Okay..so I started doing IF because I had a serious issue with eating non stop throughout the day and i never felt satisfied and i always had massive stomach issues so I tried IF because because I was hoping it would help me lose that fear of hunger and I would have more control over my eating..Well its been working great. I just started WW last week.. and my point allottment is 49 daily points (which seems like a rediculously big amount..Can someone check to make sure this is right??)

So anyway.. i eat in a 5 hour window between 5-10 pm... I managed to eat 20 points ..eating fruit, pink salmon, rice, 2 ingredient cookies..ect.. and then still had 29 points left and so i gave myself 2 servings or rice chip thingys for snack..and in the end .. i had consumed 34 points...and was stuffed.. i couldnt possibly eat anymore..

So what I am wondering is..Is 49 points right for me? Cause it seems like a lot..i mean I weigh a lot..but i cant imagine eating that much now that im eating in a 5 hour window. Do i have to eat all my points for the day???

How many days have you been doing IF?

I am not sure how old are you but I think that is about right for you height and weight. I used my points plus calculator with a few different ages and it came out to about 49. I think that seems it alot becuase you are only eating in a 5hr block. But to spread it out it would not seem so high. I think it will drop quickly as you lose weight.

Weight Watchers isn't set up for the eating style that you are incorporating, so you can't really compare if it's enough points. I don't mean to sound harsh, but if you want to follow WW, you should embrace the whole program or just count calories instead. WW is so much more than allotted points per day. I understand fear of hunger! I totally do, and I'm betting that a lot more will chime in here with the same fear. Here are some WW friendly tips that will help you overcome it.

Spread your meals out, know in your mind that you have 49 weekly points to fall back on if you get hungry at night. Also, you can exercise every day and have those emergency points for later if you need them.

Pre plan your day. Make a menu for today, or for tomorrow, where you have your meals planned all day, with a generous dinner and an evening snack. Make sure you use all of your daily points.

Find some low point snacks to have as a back up. 0-3 point snacks can't do too much damage to the weekly points if you need them.

Remind yourself that you have those weekly points and activity points, if you earn them. That is why they are there. They are your safety net.

Find something to do with your hands in the evening that will keep you busy and satisfied. No boring stuff. A hobby, a household project, a craft, anything that helps pass the time that you truly enjoy.

Learn to build up your meals and snacks with power foods. They are usually high volume foods and will fill you up.

I promise, if you can do this for one day, you will gain so much confidence! Just one day, and then take it from there.

Yah.. I just stopped the IF combined w/ WW P+ because I realized I was getting hungry in the day time and so now I am doing just P+..just going to go slowly and enjoy eating and not worry about anything else...Its time to make this work for me and your'e right..if your'e not following the plan..then whats the point.. Thanks Jennifer

I incorporate IF into my plan... but I stick with a 16/8 routine for the most part when it comes to IF... I just rejoined WW this past week because my Mom asked me if I would do it with her, so I said sure why not... it's nice to be able to offer her some moral support... and I've done WW before and was really successful with it...

What I like about WW is that it's so flexible... I mean you can pretty much eat whatever you want... just track the points and stay within your points target... No rules of what or when to eat... So I can still eat low carb and high fat with a moderate amount of protein and IF right along with it...

Actually I've found that with my food preferences my points allowance is definitely coming out to less overall calories than I had been eating... and I hit my points target pretty quickly... I really have be careful with my points budget for the day so I don't go over... even with eating only in a 8hr window... but I guess that's because of my food choices... and I still get plenty of fruits and veggies...

I can't get the routine for 16/8 down. But I do 12/12 without any effort so I'm trying to gradually roll that back one hour at a time.

The issue that I have is that I'm a night owl and chronic insomniac. I hate to wake up at 4 am hungry because I'll never get back to sleep. So I usually eat something right before bedtime.

I'm working on my sleep patterns so as those improve I hope the snack can fade away.

I've actually been hearing that maybe 14/10 is better for women for various reasons... So I've been thinking of dropping down to that...

And for me cutting out eating later at night was hard and it definitely took some time to adjust to... But it really has helped to improve my sleep...

I don't understand what 12/12, 16/8, 14/10 are.

In IF (intermittent fasting) terms it refers to how many hours a day you fast and your "eating window"... So for instance 16/8 is a pretty common routine which is fasting for 16hrs a day and having an 8hr "eating window".... Which is what I often do.... I usually eat between 12pm and 8pm... But I'm pretty flexible with it depending on what I have going on in my life...

Instead of doing intermittant fasting all of the time I would just say fast 1 or 2 days a week. I think fasting all of the time is harsh on the body but that some fasting is very good for the body and healthy and will help with appetite control.

Actually, in my experience I've found fasting for 1 or 2, 24hr periods within the course of the week to be much more "harsh" on my body than a more regular 16/8 routine... which I find much gentler on my body, as well as my mind... And from the little bit of research that is available and that I've have seen it appears that fasting for more than one 24hr period per week isn't recommended... where as regular daily IF e.g 16/8, etc. does appear to offer various benefits... all be it as a strategy for calorie restriction being of course the main one...

You can also do a fast day where you have around 500 calories so you can mitigate hunger but still get the benefits of fasting. I've been seriously considering a 5/2 (5 days off, 2 days on) fasting schedule with two small (200-300 calorie) meals on fast days, but I haven't gotten the courage to go for it yet.

:gasp: NOT EATING?! That sounds terrible.

This of course is just my personal experience.... But what I have found is when I'm "fasting" if I eat a "snack" or some sort of small meal of 200-300 calories it really turns on my hungry "switch" and it's really hard to turn back off the rest of the day... I did try a plan where one day a week I wouldn't eat from 6pm to 6pm the following day... Which was manageable from a hunger standpoint... But it just didn't work with the amount of running that I do... And actually, now I'm only really trying to stick with a 14/10 routine when it comes to IF these days... because I'm really trying to get my running back to where I would like it again...

But everyone is so different... especially when it comes to IF... and I think I've mentioned this before... I think women have to be more careful with it than most guys... At least that's what I seem to be hearing more and more...