Hi guys, newbie here!
I had never been able to fast. I have been fainting from a lack of small constant food intake since I was in grade 4. The most amazing thing that happened to me when I started Keto was that I started IF accidentally! I was just… not hungry, satisfied, and best of all, I was enjoying the feeling of an empty belly! You’ve got to understand that the feeling of an empty belly has always scared me because of the fainting that followed. I started chasing that amazing feeling and enjoying IF for a meal or two a day. Unfortunately, it started getting harder about 2 weeks in. The satisfying empty belly feeling was replaced with hunger in between meals. I started to worry that I was becoming dependent on carbs again. I’m still eating Keto. I don’t measure ketones, so maybe I haven’t been in ketosis since those two weeks. I don’t know. But I am curious if anyone else has had a similar experience with IF.
Looking For That Satisfying IF Feeling
Are you eating enough when you eat? Are you using anything to track your macros like chronometer or my fitness pal?
For me, that feeling you are describing of your stomach feeling empty but not feeling compelled to eat started in about week 4, and was not an everyday thing.
So some days I’d have that feeling you are describing, and some days I’d get hungry. Over time, I got to where “hungry days” were less frequent, and to where I could do things like skip a couple of meals in a row without snacking without much problem, but it was a gradual process of change and not necessarily consistent improvement day by day.
If you are hungry, you probably need to eat. Of course, there is emotiional hunger, which is a desire to use food to manipulate feelings, but real hunger should not be ignored.
Yup, I track my macros daily. And I do feel I eat enough. I don’t leave a meal hungry.
So Paul, do people who use IF regularly or who fast for 24 hours not typically feeling true hunger? I assumed they were simply ignoring the feeling.
That happens when I don’t eat enough fat (1) and/or not enough protein (2).
Check your macros and totals.
One thing you might consider if you want to continue IF is eating more on days that you do eat. If I’m going to easily get through a day of fasting (typically about 42 hours) then I really need to EAT on the day or two days before. Not quite Thanksgiving-level stuffed, but more like you went out to dinner and were full, but had dessert anyway.
I’ve had similar concerns … been doing OMAD and ‘walking’ through lunch. But yesterday on returning frmo my walk, when my hunger was usually abated, I still felt very hungry… so grabbed a fatty salad.
I did not find I was any less hungry when I got home in the evening and started my dinner. I would have expected to be less hungry, but once I began eating I probably consumed about the same as I had been on a normal eating day.
The ‘emotional hunger’ is real though… noticing that I can always ‘switch’ what I’m eating from the main entree to some yogurt to some cheese… and keep consuming even though I would not eat more entree. This is real, legitimate food addiction and trying to break those habits is taking alot of effort. Need to break free of it and reduce the options at mealtime.
Eating, even keto, turns on the hunger button for me. It’s worse when I eat carbs, but eating anything starts the cycle of feeling a bit drained and weak within an hour or so. Which leads, of course, to more eating. I also have “fear of hypoglycemia”, a twin to “fear of fainting”, where years of hypoglycemic episodes leads me to eat frequently to ward off the dreaded shakiness, sweating, irritability and feeling like passing out is a definite possibility.
My fasting insulin levels are high, unless I drive them down with strict keto. I’ve been making a so far unsuccessful attempt to get myself back in ketosis for two weeks, a nd uit’s hard going. I’ve lost nothing, but I KCKO because I know I’m repairing my once again overstressed insulin-producing cells-- and I’m taking in TOO MANY carbs, for me.
I’m going from 16 hour IF to hopefully 18 or more and cutting carbs more severely to get myself back on the track. The good thing is, I UNDERSTAND this now, in away I did not a few years ago. Understanding the process makes it possible to KCKO even in the face of no weight loss.
I have been OMAD for over a year and I can say that 90% of the time I’m not hungry until about an hour before I usually eat. But there are days when I do get hungry earlier, especially on days when I had a good workout.
This is me as well. I do two meals a day (noon and 6:00PM) and if I’m distracted by activity I sometimes forget that it’s mealtime and don’t feel hungry. Otherwise I start anticipating it and feel hungry. That tells me my hunger is probably mostly psychological.
Your body does get used to a schedule. My body is used to two meals a day, breakfast and supper. It knows it’s going to get fed in the morning and it knows that it’s going to get fed in the late afternoon. That’s become the norm. I don’t get hungry in the middle of the day. I rarely eat in the middle of the day. I never eat at night. And I pretty much never snack. I have no desire to.
If I eat an extra large supper, there are times when I won’t be hungry by breakfast and I may not even bother with my coffee. I don’t worry about it and when that does happen, I often don’t get very far into the day before I don’t really have any physical recollection that I skipped breakfast. But I’ll still start to feel a tad hungry as supper time approaches, just like every other day. My body knows it’ll be time soon.
In the beginning stages of getting going with keto, your body may not know when it’s going to get fed. It can take a while to work things like hunger and eating habits out. For me, that took several months and ranged from ravenous appetite to fasting just because I wasn’t hungry. I rolled with it. And it kinda worked itself out such that the routine we’re in is the routine that works for us.
I’m not sure a one-size-fits-all works for meals for everyone. What works for me may not be quite right for someone else. And what’s right for them may not be quite what’s right for me. It’s OK. And it may change a bit over time. That’s OK, too.
Probably not that helpful… just sharing… 
OMG yes!! Me too. I just try not to think about what I am going to eat until I get home and start cooking.