Day 2 Intermittent Fasting-Early Impressions

willschilling

Well I've decided to hop on board with this Intermittent Fasting that's becoming popular, and I thought I'd share my experiences so far.

I work an overnight job, so the way I do it is a little different than most. My fast lasts from 10pm(right before work) until 2pm the following day(when I wake up). Two days ago I started. I'm considering "day 1" to be "day 0" because I had eaten a little bit before bed, so I wasn't waking in a fasted state as I will be in every day after this one.

DAY 0:
It was a lift day, so I took in my BCAA's and a shake before heading to the gym, then had my large meal(around 60% of my calorie needs for the day) immediately afterwards. Some people like saving this for last in their fasting cycle, I am experimenting with the opposite. I've gotta say, halfway into that meal I wanted to just stop eating, felt like it was just too much. But I had to remind myself that I only have that 8 hour window to get in this food. Eventually I got it all down.

The odd thing? I felt starving about a half hour later... So, over the next few hours up until 10pm I checked off my macro needs as I periodically ate what I had laid out before-hand. Then headed to work.

My first night on this diet was hell at work. I only had around 4-5 10oz bottles of water, which may have kept any hunger pangs away because I didn't feel hungry AT ALL the whole night. But I still felt tired and like I didn't have much energy. This might be because of the fact that I don't move around much at work and I'm stuck in front of a computer screen for most of it. But I made it through the night, and before heading home I actually went grocery shopping in the morning. Even unloading all the fresh, delicious food into the fridge and cupboards... I wasn't hungry, so I crawled into bed.

DAY 1:
Upon waking around 2pm I'd completed my first cycle and was expecting to awake with such hunger that I could run a straight line through the walls of my house straight to the kitchen and raid it, but that wasn't the case. I STILL was not hungry. This day was a rest day, so instead of eating normally after a workout I eat the largest meal immediately. This time, It was not as large as the first day, but still a monster(around 1000 cals). With better planning than in "Day 0" where I basically stuffed my face and a few hours later stuffed my face again, I spread these meals out a little better.

And again the transition from feeding to fasting started at 10pm, when I headed to work. And well, I've been at work for 5 hours now. I'm not hungry in the least bit but I'm starting to see the effects this diet can have on your energy levels. The first day I felt almost comatose, probably putting my body through some serious culture shock as it screams at me, "WHY ARE YOU EATING THIS WAY?!?" Tonight I actually feel pretty normal. Not tired or hyper, I actually have that mid-day feeling like you've been really busy and productive and just wanna keep at it.

Well, obviously I'm typing this up at WORK right now so it's pretty apparent that I dont have much to "keep at it" about, haha.

I'm going to keep at this diet for as long as I can and see what I can gain from it.