Intermittent Fasting 16:8

I did 16:8 for 6 months and have been doing 17:7 for the last 8 months. It's pretty unusual to run into another person who's been doing IF for a year+, so congrats on sticking with it. My wife and I plan to stick with 17:7 permanently; we really like it for a variety of reasons, not just as a weight loss approach.

Mariana1256 wrote: »

I just started yesterday! I’m doing 16:8 and I’m just trying to figure out what to eat, how many calories, etc.

Use the MFP Goals tool to get your calories. Enter your age, height, etc., and it'll tell you how many calories to eat. Eat however many calories it tells you and you'll lose the weight.

I've never made any attempt to eat anything in particular or avoid anything in particular. I know there are many dieters and some here who are particular about what they eat - low carb, high protein, whatever - but I've just been eating my normal, everyday foods for the last 14 months, in calorie controlled quantities, and have been losing the right amount of weight. It isn't that hard, and IF makes it much easier (at least for me). Today I had a black bean burger with jack cheese and salsa on a club roll for lunch, and a 1,000 calorie pizza for dinner. The beauty of IF is that you get two REAL meals each day, instead of 3 diet meals. That's why I can have a 1,000 calorie pizza for dinner and still come in under my calorie quota, which is very hard to do in a 3 meal set up. This works well for many people but not everyone; you'll have to see how it goes. But be sure to make calories, not IF, the cornerstone of your diet. Calories determine how much weight you lose.

When MFP's Goals tool asks you how much weight you want to lose per week, I really encourage you to put down 1 pound or at most 1.5. There's definitely a tendency to go for the 2 lbs, but it's hard to keep going at that level of dieting. Unless you have a LOT of weight to lose, you're really much better off with a moderate goal.

I've been doing 16:8 for 3 weeks. I'm not hungry until noon and it makes it easy to stick to my calorie limit. I'm consistently losing about 1.5 pounds a week.