Intermittent Fasting / time-restricted eating

CharlesScott78

When I was at my doctors appointment, we were talking about weight loss and the subject of intermittent fasting came up. Now I had heard of fasting of course, but over the years, I had been advised, smaller more frequent meals was the better approach. I want home and started researching the topic.

Now, before I describe my experience, there are a lot of ways to successfully lose weight and no one approach is perfect for everyone. Now that is out of the way, this has been eye opening for me. There seems to be a lot of research that shows clear health benifits to this approach. There are different durations - 14/10, 16/8 18/6 and alternate day fasting. The goal being to allow your body to enter in a state conducive to autophagy.

https://www.healthline.com/health/autophagy

Now, this may be old news to some of you, but it was new to me. 5 weeks ago I started 18/6 and the results are mind blowing to me. My hunger control is better than it has ever been. I feel better and have more energy than I have had in years. I can’t imagine ever not eating this way.

I would love to hear from anyone else that has tried this and your experience.

Charles

Yoolypr

I’ve looked into intermittent fasting a little. It’s interesting. I just try to give myself a full twelve hour break from eating. So it’s 12/12. Probably not getting all the benefits but it works for me.

lauriekallis

Hi Charles, I read the healthline article, but at the end am wondering: doesn't autophagy occur with a simple caloric deficit also?

I personally like the idea of IF because once I start eating I find it difficult to stop - so fewer eating times should equal fewer battles.

But my natural eating patter falls into: Small breakfast (tea & clementines so yes it counts) when I wake up - lets say 9 am. Then the rest of my eating, on a normal day, happens between 4 and 9 or thereabouts. Changing my patterns feels almost impossible. And I'm not sure what the payoff would be. And I'm also pretty afraid of upsetting the cart when things are working well for me at the moment.

Please keep us updated on your journey!

PAV8888

Upsetting apple carts is a terrible value proposition unless they need to be upset!

Discovering something that works when things weren't working (or if things stop working and a change is needed), that's a high value and good thing to do.

If my priority is weight management, then that is what comes first. With further optimizations relevant... but distant seconds

LJAAYY

This + Keto diet = max results IMO.

The key is trying to keep insulin down, which signals body to burn fat for energy instead. The longer you go without eating the lower the insulin levels, I do OMAD or sometimes more. Works well for me.

Sometimes caloric deficit isn’t enough as our bodies can just slow metabolic rate to adjust, and not burn fat - IF & fasting helps flip the switch.

Yoolypr

IF is okay if it works for you and your health. But it’s kind of risky in that you haven’t really worked on habits for the long term after you’ve lost the weight.
For me, learning how to sustain my weight loss and try to live a fairly “normal “ life has been everything. Over many many years I lost weight repeatedly without being able to keep it off. Because I was on a diet that ended and once I stopped the weight came back quickly. Now I’m four years into maintaining a stable weight without restricting too much.
So if you and your doctor are happy that’s all good but do have a future plan too.

lauriekallis

Yes, Yooly. We've all learned this. The need to learn how to "live" in a way that sustains our new lower weight. That is KEY.

DecryingShame

I couldn't maintain a reduced calorie diet because I was hungry all the time. I would eat a meal and still feel hungry afterward but I couldn't afford to eat more calories and stay within my limits. Everyone said that would change but it never did. By six weeks in, I just felt hungrier and hungrier every day.

When I just couldn't keep that up, I started looking at other solutions and decided to try IF. I found that it worked a lot better for me because I was only hungry for a part of the day and then I could eat a full meal that would fill me up.

Recently, I started counting calories again and was surprised to find that I usually can't eat half of my calories at a single meal. In other words, if I eat as much as I want twice per day, I stay close to or under my total calories for the day.