Great job, geoblewis. Keep up the good work.

Valrock...great job....I love lasagna. Yum.

Kelsey, you should consider trying it. It's great.

Elkay, you're doing great. Yeah, it's hard and the beginning and does get easier. I imagine the Coke Zero works just fine during your fast..or so I would think. One couldn't hurt? Anyone else have an opinion on that?

Anyway, you all keep up the good work and I'll do the same.

Monique

Dispite what some really stupid web sites say diet sodas do not trigger an insulin response so diet sodas are fine. (Unless of course you think they cause cancer)

Ideally during the fasting period you would consume zero calories but a little milk in your tea or coffee isn't going to kill you. According to Martin at Leangains.com as long as you keep it under 50 calories you're fine. I don't know what scientific basis he has for this so I keep it under 25 calories just to be safe.

I would reccomend people who haven't done this before break themselves in easy. Fast for 12-14 hours and then move it up to longer times if you want. No need to kill yourself the first time you do it after all the point of intermittent fasting is to incorporate it as part of your lifestyle to make dieting easier and to simpify your life. Also - it helps dramatically to keep yourself busy. Staring at the clock isn't going to help.

Despite what I said, I started yesterday. I hoped to do a 5 hour window between 1 and 6; I ended up with an 8 hour window (11-7) with quite a huge gap between what I had at 11 and 7, so I feel okay with that.

I'm on the train that says fake sugar causes cancer and other ugly things with your body. I don't eat processed foods either, usually. I love a diet coke though. (and for me, it does trigger the same response as sugar) It was also my intention to cut that out yesterday. I've done smarter things in my life :P No food, no caffienne, I was miserable by the time 11 am rolled around (dizzy, nauseous, start of a headache). I gave in and had food, but still tried to delay the coke. Gave in on that around 3pm and was better for it!

My day is crazy today, as I'm travelling out of town with kids. I don't want to risk a headache or being dizzy or generally ill feeling, so my window is simply going to start when I feel hungry. Which isn't right now yay. And I am going to have the diet coke.

Drinking extra water during the fasting period seems to help especially when you're new to it.

The caffeine in the diet coke probably doesn't hurt either.

Well I am going to give this a go today. It's only 9:30 am and usually I would have had some cereal by now, but I am not starving yet. I know in a couple of hours I will be!
I have only had a bottle of water and some coffee today. I am going to try to have a window from 1-8. Does that sound reasonable for a newbie?

10-8 or 11-8 or 12-8 or 1-8 all seem like a reasonable place to start.

Drink lots of water!

I'm starting IF...Fasting from this evening at dinner (which I finished at 6pm) until about 12pm /lunch tomorrow, making it approx 18hrs fasting.
I intend to do it (ideally) 2-3 days each week, up to 24hrs if I feel I can handle it.

I started researching a week ago so gradually reduced my caffeine, refined sugars etc intake over the past week so that I don't get too much of a shock, as I have occasional spells of hypoglycaemia. Hopefully this new approach will help regulate my blood sugar levels-as well as helping me shift some annoying pounds.

Will come back with my progress tomorrow evening, and on Monday when I check my weight (I only ever weigh myself on a Monday!).

Since reading the other IF thread I have been trying to do this for the last week or so. I usually don't feel hungry at all until around noon so right now I'm going to go with a window like 12-8 and work it down to 2-8 eventually. I'm combining it with low carb. There have been a few days where I was super hungry but by the time 2 came and went I had a second wind and wasn't even hungry anymore! I've only done a few days where I really stayed in the window of 2-8, so I'm going to really make a good effort to stick to it because it makes sense to me and eating two or 3 times is a lot easier than going all day. I hope to be able to do a 24 hour fast here and there, maybe even once a week.

I've been IF'ing since February 1, 2011 and I'm loving it! I primarily follow Fast-5 with a 19/5 window from 5 PM to 10 PM. I started it for maintenance because it looked easy, but have actually lost about 7 pounds. Just a side benefit for me, but for the first time in my adult life I've said "I may have to up my calories!"

I've been reading the thread (found it on google) since it started as something else. To the person who was asking about morning workouts... it is my understanding that low to moderate cardio in fasted state is fine (I do this). For resistance, I believe the recommendation is to drink BCAA's pre/during/and until your first meal. I also follow the intermittent fasting forum on bodybuilding.com, and a lot of the people there work out this way in the AM.

Well...... I did it, wasnt easy I would have to say but I did it.
My second day today and hopefully it will be easier, thanks John re the coke Zero advice and I will try not to stare at the clock on my pc at work today, maybe put some tape over it or something............LOL

Good luck with your fast everyone

Hey, all. So glad to see more of you joining in and so glad IF just works so well for those of us who have done it for a while.

I had a slip up today...it wasn't a, "I'm so hungry, I must eat..." slip up. LOL. I just simply forgot about my fast around 9:45 this morning when a friend offered me cereal and another gave me a cookie. LOL. Oh well, no biggie. The great part about IF is that you can always start over when fasting time arrives again.

Monique

Hello everyone. I have been researching IF for the last couple of weeks. I'm trying to ease myself into IF but I'm also doing low carb and calorie restriction as I want to drop some weight. I got rid of all the processed food and I'm working on skipping breakfast.

I do workout at lunchtime, so I have a few almonds before I hit the gym. I do some serious workouts like spin, boot camp, or a HITS class. I feel like I should eat after my workout so I usually have some greek yogurt and organic pumpkin seed granola (my only carb of the day). Then I have a healthy dinner of a protein and veggies and that's it. Maybe some string cheese after dinner if I'm starved.

Not sure what direction I should move in for IF with my schedule, so I will keep reading until I figure it out. Cheers.

My hardest day was the very first one and it just got easier from there, it's like second nature now.. today, I looked at the clock and couldn't believe it was 2 already.

Monique- I've found that to be the hardest part, when other people offer food or want to eat something earlier in the day, especially on weekends.

I haven't started this yet, will try to start tomorrow, with a 14-hr fast from tonight.

Good luck Beila, let us know how it goes!

I think it's more of a mental hurdle to get around, although you will definitely have some hunger, it probably won't be as bad as you think.