I'm telling ya, jyoyo...it's way easier than worrying about what you're eating all day. I love it. Anyway, that is a good mantra, thanks for that. Let's have a perfect day on plan, tomarrow, everyone. I will ONLY consume water during my fasting time.

Monique

Well I have had no problems waiting until noon to eat. After going off my plan though I've decided to change it. So I'll be aiming for some more calories and carbs, but still going with noon-8 as my window. I don't have much desire to do any longer than that right now and I think that is something I can stick with. I'll be weighing in tomorrow but I know it won't be a great number. I'm determined to have an on plan week though.

It's now almost 3 o'clock here. Felt a little hungry about an hour ago. Drank some tea and now I'm doing just fine! This is so crazy!! I really thought it would be a lot more difficult than this! I thought I would be ravished all day everyday and that just isn't the case. As long as I have something to drink I can make it past what little hunger pangs I've had. Looking forward to some clean eating tonight though. I went shopping last night to make sure I have plenty of fruits and veggies in the house.

Hopefully it remains this easy for the long haul...I have a lot weight to lose...ugh!! One pound at a time!

It is amazingly easy isn't it? When you think about it, have you ever been really, truly hungry? I was thinking about the other day when I was telling someone about fasting. They said "but I'll get so hungry!" I think a lot of our problem is we can't separate real hunger from cravings. Once I figured that out, it made the fasting a lot easier. On the leangains.com site, he says you have to keep your mind occupied and you won't even notice being hungry. I've found that to be true. When I start thinking about eating, I start working on something I have to think about. Works like a charm every time.

Fell off the wagon today, so ive done 6 days of a window of 2-8pm and today i started eating at 9am-3pm, anyone know if i can carry on tomorrow back at 2-8pm or have i messed myself up?!

Wow this all sounds amazing! I am SO jumping on this wagon! I kinda do this already when i know i'm going out to a restaurant and ordering whatever i want so i try not to eat all day so i won't go over my calories to much. I'm gunna start this tomorrow. I have about 10lbs to lose so hoping this kicks my slow losing butt in gear! Interested to see all the newbies results.

Question: How many calories are you supposed to eat during ones eating period? As of right now i'm eating roughly 1100 daily because i'm calorie counting. So should i just jam in 1100 calories in that 6 hours? Is that how this works? Im planning to do a 3-9 eating window.

@Grace - from all the stuff I've read, the nice thing about eating this way...is that you can get right back on the wagon. That would mean you would have a 23 hour fast. Which may be difficult...so maybe you should go ahead and eat something around 7 or 8...that way you aren't going so long without food. Unless you want to do the 23 hour fast of course...obviously it can be done, that's the whole premise of the ESE way of eating. So....just do what you need to do and get back on track. Don't stress about it You can do it!!!

@KTucke....I am on the same page. I'm not even a week into it and I feel great, I peeked at the scale this morning and I'm down a pound since Saturday...hopefully it stays that way. Even when I was doing the strict phase 1 on the South Beach diet (which has always been the diet that works for me), I was constantly hungry, constantly thinking about food, etc. Totally crazy that I hardly even think about it!

I think what has made it easier for me is that I already have fairly healthy eating habits, I just eat TOO MUCH!!! In that past it's been difficult because I've always felt like I've HAD to eat all day in order to keep my metabolism going. So, I'd eat b'fast...then a snack....then lunch...then a snack....then by the time I get to dinner time I'd used up so many calories or points or whatever that I felt like I couldn't eat hardly anything...then my brain would be like...you're starving, eat, eat, eat!!! It was an endless vicious cycle of either feeling hungry all the time....or guilty because I had caved in!

So...now...I just eat in my window and it's working wonderfully! I can't even explain how happy I am that I finally stumbled upon the IF way of eating.

Now....I really need to get on the exercise band wagon! lol

@Weight...that is exactly how it works ) Eat your alloted calories for the day in your "window of opportunity" he he Keep us posted on your results too!!

Welcome to Weight and anyone I missed just joining us. I hope you will come to love IF just like the rest of us.

Anyway, great job everyone....and if you have a screw up, it won't mess up anything. Just keep on going.

I'm doing well this morning during my fast like I promised myself. I'm doing water only and making sure not to snack on anything.

Monique

Good Job Monique!! Keep up the good work! You'll be glad you did when you're walking around in your skinny jeans

@jyoyo I know exactly what you mean. Not bad food habits, just way too much of it. The longer I go, the less it seems to take to make me feel full on IF. Bonus!

I still haven't been able to repeat a day of IF after the first initial day. I'm not really trying to though, but just going with eating when I'm really hungry. I guess my little experiment to try it for a week helped me realize true hunger and to eat a meal when I feel like it. Like "IE" as I have just discovered on a different thread.

I do like to eat my first meal at 10am and then a second meal at around 5-6pm occasionally without snacks. I don't think this counts as fasting, but holding off as long as possible until I'm hungry seems to be a good plan for me.

Anyways, good luck to you all, and I'll come back here if I can successfully do 2 or more days in a row to report back.

Hmm so i was all gun-ho this morning reading this thread but then when i was telling my bf about it tonight he reminded me of when i used to work long hours and basically only ate dinner all day and it was almost always low-fat something because his mom who we were living with at the time is all about healthy balanced meals. ...and i didnt lose anything. if anything i probably gained weight. This kinda put the brakes on IF because i remember saying at that time "How can i NOT be losing weight, i'm only eating 1 meal a day"...and he kept insisting it was because i was making my metabolism slow down. So i guess my question is, is IF for everyone?

No, IF is not for everyone. There is no diet that is for everyone. If there was we would ALL be skinny!! lol Just a thought on what you were saying about eating one lowfat meal a day. Maybe you didn't lose weight because you weren't eating enough to be sustainable. For instance, even though I'm only eating during a 5 hour window, I still have my alloted number of calories for the day.

Also, it takes a long time to actually change your metabolism. A really good informational site I found that explains the metabolism question pretty well is www.iflife.com There is a ton of information there about intermittent fasting.

Definitely not for everyone though. I guess I've just lucked out with it so far...which it's about time considering I've been battling the bulge for 13 years now! Ugh!

So...hopefully you find what works out for you. You've obviously done very well at some sort of diet/exercise program to have lost 30 pounds!! Weigh to Go!!

IF is not for everyone but the only way you would have gained weight is if your calories ingested exceeded your calories utilized. IF doesn't do anything to change the energy equation any more than eating a single meal a day would have slowed down your metabolism.

The body doesn't slow down it's metabolism when you're in an energy surplus which is what you are in when you gain weight.

Still - I suppose anything is possible.