Skelley, you're doing great! That's the eating window plan I like, a 16/8. The actual stored fat utilization, as I understand it, happens past the 12-hour mark, or after what has been stored in the liver has been depleted. When I start feeing hungry during my 16-hour fasting window, I like to visualize that my liver is sending out Ms. Pacman to fetch goblins of fat from my backside.

I like to do a 24-hour fast once a month. I don't think they're too hard for those of us that have a lot to lose. I recently achieved a 36-hour fast. Had to time that one just right. I had attempted those before but never got past 24-hours. But since I muscled through that last one and made it to the 36th hour, I think I can do one every three months.

geoblewis: Thanks for responding, i'm going to try this mon-fri and see how things go, I have only about 15 lbs I need to lose, I did the Metabolic Research plan and lost about 32 lbs but gained about 10 back so I want to get back down 15lbs and stay on maintenance doing the IF way.

Skelley You are doing great. Your schedule and plan sounds really great. As for your coffee, I drink coffee with Stevia and half & half mainly because having to check my blood sugar, I found that it does not raise my blood sugar. All other sweetners raised it. I am so grateful that the little bit of Stevia and H&H does not. I also love vanilla coffee so I just add a tsp of vanilla flavoring and I have my vanilla coffee with no glucose reaction.

Georgia Congratulations on doing the 36 hr and the 24 hr fasts. I don't think I'm ready for either of those yet. As an old Ms. Pacman player, I loved the visualization of the liver sending her out to fetch goblins of fat from my backside. I will try to remember that one.

I had a 1 lb loss this week and I got so excited when saw it. Eating today was an 8 hr window that started earlier than usual because DH and I had fasting blood work this morning and then around 10 he decided he wanted to eat breakfast at Hardee's before coming home. Ordered the breakfast platter thinking it would be the better choice and was disappointed. However, I was surprised when we left at how well satisfied I felt. I think maybe it was because their coffee tasted soooo good. Of course having to fast for the blood work, I really missed my coffee this morning. Addicted? Maybe. Ended up eating 3 meals because I don't want to fight the hunger or cravings later tonight. I'm wanting to move my cut off time up to 6 pm instead of the usual 8 any way so this will be a good time to start it asI want to go back to the 19/5 ratio again. I did great on that one 3 or 4 months ago and my fasting blood sugar came down really well back then and I wasn't even exercising then. I stopped it because my doc didn't like the idea, but hey it worked. I suspect with my exercise routine that it will work even better this time.

I can't do the walking right now because it hurts my back so I am using my stationary recumbent bike in place of the walking. I going for 6 days a week if I can get by doing just the 6 days and do the resistance exercises 3 days. M-W-F. I say if I can get by with it because I've noticed since I've started using the bike that my joints don't hurt when I ride the bike, but they do hurt especially my right hip joint on the days that I don't. So I guess my joints are going to decide that one. I did my 30 minutes on the bike and the resistance exercise this morning when we got back home. So basically I'm off to a good start this week and must say that I'm very satisfied with the way today went and look forward to the weekly plan.

Okay I started today with the 16/8 IF and it went really great! Actually started my first meal at 12:30 and ended my last meal at 7:30 it ended up being a 7 hr window so my fasting will be for 17hrs instead of 16. Tomorrow morning I will do my 8 min walking after I get up and have my coffee. I do decaf w/stevia so it's only 2 calories. I'm wondering if I should go back to reg coffee and not decaf, they say the caffeine increases your metabolism does anyone know if this is true?

Skelley,

You can have 50 cal. in your fasting window so you can have milk in your coffee if you want to.

Yes, coffee can increase metabolism ( http://authoritynutrition.com/coffee...se-metabolism/ ) but do not go overboard, as sleeping is also good for weight loss.

Says who?

I'm not trying to be argumentive but you need qualify your statement as an opinion unless it is indeed, a fact.

To my knowledge Berkham just made this figure (50 cals) up as a means to increase compliance to his protocol.

If you have additional information I'd love to hear it. Otherwise - your statement needs qualification. You know, for science.

Alternate day fasting research seems to indicate that on a fasting day it doesn't matter when you eat at all so long as you keep calories very low.

I've said many times here. We don't know what, if any health benefits can be gathered from intermittent fasting and if there are health benefits we don't know how long one must fast or how often. In my opinion, intermittent fasting makes dieting or maintaining easier as a calorie control mechanism. Everything else remains to be determined.

I was taking a Tbs of heavy cream in my coffee for a while. It was lovely! But I finally cut that out too. I found a lovely medium roast decaf that I don't really need to add cream to. Now happily doing at least 12-hour fasts every day. Plus a 24-hour fast on alternate weeks. And since I accomplished a 36-hour fast, I plan to do more. Perhaps one each month.

Weight is coming off very slowly, but faster as I find my right caloric range that supports simultaneous fat loss and muscle gains. The sweet spot seems to be between BMR minus 100 calories and TDEE minus 500 calories. In real numbers for me, that's 1790 to 2100 calories. I don't like having small meals during my eating windows, so the days with shorter fasts when I know I'm going to eat more, I really push the weights.

I have had to greatly reduce my meals out. I truly suck at making wise choices when in a restaurant. One cocktail and I'm a slut for the menu! And I find I MUST clean my plate. Or rather, ALL of them. So at home, portion control happens.

Good morning!
My first day of IF went really great, made it thru the 16/8 plan
Today is my second day and I noticed this time that around 9:00 am my belly started rumbling really loud LOL, not sure if it's hunger or fake. So I started drinking more water and it has stopped. I did drop 2.2 lbs from yesterday so that's a big plus. My eating window starts at 12:00 -12:30 same as I did yesterday so I will post later how things are going. Yahoo!!

Hi, John! I have enjoyed the authors you suggested. Thank you.

I have heard it from Berkham (wow, this guy seems to be self-involved!) and Dr. Mara (the youtube video author I linked upthread). Maybe Dr. Mara is following Berkham, I dunno.

I am a latte-sipping liberal, so those 50 cals are precious. ;-)

I agree. Aragon's "objective look" (not ironic quotes) put things in perspective. I decided that while I am interested in IF, I will not follow the protocol now. I have been on eating about 800 - 1000 cal on many days where I tried to do long bike rides and something is off with me. I get dizzy and very low energy and I can't decide if it's because of calorie restriction, low blood pressure or anemia. It seems that adding IF would complicate things further.

I am looking forward blood work whenever I can schedule it.

Hey guys, I made a new thread and asked these questions, but no one has replied, so I thought I would copy and paste it here, hope that's alright! Just looking for some IF insight!

----------------------------

1) Am I allowed to eat anything during this window?? I know I should be eating healthy, but as long as it was 1300 cals would that be ok? I'm eating low carb, high protein at the moment, and I like it, but I was just curious.

2) Is the bullet proof coffee a necessity? I'm a college student and I don't like to spend money on extra things (If I can help it of course) but that's why I was wondering.

3) Is this a diet most people use to gain muscle? Everytime I google it, I see photos of ripped girls and guys!

I was doing what I thought was IF (as described above) and I got down to 168 but then again broke it during the weekend and I'm back at 170. I can't tell if I'm holding water or it's because I messed up the "flow" I had going on. I hope these aren't stupid questions, I feel really clueless about IF!

Anyway, if anyone has any advice I would love to hear it! I have been feeling a bit lost since I don't know if I'm approaching the diet properly.

Thanks!!
________________

Thank you so much!!

Your questions don't make sense and show you don't understand what IF is. This isn't your fault. IF is the latest craze and therefore has every money making shark circling and writing rediculous things about it.

Intermittent fasting means that for a period of time you don't eat. That is all that it is. It's not a diet. You can combine it with any dietary plan. With that context...

1) Yes.
2) No.
3) No.

Thank you JohnP! I really don't understand what IF is, different blogs and articles are saying different things, so I thought I would ask on here. Thanks for clarifying! So basically do I just work on not eating during that 16 hour window?

What I don't understand is why is the fasting part necessary? If I eat 1300 without fasting, is it any different from eating it in an 8 hr period?

Sorry if I'm derailing this thread!

Not at all. This is actually an extremely good question. From the perspective of fat loss - it makes no difference when you consume your calories and if it does make a difference it is very minor.

Some research shows that there may be some interesting things that happen to our bodies when insulin levels are very low for certain periods of time which could be quite beneficial to our long term health but at this point we don't know enough to make any solid statements concerning this.

Why intermittent fast then? Well the big reason to intermittent fast is that it makes dieting easier in my opinion. If you have a period of time that you don't eat than you can eat more in the time period you are eating.

Using 1300 caloires as an example. If you eat 5-6 times a day as conventional dieting wisdom suggests than you'll be eating some pretty small and unsatisfying meals. If you eat 2-3 times a day you can have larger more substantial meals.

It takes a little while to train your body but if you don't eat until noon every day after a couple weeks you'll be fine and after a month you won't even be hungry most days until noon. If you eat 2 meals + 1 snack those 1300 calories will go further.

For me - this has been life changing information. Eating every 2-3 hours was a pain in the rear and because the meals were so small I was always hungry and thinking about my next meal.

Now I eat sometime around or after noon. Today I ate at 2:00 PM. Yesterday 11:45 AM. The day before 4:30 PM. Second meal is usually around 7:30 or 8:00 PM. Two meals to worry about - and they're bigger meals.

Some people like to "graze" and intermittent fasting can still work for those people because if you don't start grazing until afternoon you have more leeway.

It's not for everyone but for many it's a game changer. All just by skipping breakfast.

Hi All,

I'm a regainer who usually hangs out in the 100-lb club, but I wandered over here a week or so ago and browsed this thread. I did a lot of thinking afterwards, and realized that the "eating 3 meals plus snacks" while counting calories regimen really doesn't work for me. Like John says, I was always eating teeny meals/snacks, always thinking about food, always looking forward to my next sliver of cheese or tiny handful of grapes.

So I did what I used to do when I was a teenager, and I stopped eating breakfast. When I eat in the morning, it's like it "wakes up" my stomach and then I want to keep eating throughout the morning. It was so easy to go back to my old habit of not eating until noon! I do get mild feelings of hunger, but they are easy to ignore and they go away quickly. I'm always happy when lunchtime comes, and I make sure that lunch is a meal that's big enough to satisfy me until supper.

I'm not strictly following any kind of window; just skipping the morning eating and making sure to eat a nice big lunch (usually some chicken, cheese, fruit, and a big unsweetened iced tea) and dinner. I've also cut out the junky snacks that I usually eat (cookies, treats from Starbucks, etc).

I lost almost 3 pounds this week. So I'm happy and will keep on this track for now. I feel like reading this thread has given me permission to stop eating "the most important meal of the day"--which I had to force myself to start eating in the first place, years ago!

Congratulations!!!!!!! I know the mind thing of letting go eating first thing in the morning can be tough at the beginning.

I feel so in control with dealing with food for the first time in my adult life. This was my first summer IFing. I wondered if I had to discontinue for a while due to me being more active and longer days etc., but I am get through just fine. Just had to increase my window to fit more calories in.