Not Able to Eat Much


(Failed) #1

I know you’re supposed to eat until you’re satisfied, which is fine. It makes sense. However, I’m satisfied after about 400 or 500 cal.

For example, I fasted Tuesday, broke my fast yesterday, but couldn’t eat very much. Today I intended to do a fast for around 40 to 48 hours. However, I got hungry, so decided to listen to my body and eat something, and fast later.

I ate two slices of undercooked bacon, half an avocado, and about three slices of pickles. I’m stuffed. I know that’s not enough calories, though.

What do you do in that case, I know this is not enough calories, but there’s no way I can force myself to eat anything more.


(Will knit for bacon. ) #2

I’m in the same boat - I can’t eat enough at one sitting to keep me going. I tried OMAD for a while and I ended up ravenously hungry and ready to body-check my own children for a slice of pizza.

Recently I’ve gone back to two meals a day, plus my coffee with cream every morning. I end up with an intermittent fasting schedule of 16:8 or 18:6 (when I eat depends on what shift I’m working). I’m feeling much better now.


(Bob M) #3

I personally have found OMAD to be difficult. There are too many calories to attempt to eat all within a short time. I will do it, at times, but I prefer either fasting the whole day or having two meals a day.


(Bruce Pick) #4

I’ve seen suggestions to break a fast gently. For me, that could be cheddar cheese and/or sausage, or veggies/salad with a dressing. Anything that’s well cooked would also be a likely candidate for me.


#5

Be sure to prioritize your proteins if you’re eating so few calories. You don’t need carbs, and most of your fat usage can be replace by stored body fat (if you have some, that is), but you don’t want your body to satisfy its protein needs from your body.


(Failed) #6

I thought that we do want that to happen for autophagy.


(Edith) #7

You may not be all the way fat adapted, yet. Once your body becomes efficient at using the fat and ketones for fuel, you may find your appetite increases, and you can eat more at one time.


(Susan) #8

I find doing two meals a day at 1pm and another before 5 still gives me an IF of 20:4 and lets me break the foods into two parts. The other things that I find helps is:

  1. tracking -I use a free app called cronometer.com

Once i started typing it all in there, it really helped to keep track and let me know where I was lacking.

  1. Eating more fats really helps increase your calories!

I now have been using more EVOO, salted butter, and Chosen Foods Avocado Mayonnaise. You could also add things such as Organic Coconut Oil, or MCT oils or some people on the forum seem to really love HWC in their coffees/teas.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #9

Autophagy of dead and damaged protein, yes. Autophagy of needed muscle mass, not so much.


(Failed) #10

In this article by Dr Fung
https://idmprogram.com/how-much-protein-is-excessive/

He says:

So, how much protein should you take? The average necessary would be 0.6 g/kg/day (around 50 g/day) and LESS if you are trying to lose weight. However, I have seen recommendations that vary widely. Some suggest 120 g/day. Drs. Phinney and Volek recommend 1.5 – 2 g/kg/day. Yowzers. That’s super high. Do I worry about protein deficiency? No. When I start seeing a North American outbreak of kwashiorkor, I’ll be worried. Until then, the average intake is still 2-3 times what is physiologically necessary.

So if I’m calclating this correctly, if I want to end up at 120 (54.4 kg), i want to eat under 32.6 g of protein a day.

120 lbs X 0.4535 = 54.4 kg
54.4 kg X 0.6 g protein per kg = 32.6

6 oz ribeye steak = 33 g protein
10 slices of thick cut bacon = 30 g protein
6 oz country style boneless pork ribs = 30 g protein


(Door Girl) #11

Others can chime in here with better information, but I would look at those numbers as up to 32g protein a day rather than less than 32g a day.

Your two slices of bacon gave you 6g protein, and if that half an avocado was a cup (and it was probably less) it is another 3g. So you probably had 8g of protein. That isn’t 0.6g/kg it is 0.15g/kg. One tenth of Volek and Kinney’s numbers. One tenth.

Right now, you should look to get quality protein in first, and not concern yourself with limiting it until you get closer to the level you have determined. Or maybe higher, I forget if Fung’s number is averaged per day or only for eating days.


(mole person) #12

Dr. Fung is on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of protein recommendations but not as much as it seems because he uses total weight for his patients and not ideal weight or lean body mass as some of the others do.

He does this to avoid confusion and because most people can only guess at their lean mass. So if you want to use Fung’s method you should be multiplying .6 by your current weight in kgs.

Also, @doorgirl is correct. Protein is supposed to be a target not a limit. It doesn’t matter if you eat no carbs and if you’re not hungry you can cut back on your fats but you really should be averaging at least 50 grams of protein a day.


(bulkbiker) #13

the “necessary” implies he’s talking minimum not upper limit?


(Karla Sykes) #14

What is OMAD?


(Andi loves space, bacon and fasting. ) #15

One meal a day. This is Megan Ramos of the IDM talking about how consistent OMAD can work for maintenance, but not as much for weight loss, but lots of us here use it successfully every once in a while. There’s no argument that it is easy and simple!!


(Failed) #16

Just to make sure everyone knows, I’m not trying to be provocative, I’m just trying to figure out this way of eating as it applies to my body.

I have a lot of excess skin due to a 70 pound weight loss many years ago, so I’m really really interested in stimulating autophagy as much as I can. Being 70 next month doesn’t make me optimistic, either.

However, if I succeed in getting tighter skin, that would be an inspiration to others. I know I have avoided going on any sort of a diet in the past several years because when I lost all that weight years ago, I felt ugly. Like the saggy, baggy elephant. I’ve always felt fat, but that was the first time I felt ugly.


(Andi loves space, bacon and fasting. ) #17

Have you tried waiting an hour or so and then eating again? Those are foods that will trigger very little insulin, so you don’t have to be so careful about your frequency of eating.


(Failed) #18

Yes, that’s what I’m going to do today after ending my 42 hours fast. Good advice, thank you.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #19

Bear in mind, please, everybody, that the average irreducible minimum of nitrogen lost in the human body is the equivalent of 0.6 g of protein/kg of lean mass/day. That is the minimum most people must eat for survival (a few outliers were measured at quite a bit less, a few others at quite a bit more). The government recommendation of 0.8 g is calculated with a margin of safety in mind (it should cover everyone but the farthest outliers with the highest needs), and higher ranges are calculated with thriving in mind, not just surviving.


(mole person) #20

@PaulL I’m under the impression that those .6 and .8 g/kg values are in fact based on total body weights. I could be wrong, but that’s what I recall.