Mar 2022 IF/EF Chat Thread (All Welcome)


(Jane) #1

Starting a fast today and didn’t see a thread for March, so starting this one.

KCFO


Feb 2022 IF/EF Chat Thread (All Welcome)
#2

My “I badly need OMAD to avoid overeating and inconvenience but how on earth do I do that?” times continue. I am pretty close, or else I wouldn’t even try but sometimes I get hungry early (14:30 today). Oh well.
Food topic so blur. But it’s connected to my fasting, my eating always are. I need to do the latter properly to fast right and long enough. Sometimes I wonder if adding a tiiiiny bit of something to my coffee (usually a fraction of a yolk but I had a few ml cream today. I am not always good enough to do proper fasts) triggers an earlier hunger… Tiny food doesn’t tend to do that to me but that’s about instant hunger. Maybe it builds one and I had many coffees before lunchtime… I can’t really test this as there are way too many factors. Yesterday was TMAD in 2.5 hours (and a bite later) so earlier hunger is no wonder at all. Me thinking about food too much may have a role though it’s rarely the case. I fed a new kitty with my fav food items too…

So I try to get my stuff together and do OMAD. I just need a day when I don’t get hungry early. I am not in the mood to power through some not nice hours, I rarely do.


#3

Is your little Hunger actually Thirst?
Have you tried to drink at least half a glass of water with a tea spoon of cider vinegar in it before eating anything else - This worked for me and got me on to the OMAD with ease.

Good luck and keep at it.


(Bob M) #4

And have you tried adding salt to your coffee? (Though I’ve been adding salt to my coffee for a long time, and go through phases with hunger.)


(Wendy Lindeman) #5

Hi There!! I am 20 hours into my first fast and i am starving!!! I have drank water and herbal tea and black coffee this morning. I guess I need to work up to ADF… ugh


(Bob M) #6

Sometimes salt on or under your tongue can help. But it can take a while to build the “fasting muscle”.


(Central Florida Bob ) #7

The first one is the hardest, but little things can help. The salt helps a lot of us. One oddity for me is that for a long time (long time) I had a cup of a flavored tea with lunch at work, and always drank it after eating the meal part of lunch. I find that just having that cup of flavored tea seems to tell my body that I’ve eaten and the hunger (or whatever it is) goes away.

I haven’t tried just hot water but a cup of hot tea around our normal dinner time does the same thing.


#8

I’m doing a water fast Wednesday tomorrow, 36 hours from dinner tonight to breakfast Thursday. This will be the 3rd or 4th week in a row now that I’ve done the same thing.


(Doug) #9

Wendy, that’s a common time to be feeling it - the stomach and small intestine are emptied out, the ‘post-absorptive phase’ is underway where blood sugar (and insulin) are declining, and the body is realizing that not only is the belly empty, but the whole pipeline is uncommonly ‘light,’ it’s like the fast is getting real… :slightly_smiling_face:

A good many people try and schedule things so the 18 - 20 hour period comes while they are asleep; the second day is sometimes easier.

It does get easier with practice. :+1:


(Wendy Lindeman) #10

Awesome and thank you. I definitely need to change my window time. I did make it to 24 hours but I had to drinks some coffee with cream and mct at 21 hours so technically I didn’t do a full 24 hour fast but I felt accomplished. Thanks for the reply!


#11

Yesterday was an amazing day for me. I’d done a twenty-four hour fast the day before. Omad. And was into my second 24 hr. Other people spoke of how much energy they have while fasting which wasn’t the case for me until yesterday. I did so many chores, I’d been avoiding.

In addition, my blood fasting level was 100. Granted it took twenty-three hours to get there but for me it was a first. The day before it was 103, another first.

I may do another today. Will see how I feel. I’ve never managed to get beyond the 28 hour mark. I hope to get to 36 hours but not today.


(Doug) #12

:slightly_smiling_face: No big deal with the cream and MCT; not like eating a whole cake or something.:smile:

It’s not always the same, might be easier the next time, might not be. Doing longer fasts made the shorter ones really easy for me. But there are still small “hurdles,” often, i.e. around 18 hours and really - the first two days in total. For alternate day fasting one isn’t concerned with multiple days, I realize, but I’ve never had the first day be as easy, as, for example, the 4th or 5th day on a longer fast.

There’s plenty of time and plenty of fasts in the future, if one wants. Sometimes I’ve thrown in the towel early; “just really not feeling it this time around…”

For the long haul, though, it does get easier over time, and if anything is going to really make us ‘fat-adapted’ and used to burning our own fat, alone, then not eating anything else is the way to go.


(Wendy Lindeman) #13

The good thing is that I have done Keto diet for a long time beforehand and I am in ketosis which makes me happy! I read in The complete guide to fasting and the obesity code that ADF is the most optimal for weight loss. I was down to 125 lbs.3 years ago basically eating Sprouts rotiserie Chicken cucumber and Titos for dinner :laughing:… But quickly gained it back now back to 180 lbs. I know I can lose the weight I just want to do it the right way this time and keep it off! If I can stop drinking I can fast :blush:


(Wendy Lindeman) #14

I am shooting for 36 hours as well today!! We can do it :star_struck:


#15

12:12 with 3 meals during the 12 hour eating hours at approx 4 hr intervals and no food between meals. Is this considered IF?


(Bob M) #16

Depends on who is defining the term. I think that qualifies. But some people might require a longer fast period.


(Robin) #17

Coffee and heavy cream are staples of my carnivore life. I’ve given them up many times, just to adhere to some sort of ego badge I wanted to earn. I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than one day without it. So… no one is judging me and I’m not either.
You do you.


(Jane) #18

By today’s standards - yes. By 50’s-60’s standards no - nearly everyone ate that way or skipped breakfast and fasted 16 hours in between dinner and lunch.


(Jane) #19

22 hours in and had a hunger wave pass through that a bit of pink salt crystals took care of. Going to break tomorrow between mid-morning and mid-day.


#20

No idea how ANYONE can mix hunger with thirst, they aren’t even remotely the same feeling, after all.

Nope, I am pretty much satiated at 3pm after drinking very little (I get thirsty in the evening and I often drink very much at night, before bedtime). It changes when I exercise and once I drank 4 liters out of curiosity (I was very thirsty all day, never again!). Nothing changed with my hunger, they are simply not correlated.

Tiny hunger is tiny hunger, it is a thing, at least for me :slight_smile: I rarely even have strong hunger but I usually don’t get it at all even when starving, being weak, dizzy, sometimes losing vision and balance… It gets too suddenly but I eat then, I don’t argue with my own body, it has almost all the power! And I need its help for many more decades. And I am not cruel to my own body, that’s not hedonistic… (Being a far from good enough hedonist is a pretty bad insult for me. Being a good hedonist is among my most important goals in life. As it’s connected to good health and that has priority over almost anything.)

My last days… They weren’t so great IF wise. Once I even went beyond 8 hours! And anything over 3 is bad for me. But I almost never can do TMAD, I really go for OMAD now.

And today I have a chance. I am determined and it’s 4:22pm and I feel I will need to eat soon but not yet :slight_smile: I will have a properly big meal and all will be good. Seriously, I am sooooooooo done with these struggles and fails. It’s my carni day #3, everything is fine, I am not bored with my food, nothing can possibly go wrong! :smiley:

[…]
I had a perfect OMAD meal I think. I waited until it got late (I don’t like to eat too late as it feels off) but I already felt the need to eat, I just had no hunger and even less appetite. But it went well, I put a wee bit extra effort into stuffing myself and now I feel full (I rarely say I am full as it’s more like a feeling. I can feel it 20 hours after a meal too. maybe I am full now as I had soup but my stomach can handle way more than this and it has nothing to do with satiation).

I am looking forward how I will feel tomorrow! Looking at my day, I expect to be perfectly satiated but definitely not hungry until the evening.

IF means 8 hour or less eating window to me (it’s the definition I am used to) but as long as people understand each other, I don’t really care about definition (and I’ve red 5:2 is IF too and that has about nothing to do with timing as far as I know - except that I don’t think 5-600 kcal can be split into 2 or more :smiley: But one is too little for it too so it’s just infinitely far from me. I rather would do vegan OMAD and I definitely don’t want to do that. but if it works for some, fine, sure).

12 hours are pretty long. I have imagination so I can imagine one eating in a bigger one but it’s very very unusual to me. (But if I had breakfast and night eating on the same day, it could happen. It probably happened a few times in my life. Wasn’t nice. But I eat bigger meals ever 1-3 hours normally so obviously I need tiny eating window. 1 hour tops should do it.)