Intermittent Fasting!!

If it is uncomfortable for you in some way, then address the actual problem


"Commitment" is going to be required in any weight loss. Intermittent fasting helps some people by putting boundaries on the clock but it doesn't have a magical weight-loss hack in it. It's just a way of eating. Delaying breakfast and stopping eating at a certain time may or may not help you.

There is some argument that longer fasts are not that great for women in general, but I don't know how true that is. You can certainly find "research" in both directions.

There is an Intermittent Fasting group if you go to "Groups" above in the navigation bar and search for it.

Here are the search results:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/groups/browse/search?Search=intermittent+fasting

I have done it on and off over the years for various reasons...

There's nothing magical about it, it's just a timing thing. It helps if it helps you control your calories. You can lose weight, maintain weight, and gain weight with IF depending on your total calorie intake. For most of the years I was putting on weight, I did IF...only it didn't have a name and I just called it skipping breakfast. I wouldn't have anything but black coffee from the time I woke up until lunch around noon or 1. I still gained weight though because my total calories over time were more than I required to maintain weight.

I actually didn't become a breakfast eater until I started my weight loss. IF can be tricky for me as I can find myself very, very hungry by lunch and overdo it the rest of the day if I'm not very careful. My appetite was much better controlled having 3 meals per day and a couple of snacks.

Regardless of how you go about weight loss, there is always going to be a commitment factor as relative consistency is going to be required for months, if not longer depending on how much you have to lose.

Over 30 years, I went from 200 lbs to 260 lbs. No diet or exercise plan every worked in keeping the weight off. The most fatal mistake I made was when I thought eating 6 small meals a day was a good plan. There are few things you can do that are worse for your body than to always have insulin in your blood. Insulin resistance is the biggest health crisis on Earth at the moment causing a variety of other problems such as Type 2 diabetes, arteriosclerosis, Alzheimer's, kidney disease, and a variety of other health issues.

This all changed this year after I spent a few months researching the latest information about fasting and nutrition.
"Calories" is not only a useless term, it can be harmful. Depending on whether the calorie is from fat, or protein, or carbs, or sugars, the body uses very different processes for these calories.

I do IF a lot of the time between extended fasts (EF), but sometimes I have wild cheat days. (I am using myself as a human guinea pig.) One time, after a 7 day fast, I consumed two packages of cookies and a pint of rich ice cream and other sugars and carbs all within a 36 hour period. I wanted to see what happened. I was eating full meals between fasts, so I had no downregulation of my glucose metabolism, which certainly helped. While I gained about 5 pounds (on a 220 frame) after three days, it was gone again by the weekend. All it took was switching back to my IF.

IF is good for weight loss, but you will not see the benefits that can be obtained from carrier-mediated autophagy (CMA). The cellular repair benefits of CMA typically take a minimum of 72 hours. I have done multiple fasts over 72 hours this year with my longest fast lasting 232 hours. (NOTE: you should always use fasting electrolytes with any fast beyond 96 hours, and they can sometimes be helpful to get past the worst day which is day 2 (24-48 hours).

Doctors in the US (and many other places) are taught fasting =starving, which is terrible advice, but it is still the advice they give. Much like a doctor prescribing insulin for a Type 2 diabetic is exactly the same as prescribing more alcohol for an alcoholic. It's causing more harm than good, but it is still the "standard of care" in the US. I suspect this is the main reason MFP avoids promoting fasting and the app says "your not eating enough."

So, if you have underlying health issues, find a doctor who understands fasting is generally healthy and CMA is extremely beneficial to the human body. That doctor may be hard to find, but it will change your life (and probably fix some of your health conditions).

If you do not have any underlying health concerns, if you have tried IF already, then go for EF. I recommend trying a 96 hr for your first extended fast. The hours from 72 to 96 will provide the most drastic health changes.

IF and thinking about when to consume calories in general really helps me to stick to my calorie goals. I feel better when I eat this way. If you're "struggling to commit," it's probably not for you. For some people, it makes sticking to calorie goals easier. You may not be one of those people. I'm never hungry in the morning, but I used to force myself to eat breakfast because I thought that was the "healthy" thing to do. I also tried the small meals/grazing thing, again because I thought that was healthy. I was eating plenty of calories, but I was never satiated. I was ravenous all day long eating that way.

It was very freeing discovering that I don't "have to" eat breakfast. A few times per year, I will eat it if it's something like a provided work thing and the expectation is to show up and eat. I find that on those days, I'm significantly more hungry throughout the day and I have a much harder time sticking to my calories- not only am I hungrier, but I've also already spent hundreds of them first thing, rather than having them for later like I usually do.

I also found that at work, I'm too busy to care that much about what I'm eating. I pack only healthy foods and try to keep it between 250-350 calories for my lunch. Then I have the majority of my calories left for the evenings when I want them most, and can relax and enjoy them. I either have one large meal around 5 PM for dinner, or a meal early and a snack or a dessert later.