I'm glad this thread is helping people Even though I had already lost about 30lbs doing the 5-6 meals/day, I think I owe my weight loss success and absolutely my maintenance success so far to IF. Mini meals were NOT sustainable to me, IF is just a no brainer lifestyle that I can easily maintain. I discovered IF kind of on accident, just because I was frustrated and decided I'd do it MY way. As in save all my calories for the afternoon and evening instead of force myself to follow the mini meal schedule. It was like a weight off my shoulders, and I literally was losing weight still, so I stuck with it. And later found out about daily IF and then tried weekly IF. It's unfortunate that IF is still such an "underground" concept in the dieting world because I think sooo many personalities mesh with it. It's certainly against the grain of most 95% of all dieting advice that is mostly thrown at us. Even on 3FC, any time somebody mentions "fasting," it's considered taboo. (And understandably so, I absolutely understand that 3FC doesn't endorse unhealthy crash diets or starvation diets which "fasting" could easily be confused with). Anyways, my point is, I'm glad that this thread has spread the word a little bit
For those of you who are just starting, I'll say again to not get discouraged if you still feel hungry at early times. I certainly did when I was transitioning. But I'm a save-the-best-for-last kinda person, and I would think to myself "Do I really want to use those calories now or would they be better later after all my studying is done?" This is when you're feeling out your hunger feelings and learning that a little twinge of hunger isn't gonna kill you. Just keep asking yourself "can I wait another hour for lunch?" I STILL ask myself those questions. Before you know it, it'll be 3pm and you'll get to eat a huge meal, a snack, and another huge meal, and maybe another snack (or however you choose to distribute your food) within a few hours and go to bed full and happy. For those of you who are grazers, you CAN graze in IF. Imagine those 6 mini meals spread between 3-8pm. That's more than a meal per hour! Pretty much constant nonstop ON PLAN eating, lol.