Well, no loss for the week:(Blah. This is where I usually throw the towel in and try something else. But I know where that will lead me...nowhere! I'm going to stick to my plan because if nothing else I won't be gaining over the holidays and then I can reassess in the New Year.

Shrinkingstudent-got a pic of your new haircut? 7.9 lbs. is awesome!!

Losetoall-I look forward to seeing how 800 cal x 3 days works.

Marthamay-Welcome;) Eat Stop Eat is how I really would like lose weight I just haven't been able to quite get there so Fast 5 is where I am right now. I can't wait to see how this works for you!

Have a great Friday everyone (I guess it's almost Saturday for you Shrinkingstudent!)

Hi,
I'm considering IF after kind of falling into a routine on my own this week of eating normal breakfast, then nothing until I come home from work at about 2:30 or 3, have a pretty generous bowl of soup, then no dinner later. I'm not hungry at 5 pm, so no reason to eat, then it's too late, so go to sleep.

Anyone here finding negative results (women)??? I read one website that hinted about some negative results for women, but no details?

I've got about 35 lbs. to remove, and I'm looking for something simple to do that works. I'm so done with counting calories or totally eliminating whole food groups from my diet. Can anyone else here relate?

Thanks.
Javagal84

I can totally relate! I just don't want to want to obsess about food/drink anymore! I have about 35 lbs. to lose too. But I've been at this dieting thing for over 20 years and I STILL have this weight to lose. There are just some things I won't give up even to lose weight. So I will eat what I like but less of it and eating in a short window is the only way I can do that right now. I heard somewhere about the negative results for women, but I just disregarded it because it just didn't make sense to me.

Actually up to 9.5 down now woo, and for anyone interested i posted a link for photos over in the 20's corner called "New haircut to go with goal?"

Hope everyone had a great week.

So can I get some comments on daily routine from those of you who've been doing IF and seeing weight loss? I need some inspiration. Basically I find myself slipping into "eat everything all day long" if I have a day off and don't have to leave the house. :/

Shrinkingstudent-Wow! You look great. You are going to WOW your family and friends when you see them!

javagal-I don't think I qualify as someone who has done IF for a while but I can tell you what I've been doing since Sept. (been on and off IF as I try other plans and then keep coming back to IF...I'm 7 lbs. down). I eat only during a window of 3:30-8:30 (sometimes I go beyond that but only to finish a glass of wine I might be sipping on) During my eating window I eat what I feel like having but I must say I usually don't go overboard w/ stuffing myself because I just don't feel the need. I confess to having 1/2 and 1/2 in my morning coffee (probably about 4-6 T.) and sip on chic. broth if needed during the day (only 15 cals./cup) but other than that I only drink water until 3:30. AND I only do this on work days (M-F). I am a teacher so w/ alot of non work days coming up for the holidays I can only pray to maintain this loss!! Sounds kinda confusing as I read back over it so I hope it helps!
Hopefully some of the veterans from the other long IF thread will chime in!

Hey javagal, my routine is pretty simple but I'll write it up for you.
I usually wake up at around 9 have some sort of drink that won't break my fast like tea or no cal soft drink, when it gets to midday I'll have two sandwiches (about 650 calories worth), then some more lo/no cal drinks or water during the day and end the day of around 6:30 with a meal around 1000 calories. Sometimes i will cut down the size of dinner so i can have a snack during the day but as you can see i'm still watching what i eat a fair bit.

I thought I'd jump in here as well :-) Socializing after just joining!

I do IF kind of naturally. I've never liked to eat breakfast (unless I'm traveling and stay at a hotel) and in general I just can stay without eating for long periods of time. Also, if I've been eating a lot of carbohydrates on one day, my body clearly wants to have a fasting day the next day. If I try to eat throughout the day (which I have, otherwise I wouldn't be on a weight loss forum), I get a distinct feeling when the blood sugar is too high. The way I have gained weight has been all about eating even when I'm not hungry out of some sort of obsession. Though I have to say that if I keep it up for a prolonged time or if I keep eating processed foods for a longer time, I start to get addicted to those things. In any case, a fasting state is very natural for me.

I do need some kind of structure though. I break the fast whenever, but usually too late when I'm already too hungry and so I tend to eat processed foods instead of cooking a proper meal.

I have a vague idea of what I would want to do, but the actual structure is still missing. I do want to do IF, but not sure yet if I'll just stick to particular eating windows, just wing it or will I also have an actual day of fasting each week. There would be some additional benefits from prolonging the fast a bit, but I'm not sure yet if it would be "too much". I also like carb-cycling, so higher amount of carbs after training, more fat and less carbs on rest days. I'm also very much drawn to Mediterranean type of foods, so lots of olive oil, olives, legumes, artisan bread, pasta, feta cheese, chicken, fish, herbs and lemons, etc. I've spent a lot of time on American forums and so it's always sweet potato this and that and I can not tell you how much I hate sweet potatoes :-) Last night I had chicken, hummus and olives and it was just heaven to my taste buds.

So I'm looking to find my perfect IF-carb-cycling-Mediterranean-diet :-) That said, I like other regional cuisines as well, and preparing meals and feeding people is an act of love in my world. That includes feeding myself, so even though I can eat cabbage for a month if I have to, I really don't want to. We'll see how things will pan out for me :-)

Sparklybunny-Welcome!! You sound as if you enjoy some nice healthy foods. IF could be for you! I'm a foodie (and winie) and don't feel so deprived having a 5 hr. window each day. So every day I eat foods/wine I enjoy. I don't feel the need to go crazy with what I eat, but I definitely enjoy it!! Let us know how it goes for you!

I weighed in today since I have the next 5 days off for Thanksgiving and I only IF on work days. I am down 2 more lbs:carrot: I haven't been this low in a LONG time and it will be good incentive not to go crazy over this holiday weekend!! That was a total surprise since I stayed the same after a full week of IF last week and this week was only 2 days. I guess I was just catching up!

I have to ask again because this is so frustrating...does anyone else have issues with their computer freezing up on this website? It doesn't seem to happen on other websites (although I'm not very active on the internet). I just need to know if it's this website or my computer:?:

Best to all and happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate!!

Jaob. I am afraid it is your computer. It never freezes on me. The site has been great.

I am doing a 4:3 fasting this week. Calories between 600-800. Thursday is Thanksgiving and I have a 5 hour fasting window planned with calories under 2000. I have a plan and I sticking to it.

My Results
 

My results: This spring I lost 75 lbs in about 4 1/2 months doing IF and atkins at the same time. My appetite was low because of the low carb. I had 2 Tbs half and half cream in each of my 2 coffees each day, but otherwise kept eating to 4 to 8 pm. I had no appetite so had a hard time reaching 1200 calories per day (blush, probably why I lost so much). Also, I was walking twice a day.

Since then I have had some stressful situations and had gone back to binging at night. I gained back 1/3 of the weight, but still am 50 lbs down.

I'm calmer now and ready to start IFing again. I need to do this as I don't want to erase all the hard work I did this spring. I am not doing atkins yet, as I want to hang on to a few of my comfort foods. Hopefully I can still keep my appetite down without low carb but I'll figure it out eventually and post my results again as I (hopefully) lose.

I hope we all reach our goals! I'm going to do my best (started yesterday). TTYS!

Starting weight this time around: 203

Well, week 2 of doing 5:2...so my 4th fasting day ever. I'm just obsessing about food today!!! I can't focus on anything. Making the kids lunch was torture....
days like this make me wonder if this would ever be sustainable for me long term.

kayin-your results from the springtime are very encouraging! I totally understand wanting to hang onto some comfort foods, which is why I am doing IF!! I love LC but it's kind of an all or nothing type plan which is pretty difficult for me!

marthamay-sorry you are having a tough fast:hug:hopefully you got through it OK. I am doing IF to get away from the obsession of food. Yes, the plan needs to be sustainable. Sometimes it's all just so hard to know what to do:?:

Nothing new to add since it is holiday time. I won't weigh in until Friday after a weeks' IFing and I think I will if I maintained last week's loss!!

OK, so my first week is done and I did IF every day. This as such is not a big deal, as I tend to do it naturally anyway. However, I also just now ended a 36h fast. I didn't feel hungry, but the ketosis breath was out of this world and I started to feel a bit spaced out around Sunday afternoon. Not dizzy or weak, just...buzzing in my brain and a bit distracted. I also had a hard time falling asleep, but did sleep OK after I fell asleep. I ate at maintenance calories and rather carb heavy on Saturday, which really helped with the fasting. I must stress that it wasn't a binge or a cheat day. This has all been purposeful :-)

Will continue with this pattern of IF. Haven't included training yet, so we'll see if and how that changes things. I'm not sure yet if I'd train fasted or not. I really wouldn't train fasted after this 36h fast though. Not because I wouldn't have the strength, but because I'm still so distracted that I would probably hurt myself doing something stupid :-) I'm not sure though how much TOM is affecting things (period started yesterday, which can make me feel a bit weird). Will probably see more accurate results after the second and third week!

My weightloss is finally slowing down, down to 106kg and had a 0.5kg (1.1lb) weightloss last week. I think the slow down is because i've opened my window to 8 hours and been slightly more lenient with my calorie intake, can't say im unhappy that the weightloss is slowing down because hopefully it will settle at a good place.