Intermittent Fasting Support Group?

northstar699

Totally love this idea! I'm going to do my first 24 hour day tomorrow. The problem is that I'm a night shift nurse and even though my fast will start at 5pm, that's really right after my breakfast. The plan is to eat a normal breakfast, work all night, sleep most of the day, do a light workout after I wake up, then eat a normal meal around 5. I know most people start after dinner and sleep through the first part of the fast. Anybody else ever try to start a fast the other way around?

cutmd

Totally love this idea! I'm going to do my first 24 hour day tomorrow. The problem is that I'm a night shift nurse and even though my fast will start at 5pm, that's really right after my breakfast. The plan is to eat a normal breakfast, work all night, sleep most of the day, do a light workout after I wake up, then eat a normal meal around 5. I know most people start after dinner and sleep through the first part of the fast. Anybody else ever try to start a fast the other way around?

Hey, I'm an ER doc, so my work schedule varies. I try to change my window accordingly. I have found for some reason that once I start eating it is harder for me to fast. Psychologically it seems to work better for me to wake up fasting. So for my overnights when doing ESE I will eat in the am, go to bed, fast all night, and then eat in the am. It really depends on what works better for your psyche and hunger levels.

Lady Gecko, for some reason I've never had anything not leak on me, even my thermoses used to do it. Haven't tried any since I was 12. Have any recs?

lodro

It's interesting how intermittent fasting made me more in tune with what i need to eat to function in a certain situation. The past 2 weeks I've been guiding people who are doing wilderness fasts. They go out to stay in a natural place, without food, but with water, for 4 days and nights. I've been running basecamp and cooking on the preparation and return days. This is physically heavy work, because everything has to be brought to basecamp by hand, on wheelbarrows: food, water, camping supplies, everything. I noticed how I quickly dropped the intermittent fasting regime in favor of eating much more carbohydrate, mainly, i suppose, to keep my muscles happy, because they were burning glucose like crazy. Except for two days when I was the water pourer in the sweat lodges we run before the wilderness fasts start: we also tell participants to fast as much as possible in the 8 hours preceding the lodge, and this the firekeeper and I do as well, then after the lodge, we eat breakfast.

What I found interesting is how much more in tune I am with how my body and eating patterns react to different situations. I'm back home now and resting from a lot of hard physical work and I went back to my regular leangains intermittent fasting with not problems. Also I'm pleased to notice that I've maintained my weight nicely, neither gaining nor losing. This balance is what I hope to maintain and intermittent fasting has helped me tremendously in freeing myself from feeding patterns that weren't helping my body.

katkins3

I love IF and have been doing it once a week for about a month now. I normally will start my fast after lunch. On days that I fast I dont eat differently or try to gorge, I eat a small breakfast and a normally lunch (chicken/veggies) then let the fasting begin around 1pm. I normally hit the gym at 5:30 and dont get home until after 7. I just drink lots of water and head to bed early and let the fat burning begin while I sleep. Its awesome and when I wake up the next day I have already fasted for 15 hours and most of it without knowing it. I again have a light breakfast (2 hardboiled eggs/coffee) and let the day begin. There are a lot of na sayers that will tell you it's so unhealthy and you will go into starvation mode, but I have yet to do that and I find I wake up with tons of energy and ready to start the day.

Stick with it!!!

This description is very helpful. I hadn't thought about fasting, but this is interesting and do-able. Thanks for sharing! I will start a similar pattern soon.

LdyGeko

I will check my hubby's thermos and see what brand it is, I bought it in the camping section at Walmart, I think. I think its the actual "Thermos" brand - big stainless steel thing with a black handle on the side, and it's got a screw-in plug top and then another black plastic one that screws in on top that can be used as a cup. I fill it with coffee for him every morning and he throws that thing around all the time - has never had a leak at all. I fill it at around 6 a.m. and he drinks his last cup around 2 p.m. - he says it stays warm all day.

I've used the other ones that are typically used for soup - you'll know the ones I mean, they usually have bright-colored plastic outside cover and the lid is a plastic cup with a little finger handle - those things leak like a sieve, LOL....

Totally love this idea! I'm going to do my first 24 hour day tomorrow. The problem is that I'm a night shift nurse and even though my fast will start at 5pm, that's really right after my breakfast. The plan is to eat a normal breakfast, work all night, sleep most of the day, do a light workout after I wake up, then eat a normal meal around 5. I know most people start after dinner and sleep through the first part of the fast. Anybody else ever try to start a fast the other way around?

Hey, I'm an ER doc, so my work schedule varies. I try to change my window accordingly. I have found for some reason that once I start eating it is harder for me to fast. Psychologically it seems to work better for me to wake up fasting. So for my overnights when doing ESE I will eat in the am, go to bed, fast all night, and then eat in the am. It really depends on what works better for your psyche and hunger levels.

Lady Gecko, for some reason I've never had anything not leak on me, even my thermoses used to do it. Haven't tried any since I was 12. Have any recs?

BR1986FB

This fasting is like falling off a log. So easy, yet so effective !

stephparee

so i have read through all these posts and i am confused as to how this whole fasting thing works?
do you eat all your calories in one meal at night?

I eat 3 very small meals per day, am i going to put myself into starvation mode from doing this?
a little bit of insight would be great.
thanks!

northstar699

What are thoughts on sugar free gum during a fasting period?

YvetteBabich

Well, yesterday I failed at a weekly 30 hour fast for the first time in a year! I have no idea why that happened, fasting has been easy for me for a really long time.

Oh well, my resolve is strengthened for take 2 today...

I guess my point is to keep in mind that if you do the 24 hour non-daily fast thing, there is always tomorrow if you it ends up just not working out. (To a point, obviously. I don't really advocate the "oh well I'll do it tomorrow" attitude.) Love the flexibility of ESE!

When you do your fast do you make up for your calories in another day or just not worry about them? I've never done this before and an all day fast seems better for, just trying to gain information to make sure I do things right!

Personally I don't worry about them because I don't really count calories religiously anyway (yes, I realize this is a calorie counting site, but I'm more using it for the incredible support, and to stay focused on fitness and healthy choices)
BUT, to answer your question, the goal of ESE style fasting is to create a calorie deficit using the 1 or 2 fasting days a week. It stresses a weekly calorie deficit rather than daily, so yes, if you are ESE-ing and counting calories, you would want to try and distribute your fasting day calories throughout the rest of the week, especially if you're at a 1200 cal daily goal according to MFP.

What are thoughts on sugar free gum during a fasting period?

Unless you're chewing a ridiculous amount of gum, it's negligible and totally fine. I used to chew gum all the time during fasts, but I stopped because it would just activate my salivary glands too much, and that combined with constantly chewing just made me wish I had some real food.

BigBoneSista

Ok I wish to do this but I do 2-a-days with cardio and strength training at different times. I do ChaLean Extreme, Turbo Fire and Zumba. I rarely net 1200 calories a day according to MFP because I do not eat back any exercise calories. But I eat solid meals that keep me full. I'm not going to eat more food just to satisfy some numbers game. Now if my body tells me I need more calories I will grab something extra to eat. I am actively working on lowering my BF% as effectively as possible. Would this work for me?

jessradtke

Just wanted to say how excited I was to see this thread. I fast for different reasons than most of you, but it's exciting to see so many other people who fast.

Huskeryogi

so i have read through all these posts and i am confused as to how this whole fasting thing works?
do you eat all your calories in one meal at night?

I eat 3 very small meals per day, am i going to put myself into starvation mode from doing this?
a little bit of insight would be great.
thanks!

There are different ways of doing this. I 'fast' from 10PM (bedtime) until noon the next day (14 hours) and then I eat 3 meals over the next 10 hours. A small meal (350-400 cal) at noon to break the fast. Then when I get home from work I do my workout then eat my biggest meal (usually around 6:30 - wish it could be earlier but doesn't work with my work schedule). That meal is generally about 50% of my daily calories or 700-800 calories. I LOVE that I can eat a real dinner while doing this. Then about 9:00-9:30 I eat my final meal of about 300 calories.

How many calories are you netting daily? Looking at the studies referenced on - leangains.com - I don't believe that skipping meals puts you into starvation mode anymore, but eating too few calories over a 3-4 day period will.

tameka1220

I'm an IF'er!! Have you guys checked out www.leangains.com??? its soooo informative on intermittent fasting. I've been doing it for a couple weeks, and finally broke my plateau.

northstar699

Just to update the people considering this plan, I can be your guinea pig. I'm doing my first 24 hour fast today and I only have 7 hours left to go. For those of you doing the math, my schedule is weird because I'm a night nurse. So far it has been really easy. I ate a normal meal before I went to bed and when I woke up I already had a good part of the day done. I was originally planning to eat when I woke up and then start the fast, but I thought that I might get hungry (weak) 4-5 hours after that meal. This way I had already slept through that initial craving. I did feel like I wanted to eat when I woke up but it was more of a mental hunger than an actual hunger and was over as soon as I got my day started. I've had tons of energy at work and all I've had is some water with lemon juice and a couple sticks of sugar free gum. When a nurse next to me started eating fries I hardly felt anything about it. Usually when I have something healthy to eat I get really tempted to cheat, but knowing I won't be eating anything today made that not an option whatsoever. It's going so well that I may extend my fast to 32 hours and just eat when I wake up again.

All in all, I'm really happy with it so far and I hope the scale agrees with me! I'll keep you posted...

mideon_696

also started today guys.

was an easy first fast.

then BAM, 1221 cals for first meal. lol.

Teemo

How many calories are you netting daily? Looking at the studies referenced on - leangains.com - I don't believe that skipping meals puts you into starvation mode anymore, but eating too few calories over a 3-4 day period will.

Putting aside the question of exactly what "starvation mode" is, if you're fasting you should still be consuming the same number of calories as if you weren't.

If your maintenance caloric intake is 2500, and you're dieting at 2000/day, you should still be eating 2000 calories per day.

mideon_696

agreed.

**** i eat a lot.

chrisdavey

quality "breakfast" mate :laugh:

hush7hush

So I did an 18 hour fast today and the issue that I have is that I can not even get close to my calorie intake during my eating time?? Is that bad. I only had 400 calories today. I'm not hungry and I don't like forcing myself to eat when I'm not hungry.

If you are going to go leangains style you need to eat all your calories in the 6 hours a day when you eat. If you are doing ESE you eat a normal meal and just go on, ESE is usually a 24 hour fast.

I have this problem too. I'm usually around 400-600cals on my fast days, but I don't worry about it. I don't think our bodies run on 24hr time...

Uhh. I eat nothing on my fasting days.
Maybe it's just me, but one purpose of it for me is the calorie restriction.
Which is why my fasts go for 24-36 hours, depending on the time I start.

My 24hr fasts go dinner to dinner

Ohhhh, I gotcha.
I do mine on Wednesdays, because I stop eating at 3am on Wednesday morning (technically my work-Tuesday).
And then I allow myself to eat when I wake up on Thursday.
So it can be between 24 and 36 hours, depending on my sleep schedule.

Did I already ask, do you work out on your fast days?

I stop eating at 7pm on the first day (it varies) and start eating again at 7pm the next day. So far 24hrs has been my longest fast. How do you find 36hr fasts? Are they much harder than 24hrs? I keep everything the same, so since I fast five days a week for varying hours (between 18 - 24hrs), I just do my usual workouts each day. So that ranges from ballet, pilates, walking, circuit training and gymnastics. I break the fast first though, usually with something small like a probiotic yoghurt drink (except on ballet days; I have dinner before ballet and the snack after if I need it). How about you?

Sorry about the delay.
My 36 hour fasts never really seem to be much harder, but when I wake up from a 36-hour I always feel much clearer and focused. But then again, I am asleep the vast majority of my fast, really.

northstar699

How on earth do you guys eat all of your calories in such a short window without getting sick?!!? I'm not even halfway there and I feel like I'm going to have to start all over soon, if you get my drift. Ugh!