IF vs small meals throughout the day vs any diet

Any reason you are doing IF? If not, why not try several small meals/ snacks throughout the day. It will probably help your ravenous feeling. As long as you are staying in a calorie deficit, timing of meals is a personal preference, and doesn’t affect weight loss.

The key is to figure out what works best for you. IF works well for some people and not for others (although there are less extreme ways to do it than you are currently doing). Same thing with 6 small meals, 3 square meals, etc. There is no special powers to any specific way of eating, so it all boils down to personal preference. I usually find myself eating 4-5 meals most days, because I do better with eating every few hours. But on weekends I am likely to eat less, sometimes as few as 2. It really just depends.

Weight loss comes down to a calorie deficit. Nothing more, nothing less. Sometimes adding things like IF or six meals or anything else can help a person, other times it can make it more complicated.

jjaysgirl13 wrote: »

The calorie limit it set up for me is 1280. So far I've been below that amount (at least until this past Sunday).

As long as I stay distracted I can ignore the hunger pains. It's not until I sit down and relax for a moment that I realize that my stomach is nibbling at my backbone.

I spend a lot of my time chasing after my 3 year old son and my 1 year old daughter, cleaning up, feeding the children/animals, tending to my garden, and around 5 o'clock I start preparing the food for dinner so it's hot and ready by 6:30 when my husband gets home from work. If I stop and sit for a moment that's when I notice how hungry I am.

I really just want the weight gone and I believe that if I can get this under control I could eat like this for the rest of my life.

It's not unusual for people to choose the most aggressive weekly weight loss goal. I suspect this is what you've done. Plus you're under-eating that goal. Plus, you sound pretty active and I'm guessing your settings don't reflect that. All of those things are going to create out-of-control hunger, resulting in a restrict/binge cycle.

The solution is to realize that your weight management is going to be a life-long process and approach it with more moderation. Choose a goal of 1 lb/week and adjust your settings to lightly active. If/when you do any purposeful exercise, log that and eat a portion of those calories back too. Some people do find it easier to skip breakfast, but if it creates insatiable hunger for you the rest of the day, it may not be a good idea for you. Eat to your full calorie limit, and pay close attention to how various foods satisfy you (or don't) and make adjustments accordingly. We all want the weight gone yesterday, but would you rather lose 20 lbs in a year and keep it off, 50 lbs and quickly regain it, or nothing at all because you restrict too much and it drives you to binge?

You can do this, but you need to take a deep breath and have a long-range view

I'd start by trying to find a way where you feel more control. I'd get a calorie target based on 1 lb/week and lightly active (with 3 kids surely you are somewhat active, and you can add in more intentional movement during the day too).

Then I'd start by thinking about easy meals that seem filling -- often protein and fiber are filling for people -- as well as tasty, and log. Maybe start with a planned schedule like 3 meals a day. If you want to eat before the next meal, have some raw veg or a pickle or something else low cal (and log it!) or some coffee/tea/water or start thinking about the plan for your next meal. Or have some specific things planned to take your mind off it, reminding yourself that mealtime is inherently not that far away. I used to journal when I felt like eating about what I was thinking or my plan for the day, as that helped me get more mindful.

Personally, I found simply logging really helped with mindfulness and feeling more control over my eating choices initially.

As you log, you can find out if there are specific foods or ways of eating that make things harder or easier. Try playing around with carb # or vegetable servings or protein to see what is helpful. Try adding in a planned snack if there is a time you are always hungry. For me the not snacking worked because I stopped thinking about eating between meals, but you may be hungry more often and want more lower cal meals. One thing that might help is that very few people who get obese and don't easily lose after childbirth and so on can really just decide "I will eat less today" and do it -- there are longstanding habits and very often structure really helps. It's like grabbing a bag of chips and eating out of the bag to when you feel like stopping and then beating yourself up because you don't stop eating after 100 cal. It's nice to have intuitive eating as a goal, but it's not something many can just jump into or even ever do--I can mindfully eat and maintain, but that's not intuitive, it requires thought and some structure.

Another thing I found helpful was making sure I had clear goals (not just weight loss), so I could remember why I was doing it when tempted to say why bother or frustrated I wasn't losing as quickly as desired. I wrote down my ultimate goal and thought about a reasonable (not super quick) time frame and realized how fast time passes. Then I planned some weekly and monthly goals (for me usually exercise/race type things, as well as habit-related goals and basic things like sticking to my calories/logging).

Just some ideas, take any that seem helpful.

I will tell you right now that what you're doing is going to lead to a terrible binge/restrict cycle, stalled weight loss, and lots of unnecessary strife. Most dieters, when they start, immediately go into severe caloric restriction, usually too low for them. The fact that you said you're eating /less/ than 1280 calories a day is alarming; all you're doing is setting yourself up for muscle loss (becoming skinnyfat), drastically reduced metabolism, and if your weight loss stops, you won't be able to go any lower. If you're even a little overweight, you can probably lose on a lot more calories than that. Why starve yourself when you can lose weight just fine when eating more?

Start off by figuring out your maintenance calories through a couple online calculators (I like SailRabbit) and try tracking and eating at that number for a week or so. Then, reduce by a 100-200 calories, and after another week or two, reduce again, until you get to a deficit of 300-500 calories per day. This deficit will be sustainable and will grant you slow, steady weight loss. Do NOT try to rush it.

Weight loss is just calories in, calories out. Don't bother with fancy diets, detoxes, etc. You don't need to do IF, unless it helps you stay within your goals. And if you do IF, you don't need to make it only 7-9 PM. This is really restrictive for a beginner dieter, and could lead to binging in the evenings. Most people that do IF have a 16:8 hr window. Maybe just pick one meal to skip (such as breakfast) and just start eating at lunchtime.

Be patient, and you'll see results. Eat foods that you enjoy, but can also fit into your caloric budget. Make sure to get enough protein (around .8 grams per pound of bodyweight) and enough fat. DNA isn't going to doom you to being overweight. A diet should reflect the way you eat for the rest of your life (although you'd be eating at maintenance calories once you hit your goal), so make it sustainable and enjoyable.