Intermittent Fasting
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I lost 15 pounds through intermittent fasting alone but have had to go back to monitoring my calories as well since I want to lose at least 40 more. I continue with 16:8 IF most days, although if something is going on that requires changing my schedule, I change it. Losing that first 15 pounds was extremely motivating to me as before that I despaired of ever being able to lose a single pound. Waiting to eat helped me get rid of my constant grazing habit.
Summary: I think intermittent fasting is a good way to bring bad eating habits under control.2 -
I have been doing IF since Dec and I have lost 40lbs. In the past when I have dieted I have found myself struggling to stay within my caloric range. This time some days I struggle just to reach 1000. I am simply not hungry. So for me it's a sustainable way of eating.
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Check out Dr. Jason Fung on youtube. He knows everything about fasting and encourages his patients to do it. I'm on my third day of 16:8 and feel great! I can't wait to see what the future holds.0
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hey,
yeah i do intermittent fasting, i generally stop eating around 20:00 hours and start again at 1200. the only things i consume during this time is plain water after 20:00 and black coffee with no sugar or milk after i wake up. i find this works very well but they key to being successful for me is the food i consume during eating hours. The biggest tip however i can give you is to make sure that with your dinner in the afternoon/evening, it consists of no lower than 50 percent carbs as they are the main source of energy your body uses and it will go to your carbs first for energy use. if you lower your suggested carb intake for the day your body will find it much harder during fasting and will become very tired a lot quicker. They do however need to be the right type of carbs, these would be complex instead of refined or simple. Complex carbs consist of potato, wholegrain pastas rice and breads. complex carbs are digested by your body slowly over time, helping you to stay full and keeping hunger at bay plus giving your body energy gradually. refined carbs (white pasta and rice) have largely been stripped of anything beneficial to your body and simple carbs (milk,cookies, cakes etc) are digested by your body quickly, meaning you feel hungry quicker and can cause a sugar spike as carbs are where your sugar intake comes from. sorry for the long response, i found it easier to stick to when i understood the nutrition side a bit more1 -
I started IF in early March. I mostly started it as a colleague at work had been doing it, and she reported feeling less sluggish, more energy, better sleep. I thought I would give it a go because that sounded brilliant and also it might help me with two things 1) eating on the way to work- would always buy a croissant or pastry on my commute, and then eat again when I got to my desk and 2) grazing in front of the TV in the evenings.
I only do 14:10 so eat breakfast at 10am and finish dinner by 8pm but it has helped me so much with both of the above issues. It also gave me the motivation to think about losing the remaining 10lbs that were annoying me!
I don’t believe it had any impact on my immediate weight or health but it has improved my relationship with food and given me the motivation to start a slow, steady effort in losing a bit more weight.2 -
Health benefits?
Completely neutral by itself - it's just skipping a meal, nothing special about that at all, it's only extending people's normal sleeping fast by a few hours anyway.
At the risk of being a pedant, IF is not "skipping a meal" but instead is eating meals only during a particular time period. It is simply convention that most eat 3 daily meals - morning, midday and evening. IF steps away from that, allowing the individual to eat their calories in a way that makes managing the number of calories consumed easier for them.
Being equally pedantic when I skip breakfast (as I have today) I meet the criteria for 16:8 IF although more likely to be 17:7.
Yes time restricted eating IF can be simply skipping a meal.
Yesterday however, I would have had to skip a meal and several snacks to meet the criteria as eating three meals and about four snacks allowed me to manage that day's calorie goal better (4,563 cals).
To repeat IF is most certainly not about skipping meals but about adjusting when calories are consumed for better management of those calories. This might mean 1 meals, 3 meals or 5 meals and you might pick a time period in the day to eat similarly every day or go for a 5:2 or 4:3 regimen.
I say this because "skipping meals" implies the calories are not being eaten at all, which is getting us into disorderly eating territory and that is not IF.0 -
Health benefits?
Completely neutral by itself - it's just skipping a meal, nothing special about that at all, it's only extending people's normal sleeping fast by a few hours anyway.
At the risk of being a pedant, IF is not "skipping a meal" but instead is eating meals only during a particular time period. It is simply convention that most eat 3 daily meals - morning, midday and evening. IF steps away from that, allowing the individual to eat their calories in a way that makes managing the number of calories consumed easier for them.
Being equally pedantic when I skip breakfast (as I have today) I meet the criteria for 16:8 IF although more likely to be 17:7.
Yes time restricted eating IF can be simply skipping a meal.
Yesterday however, I would have had to skip a meal and several snacks to meet the criteria as eating three meals and about four snacks allowed me to manage that day's calorie goal better (4,563 cals).
To repeat IF is most certainly not about skipping meals but about adjusting when calories are consumed for better management of those calories. This might mean 1 meals, 3 meals or 5 meals and you might pick a time period in the day to eat similarly every day or go for a 5:2 or 4:3 regimen.
I say this because "skipping meals" implies the calories are not being eaten at all, which is getting us into disorderly eating territory and that is not IF.
I believe the point is that for many people skipping a meal results in them eating in an IF pattern. If already at a deficit, perhaps the other meals will be bigger, if not at a deficit already skipping the meal might result in a deficit.
Most obvious example -- many people think they need to eat breakfast but breakfast makes them hungrier, so they try not eating breakfast and putting off the first meal until they are hungry (say, at 1) and end up eating less.
I find it kind of odd to call eating later in the day (or just stopping eating earlier) vs. a more traditional pattern of, say, breakfast, lunch, and dinner "fasting" -- I prefer the term time restricted eating if it must have a special name -- and I think it's often overcomplicated or given magical powers by some fans, but certainly for some people eating during fewer hours makes calories easier to control. When I was losing the time period in which I ate was pretty irrelevant, but not snacking and eating only at three meals (and mostly eating home cooked meals and being mindful about what they included) made calorie control easier, and I don't really see that as so different from TRE as some seem to. It's just about having an eating pattern that makes calorie control easier.2 -
Health benefits?
Completely neutral by itself - it's just skipping a meal, nothing special about that at all, it's only extending people's normal sleeping fast by a few hours anyway.
At the risk of being a pedant, IF is not "skipping a meal" but instead is eating meals only during a particular time period. It is simply convention that most eat 3 daily meals - morning, midday and evening. IF steps away from that, allowing the individual to eat their calories in a way that makes managing the number of calories consumed easier for them.
Being equally pedantic when I skip breakfast (as I have today) I meet the criteria for 16:8 IF although more likely to be 17:7.
Yes time restricted eating IF can be simply skipping a meal.
Yesterday however, I would have had to skip a meal and several snacks to meet the criteria as eating three meals and about four snacks allowed me to manage that day's calorie goal better (4,563 cals).
To repeat IF is most certainly not about skipping meals but about adjusting when calories are consumed for better management of those calories. This might mean 1 meals, 3 meals or 5 meals and you might pick a time period in the day to eat similarly every day or go for a 5:2 or 4:3 regimen.
I say this because "skipping meals" implies the calories are not being eaten at all, which is getting us into disorderly eating territory and that is not IF.
You seem to have a misunderstanding of two simple words - namely "intermittent" and "fasting".
Can you point out to me how not eating for 17hrs does not qualify as time restricted eating? Is that 17hrs not a fasting period? If not, why not?
Skipping a meal means nothing except a meal is being skipped, the rest of your post is purely projection on your part trying to find an implication where none exists. You do seem to be reading through a distorting prism.
I also skip a meal (lunch) when I'm doing a long distance cycle - that says nothing about my calorie intake that day (huge by the way), just simply means I skipped lunch. Simple words with a simple meaning.
You also seem to have a very distorted view that IF and/or skipping a meal means a calorie deficit or under eating - again for clarity intermittent fasting periods and/or simply skipping meals and can be done in an overall calorie deficit, balance or surplus.
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I tried IF for awhile and lost weight doing so because I forced myself not to eat on off hrs BUT I found the scheduling too restrictive.
Now, I just eat when I get hungry and count/log all my cals and weigh myself daily to stay on track.
I gained some weigh back but have continued to maintain it below my "red line" doing this despite giving up IF but everyone is different.0 -
I do IF the majority of the time, but only because I have digestive issues and find eating first thing in the morning and after a certain point at night irritates my stomach,personally. However, If I'm feeling extra hungry,I won't deny myself a little snack - nothing huge, just a little something to satisfy the hunger.Most of the time I'm fine and don't need to eat, but I haven't personally seen a ton of weight loss come from it.0
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