My IF based diet

I just wanted to take a second to tell everyone about the diet plan I’m currently following. After reading about and experimenting with intermittent fasting I’ve developed a plan that has worked extremely well so far. I believe it can work for others with certain tendencies, so I wanted to write about it and explain why it works.

My plan is based on a weekly deficit. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I fast until I get off work at 3:30, which means I usually end up eating around 4. I do not eat at all from the night before at around 10:00, making my fasts around 16 hrs. On these days my planned intake is 1200 calories, but I usually train on these days, and I always eat my exercise calories. On the other 4 days of the week I eat my maintenance calories, which is 2500. I also eat back my exercise calories on these days. Based on this plan, I end up with a weekly deficit around 3600 calories.

There are numerous benefits of fasting beyond weight loss, but the main reason I use it is to create my weekly deficit. Basically, when I DO eat I eat enough to keep myself satisfied all the time. I never find myself very hungry on my eating days, which is very nice and very preferable to a daily deficit, which left me hungry much of the time. On those days that I fast, I have the benefit of the appetite suppression that comes with fasting, and it’s not hard at all to cut down my intake to half of my normal daily intake when I only eat for 5 or 6 hours.

So far this type of diet combined with circuit training workouts (usually 20-30 minutes 4-5 days a week) has produced great results. After going on vacation for a week, this diet has gotten me right back on track, and then some.

I know many operate off the false belief that going drastically low on your intake for a day can have a negative effect on your metabolism, but this simply isn’t true, and I have found that my weight loss has not only been consistent, but beyond what I would expect from following a daily deficit plan. I have been losing upwards of 1 lb after my fasting days, and have found that I don’t gain any back after the following normal eating day, as I expected I would. I expect this loss to slow, but have been very surprised at how fast the weight has dropped off and the quality of the weight lost.

If someone else were to want to try this type of plan, you would want to calculate your maintenance calories for the day, then multiply by 7, the subtract the weekly deficit you want, then distribute the calories throughout the week however you want to. Your maintenance calories would be your MFP suggested intake if you didn’t want to lose or gain weight.

Here’s an example; say someone had maintenance calories of 1700 calories a day. Their weekly maintenance calories would be 11900. If they wanted to lose 1 lb a week, they would need to take in 8400 calories a week. This could be done by following the traditional MFP plan and taking in 1200 calories a day. Or it could be achieved with a plan like this;

Saturday- 1700 calories
Sunday- 1700 calories
Monday- 500 calories
Tuesday- 1700 calories
Wednesday- 500 calories
Thursday- 1700 calories
Friday- 500 calories

This would give a total of 8300 calories a week, giving the same deficit of 3600 that I’m running right now.

I don’t think this plan is for everyone. For me, it’s much easier to have times where I’m eating enough to stay satisfied and times where I’m not eating at all, as opposed to cutting down my intake all of the time. This is a more extreme, fasting based version of something called “zig-zag” dieting, which is also a good option for those who would like to change their intake on different days.

If you are interested in the concept of intermittent fasting, there are some other, proven programs available as well. Some good examples are “Eat Stop Eat”, “Fast-5”, and “Leangains”.