Intermittent fasting- just an acceptable way of starving yourself?

I have a friend who does 5:2 and loves it. She lost about 15 vanity lbs initially -- no faster than a lb per week or less -- and now uses it for maintenance. She doesn't count on the 5 days, it's basically a way to let her eat whatever she wants at other times.

eminater wrote: »

What on earth is a 'Vanity Pound?'

When someone who’s already at a healthy weight loses simply to look better (hence for their vanity)

I eat around 2500 calories everyday in 3 meals. This girl is not starving. I just wait until I get hungry to start eating and I stop eating for the day after dinner, so I IF naturally.

If you would see my “regular” eating you would be appalled at the level of disorder. Binge eating everywhere. When I follow my self imposed 20/4 IF schedule I can easily eat my 1500-1800 cal diet, feel great the fasted hours and satisfied with my large meal in the evening. Fasting for 3/4/5 or more days is not IF as far as I am concerned, and those styles as a weight loss form I would be concerned about.

I'm currently playing around with meal timing, but for a very specific purpose: due to circumstance my strength workouts are 12-1pm. I've been accommodating that and meals for a while, but it's been... unpleasant at times.
So, I'm trying to eat a light "meal" at about 10:30 just so I'm not either full or starving for my noon workout, then having lunch after. I typically stop eating after dinner as my body seems to like that. This all then turns into about a 15:9. Nothing disordered. Just responding to circumstance in a slightly different way. For years I at breakfast around 6am. I would then want lunch at 12. Can't do that. Don't want to "spend" more calories on a morning snack at the moment. So there we have it.

No it's a not a fad. What exactly do you think you are doing when you are sleeping? EVERYBODY fasts for around 8-12 hours naturally so how can it be a fad lol?

From my experience it's the best thing I do.

1. It regulates my appetite, I no longer feel the need to "binge" or pig out when I do eat.
2. I can manage my calories easier and become more productive because of this. (I get a stupid amount of work done now because of not eating at certain times.
3. My anxiety and depression has decreased.
4. If you like having bigger meals, then it's awesome.

This is my experience from doing 16-22 hour fasts everyday.

It's not a cure all, it's a way of eating...simple as that. My wife has even started eating like this now and for the first time in years shes actually controlling her binging and ENJOYING food. If anything it actually helps people with "disorders".

Anything and everything can hide an eating disorder or have disordered patterns if the person who does it has a disordered mindset, from counting calories, to eating healthy, to exercising. When I skip meals or have low calorie days I don't do it to punish myself. I don't do it to restrict. I don't feel guilty about eating my calories when I've planned for a larger meal. If I'm not hungry or if I'm planning for a larger meal I skip breakfast, not to lose as fast as possible but because skipping a meal is sometimes worth it for my mental and social health. My overall calories average to a decent amount and my weight loss is slow and steady. My goal weight does not fall in the underweight range (in fact I'm planning to maintain slightly overweight). You get the idea.

I think every healthy person could benefit from skipping a meal every once in a while to see that being hungry sometimes is not the end of the world and learn not to panic if it happens. It's okay to not eat nonstop. I don't think a person who skips a meal is starving themselves. In fact many people skip meals out of habit and are overweight. Starving means undereating, and that can happen with one meal or 10 meals a day. It can happen by eating the same calories every day or having a couple of low calories days.

A couple of years ago when 5:2 was popular you would see several posts of people saying they eat 500 calories twice a week and then 1200 calories the rest of the week, and every single time they were told by people who have been around longer that this is undereating and that this isn't how intermittent fasting works. It's just an eating schedule to make your caloric budget more flexible. Some people misuse the tool to create too large of a caloric deficit, but that's on them not on the tool. They're either misinformed or have more serious issues with food.

If someone wants to disguise an eating disorder they will find a way to do it, if not IF then something else.

this is unfortunately a common misconception.............we have been conditioned to eat breakfast since we were children............even in grade school I was not a huge breakfast eater but EVERYONE said breakfast was the most important meal of the day, you had to break your fast, blah blah blah..........I have had tremendous success with IF simply because when I do eat I eat until satisfied (2 meals, 800-1000 calories each). I eat my first meal at noon and the second meal at 7pm-8pm and I'm good. IF is not a magic bullet or an alternative to counting calories, it just allows for more calories when you do eat. It's been a life saver for me.

My problem is I like breakfast, brunch, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, and an evening snack! Once I start eating for the day, I usually don't stop tell bed time. I grew up very skinny and tried for many years to gain weight and maybe developed bad eating habits but I used to eat a lot and could not gain. Then my metabolism, activity, or something else changed and that resulted in weight gain.

Now I do IF to not get started so that by the end of the day, I'm not overeating. Simple as that. I went from 252 to 193 (CW) doing a 20:4 IF routine. I did not restrict calories in the evening and ate tell sated. That was very important for me for this WOE to be sustainable for me. I did count calories for a while and would put down 1800-2400 usually each evening so I wasn't starving. I counted then but didn't have a limit and ate as I pleased in the four hour eating window. I use a 16:8 routine for maintenance. I've kept it off doing this for 2.5-yrs now and am still slowly losing when I get the motivation up to go from 16:8 to 20:4. The 5:2 plan, I don't think would work very well for me. I would rather eat nothing than just 500kcals. The 500kcals would make me very hungry whereas the fasting acts somewhat as an appetite suppressant. I guess if I ate three meals on the 5 days maybe that would work but I like my current routine. I find a 16:8 IF routine extremely easy after doing a 20:4 for a long time.