Intermittent fasting

hanhere

I been intermittent fasting for over a month now. I lost 2kgs in the first 2 weeks and now nothing. I’m clearly doing something wrong. What do you eat in a day while intermittent fasting?

ccrdragon

OP, you can eat anything that you would have eaten on a non-fasting day as long as you stay within your calorie goals. There is nothing magical about IF - it is simply a tool to help you stay under your calorie target.

To give you a more direct answer, you need to provide more info - like height, weight, how much you want to lose, calorie goals, etc. Also need to know how you are measuring your intake - i.e. how to track your calories?

Xellercin

Why do you assume you are doing something wrong. Do you expect to lose weight every week? Because no weight loss approach will produce that consistently. I've lost a lot of weight steadily over time and sometime had periods where the scale didn't budge for nearly 2 months, and yet, over the course of the year, the rate of loss was steady over time.

Don't over correct because of short term results.

HarveysBud

What @ccrdragon said. Pick a calorie defecit you are comfortable with, and the process will reap you rewards. Just be consistent and keep under your daily intake.

robnamyalford

Hi there, I am doing Int Fast + a very low carb, high protein diet. I try to stay around 1200 calories a day however, I was up to 268 lbs with a goal of 160-150 lbs. I started about 3 months ago with c calories in low carb high protein however I added in intermittent fasting about a month and a half ago. I started with the 16/8, 8 hours of eating a day 16 hours off and every two weeks I would increase by an hour or two, not pressuring myself just whatever I felt comfortable with. About 5 days ago I started the 20/4, 4 hours of eating a day 20 hours off and I am shocked at how my body has adjusted and I'm really not hungry during those 20 hours. I had to force feed myself my entire meal just now as my first meal of the day. I have seen several places that with intermittent fasting and keto diets that you can plateau with the scale or that is, you think your plateauing when really you're not. The scale won't move but you're still losing inches and fat content. From the things that I've seen it says not to be surprised if there is a plateau on the scale for three four even five days and then when you get on it after that you'll have a significant weight loss where the weight loss finally catches up on the scale. As someone who is new to this as well, my newbie advice would be common sense, if what you're doing is working for you you're not having any problems keeping up with your program then just keep going ignore the scale for a couple days as hard as that is to do. As long as you're doing what you're supposed to be doing the weight will come off, it absolutely will. Just be patient with the scale and keep doing what you're supposed to do, eventually we will all get to where we need or want to be.. good luck and congratulations on how far you've came already

denasqu

I feel your frustration. Don't give up! I dropped 90 lbs over 5 months (from 370 to 280 lbs) then get stuck for 4 months. I tried various fasts (up to 48 hours) but my weight wouldn't move. I might drop a few pounds but it would snap right back to 280. For the past 9 months, I've been fanatical about tracking everything I consume + exercise + glucose + blood pressure. I didn't have much luck with intermittent fasting because I was trying to skip dinner. Turns out night time eating is my #1 eating disorder. Skipping breakfast and lunch is "normal" for me so all the IF suggestions to "skip breakfast" just were not going to work for me. I actually want to skip breakfast and lunch. For decades I never ate either. Just coffee all day and then huge feast at night. So, I kind of came to believe that any successful IF was going to have to involve skipping dinner. I finally took some extreme measures to stop the night time eating and it worked! A friend asked me if I had a dog gate and I laughed. But then that night, after I dinner, I put up the dog gate to block off my kitchen. I found that when I woke up and went to the kitchen to get a snack, I was too groggy to mess with the gate. And I would just go back to bed. After a couple nights I didn't even bother getting out of bed. Then I started skipping dinner and doing a 16-8 fast. After a few successful nights, I switched to a 18-6 fast. Immediately I began to drop weight again, and to keep dropping (10 more lbs in the last month). 18-6 is my sweet spot.

You have to figure out what works for you. My nine-month journey from diabetic retinopathy and high blood pressure to medication free, diabetes free, 20/20 vision, and excellent blood pressure, has been a continuous series of tracking, monitoring, and problem solving. Thanks in no small part to myfitnesspal.

Some thoughts on your situation:

Make sure you're in ketosis or fat adapted.. whatever you want to call it. I can't imagine being carb dependent and trying to fast. Just shoot me.

Maybe mix it up.

Try a longer fast or skipping different meal during your daily IF.

Check and adjust your macros. I've pretty much consistently stuck with Keto macros. In the beginning, because of diabetic blindness, I reduced my carbs at 10mg per day. As things improved, I started counting net carbs, then I adjusted up to 30mg per day. I've also really started to watch sodium and potassium after realizing too much sodium was jacking up my blood pressure. As my awesome Dr says, "we've all got our numbers". i.e. My sodium number is 2000mg per day. My carb number is 30 mg per day. Exceeding the first will jack up my blood pressure for days and the latter will jack up my blood sugar.

Calories don't really matter... much. I don't worry much about calories except as a general measure of how much food I'm eating each day. Usually, I'm between 1500-2500 per day. But as long as my macros are lined up, I don't really care how much I good food I eat. My experience with IF is that just changing the time that I eat results in weight loss and many other benefits (autophagy, better sleep, improved digestion, more energy, less stress). And I'm eating exactly the same foods, in the same amounts, that I've been eating for the last 4 months of my weight loss stall. It's almost unbelievable but there are a few studies that validate my experience. It could be just a big coincidence that my weight began to drop the day I started IF. But it doesn't really matter. I'm very content to eat twice a day within a 6-hour window. It's simpler and I feel so much better. The weight loss is just a plus.

How do your clothes fit? I found that during my four month weight plateau my body changed dramatically. I had to go down from XXXL to XXL despite not losing a pound! Now, after a month of 18-6 IF weight loss, I'm shopping for XL clothes.

Get a good scale. I got a Withings scale that shows water weight, fat %, muscle %, etc. I'm not sure how accurate it is but the weight measure seem to be pretty accurate at least. And the fat/muscle trends pretty consistently toward less fat and more muscle even during my 4 month weight loss stall.


I linked to some good articles below. Also check out Youtube for Dr. Jason Fung and Dr. Robert Lustig.

Why Intermittent Fasting May Be the Best Diet Plan

Autophagy: What You Need to Know

How to renew your body: Fasting and autophagy

How Intermittent Fasting Might Help You Live a Longer and Healthier Life

Fasting triggers stem cell regeneration of damaged, old immune system

jakers6108

Hello new to IF. Need a community so I'm glad this is available for me. Will be checking in now and then. This should be interesting!

Jthanmyfitnesspal

IF isn't a magic bullet. It's just a tool that works for some people to help them not to over-consume. You still need to be in overall caloric deficit to lose weight.

tms146680557899

I’m not a fitness guru but, I have been doing research. And one thing that keeps popping up is don’t rely on the scales! One of the best ways to keep track of your progress, is to take pictures of yourself. This way you can see your progress. Also, your weight will fluctuate. It will go up it will go down, It will even plateau. The biggest thing is don’t give up.