Intermittent Fasting Success?

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  • TeresaB1979
    TeresaB1979 Posts: 158 Member
    IF is terrible for social life. If you're dieting correctly and you eat your TDEE-20% you're screwed when you go out with friends after your window. Have one drink and a small snack and you just ate back more than half your deficit. Personally, I don't like anything that bars me from enjoying life in moderation. I liked IF and it helped with satiety, but, it definitely has its drawbacks. It's not for everyone, but, it really can help people who like to graze all day on food. Those little snacks add up.


    IF bad for social life? You were doing it wrong. :tongue: I do 5:2 (limit calories to 500 for 2 days and eat 'normally' (for me that's around 2000 cals) on the other 5 days). This means I am free to go out and have a nice meal/ drinks without 'going over' my calories for the week and I no longer have to feel like I am on 'a diet' all the time. I love it. Four months living like this and I am slowly but surely losing weight and feeling great. If the offer of an evening out comes up on a fast day I can go for it and just do the fast the following day. I am off to a Thai restaurant tonight and I am going to have lot of rich food and because I restricted calories on Monday and Wednesday I am safe in the knowledge I still have a decent calorie deficit at the end of the week. Yay. :smile:
  • LolBroScience
    LolBroScience Posts: 4,537 Member
    IF is terrible for social life. If you're dieting correctly and you eat your TDEE-20% you're screwed when you go out with friends after your window. Have one drink and a small snack and you just ate back more than half your deficit. Personally, I don't like anything that bars me from enjoying life in moderation. I liked IF and it helped with satiety, but, it definitely has its drawbacks. It's not for everyone, but, it really can help people who like to graze all day on food. Those little snacks add up.

    You're doing it wrong bro. If you are going to knowingly be going out somewhere, just push your window back and do a longer fast. There's a whole page on Leangains about eating around the holidays and increasing the length of the fast... it's not hard.
  • JossFit
    JossFit Posts: 588 Member
    I hate to barer of bad news, but it's going to suck (HARD) for some when they start eating normally again after IF.. I tried it for about a month or more, didn't work amazingly, but the worst past was after stopping the fasting, I gained back what I had lost - and more.. It was horrible.


    Not everyone will be the same, but if you're like me.. daaaamn it sucks

    I go back and forth depending on my schedule and have never experienced this. It's still calories in versus calories out, so if you gained weight it was due to eating more, not due to eating in a larger 'window'.
  • JossFit
    JossFit Posts: 588 Member
    IF is terrible for social life. If you're dieting correctly and you eat your TDEE-20% you're screwed when you go out with friends after your window. Have one drink and a small snack and you just ate back more than half your deficit. Personally, I don't like anything that bars me from enjoying life in moderation. I liked IF and it helped with satiety, but, it definitely has its drawbacks. It's not for everyone, but, it really can help people who like to graze all day on food. Those little snacks add up.

    IF has improved my social life. Now I can actually go out and have a real MEAL without ordering plain grilled chicken and lettuce because I only have 250 calories left for the day.
  • DatMurse
    DatMurse Posts: 1,501 Member
    IF is not necessary. it is no different than caloric intake in and out. meal timing is irrelevant but this provides structure for those who cannot do it freely.

    I am not against it and I am not for it, however some people enjoy the structure of the diet. especially in times when they have to "cut"
  • giveMEbeauty
    giveMEbeauty Posts: 192
    giveMEbeauty Trying the 16/8 fasts today. Does anyone else do this and had good weight loss results ?
    a few seconds ago · Comment
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  • ryox82
    ryox82 Posts: 2 Member
    I am a new father and haven't been to the gym honestly since August. I was sitting at 221 before I started IF on my last day of vacation on 10/7/2013. Weighed in today at 213. So it's working for me, and I am just making sure I eat higher fats and protien on most days. I eat within reason but I definitely no longer feel guilty having a beer or two with dinner, or having a slice or two of pizza once and a while. Just try to mostly eat whole foods.
  • sugaspice999
    sugaspice999 Posts: 164
    I did 16:8 and got over plateau, lost 4 pounds!

    But made me more used to eating larger meals -> huge binges when I stopped IF. Now I can literally eat my entire 1650 calories in less than 30 minutes if I want to.
  • Matt2139
    Matt2139 Posts: 1
    That .org site linked above is NOT Berkhan's site!! It's some copycat site with a questionable affiliate link.

    The legit site is http://www.leangains.com/

    Please edit your post, it could spread bad info.

    Hi, I'm the owner of http://lean-gains.org. I found this thread from a notification that my site was linked to. What you said is true - Martin Berkhan's site is http://www.leangains.com. I don't purport my site to be the official Leangains website, as the poster said - in fact, I mention several times on my site that it isn't.

    When I first started Leangains nearly two and a half years ago, I found there to be a lack of clear and concise information on macros, training, and that sort of thing. Sure, there was plenty of information available, but you had to extract it from reading tons of posts on Martin's blog - there were no step-by-step guides.

    So, I decided to create my site to help out people who were new to Leangains and got confused by the loosely organized info on Martin's site. It's not meant to be a copy of Martin's site and all the content is 100% original - it's simply there to help out Leangains newbies get started. I think it does a pretty good job, as evidenced by all the positive feedback I have received in my email from visitors over the past year.

    I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say "questionable affiliate link." I have Adsense ads and an affiliate link to Eat Stop Eat on the website. It earns very little - not even enough to cover hosting or domain name renewal fees.

    Anyway, I hope I've cleared things up for anyone who visits this old thread - I'm a huge supporter of Leangains and a fan of Martin's, not some guy out to make a quick buck.

    Some other great Leangains resources to check out are r/Leangains on Reddit and rippedbody.jp (note: this site is not entirely based on Martin's original Leangains, but it comes close - and there's a lot of useful information on it anyway).
  • delongpre
    delongpre Posts: 14 Member
    I've been a binge-eater for many years, and, in the past, I've been able to maintain a decent weight; however, this is no longer possible for me, so I've decided to try IF. I did it for a few days a couple of weeks ago--felt wonderful--and then 'fell off the wagon.' I have begun again, and I am hoping for good results. Like others, I love food and the experience of dining, cooking, and eating at fabulous restaurants and inns, so the idea of eating kale chips and Ezekiel cereal is just not something I am willing to do. In fact, most of the thin healthy people I see don't eat this way. I also find it very unsatisfying to eat six small meals per day. With IF, I am able to eat what I want, which is usually about 1200-1400 calories per day, (when I'm not bingeing), and not feel like I'm depriving myself all the time, which invariably leads to a catastrophic binge. :(

    When I tried IF in the past, I loved the clarity of mind and ease of sleep that came with it. I am hopeful that I'll be able to continue through the month of April and have a little bit of 'scientific evidence,' (albeit anecdotal), to know if it's right for me.
  • delongpre
    delongpre Posts: 14 Member
    Well, today I went a little over my calories--I ate about 100 too many--but I feel like I would have done far worse if I hadn't put myself within an eating window. I fasted from 5pm Saturday night until about 11am Sunday morning. I made a little panini sandwich and then had two waffles and a candy bar. Then I binged on about 3 bowls of cereal. I know this is a horrible intake, but I'm expecting that as I begin to get a handle on IF, I will start to want better foods. I'll see how I do tomorrow. I've tried every crazy diet that is out there, so my main objective is to try to overcome my bingeing.I hope that I will wait until 11am to eat tomorrow. That will have been a 19 hour window, which I think will be good for my digestive system...especially since my eating habits have been terrible lately.
  • delongpre
    delongpre Posts: 14 Member
    I'm just checking in for my fourth full day of IF, and it's going very well. I'm still having to combine it it MFP, but so far, I have stayed within my calories--except that first day, and I'm finding that the fasting is making me feel very good, sleep well, and I haven't binged. I began a binge yesterday, but when I put in my calories and realized where i was, I decided not to, so together this seems to be working. I have stopped eating between 4 and 6, and then I try to fast for 16 hours. So far, so good!

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