I totally agree with you BigSky. I figure IF is kind of hard to sell because it's FREE! Plus you can get tons of info online. So people have to put a spin on things to sell books.

IF works for me... because it's just another strategy to help me restrict calories... and it helps me control my hunger... and I find that I'm just more satisfied with larger meals... So that means fewer of them... Just no way to get around that one unfortunately...

I just ignore the "eat anything you want" claims for ANY eating plan......mainly because that's what got me to this point in the first place.

I started on an IF approach in January. Absolutely loved it. Lost weight easily. Swore I would be on it forever. Then I had an issue with a fib, they gave me lots of medications to take to lower the heart rate until I can get a cardioversion done, and I swore that they said to take them with food. So, I switched my eating time and started having a breakfast again.

Well, that didn't work at all. I lost a few pounds this month -- by accident, I think -- but just had the desire to eat constantly. It was like once I had something to eat in the morning, I wanted something to eat all day. I finally had a duh moment and actually looked at the pill bottles. Nothing on them about having to take with food and I checked on line. Guess the doctor just assumed that I ate breakfast and I just assumed that he meant take with food.

So, today I started back on my noon to 8 PM window and all the problems with wanting to eat all day long are gone. I don't know if it's psychological or if my body is just tuned to not want or need food in the mornings.

Anyway, the reason for this rambling post is that I remember several of you saying that you were hungry all the time on IF. I wouldn't say I was hungry all the time while I was having breakfast, but I was definitely eating more. So, you might want to try moving meals around and the time at which you first break your fast. It sure has made a world of difference for me.

Holy crap, I just read about this today and have been watching videos and reading reviews. I bought Eat Stop Eat and am going to try this tomorrow. I'm going to fast from 6PM tomorrow to 6PM on Saturday. Let's see how well this works for me.

I have a question, would I see results if I only did one day a week do you think? I just love the idea of it being on the weekend. I think doing one during the weekday would be really tough for me.

Hi SophieCormier I have been doing this for a few months and from what I have read and my own experience I don't think one day a week would quite do it. over January I got a bit lax with it instead of doing the two days a weeks I sometimes ended up doing one and I found the weight crept back on. But that is just my own experience. You should read the book 'the fast diet' by Dr. Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer. It is so good, and explains all the theories and science behind the idea. And how it orks at its most efficient.

SophieCormier, you don't even have to buy the book to do that plan...you can pretty much get most of the info on the documentary that aired on PBS recently. I found it here: http://video.pbs.org/video/2363162206/ I hope that helps.

@Betsy2013 I don't think it is psychological at all. I'm exactly the same way. I don't really have "hunger" and cravings until I eat the first thing of the day. After that first bite, I'm hungry the rest of the day.

Eat Stop Eat didn't work for me... I couldn't get through my workouts... well, actually I could sort of get through them, but I wasn't recovering from them properly... and I could just tell that I was heading for disaster... and just doing the 6pm to 6pm fast once a week didn't help me either... so I scrapped that whole "experiment" pretty quickly...

If you do the math usually just one 24hr period per week with no calories, just doesn't really create that much of an overall deficit for the week to really see much of a loss and even two 24hr period doesn't do much better...

Let's just say as an example someone needs 2000 calories a day to maintain... So they don't eat anything for those two 24hr periods per week, so that gives them a 4000 calorie deficit for the week... Well, if they just cut 500 calories per day that still gets them to a 3500 calorie deficit for the week...

But I guess it really just comes down to whatever way is easiest for someone to achieve that overall calorie restriction so they can lose...

Thanks for the information everyone! Really appreciate it.
TripSwitch, which IF diet do you recommend?

Don't get me wrong... I can definitely see how Eat Stop Eat can work if you can keep your calories in check the rest of the week... And if that schedule of "fasting" works for you... And that's really the key... Finding an IF routine that not only helps you to restrict calories... But one that you can live with... for me that seems to be 16/8... but lately, it's been 14/10... but some days I'll go 18 or 20 hours and be fine... For me it's just a way that I use to keep calories under control... And make my meals more satisfying when I do eat...

I'd love to hear from anyone who has done, or is doing Dr. Johnson's Alternate Day diet (JUDDD) as well as Fast-5, and how they compare the two programs as far as effectiveness for weight loss and ease in sticking to.

I love this video. Someone had posted it elsewhere a while back and I was intrigued when I watched it.

I have actually fasted in the past - not for weight loss, per se - so I don't have a big problem going without food for 24 hours. Even though I'm not doing IF, my eating pattern sort of falls along those lines. So to see that IF can have health benefits beyond weight loss was very interesting to me.

If I WERE to adopt this WOE, I think it would be easier for me to go completely without food rather than eat 500 calories. I've done it in the past for medical procedures and have had no problems with it. Not sure if I could do it twice a week for an extended period of time, however.

A little OT, but I just have to say that the CRON way of eating seems so bizarre. Joe Cordell (of Cordell & Cordell - A Partner Men Can Count On! - I knew his voice was familiar) looks like a scarecrow. He may be extraordinarily healthy, but he doesn't look it. But that's just my opinion.

The joke that I heard about CRON that I liked was "You won't actually live longer... It will just feel that way...

TripSwitch, thanks for the belly laugh of the day! My husband asked me what was so funny!

Who wants to live to 120 if they're starving all the time?

I have a question for anyone who can answer. In the PBS video linked by luckymommy it talks about IGF-1 and fasting. It covered the changes in levels measured after the 3.5 and the alternate day fasting. Does anyone know of research about IGF and the other types of IF in humans? Could you like the video or study?