Alternate day fasting combined with 16:8

CassieJones104 · October 2020

Just wondering if anyone does this and what results you have gotten from it?

loveswalking · October 2020

Watch keto rewind on you tube. She has lost 125 pounds doing keto and this month she is doing a 30 day alternate day fasting.

CassieJones104 · October 2020

Awesome! Thank you!

Diatonic12 · October 2020

This is overcompensation. It results in rebound weight gain with friends.

cmriverside · October 2020

If it helps you stay within a calorie goal, it will work. If it causes you to over-eat on the regular days, it won't help.

There are lots of ways people find to help them stay within calories.

I would chew off my own arm if I tried to alternate-day-fast, for example. 16:8 is something I naturally do - breakfast, lunch, dinner, bed. So that works for me.

Weight loss is all about a calorie deficit consistently applied over TIME.

Treblesmama · October 2020

Diatonic12 wrote: »

This is overcompensation. It results in rebound weight gain with friends.

Maybe, maybe not. Considering that many here have rebounded and regained weight, regardless of what methods they've done, I don't know that OPs plan is any more likely to fail than a different one.

OP, for my weight loss phase back in 2012 I did alternate day IF and it worked well for me. Since then I've been maintaining more or less with different IF protocols and experimenting with different ways of eating. At the end of the day though weight management comes down to CICO. If you're interested in ADF then no harm in giving it a try, it may be a method that makes it easier for you to stay within your calorie parameters.

Diatonic12 · October 2020

I'm a leader on an IF group. 5:2, OMAD, Alternate Day. Been there for years and no one has come back to report any long term weight stability with over 7500 members. I changed the name to TRE, Time Restricted Eating, because that's what most people are really doing. There's so much confusion amongst the terms.

Giving it the ol' college try with overcompensation. It's an antidote that becomes another problem. It's not manageable over the long haul. It doesn't do anything to build a good relationship with food. It's more of the All or Nothing Approach to food. Shock N Awe.

Eat all of the things. Course correct with just eat none of the things. All or Nothing.

We rarely if ever get all but mostly nothing. If you pace yourself by aiming for .5 lbs per week you will always get something. Extremes beget more extremes. Wild swings back and forth and UP and down with weight. Just roll the dice or throwing everything up against the wall hoping for something to stick is dancing in the dark.

Treblesmama · October 2020

Diatonic12 wrote: »

I'm a leader on an IF group. 5:2, OMAD, Alternate Day. Been there for years and no one has come back to report any long term weight stability with over 7500 members. I changed the name to TRE, Time Restricted Eating, because that's what most people are really doing. There's so much confusion amongst the terms.

Giving it the ol' college try with overcompensation. It's an antidote that becomes another problem. It's not manageable over the long haul. It doesn't do anything to build a good relationship with food. It's more of the All or Nothing Approach to food. Shock N Awe.

Eat all of the things. Course correct with just eat none of the things. All or Nothing.

We rarely if ever get all but mostly nothing. If you pace yourself by aiming for .5 lbs per week you will always get something. Extremes beget more extremes. Wild swings back and forth and UP and down with weight. Just roll the dice or throwing everything up against the wall hoping for something to stick is dancing in the dark.

I've been maintaining within a few pounds since 2012, using different IF protocols and then playing around with different ways of eating. 8 years isn't that long in the scheme of things, considering I've got many years ahead of me. But, I have maintained longer than anyone I know in real life and have avoided the typical yo-yo pattern. I have jumped around between IF protocols so maybe that's a part of it, who knows

Curious to know what group you moderate? Could you pm the name?

NovusDies · October 2020

I did basically the same thing in 2016. It was one of my many overly ambitious plans that I could not sustain. I was too focused on getting a few pounds off and not focused on a sustainable plan. I have no idea why I kept failing and thinking "Gee, how can I make this process even harder?" but that was how it went.

I am assuming you will go forward with this no matter what is said though. You read something on the internet that has glorified this and some inspiring testimonial to go along with it, right? There is a testimonial for each and every weight loss method out there that creates any type of calorie deficit. What you do not see is the 95+ percent of people who could not make it work.

Please do not make the mistake of tying your weight loss to a method. A method can be a bad fit for you but you can keep going by pivoting to something else.

Diatonic12 · October 2020

@CassieJones104

MFP is your anchor point. Aim for .5 lbs a week and at some particular point in time something will cross over in you. You'll be in the zone and you will feel so darned good that you'll wonder why didn't someone tell you don't have to follow any brutally strict eating protocols. Ever.

At the 5 year mark, few are left standing with their dream weight. Intact. Keep your head engaged in every step of the process. Stay focused. Stick around and read all of the forum stickies. Learn how to do everything on your own terms.

Give yourself permission to throw all of the dieting dogma and mind warp out with the bathwater. Read the success stories of those who've been in maintenance for years and years. Listen to their advice. One of the greatest secrets on MFP is just eating slightly at a deficit or even at your maintenance level in the beginning. You'll still get there. It will be a slower pace but dropping it like it's hot is not all it's cracked up to be.

Fasting is being replaced with the next best thing. Using our heads besides something to part our ears with.
Aim for .5 and stay vitally awake and alive waaaaaaay into your future.

Treblesmama · October 2020

NovusDies wrote: »

I did basically the same thing in 2016. It was one of my many overly ambitious plans that I could not sustain. I was too focused on getting a few pounds off and not focused on a sustainable plan. I have no idea why I kept failing and thinking "Gee, how can I make this process even harder?" but that was how it went.

I am assuming you will go forward with this no matter what is said though. You read something on the internet that has glorified this and some inspiring testimonial to go along with it, right? There is a testimonial for each and every weight loss method out there that creates any type of calorie deficit. What you do not see is the 95+ percent of people who could not make it work.

Please do not make the mistake of tying your weight loss to a method. A method can be a bad fit for you but you can keep going by pivoting to something else.

This is great advice OP-there's nothing wrong with trying different things, but always be doing something to help you stay focused. If something isn't working for you/is making things too challenging, then move onto something else!

lgfrie · October 2020

I've tried most of the IF protocols. The one that stuck for me was 16:8, which later evolved into 17:7 (which I find easier than 16:8). Been doing it for 17 months. Noon to 7 pm, in a nutshell. I combine this with calorie counting and logging. Getting 2 big meals each day (lunch and dinner) just suits me better than spreading all my limited cals throughout a 16 hr day. So I'm a fan of the 16:8-style approach, though it works better for some people than others. I've been on a maintenance break for a month and have continued the 17:7 because I'm just kinda used to it at this point and feel it helps me control overeating.

ADF - I tried that too and it backfired. I found myself STARVING on the fasting days; every 2 or 3 of them I would go on a ferocious binge. We only made it a few weeks with ADF before throwing in the towel, and I ended up heavier than before we'd started it.

On a scale of 1-10, 1=easy and doable way to diet, 10= pure torture, I would say 16:8 is a 2, and ADF is a 10. So mixing the two is really taking something that's doable, convenient, and easy for many people and gluing it to an extremely difficult diet method that can lead to binging.

I would, personally, avoid combining the two, although I'm sure someone out there has made it work.

The problem, imho, with ADF, is that it prevents you from ever getting into a rhythm. A good diet has some rhythm to it - a consistent, predictable feeling like "If I just keep doing the proven things I've been doing, I'll lose the weight and I already know it works and where the risk areas are." ADF forcibly breaks the rhythm and puts you into more of a cyclic "every other day is going to be deprivation" tailspin - or at least it was a tailspin for me.

4Phoenix · October 2020

@Igfrie Interesting to read your comments. Your conclusions make sense as it takes at least three days of fasting before your body adjusts and it becomes, as you would say, a "2". Fasting produces apoptosis and autophagy which is healing and produces cellular regeneration. But it takes time to access that level and ADF just keeps me in the hunger zone. 18:6 is comfortable for me, but I also practice intuitive mindful eating and might indulge in fruit/veggies outside those hours if experiencing true hunger (rarely happens). Fasting is a productive tool but takes research and knowledge. Each of us will have our own preferences for what is healthy and will be the strategy that provides success.

Alternate day fasting combined with 16:8

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