Alternate Day Fasting anyone?
Shillid
Posts: 1 Member
Is anyone doing ADF here? I have just started and struggling on fasting days.
1
Replies
-
Why do you want to do ADF and be miserable? Just stay at a consistent calorie deficit by counting calories with a food scale and you'll lose weight.14
-
I had heard someone talking about this on a TV show. His nonsense, says, fast from 10:00 pm to say 6:00 am. Well, most people are sleeping during those hours. Then, fast after breakfast until lunch and between lunch and dinner. Well duh.
Like NIghthawk584 says, just eat healthy food, and watch your portions and calories. It's that simple.
All these fad diets are not sustainable in the long run.
Just my opinion.6 -
I don't think that it's very common so you are not likely to find more than one or two people here doing it. I did read about how one person made it manageable by increasing the food on the second day from zero to about 20% of their average daily intake.
As a suggestion, start off at 100 percent on the second day then slowly reduce it, over say a month and see at what point you have trouble.1 -
All you need to lose weight is a calorie deficit. Losing weight is hard enough without adding things that make you miserable.
The ONLY reason to do any type of additional fasting is that it makes it easier. If it makes it harder then it is more likely to lead you to failure.
I skip breakfast. I do this because I am seldom hungry in the morning. I also do it because I have found that when I eat breakfast I have a harder time controlling my hunger for the rest of the day. I try not to ever eat before 11am.
Skipping breakfast and increasing my normal nighttime fast makes weight loss easier for me. It is the only reason I do it. For my wife skipping breakfast makes it harder so she wisely chooses to eat it.9 -
Is anyone doing ADF here? I have just started and struggling on fasting days.
There may be some but it's quite unusual compared to other IF protocols which are currenty more in vogue.
A key question would be what are you doing on your normal eating days?
(I did the 5:2 protocol to lose weight and a lot of people found it hard/impossible because they also restricted calories heavily on the days they were supposed to be eating normally.)
Another couple of questions would be how long have you been doing this and what is a typical weekly calorie intake for you?3 -
I am certainly not one to criticize someone else's IF approach, as I have been doing IF for seven months, but ADF doesn't make sense to me. Half the time you eat normally and the other half of the time you're starving. You never get to adjust physically and psychologically to a fasting schedule (which is important with IF!) because there isn't a consistent schedule. Half the time you're full and the other half of the time you want to gnaw on tree bark to make the hunger stop. It sounds like torture.
I recommend you think about dieting in a way that makes it as easy as possible to stay on the diet. It's pretty clear that ADF is not that approach for you (or really, anyone - I'm on some IF boards and have never heard of someone doing ADF over a period of months, it's usually a week and then the person's gone forever). Why make things harder than they have to be?5 -
I am certainly not one to criticize someone else's IF approach, as I have been doing IF for seven months, but ADF doesn't make sense to me. Half the time you eat normally and the other half of the time you're starving. You never get to adjust physically and psychologically to a fasting schedule (which is important with IF!) because there isn't a consistent schedule. Half the time you're full and the other half of the time you want to gnaw on tree bark to make the hunger stop. It sounds like torture.
I recommend you think about dieting in a way that makes it as easy as possible to stay on the diet. It's pretty clear that ADF is not that approach for you (or really, anyone - I'm on some IF boards and have never heard of someone doing ADF over a period of months, it's usually a week and then the person's gone forever). Why make things harder than they have to be?
ADF, done according to the protocol, is not complete fasts. It's similar to 5:2, with alternate days of eating as you like (or at maintenance) and then days of very low calories: https://today.uic.edu/krista-varady-weighs-in-on-how-to-drop-pounds-fast
I know one person on MFP who lost using ADF, and I personally know someone who used 5:2 to lose and now uses it to maintain.1 -
I am certainly not one to criticize someone else's IF approach, as I have been doing IF for seven months, but ADF doesn't make sense to me. Half the time you eat normally and the other half of the time you're starving. You never get to adjust physically and psychologically to a fasting schedule (which is important with IF!) because there isn't a consistent schedule. Half the time you're full and the other half of the time you want to gnaw on tree bark to make the hunger stop. It sounds like torture.
I recommend you think about dieting in a way that makes it as easy as possible to stay on the diet. It's pretty clear that ADF is not that approach for you (or really, anyone - I'm on some IF boards and have never heard of someone doing ADF over a period of months, it's usually a week and then the person's gone forever). Why make things harder than they have to be?
ADF, done according to the protocol, is not complete fasts. It's similar to 5:2, with alternate days of eating as you like (or at maintenance) and then days of very low calories: https://today.uic.edu/krista-varady-weighs-in-on-how-to-drop-pounds-fast
I know one person on MFP who lost using ADF, and I personally know someone who used 5:2 to lose and now uses it to maintain.
Good info, tnx. I took the OP's comment to mean she was fasting on the alternate days, which would be very hard for most people.
Even alternate day VLCD'ing as opposed to fasting sounds taxing. If the OP isn't thriving on it, I can't see a reason to tough it out. There are so many other ways to eat, including beginner-friendly forms of IF.4 -
I am certainly not one to criticize someone else's IF approach, as I have been doing IF for seven months, but ADF doesn't make sense to me. Half the time you eat normally and the other half of the time you're starving. You never get to adjust physically and psychologically to a fasting schedule (which is important with IF!) because there isn't a consistent schedule. Half the time you're full and the other half of the time you want to gnaw on tree bark to make the hunger stop. It sounds like torture.
I recommend you think about dieting in a way that makes it as easy as possible to stay on the diet. It's pretty clear that ADF is not that approach for you (or really, anyone - I'm on some IF boards and have never heard of someone doing ADF over a period of months, it's usually a week and then the person's gone forever). Why make things harder than they have to be?
ADF, done according to the protocol, is not complete fasts. It's similar to 5:2, with alternate days of eating as you like (or at maintenance) and then days of very low calories: https://today.uic.edu/krista-varady-weighs-in-on-how-to-drop-pounds-fast
I know one person on MFP who lost using ADF, and I personally know someone who used 5:2 to lose and now uses it to maintain.
Good info, tnx. I took the OP's comment to mean she was fasting on the alternate days, which would be very hard for most people.
Even alternate day VLCD'ing as opposed to fasting sounds taxing. If the OP isn't thriving on it, I can't see a reason to tough it out. There are so many other ways to eat, including beginner-friendly forms of IF.
Agree, and non IF schedules if the schedule is the thing that helps. (Thinking about it, my friend likes 5:2 because of the lack of schedule, and because she only has to count calories on 2 days -- and given the low cals she basically eats the same things on the 2 days which makes it even easier. She can eat whatever she wants on the other days and not gain, now that she's lost her vanity weight. I think the people who gravitate toward 5:2 or ADF may be wanting different things than those who like 16:8 or the like.)0 -
Agree, and non IF schedules if the schedule is the thing that helps. (Thinking about it, my friend likes 5:2 because of the lack of schedule, and because she only has to count calories on 2 days -- and given the low cals she basically eats the same things on the 2 days which makes it even easier. She can eat whatever she wants on the other days and not gain, now that she's lost her vanity weight. I think the people who gravitate toward 5:2 or ADF may be wanting different things than those who like 16:8 or the like.)
My wife and I did 5:2 for a few weeks, a few years ago. Actually it worked brilliantly at first, because we didn't find it more than mildly uncomfortable to do the 600 calorie days and the slight and temporary feelings of deprivation on those days did get us in a positive "We're dieting! We're doing this!" mindset.
The problem snuck in on the third week, when one of the VLCD days came up and we were like "Let's do this tomorrow instead." LOL Then when the next one came up, we said "Let's do 6:1, once a week is enough of this." Then the next week we said "Let's do 7:0 from now on."
But of course, for every diet out there, some people thrive on it.3 -
Oh, I have no desire to do 5:2 at all, it wouldn't be for me. But my friend loves it and has been doing it consistently for a few years now.0
-
Oh, I have no desire to do 5:2 at all, it wouldn't be for me. But my friend loves it and has been doing it consistently for a few years now.
It is kind of like my friend that lost all the weight he wanted to lose and maintains it using SlimFast.
I believe I could handle 5:2 on most normal weeks but I would not want to do it. I am trying to increase my activity level and a forced very low calorie days seems unwise0 -
I do 5:2 and have stuck to it for 5 months, although now it has morphed to 6:2 as I prefer the routine of 2 days 'regular' eating followed by a 1 day 500 calorie 'fast'.
This is working for me I think because I have more calories to play with on my eating days and on a fasting day I just remind myself that the next two days are eating days. Previous attempts at losing weight where I have restricted every day have always lead to binging.
And it is amazing what you can do with 500 calories and I generally have a mug of homemade veg soup, a bowl of mixed veg with a couple of ounces of chicken and I still have enough for some evening crispbreads and a laughing cow triangle. Green tea, black coffee and sparkling water, so all calorie free, throughout the day.
Not sure that I could cope with a 1:1 regime but perhaps if you do not have so very much weight to lose it might be do-able but I would not want to keep that up for the year+ it is going to take me to reach my goal.
But at the end of the day these are all just methods of reducing calories (and not a fad diet as someone earlier in the thread suggested) and it is just a case of finding what works for you.0
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 393.4K Introduce Yourself
- 43.8K Getting Started
- 260.2K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.9K Food and Nutrition
- 47.4K Recipes
- 232.5K Fitness and Exercise
- 424 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.5K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 153K Motivation and Support
- 8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.7K MyFitnessPal Information
- 24 News and Announcements
- 1.1K Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.6K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions