained ever since.

For me IF has been an easy way to stay within my calories and hit my weight loss goals. It's hard not to be an evangelist for IF because I was a very tough case when I started my diet, with severe nighttime binge behaviors and an awful fast/junk food addiction/fixation, and and nothing had ever seemed to work for more than a few weeks, yet IF has worked for me. A huge part of it for me is how my body and mind have adapted to the eating window such that the rest of the time I'm just not that interested in food, which ... to describe it as a "big change" from my previous relationship with food would be a vast understatement.

k_bright88

I’ve been IF since January and I love it. The challenge is that I am also fasting for Lent (A partial Fast... no food consumption during day light hours) so it gets a little tricky as my eating times are stunted... but I love it so much.

lesstjm

Quick question about fasting. If I did something from say 11am to 7pm. Can I drink coffee in the morning or that is not allowed?

janejellyroll

lesstjm wrote: »

Quick question about fasting. If I did something from say 11am to 7pm. Can I drink coffee in the morning or that is not allowed?

There is no IF police. If you decide coffee is allowed, then it is allowed.

jpearson1289

I'm so glad I found this! I just started myself and am slowly working my morning coffee from lots of creamer to black. I'm just learning & have questions if anyone has good resources... so I'm open to anyones suggestions! I'm really liking it and my hunger is better controlled for sure already.

lgfrie

lesstjm wrote: »

Quick question about fasting. If I did something from say 11am to 7pm. Can I drink coffee in the morning or that is not allowed?

As @janejellyroll pointed out, there are no IF police, so if you want that cup of coffee with cream and sugar, who's to stop you?

That said, in my opinion you should at least take an initial shot at doing it "right" for a couple weeks - which means zero calories outside the eating window, and that includes cream, sugar, and I would also say artificial sweetener is best avoided outside the window too. The reason for this is not some pseudo-science thing or mythological health benefit. It's more that IF is a mindset, a self-disciplined approach to structuring your eating day and food expectations in which "no means no", i.e., no calories outside the eating window. Once you really internalize that and prove to yourself that you can do it, staying completely calorie free outside the eating window becomes habitual and easy, especially as your appetite dissipates when your brain fully realizes it ain't gonna get a single, solitary calorie until the window opens or after it closes. That's the point at which you really accrue the benefits of IF. As long as you are fudging, making small allowances, eliminating X but not Y because you really enjoy Y, you are not fully retraining your brain for "no means no" and will probably remain hungry and food-interested outside the eating window, whereas that hunger and interest in food is something you can conquer with some patience and discipline.

That said, it won't kill you to have a little cream or sugar in your morning coffee. It won't slow down your weight loss beyond a trivial, irrelevant amount, and it won't really change anything else. But you should pay attention to resetting your your mindset for a full embrace of IF if you want to do it, at least for a couple/few weeks, at which point you will be much better informed as to its beneficial impact on hunger and cravings, and whether it works for you and is something you want to continue with, modify a little at the edges, or dispense with.

frankiesgirlie

@Igfrie. Grizzled old veteran huh?
What does that make me? A dinosaur bone?
I’ve been intermittent fasting since before it had a name. High school senior year 1979. Damn, I feel
Old.😂

Avidkeo

I did IF IN January, and have done it intermittently since then. I found im a runner, who runs first thing in the morning and I just didn't do well on an empty stomach. So I do a split IF. I have a banana and a coffee before my run, usually around 530am. Then have breakfast at 12pm, and stop eating for the day around 7-8pm.

No one has arrested me yet...

So my opinion is give it a go, see if it works, and tweak it to suit you. I do it this way because I like to eat towards the end of the day, and my husband does the evening cooking, so I like to keep a large chunk of calories free for what ever he makes, as I rarely know ahead to time.

Basically you do you.

mmapags

frankiesgirlie wrote: »

@Igfrie. Grizzled old veteran huh?
What does that make me? A dinosaur bone?
I’ve been intermittent fasting since before it had a name. High school senior year 1979. Damn, I feel
Old.😂

I had the same thought. Been doing it on and off for over 10 years.

lgfrie

mmapags wrote: »

frankiesgirlie wrote: »

@Igfrie. Grizzled old veteran huh?
What does that make me? A dinosaur bone?
I’ve been intermittent fasting since before it had a name. High school senior year 1979. Damn, I feel
Old.😂

I had the same thought. Been doing it on and off for over 10 years.

You guys are the Stegosaur squad of intermittent fasting.

I've noticed on some of the various IF fora out there that 90 % of the posters have only been active for a few weeks, maybe a month. I think IF pulls in a lot of people on the trend wave but then loses them, because not eating during 8 waking hours every day takes some discipline and commitment at first. It isn't "free" weight loss, per se. And you can't eat whatever you want in the window. I think that realization sends most of the toe-dippers to the hills.

10 months on IF is like 10 years in cat years.

marycarstens

Is anyone using the 5/2 method of fasting? 2 days with 500 calories and then regular eating (I am going careful on the other 5)

lgfrie

marycarstens wrote: »

Is anyone using the 5/2 method of fasting? 2 days with 500 calories and then regular eating (I am going careful on the other 5)

I've done it. It works fine, but those two days are pretty difficult and, for me, were demoralizing. I found it muuuuuuch easier to do 16:8.

OAS5

Well I am really loving this. I'm finding it easier and easier to do. Today I was bogged down at work and didn't eat till 12:30. Its working out just fine so far and I like not having to make breakfast in the morning.

sijomial

marycarstens wrote: »

Is anyone using the 5/2 method of fasting? 2 days with 500 calories and then regular eating (I am going careful on the other 5)

@marycarstens
I did 5:2 to lose my excess weight and found it far easier to stick to compared to an everyday deficit to give me a sensible weekly calorie allowance and steady rate of loss.

Highlights how different we are in terms of adherence that @lgfrie found 5:2 demoralizing and that describes how I feel about eating in a deficit day after day after day after day.......

Taytaylynn92

I love IF! I typically do 18:6 or 20:4. I feel great and am learning to control my cravings.

kaydensmom2009

I started only one month ago and am loving it. I’m started doing 15:9, from 10a-7p and now I’m 16:8, from 11a-7p. I’m doing it because I binge at night and find it easier to have a cut off point.