HCG is a synthetic growth hormone that is taken and combined with a 500 calorie diet. Of course when you drop your calories to 500 a day you are going to lose weight, but that is neither healthy nor sustainable. Most people I've heard do it, gain the weight back quickly.

HCG naturally increases with IF. According to Brad Pillon (ESE) it increases as much as 6-fold, when fasting. Another reason to love IF.

Today is my fasting day. Hubby wants to go to a new restaurant tonight that is a buffet bar. Fingers crossed that I don't do too much damage! ;)

I lost another .6 lbs yesterday. I don't know what is up with my body, but I'm not complaining. :D

Hope everyone has a great day!

This is actually the reason I do IF. Any weight loss is a bonus, sure, but even though it doesn't make a huge difference in my numbers, I am not getting any younger, so I am going to take the bursts of growth hormone whenever I can get them!

I walked into my sister's house last night for our workout and my six-year-old nephew said to me, "Auntie, you look weird. You look like a teenager."

No idea if that has to do with the growth hormone from fasting or just my sweet, adorable nephew being a six-year-old weirdo, but I'm going to tell myself it's the fasting. ;)

wvuchick, congrats on your loss! Good luck at the buffet.

Have a great Thursday, everyone. I've got errands to run today, and then I'm going to swing by the tattoo parlor and see if they've got time for me. Tomorrow's a fast day, so I figured I'd go through the pain with something in my stomach, just in case.

Oh cool. What are you going to get? I'm due for another one. I know of two that I want at the moment. One is going to be a reward for when I get to my goal weight. And the other I want before that, cause I can't wait that long to get one. I have 4 right now and don't plan on stopping anytime soon. :D

Me either! I have a half-sleeve planned for when I hit goal (mostly because I want to see a) what my arms look like then, and b) if my bicep will be a big enough canvas for the design I have in mind!) but today I'm going to have a stylized Eiffel Tower put on my inside right forearm. It's been sort of a motif throughout my life.

A friend is working on a drawing for me of a Buddha's footprint to go on my back, so that will likely be my next one. And I always said 'no writing', but I'm considering getting the quote in my signature (fall seven times, stand up eight) put under an existing crane tattoo that's on my left shoulder.

My sister's right. I'm going to end up covered eventually. I'm trying to keep them in places that can be covered up for work purposes (though thankfully my current workplace doesn't discriminate) but it's getting more challenging as I come up with more and more designs!

I'll try to post a picture when I get home. Speaking of which, I should go work out so I can get a move on.

Tats are addictive. You ladies are so lucky! My hubby won't let me get another one.

Fasting today just until lunch. Every Tuesday and Thursday my dad takes me and the kids out to Ryans buffet. Fortunately, I am not keen on the food there. Lately I've just been having a salad and some roast chicken, which is a pretty good way to break a fast.

Scale keeps bumping downward, albeit more slowly now. Some days it goes up, some days down, but the overall trend is downward, which is good. I am an obsessive weigher... I step on the scale a lot. Too much. But I only record once a day.

My husband is into tatts as much as me. He has 8, which is so unfair, he just started 6 years ago and I started 15, lol. I thinking I've picked out a pretty phoenix design. I really want one on my foot, but I hear they reeeeaaaaaallllllly hurt.

So weird today. I'm on my 18th hour of fasting and I'm not even hungry. The lack of hunger rumbles actually made me forget I was fasting. And thats a very good thing! :D

luckymommy my hubby sees that I have lost weight and that Im trying to but I dont bring up how im doing it and he doesnt ask questions. And with our schedule it works great cause we eat together when he gets home from work and that is normal for us, during the weekends I switch around my window or keep it open longer and it seems normal to him im sure. So glad you are here and good luck!

35x35 i think that the fact that we eat everyday is something that is different than what you would normally think about when you think about fasting. And yes its no ones business :)

Good job on ur loss wvuchick! and good luck on tonight.

Ennay, I agree with you that IF helps with binge eating. I love that I can go about my day with my coffee and water and when I eat, I really enjoy my food and I am aware of what and that I am eating and I get satisfied and that helps me so much,,then Im done eating and no matter how much food hubby offers me, I dont want..yay! ...oo and I hope you get your furnace fixed soon.

Italiannie, this week has been challenging for me as well, the food, well thats always the same, but seems like I am eating more during my window..My window has been from like 2-5:30p or 4-6pm so about 22hr fast each day..I have been aiming for a 24hr fast since Monday, I like doing 1 or 2 in the week and I have been extra hungry and cant seem to wait to eat till later when hubby gets home and I dont want to "fight" with my body, if that makes sense..not gonna worry about it tho..each day is a new day and my weight is staying the same..


thistoo, how exciting, cant wait to see the pic of your tattoo.

banananutmuffin, I also weigh a lot, in fact everyday, makes me feel in control, i guess but I go by my weekly monday weigh in numbers.

Have a wonderful successful day everybody!!!!!!!!!

Hello everyone. I've been doing really badly with my diet but the ONE thing i have stuck with is IF (16 hours fast, 8 hours eating window). I started out a few months ago with eating a small breakfast and 3 additional meals...then i cut out breakfast so my 3 meals are within an 8 hour window, which means i'm basically doing IF. I feel really good about this even though i haven't lost any weight. i guess because i always felt that my constant snacking was a really bad habit, regardless of weight gain/loss. I literally would eat breakfast, then get to work and snack ALL MORNING. I have stopped doing that which i think is awesome, because the snacks were all unhealthy too. Now if i could just figure out how to cut down my calories and stop binging so that i'll actually lose weight...

Surfergirl- we seem to have the same problem. I just eat too much which makes it so hard to lose weight. I have the same 7 or so lbs to lose.... month after month...

Do love the freedom of this though. The only thing that is a little stressful for me is thinking of a morning workout b/c I feel like I need to eat first. Other than that, it is getting easier during fasting times (or I guess it has been this week). My WW point counting has not gone very well this week. My weigh in is tomorrow, so I guess I shouldn't say too much too soon.

It is Easter Weekend and IF is a great way to deal with parties and such (evening parties, especially).

Congrats on the losses for this week.

kelleyb - I workout at 5:30am every morning. Hard. I usually break fast somewhere between 12 and 2pm. After you get past the thoughts I find my workouts are much much stronger fasted. I do have caffeine first though.

You're right, that isn't fair! I am afraid of foot tattoos because they take so much wear and tear.

Attached is a picture of the one I had done today, and the crane that I had done on my left shoulder a couple summers ago now. I feel compelled to apologize to the artist for getting these boring little tattoos. Someday I'm going to do something bigger and colorful! Just as soon as I come up with the money. :dizzy:

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I work out during fasts too, and haven't had a problem with extra hunger or lack of energy. Maybe you just need some more time to ease into it?

Hmmmm I wonder if this is why I have been making rather freaky strength gains lately.

I just wanted to thank everyone who responded to my questions earlier. I did type a detailed response to everyone, but it got lost and I don't feel like doing it again! ;) Ugh! ;)

Anyway, I'm soooo psyched about IF and I'm going strong and feeling great. My only minor issue has been that I've ended up cutting down my calories and maybe that's not that great long term. I'm hoping to eat a bit more tomorrow. I used to eat about 1400-1600 calories a day + I would binge about once a week. Now, I'm eating around 1200 calories and still working out and not binge eating (so far so good). Have any of you had this happen? How do you make sure to eat more? Is this just an initial thing and will pass? I"m certainly not complaining, but I just think it's better to eat more.