Intermittent Fasting Ideas

#1

I’m having a hard time doing this. Any suggestions as to how to get my body used to intermittent fasting?

(Chuck) #2

Well you do it already when you sleep at night.
For me I don’t eat any snacks after my evening meal which for me is normal before 6pm. And I slowly increased the time to my morning meal until I was able to go 16 hours without eating anything. I do drink plenty of water and unsweetened tea while I am fasting. I can go up to 21 hours without eating. While I know some can go well longer I haven’t seen the need to do so. Anything over 14 hours is a benefit. And I have read other articles that say anything over 12 hours is a benefits. But I believe 16 is a sweet spot for me. And anything over that is just an added bonus.

#3

Why do you want to do it? It’s definitely not for everyone and I for one think it should come naturally or almost naturally. But if you have some very good reason for it, I understand. I MUST do OMAD/2MAD to avoid overeating now so I push it a bit now.

How do you do it and what’s the problem? Hunger? I respect hunger, it means I should eat. But we can push it a bit quite often, wait a little more… Sometimes it goes away.
I heard about people doing it gradually… Some people have tricks, I don’t, I need food when hungry, nothing else helps and it makes perfect sense to me. But even I like to drink something if I sit down at lunch with my SO without eating… And sometimes even a few kcals (a FEW, I mean it) is okay in my drink even if it’s not pure fast…

#4

Hi Trucha,

If you could tell us what you’re eating and when please? How long have you been fasting and are you looking to maintain or to lose weight?

#5

Oh I forgot. It matters A LOT to me that how I eat in my eating window. Well it sounds obvious but still, I write about this a little.
My fasting is pretty much determined by my previous eating windows. I can’t fast for 20-24 hours if I ate too little! But if I ate a lot, that easily makes it easy and even natural, effortless. (Or my effort means not eating up every lovely food just about they exist. So much easier than not eating when feeling starved! Though I can have very irresistible appetite sometimes. But usually not.)
It’s not just about the amount of food, macros and even timing matters. A big meal lasts longer for me. I mean, longer than 2 smaller ones with the same total macros. And it’s important when I eat. I can’t just put my eating window anywhere and expect it to work. I need to work with my own body if I want its cooperation…

(Bob M) #6

Many of us just fell into it. I ate 5+ meals when I first started, as I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. Then, when I started attempting longer fasts, I first reduced meals, when skipped breakfast, then ate one of those coffees with butter and coconut oil to be able to skip lunch. Then I started fasting longer, 36 hours, longest was 5.5 days (got too dizzy when standing from a sit).

And for me, everything is “weighted” to the end of the day: everyone is home, dinner is the main meal, etc. I often want to work out in the morning, but then get out of the house as fast as possible. Eating just come more naturally later in the day.

And @Shinita is correct, in that I think I start eating later because I eat so much so late, so I’m still full until later. (Probably not a great idea, either – would love to move that earlier, but it’s impossible with teen kids doing things like plays and dance; they get home too late.)

(Bill) #7

I have a secret crutch of coffee with double cream … helps me extend my fast until mid afternoon.

#8

Oh yes, it matter a lot if the family eats… It’s always some kind of struggle to skip lunches as it’s our main meal normally and for me it’s so since my childhood and it always suited me. I am almost always ready to eat at that time even if I am not really hungry yet (but not satiated anymore) and this extra urge due to my SO eating definitely doesn’t help… But I have this extra urge at dinnertime too.

Dinner OMAD should work for me as I still have about 8 hours until bedtime.
I sleep wonderful with a full belly but it’s such a waste not to enjoy my fresh satiation, I couldn’t last that late - and I have a natural eating window and starting to eat too late isn’t good for various reasons.
But I heard about OMADers who ate before bedtime. It seems it suits some people…

Coffee never helped me much at a fast, never when I am hungry, creamy coffee is tricky as if I go over very little cream, it probably makes me hungry. All small and not super tiny meals do that. Even if I am quite satiated when I have them. My SO gets hungry even after a single bite.

But broth (another thing that seem to work for many people when fasting. being a bit indulgent as consuming calories isn’t true fasting but depending on our goals and how our body works it may be perfect for us) is worse, it’s a great gateway food for me, it’s quite impossible for me not to eat a proper meal afterwards! I use it when I badly need a meal but my appetite is negative. It always solves this rare problem.

There are a bunch of things we should know about. I suppose fasting often requires a ton of trials, getting know ourselves… Not everyone can be “strong” and force themselves into fasting (and I don’t consider it a good idea most of the times. I mean for others as I simply never do that and it’s fine) but there should be a way unless we are just the type who needs to eat more often, no problem with that if it works with the right diet.

Apropos eating more often. I hope I lost that but I had carnivore days when I just got satiated too easily so I need about 5 meals to get enough food. I still did IF as I am like that. I just want to say with this that having many meals doesn’t necessarily means we have a big eating window. Tiny meals don’t last long in my case so I get my 5 meals in a relatively short time. A meal that isn’t my last one for the day almost never last for more than 3, maybe 4 hours and sometimes it’s 1-2 hours only (only on extreme low-carb). It’s individual.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #9

There is no need to fast, if you are having difficulty. As Prof. Benjamin Bikman points out, both fasting and a ketogenic diet put the body in to the same metabolic state, where fatty-acid metabolism is prioritised, only a ketogenic diet does so with food, and fasting does so without food.

Intermittent fasting is basically one or two meals a day, with a long period between the last meal of one day and the first meal of the next. If it doesn’t come naturally, give yourself some time. I started keto eating three meals a day, and then at one point just stopped wanting to eat in the morning. Sometimes I even end up eating one meal on a given day, but then other days I need to eat in the morning, which makes it three meals. I just listen to my body and give it what it wants.

(Robin) #10

I did not start having fewer meals until into my 2nd year and it happened naturally. These days I have no compulsion to I force a time schedule. I just eat when hungry.

(Chuck) #11

There are a few days a week that I can go up to 20 to 21 hours without even thinking about needing to eat. Other days I am needing to eat at about 15 to 16 hours of not eating. My first meal is normally one of my own creation smoothies that has everything needed for a full meal. It has protein, fat and carbs. My next meal is my evening meal. Normally calorie wise my smoothie is the most calories for the day. My evening meal is normally my heaviest protein meal for the day.

#13

Oh there is such a definition too?
It’s a small enough eating window for me, I always saw that definition for normal IF (I still don’t know why 5:2 is IF or even a thing…). In my case, 1-5 meals, 1-3 hours between meals. Sometimes grazing, not my normal style but whatever my body and mind wants :slight_smile:
The main thing is the 16-24 hour fast! And when I try to lose fat a bit harder (with the same lack of success but I should get better eventually), the TINY eating window.

#14

Wow… I am more the like hobbits who got satiated by ent drink but missed chewing! :slight_smile:

#15

My SO has it every day. Breakfast after 6am, dinner around 6pm but in extreme cases, dinner is at 2pm…
12 hour seems very easy to me as well (16 too as no way I have a breakfast. a morning meal, in my language morning is in it and morning is the early morning as we have a “before-noon” afterwards) but I can imagine some people need a huge eating window as they have long satiation tiny meals. How their body is like this, IDK but they seem to exist. And even I had zillion meals in my life between 8pm and 3am, I think I did a 4am once too… It’s abnormal for me, I clearly feel it’s not my natural eating window but sometimes it is needed.

But yes, I can’t see the huge difficulty in 12 hours at all. it sounds pretty normal even for people with the usual 3 or 5 meals, it gives very common mealtimes.

(Allie) #16

It doesn’t suit everyone. If it doesn’t happen naturally, don’t do it - you need to listen to your body.

#17

When I was 20 I went on a 10 day fast with my father who was 50 years old at the time. I had no problem in fact I was on a high but my mom made us stop after 10 days. Today I have problem missing one meal makes me feel lousy.

(Allie) #18

Your body is completely different now to the way it was back then so has different needs.

#19

I tend to eat 2 to 3 meals a day now. I’ll use today as an example.

Breakfast: coffee with cream.
Lunch: a plate of bacon and cheese.
Inbetween treat: coffee with cream, as well as a bowl of extra thick double cream.
Dinner: 4 Aberdeen Angus beef burgers (99% beef, salt and pepper). I don’t eat from 18:00pm, but I don’t try to fast as such, I’m just pleasantly stuffed. Each morning fast is broken (breakfast) with coffee and cream🙂

#21

Eating the way you suggest, don’t you find you have to go to the bathroom if you pardon the expression to poop in the middle of the night?

#22

This type of eating is carnivore not keto, correct?