Anyone else doing IF? (Intermittent Fasting)
 

I am doing Intermittent Fasting, and I'm wondering if there are any others on here that are doing that??

For years I held the diet mantra that you need to eat 5-6 times a day in order to lose weight, and it always made me so miserable, because I'm the person where I'm not hungry until I eat, then once I eat I stay hungry.

I know it can be argued that once your hungry is when your metabolism 'kicks' in, but for me, I have learned that is not the truth. It is simply when my hunger signals kick in.

I lose weight sooooo much easier with IF, although I know it's not for everyone.

Right now my eating window is typically between 4pm and 10pm, although I will adjust that if life gets in the way.

So, anyone else out there??

Kinda! A bazzilion mini-meals a day is just not for me. I need to feel satiated on occasion. I have been trying to get in touch with my hunger. Trying to learn that it is not an emergancy. That it is nothing to panic over or fear. If I am that hungry - it is either nearly time for a meal or I just have a healthful snack.

Saturdays, I get up usually about 7ish (depends on my 2 yr old) and I have a cup of coffee. I often don't get to breakfast until 10 or 11 or sometimes 12. So - that is really lunch. Then I usually don't eat again until dinner!

Sundays I get to sleep in, but the pattern is the same.

Weekdays are a little more structured b/c I am at work. But if I am not hungry for a snack, then I don't eat it! If if I want my lunch at 3pm instead of 12... then I wait until 3 to eat. I don't eat breakfast until I get to work and get settled into my work for the day - about 9am give or take.

It is also helping me to try to move away from emotional eating. I am trying to eat in response to hunger rather than: "Oh! It's 'lunchtime'" or as a response to stress or emotion.

I am and have been for over a year. I love it! I normally eat 2:00 PM to 10:00 PM but it varys here and there.

I'm surprised at how slowly the concept has spread. It's a game changer as far as I'm concerned. It's 12 noon right now. I'm not the slightest bit hungry and I've been successfully taking tests all morning.

I think everyone's metabolic pattern is different. I am more of a morning person. I am hungriest in the morning too. I eat for hunger, so it's not unusual for me to get up at 7:30 and to have eaten 900 calories by noon with breakfast, a snack and lunch. Then I eat a snack around 3 - very small and then eat a light dinner around 6pm and nothing for the rest of the day and I don't usually go to bed until between 11 pm and midnight. i'm just not hungry at night and at night is usually when I work out too.

My husband on the other hand eats a good breakfast, a very light lunch, a late afternoon snack, a big dinner and then a decent sized snack around 9 or 10 pm. He's a night owl and is hungry later in the day. It used to be a problem when we would go do things on weekends. I would be starving for lunch and he wouldn't want to stop because he wasn't hungry yet.

I think people need to figure out their hunger patterns and eat appropriately. We shouldn't be eating by the clock but by our body's rhythms.

I'm of the belief that for most people the body will adapt to whatever eating cycle you want it to. I used to be RAVENOUS by 10:30 AM if I hadn't eaten anything before then and I rarely missed breakfast.

After a week of doing IFing my body had adjusted. Back then I ate from noon till 8:00PM and around 10:30 AM I would start getting hungry. After a month of this feeding schedule I didn't get hungry at all until around 11:30.

Due my personal schedule I decided to move my feeding window back 2 hours. Only took about a week and I was golden.

From what I have read most people have had similar experiences to mine.

However, I recognize everyone is different and some people cannot adjust to fasting every morning.

JohnP can you sell me on why IF may be good for weight loss? I have acid reflux when I wake up and I often snack/graze unnecessarily between 2-5 PM; for these reasons I try to eat like berryblondeboys, with a medium-sized breakfast, big lunch, and small dinner. However, I'm intrigued with the idea of fasting until later afternoon, if it would both curb my tendency to snack unnecessarily in the afternoon as well as kick-start my metabolism. Would be interested in your thoughts.

Weightloss is dependant on calories so if you have a smaller window of opportunity to eat you can eat larger more satisfying meals. There are some other potential health benefits such as more stable blood sugar and better insulin sensativity but the main benefit for me in regards to weight loss is simply beging able to eat larger meals. Some people do great grazing, I don't. I like the feeling of being full. A small meal just makes me ready to start looking for some snacks.

For example lets say you want to eat 1500 calories a day. The average person spreads those calories out over 10-12 hours and probably 3 meals and 2 snacks. Each time you eat is going to be a fairly small amount of calories. If you're following IF you would eat 2-3 more substantial meals and you won't be hungry for snacks.

Based on your specific eating pattern in place you'll probably like it a lot. You eat a big lunch now but doing IF you'll eat a really big lunch :D You'll be full till dinner and feel no need to snack. You might decide 2 meals is good but you might do two meals and a bedtime snack.

Another thing is that most people report after the adjustment period of feeling really good during the fasting period and full of energy.

[Edit] - I just realized you're very close to your goal weight. This is yet another reason you'll like IF. The thinner you get the more difficult it can be to lose weight because fat can be stubborn and difficult to mobilize out of the fat cell. Fasting solves this problem as the body makes minor adapations to free the fat from your body. You can read about this in detail here.

Many thanks- your post and the article was quite helpful. The latter also happened to reinforce the relationship between insulin levels and fat loss... and reminded me I really need to cut down on my sugar.

Anyway thanks for the info- I'll certainly try out IF and see what happens. Thanks as well to the OP for bringing attention to this subject :)

I have been eating between 2pm and 8pm for several weeks now, I want to say 8 maybe. I find it fits my lifestyle, helps to manage my appetite and is just perfect for me at this time in my life :)
Now I only find myself hungry slightly before it's time to eat, maybe half an hour where as before I was hungry from the moment I woke up, then shortly after every meal. I can also function fine before 2pm and regurly walk a few miles before I eat and feel fine. I'm not sure if this is something I will do forever because i'm always open to change if it benefits me but for now and the forseeable future I IF.

Just a comment to add. I have a lot of stomach problems too, and a lot of my eating over the years has been just trying to 'eat a little something to calm my stomach'

So many times, I have eaten when I'm not really hungry, just to try and make my tummy hurting go away.

I am on prevacid and now I've learned just to let it do it's job. I get up and take the prevacid and my allergy pill and just go on. I do drink hot tea throughout the day, but my stomach does not get progressively worse if I don't eat.

Also, when do you take your stomach medication? I assume it's a once a day pill. A LOT of times, it really helps if you switch to taking your stomach pill at night, before bed, as opposed to taking it when you get up.

Obviously a lot of your reflux is coming from laying down at night, and not from the actual food you are eating. The doctor told me that trick a long time ago, and it really does help if my tummy is being more uncooperative than usual. What I do, is I go two days taking it twice a day (once in the morning and once at night), then I go down to just the once at night. It really does help.

Just throwing out some more ideas to try. I've been on a ton of stomach medication, and I've got war stories from them all. :)

Thanks katy! I am not on medicine right now. I had 3 consecutive nights of extreme pain/nausea/symptoms mimicking a heart attack a few years ago in college which by sheer deduction (ruling out gallbladder, etc) problems my doctor wrote off to acid reflux, but that was the only bad isolated incident. Now, I have a sudden onset of acidity when I go long periods without eating anything, especially in the morning. Lately it's been bad as soon as I wake up- I have to quickly drink water to calm things down. I don't think I've ever had a problem on a full or semi-full stomach.

My doctor several years ago recommended omeprazol, but I never went on it. I usually eat frequently enough to not have any symptoms so I'm trying to avoid going on medication. I don't think it's bad enough... yet. It does make me wonder if I can train my body for IF. We'll see. Thanks for sharing your tips and experiences- I definitely may use them if things get worse.

If your acid reflux is activated by not eating I don't see how IF will help.

Personally I would go see another doctor for a second opinion.

What is the health benefit of IF (weightloss aside)?
and
How do you shift your mentality from wanting to cram a 'normal' day's worth of food into the window?

I ask not as an accusation but because I know my lack of willpower.
Thanks.

Interesting idea. I do notice that when I'm not eating on plan I tend to not even get hungry until the middle of the afternoon. When I am on plan I try to eat every 2-3 hours and I tend to actually feel hungry a lot more often and usually I'm still not really hungry until late morning or so. I might have to consider trying this.

Few questions. How does exercise fit into this schedule? For those that do this, do you only exercise after you've started eating? Is this only about food, or can you drink things during the time you're not eating?

I do IF and I think it's really good for both health and weight. I personally don't like to eat more than my "three square" every day, I don't like snacking between meals. Twice a week I have only dinner. I firmly believe it's better for your teeth and your digestion system to have quiet time now and again.

There is a post about this in the "does it work" forum:
http://www.3fatchicks.com/forum/does...t-fasting.html

I'm also trying out the clean program, which is a little bit like IF in that you eat only one solid meal per day, but it's a limited time frame on that as opposed to IF.