Fast(ing) Friends

GeekDadCS

Hi there. Looking for people who are doing Intermittent Fasting. All-around support is great, but this requires people who know exactly the hurdles you're dealing with. Lets help motivate and support each other!

Xellercin

I started IF a little while ago, I want to say about a month or two (I've lost track). It was prescribed to me by my MD.

So far I've found it pretty comfortable. I don't know exactly what type of IF I'll do, I was doing an 18:6 morning eating window 5 days a week with two normal eating days to prevent hormonal issues because I'm female.

Today I'm trying my first ~34h fast. I last had a caloric beverage last night around 11pm, and will eat again tomorrow whenever I wake up.

The first half of the day, when I normally eat was rough because my stomach expected food, I wasn't sure I would be able to make it the day, but now that I'm in what is my normal fasting window, I feel fine, like I normally do this time of day. My stomach feels empty and mildly hungryish, but better than this morning.

I'll see how I feel tomorrow morning. Will have a full eating day tomorrow, no fasting.

Nicoles0305

I’ve been IFing since 2014! I initially lost over 220lbs in the first 15 months of it. Then I crept back up again, but was still able to maintain 180lbs of the initial 220lb loss until late 2018. Thats when I got pregnant and took about a year off from IF. But I’ve been back at it for about two years now. I obviously had some gains from pregnancy, and I’ve found I now have to use some kind of tracking to lose weight since I’m a little older and pregnancy changed my body a little bit. The good news is that I’m down 82 lbs from my 3 month postpartum weight, and only 53 lbs away from goal!

I don’t follow one protocol hard and fast. Most days I wind up somewhere between 16:8 and 20:4. Then there are occasional days like today where I ate lunch at noon, dinner at 5, and then a snack at about 10pm. I used to be really really strict about maintaining a 5 hour eating window, but I’ve loosened up a bit because being so strict about it wasn’t good for my mental health. I am still of the belief that I will never eat morning breakfast again- save for very rare occasions- because I just feel better without it. And I will continue to follow IF because at this point, it’s just life for me and very easy to maintain.

GeekDadCS

Xellercin wrote: »

I started IF a little while ago, I want to say about a month or two (I've lost track). It was prescribed to me by my MD.

So far I've found it pretty comfortable. I don't know exactly what type of IF I'll do, I was doing an 18:6 morning eating window 5 days a week with two normal eating days to prevent hormonal issues because I'm female.

Today I'm trying my first ~34h fast.

How did that go? I can't go that long without eating because I get shaky.

GeekDadCS

Nicoles0305 wrote: »

The good news is that I’m down 82 lbs from my 3 month postpartum weight, and only 53 lbs away from goal!

That's awesome! My limit seems to be 16, but it's usually more around 14. I started on Friday and I'm already down 2 pounds. I've been drinking a lot of water, so I don't think it's water weight. Either way, I'm impressed.

NYPhotographer2021

Hi! I've been doing a 16:8 IF for a couple of months. Every now and again I'd do an 18:6. A couple of times I made it to 20:4. I'm trying to work up to OMAD, but so far not there yet! Every other week I'll eat normally like a 14:10. But mostly I'm doing the 16:8.
I started on 8/26 and have lost 20 lbs so far. Of course this all coupled with a calorie deficit. The IF makes it easier to stick with the calorie deficit. So whatever works, right?

GeekDadCS

NYPhotographer2021 wrote: »

I started on 8/26 and have lost 20 lbs so far.

That's awesome! I'm not sure I could do OMAD, but sometimes I'm just not too hungry and end up eating once. If it happens, great, but I'm happy so far with the results.

angelexperiment

I’ve been doing omad about 1.5 years. Sometimes I switch it up to two meals depending on how I feel. But generally don’t get til 2 sometimes til 9

GeekDadCS

@angelexperiment How well have you done on it?

Megan_smartiepants1970

I do 16:8 everyday since 10/1 ... I have lost 17 lbs so far and I walk over 2 hours 5 days a week as long as I am not sick or with injuries

Drea702

I’m also doing the 16:8 with no days off. I started on 11/3. I’m also walking about 2 miles everyday. So far I’m only down 1 pound and thought I’d be down at least 2 lbs, I’m not giving up.
I’ve also recently quick smoking 27 days ago and gave up caffeine so I’m being patient with my body.
My hurdles are nighttime snacks. I start my fast at 7pm and by the time I go to bed my stomach is rumbling lol. I’ve been doing nighttime snacking for about a year and gained 35 lbs. that’s my biggest struggle so far but I’m barely hitting one week.

Also morning food/coffee, I just started drinking hot tea in place of the coffee so that has definitely helped me get to 11am without a headache.

GeekDadCS

@Drea702 Mornings are my toughest time of day as well because I love my morning tea with homemade creamer. It was a great fit when I was doing keto, but not so much on IF. It's calorie dense enough to wreck my fast. I've started holding off until 11:00 before I have any which leaves me at 14-15 fasting hours.

Have you tried going a little later? My cut-off is usually 8 or 9 PM which makes it a little easier to get through the night without breaking it before bed.

NYPhotographer2021

Drea702 wrote: »

...I’ve also recently quick smoking 27 days ago and gave up caffeine so I’m being patient with my body...

Congrats on the quitting smoking!! I quit 8 years ago. Unfortunately, it's how I gained most of my weight. So yeah, don't quit the intermittent fasting! I wish I had done IF after I quit. You can do it!

Xellercin

malevolentmuse wrote: »

Xellercin wrote: »

I started IF a little while ago, I want to say about a month or two (I've lost track). It was prescribed to me by my MD.

So far I've found it pretty comfortable. I don't know exactly what type of IF I'll do, I was doing an 18:6 morning eating window 5 days a week with two normal eating days to prevent hormonal issues because I'm female.

Today I'm trying my first ~34h fast.

How did that go? I can't go that long without eating because I get shaky.

It was fine!
I tried IF years ago, but couldn't even do 12 hours without getting shaky and dizzy, but it turned out my blood pressure was too low.

Now I'm prescribed salt pills to raise it and even the 34hr fast was no big deal.

The morning was rough in terms of hunger because my eating window is normally in the morning. I had eaten the night before though because I have 2 normal eating days, and had non alcoholic beer until 11pm, so I wasn't even fasted 10 hours when my cravings and hunger amped up in the morning. So I knew it wasn't real hunger, it was just my stomach churning acid because it was used to food at that time.

It really reminded me that the vast majority of my hunger signals come from having eaten at specific repetitive times for so many years. I've had to relearn the difference between "I need food" and "my stomach expects food".

The "I need food" signal occurs more in my head. I start feeling foggy and agitated if I need food and am out and can't get it for some reason. My stomach? Turns out she has no idea what she's talking about, and is just accustomed to a schedule.

By the time the morning passed, I was fine again. I was infinitely less hungry and more comfortable by the time I hit the 24hr mark that night than I had been at the 10hr mark that morning.

So I plan to do a combo of alternate day fasting and eating window. I'll aim for two days of full fasting then I'll have a full eating day after each of those. Then the days between them will be 5-6hr eating windows, that I can move around.

So a sample week could be
S: fast
M: eating day, no window
T: 5-6h window
W: 5-6h window
Th: fast
F: eating day
S: 5-6h window

From my reading of the IF research, if my goal is to repair my metabolism, which was so downregulated from calorie restriction, it seems the best thing I can do is keep the routine as variable as possible.

Overall, this has been SHOCKINGLY easy and comfortable for me. I barely took a week to adjust to it, I typically prefer an earlier eating window and have no problem sipping water or herbal tea at night, and I have LESS cravings in the evenings than I did when I ate 3 meals a day and drank caloric beverages in the evening.

I think less about food overall and my cravings are so minor, they're basically a non issue.

It's also allowing me to really enjoy the full eating days. I've had to be so restricted for so long due to my metabolic downregulation, that I had to be so strict about monitoring my calories. Now I can eat freely and not really think about it.

I'm not a binger in general, I almost exclusively eat nutrient dense foods, and I feel no urge to over eat on my full eating days, so I can just follow really intuitive eating and eat about 1800 calories that day, but I usually bump it up to 2200-2400 calories so that my weekly average isn't excessively low.

elaroch05

I'm getting back into IF so I can go off my meds. Right now, aiming for an 18:6 day. Mornings, I stick with something like hot green tea or black tea (no sweeteners) and/or a good cup of black coffee (this requires good coffee beans...like...the kind that don't need creamer).

Side note: I've found that a sun lamp can do wonders to wake me up instead of caffeine, especially in the winter. And it's something that's not going inside me. Also, just walking the dogs first thing in the morning, even if it's in my PJs.

JenKindo

I've been doing IF since Aug 20 and have lost 27 pounds. I started doing 18:6, but have gradually settled at 19:5 because that works with my schedule. I also do calorie restriction and stick with lean protein and veg for the bulk of my food. Don't think I'll go below 19:5 because I'm having trouble eating all my calories in that short a time. OMAD is not in my future.

I've had trouble with hypoglycemia in the past, so I wanted to start slowly, but I haven't had a single problem with that since I started and just slowly built up my fasting window.

Daylight savings time however, DID cause a problem. Both my stomach and my dog don't want to wait that extra hour to eat!

JenKindo

Drea702 wrote: »

I’m also doing the 16:8 with no days off. I started on 11/3. I’m also walking about 2 miles everyday. So far I’m only down 1 pound and thought I’d be down at least 2 lbs, I’m not giving up.

It seems to take a little while to start kicking in. My first week I only lost .4 pounds but it ramped up from there each week. Stick with it!

GeekDadCS

@jenkindo I don't see myself doing OMAD either. When I was a teenager I ended up in the ER a few times because of blood sugar crashes. I'm not taking the chance of that coming back just to get a few extra hours of fasting. I'm good with an 8-10 hour eating window.

JenKindo

@malevolentmuse - I hear you. I'm actually thinking of going back to 18:6 once I'm under 200 pounds. I've been losing a little to quickly - about 2.2 pounds a week and want to start to slow that down after I get a good head start. Should be there in about a month.

Nicoles0305

I love reading all of these experiences! IF is just my way of life anymore. I just do it without thinking about it.

OMAD is a beast. Some people can do it no problem. And I have tried it without issue before. However, I cannot do it for an extended period of time, as it seems to trigger some food addiction issues. Given my experience there, I encourage anyone to give it a try if it calls to you, but watch out it that it doesn’t start leading you down a more troubling path. It’s really important I think, to really learn your body and it’s signals when it come to more aggressive fasting protocols. I’ve done 48 hour fasts too, and while I feel great after the first day, once I eat again, I have a hard time stopping.

Still, I love IF, and plan to continue it indefinitely. It makes eating less much easier, as long as I stick to the protocol that works best for me.

GeekDadCS

@Nicoles0305 I'm finding that (except on rare occasions) I was eating breakfast because I was "supposed to" and not because I was genuinely hungry. Missing breakfast doesn't bother me usually (this morning was a little rougher than usual, though).