Well, I am back from NYC and finally able to crawl back on the IF wagon fully!

Whew! What a relief. After not normally having to worry about eating that often, it's annoying when people are asking "what about breakfast?, What about lunch? What about dinner?" UGH! It made me feel like we were spending all of our time planning our next meal!

Today is not going to be particularly clean eating, but it won't be bad. Have dinner with family and just doing hot tea and such till then.

Still have to decide whether I am actually going to accomplish anything, or take this first day back to recover.

I will say this, I ate a LOT more sugar on this trip than I am used to, and I have that uncomfortable feeling where my heart feels like it's beating so hard that it hurts.

Does that happen to anyone else? Maybe it's racing or something, but it seems like when I overdo it on sugar (or salt maybe?), that my heart will just beat so hard that it makes me chest hurt. I also get those kind of annoying shakes and feel jittery.

Think I might try my first 24 hour fast tomorrow and just kinda let my body recover. I've been wanting to try one anyway.

so from 3/21-3/26 321.6 to 317.2 5.4 pounds
and some of those days were bad days eating out etc bc i had a friend from thursday night til today

i love this, last month i only lost 2.2 total...i have started IF and i have been keeping my carbs under 100

anyways i wanted to share my first 5 days with everyone

On the racing/pounding heart-

I get that too, but I haven't been able to pinpoint what it is that causes the racing/pounding heart. For me, it can be paired with anxiety. I have had that feeling when I was in labor when I was exhausted and a little dehydrated also, it's kind of scary to feel your heart beating that hard! I also notice that it gets worse when I eat too many processed/restaurant foods. Inflammation maybe?

lol, missjessica...i agree with you there. i like that excuse better.

Katy welcome back! Hope it was a wonderful trip. Re. sugar, I eat too much sugar so I don't really have the heart-racing effects... but I don't think that's a good sign :-/ Let us know how the 24 hour fast goes!

I'm not caught up on this thread, but...

I used to eat so much sugar (and salt, for that matter), that I never knew what it felt like to be without it. I didn't understand what people were referring to when they talked about "sugar rush" or "bloat" after eating something salty. For me, I was on a permanant sugar buzz and salt bloat, I didn't know it though.

Since I've cut waaaaay way back on white sugar since November 2009, my body has absolutely gotten used to going without it. I've had a few planned indulgences and a few oopsy indulgences where I consumed a significant amount of sugar all at once. I feel the effects practically immediately, it seems like.

Now when I eat a candy bar or something, it just feels like my body is on speed. Like blood is zooming through my veins and my heart is pumping too fast. I just feel a tingly buzz...it's odd. Needless to say, I finally understand "sugar rush."

heh. coffee does that to me, since i've had to watch my sugar for GD, i know when my sugar is out of it's limits, it makes me feel like that and also nauseated.

This means you're very insulin sensative and I now officially hate you.

I started IF on Tuesday, after stumbling upon this thread. I haven't gotten a chance to read all 15 pages yet, but I read some other sites as well, including Fast-5 and leangains. IF, where have you been all my life?! I feel amazing this week!

I'm doing a 4-5 hour window - right away the first day, I was fine waiting until 2 for food. Just lots of water. I know that wouldn't work for everyone, but I think this is WOE exactly what my body needs.

I had been attempting 1200 calories in 6 mini meals, and it turned into 1800 calories most days because I was so hungry/couldn't stop eating. Plus then, we'd have "fun" days once a week where we wouldn't count calories and we'd eat doughnuts and I'm sure I was consuming around 3500. No wonder I wasn't losing weight!

This week, it was easy to stick to my 1200 calories, and keep them clean because I wasn't obsessing about food all day, or thinking, "well, I'll just eat a healthier dinner if I make this bad choice for lunch". We decided to have a mini "fun" day yesterday, where we made pizza and blueberry muffins at home, and I think the carbs/sugar from that meal almost knocked me out - I actually had to lay down. Back to my new normal today, and I feel so much better!

Sorry for the long post. I'm just SO excited to have discovered this!

Perfectly describes why IF is going to be big, real big in the future.

Glad to see everyone else is enjoying this method as much as I am

I've been having a bit of trouble getting in good workouts during my fasting windows. I'm not sure if it's an actual physical problem of working out after 14 hours of fasting, or a mental one, but I'm getting tired more easily and cutting workouts short. Besides the obvious answer of "well duh, move your workouts to your feeding window" which I could do but would prefer not to if I can get good workouts in during my fasting window, does anyone have any recommendations? Is this all in my head?

What type of workouts are you talking about?

For me, I do better with exercising while in a fasted state b/c I tend to get queasy easily if I've eaten, or eat directly thereafter.

It does sound more mental in nature to me though. My Grandmother would say, 'your get up and go, got up and went'. Do you feel like you are detoxing at all? Getting carb lows? Sugar lows?

I do have a tendency to have some caffeine before I workout, so I suppose that is something of a stimulant. Are there any type of mild stimulants like this that you might consider trying? Have you tried an EC stack? (they are too strong for me, but some live by them)

Anyway, don't overdo, but it might help to get you over the hump and let your body acclimate to the change up.

It definately depends on the kind of workouto you're doing. To maintain intensity the body needs carbs. So if you're doing some kind of circuit training with weights or HIIT than what you're feeling is real. If you're doing low to moderate intensity cardio or weight lifting with rest periods than it's just a matter of adjusting.

I do train fasted with weights and moderate cardio and have no problems but I've been IFing for over a year and I also take an EC stack before weights. Nothing for cardio but I do have coffee when I wake up.

A typical workout for me is 20-45 minutes of cardio and somewhere between 5-20 minutes weights and/or abs. Almost always moderate, rarely high intensity. Definitely don't have a problem with carbs and sugar- I generally have 30-60 g of sugar and around 150-200 g carbs a day. It sounds like coffee + time to adjust + a bit of katydid's grandmother's motivational speech will do the trick

Just checking in today. My eating window is between 9am and 4pm right now. I like this time frame because I'm making food for my children at this time anyway and nights are typically my binge/emotional eating time. I was having a stressful conversation with my husband about relatives last night, and I was so aware how much I wanted to eat to make myself feel better...not because I was hungry. It is nice to just not have to think about eating or food in the evenings, since I will generally not be able to stop myself or make good decisions about my food. I'm able to associate food as fuel better during the mornings also. The other thing I love is the anticipation of breaking my fast. Eating is so much more enjoyable and special. Maybe someday I will switch my eating window...probably when my kids are older. Right now this is workin for me.

I use the livestrong food tracker to get a good idea of my calorie consumption. Do you guys use any trackers? I don't count before or while I'm eating, usually near the end of my day to get an idea of my food patterns and choices. Do you guys count or just wing it?