I'm hungry... I have from now (2:30) till 6 pm. Water IS helping though.

i am so glad i randomly clicked on this thread..this sounds like something that totally fits my life, i hate eating in the morning, and i like to be really hungry when i eat..im really excited to start this tomorrow, i always feel like i am failing on my diet because i don't want to eat breakfast, actually i am pretty queasy when i wake up and it takes me quite a few hours before i am willing to eat and if i had my way i would eat one huge meal a day, just because food is the best when you haven't ate all day. im so glad for this thread...it made me feel very happy!!!!

okay, it's honestly unbelievable how well IF seems to be working for me right now. my weight loss over the past three months had slowed down considerably, but i've been trying this seriously for around a week and i've already dropped four pounds while still maintaining a minimum of 1200 calories per day. perhaps this was what was needed to speed me up a bit.

thank you so much for this thread!

My window opens in 8 minutes, or 480 seconds!
Super proud to have made it.
I only brought 2 sandwiches to work today, so I'll eat (devour/gobble/scarf) them in (ohh, yeah now only 7 minutes) and then I won't eat until I get home around 5:30. I just need to be sure I'm not eating everything in the cupboard while supper is cooking - calories do still count.
Thanks John and lauralyn for your encouragement.
Posting is eating up the time I need to wait...! only 5 min left!

See, you did it!

Way to go! Sometimes it's a matter of crossing that mental hurdle of proving to yourself that you can do it.

Often, we fail to realize that it's quite seldom that any of us experiences true hunger pains, myself included. For years I was so dreading being hungry that I didn't stop to realize that the mild twinges of discomfort that I feel was not true hunger anyway.

Honestly, I would really like to know the psychological reason behind that. Even those of us from very poor backgrounds (myself included in that group btw) have rarely had long spells where we didn't have any food at all. Sure, we might have lived off beans and rice more than we wanted, but we rarely lacked basic nutrients.

What is it that makes us so reluctant to be without food for even relatively small windows of time? I have given it a lot of thought, as you might guess.

I don't have the answers, but, for myself, I am closer to realizing that the answer has little to do with minor twinges we all feel from time to time.

Congrats on being willing to face this, and to teach your body who is boss!

I am loving reading everyone's experiences. I've managed a window of 5-6 hours for the past 4 days without tooooo much difficulty yet. However, I haven't been counting calories. I'm hoping that with IF I won't have to. I'm not eating past the point of hunger and generally making healthy choices. Generally I've had a small meal and a larger meal during my window, and maybe a small snack.
I'm not going to weigh myself for a bit, especially because TOM is coming up and I don't want to be misled by that!
How long before you all saw weight loss? My stomach feels smaller, but that might be in my head :P

A new study is out that suggests intermittent fasting may help to preserve muscle while dieting. It is a review of current studies and essentially says that while weight loss is similar fasting protocols may produce superior results by causing greater retention of muscle which also means greater loss of fat.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2...?dopt=Abstract

More research is needed but intermittent fasting so far is all positive news.

Tomorrow I give a speech in my toastmasters group questioning the importance of eating breakfast.

Many years ago I did several 10 day water only fasts and then followed it up with a 40 day water only fast. I don't recommend that as I ended up hospitalised with liver failure. I must say I did lose a lot of weight, was never hungry and was very physically active the entire duration of my fasts.

I did this because I had read about the benefits of fasting and gave it a try.

Now I frequently skip meals but I have never thought of it as intermittent fasting before. It was simply skipping meals to me.

Larry,

Hot tea with a tsp of sugar does a lot for me when I'm getting hungry. The hunger also seems to come in waves- if you're hungry now chances are it will subside soon.

well so i went ahead and did this yesterday, window was 1-9 which was a little longer than i wanted but i had already ate at 1 before i read this thread!!!! i also started reducing my carbs, so i lost 2.2 pounds this morning...that is all i lost last month total!!!! i will check back in and let you know how the weight is going.

So far, I've noticed: Smaller windows work better for me because my meals seem more quality, I have been drinking way more than usual (good!). I usually struggle to get in 8 glasses of water a day, but now between water (plain, lemon, mint), tea, some coffee - easy easy. For now, I'm going with 5:30p-10:30p as it's easiest. I still haven't felt hungry. In fact, the opposite. I've seen foods I usually crave (scones at mid-morning tea break at work...), they haven't been as tempting as usual. Maybe because I know if I want one in the evening, I could have one? I guess for me, taking away the restriction and rather postponing eating something is helpful. I really am starting to believe hunger is just a feeling, and feelings pass. I've also noticed that if I didn't count calories, I would probably go under my target for the day. That n-e-v-e-r happens with 6-meal days...

Maria - I'm in the same boat! I think I'll start looking at the scale next week as TOM is almost here. Isn't is dumb how much seeing the scale affects how you feel about how you've been doing? It's so mental sometimes. I also feel like my stomach is smaller, but am not quite sure it's actually true yet

Oh! and to all the new folks!

Well, as you all could see in my earlier postings, it was hard but I successfully completed day 1. I stepped on the scale this morning and was down 1.5 - I'm not counting my lbs until next monday's official wi. But it sure was encouraging! Today I brought a sandwich at 320 cal and some trail mix at 440 cal. I'm not planning on eating all the trail mix today, half is for tomorrow, but yesterday I found that some almonds really stopped me from being hungry from 3:30 until supper at 6:00.
Water was so easy - I'm a big h20 fan anyways, but I got away from the pop - I used to drink 2-4 liters a day of diet pop, and yesterday I only had 1/2 liter (2 glasses)
I did some squats yesterday on my non-eating lunch period, they felt good so I'll do them again today.
Thank you all for your support - i'm sure you'll see another posting later whining about how hungry I am, but I'm counting on this being easier as it goes.
Love the thread, love the plan, love you guys for the help!

Not to sound like a broken record, but...

Argh! I'm STARVING!!!!!!!
You say this gets easier?
Come on 3 pm.......
I'm floating - my bladder is touching my eyeballs with all the h20 i've had to stave off hunger pangs

enough whining.
sigh.

Well, I looked at my post yesterday, and it seems like the hunger pangs aren't quite as bad today, and I got them about an hour later than yesterday. I think I'm gonna be able to do this!

I got in my squats on lunch - I did 5 more today than yesterday.

Where is everyone today? I hope you are all doing well and OP!