@Samantha18 As John said, IF is a personal decision depending on what your goals are and what works for you. However, a couple of websites I reference are www.leangains.com and http://www.fast-5.com/

Um. If I had good dietary habits I wouldn't need to do any diet plan.

Thanks for the encouragement from those who gave it. As I stated in my original post, I know pizza wasn't the best choice but even with the terrible terrible pizza, I still lost weight . . . just sayin'.

Luckily, I've convinced my husband and my best friend to try IF, which will give me the positive support I need.

Good Luck to those of you embarking on your journey.

Amen, amen, amen. I support you 100% Most people try I.F. as a way to enjoy their favorite foods and still control calories, and this works for many.
I think I have to give it up though, The daily hunger during my fasting period has gone from discomfort to gnawing belly pain on a daily basis. Big time pain. I dunno, maybe I need to be checked for an ulcer. Anyway, I gotta quit I.F. and am going back to 3 squares a day, 1500 calories. To each his own, no judging, yes? I hope you continue to do well!

You can do what you want. I'm just providing advice based on my own observations and a bit of science. Good dietary habits are difficult enough to establish without the additional stress of ignoring hunger.

I'm not sure I understand what exactly you think intermittent fasting is going to do for you. It's not a dietary plan by itself it's simply a mechanism for helping to limit calories. I've looked through some of your posts and it's not clear to me at all what you plan to do to restrict calories other than intermittent fast and try to make good food choices.

You need a plan beyond a smaller feeding window and trying to make good food choices. If you have a plan than wonderful. If you don't have one, get one. Trust me it is extremely easy to intermittent fast and gain weight or not lose. I've been intermittent fasting for years and I have to be very diligent about what I eat.

Calories matter.

I hope I don't end up adding you to the tally of people who ended up in worse shape because they tried to change too many things at once and ended up falling off the bandwagon hard.

Goodluck

Hi! I used to do 6 to 8 hour windows, (IIRC) IF'ing in conjunction with WW, from 12-2pm to 8-10pm depending on the day for almost a year (I had to go back to look at my old posts to look at the dates, lol.) It worked just fine until I got really sick in Feb 2013 and after a lot of testing, I discovered that I have severe acid reflux and possible gallbladder disease. So no more high-fat meals in one sitting, tomatoes and tomato-based stuff, spicy food and acidic stuff which totally sucked because that was basically my whole diet. I still do WW, just eat a bit differently now and eat throughout the day to avoid too much fat in one sitting (so weird at first because I was not hungry but I knew I had to eat.) I also added another 2 hours to the beginning of the window (10am to 8-10pm) so I am able to get all my food intake in. I don't know if I am technically still IF'ing, if not, fine because IF has helped me so much in learning how to ignore hunger, mostly the not-real-in-my-head kind which I needed so badly for the nighttime.

I started IF with eating what I wanted. I lost some weight.

But when I got what I was eating under IF to be more balanced and healthy I really started to see the weight loss and saw other benefits too e.g. feeling better, better skin.

I like to think that the initial weight loss I saw with IF motivated me to eat healthier meals and think about what I was eating (a first for me).

I am now controlling my portion sizes in conjunction with the healthy meals I eat (not just eating massive portions) and that is working even even better.

Add a dash of exercise and I am good to go!

I'm ready to try this again. My doctor insists that I eat breakfast, and she's right. Helps with my health issues. However, she didn't say I had to eat the rest of the day! So for now, I'm going to fast one day a week, on the weekend when I'm not doing any heavy lifting, after breakfast, for 24 hours. Just had a high protein and fat breakfast of 600 calories. Spending the day away from the kitchen! I'll let you know how it goes.

I've been doing IF following The 8 Hour approach since January. I have to admit that I'm a little surprised to see some post that they're hungry -- mainly because I have trouble getting my 1000-1200 calories in each day during an 8 hour window. But I quickly discovered that IF fit my natural eating style much better than trying to eat 3 meals and 2 snacks per day. BUT, I do think that everyone's body has it's own eating rhythm. I'm only eating breakfast now because I have to take some medications with a meal and they have to be taken in the morning. So, I had to change my daily window from noon to 8 to 9 to 5. But one of the reasons that I've liked it so much is I'm never hungry. Don't know why and again, maybe it's just my body being happy with being fed primarily in the afternoon and that's it.

The other thing I've discovered with IF is that I'm at the 50 pound point and have been on this for 3.5 months. Normally about this point I am bored out of my mind, craving chips, ice cream and chocolate to the point of binges and just give up and gain it all back. But while I won't go so far as to say I'm never tempted, I have no desire to just give up. I've been forced to do low calorie and low carb counting just to lose weight and had to add in low sodium for a health problem. That means that I'm having to cook a lot more frequently. Funny thing is that miraculously I find the time because there aren't a lot of alternatives unless I want a pot load of sodium which I can't have. So, maybe eating a large variety of healthy foods has helped.

Anyway, this is long winded. Just been trying to figure out why this is working so well for me because when I finally get to maintenance in a couple of years, I want to stick to this eating approach.

I've read plenty of people who has similar experiences to yours. I wsih I had that problem.

Oh my God. I weigh less than JohnP. NSV. Actually it's a non-NSV

Now if I could only grow taller...

@betsy2013 I know what you are saying there. It's all about people being different I guess! After I learned to separate "hunger" from "cravings" I can honestly say I am never hungry during the fast. On the other hand, I envy you the "I have trouble getting my 1000-1200 calories in each day during an 8 hour window" thing! like John, I have no problem at all getting all my calories in a five hour window.

Happy Monday
 

Hi all...just wanted to check in and say THANK YOU to all who post. I don't post much at all, but I read 'em all...everyday. To see long-timers continued success and to know that many IF'ers face the same day to day challenges that I do has been very helpful.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

I think some of my "problem" with getting in enough calories on some days (not all....just some) is that for the first time I'm writing out my menu for the day BEFORE actually eating something. Before, I've always tracked what I've eaten AFTER eating. Needless to say, there were a lot of days where I'd get to the end of the day and think Oops....went over! With laying out my menu and trying to stick to my 8 hour window and not having the hunger issues, I realize that instead of stopping for a snack that I need to be getting my last meal ready. Of course, there have been days when I've had my snack. Then I've had another snack. Then I had supper. Then I went to bed at twilight because I realized that I could keep on eating all night if I let myself!

Yesterday's IF experiment went well. Had my breakfast, intended to fast till breakfast this morning but got too hungry last night. I ate well, till satisfied, and no late night desire to snack. So my total calories yesterday were about 600 calories lower that what I eat on average in a day. This makes me happy! I can live with this groove, a meal on each end of the day, and a 12-hour fast overnight.

@betsy2013 Sounds like you are developing a good strategy there! Most of the battle is finding something that works, as most of us know. Good going :)

@geoblewis Way to go! The goal, after all, is to take in less calories. So while you may not have followed your original plan, you still achieved your goal. :)