September 2022 IF/EF Chat (All Welcome)

(Michael) #1

I am going to start each month with a 72+ hour fast this school term. Not sure if I would prefer some ADF or a longer 5 day fast per yearly quarter, but going to give a 4 month stretch of fasting each of the first 3 days of the month. So, starting late tonight should be my start for September. I will update, but here is our fasting post for this month :slight_smile:

#2

I have big plans for September regarding various things. I REALLY do my best to get my stuff together now. I will put more effort into skipping lunch. Of course if I feel the need, I will eat. But if it won’t work, I just eat lunch and an early dinner, that’s okay too. I only am against too many meals or a big eating window.

It’s my carnivore September and I hope I can do OMAD days here and there at least. I had some weird days with a decent but not OMAD sized lunch, a huge gap and a late meal, it’s not my style. Being able to wait 5-6 hours between meals? It’s crazy in my world and not good for me as it means eating at/after 9pm and it’s weird, I may function unusually when I eat late. So I won’t do that.

I will do various experiments I hope. My food and my timing has a very close connection, it will be interesting to see what will happen. I plan a super simple diet especially in the beginning so there will be less variables than usual. Hopefully I can draw some conclusions this way (but I do it because it’s chill and helpful).

I even wonder if I can get away with less protein if my timing is different… As I am quite fine with only 100g for my first meal and my satiation is good, I barely get some not-quite-hunger long afterwards… But for satiation at bedtime, I need my 120g minimum. I get that and I am fine. I don’t and I feel the need to add to reach 120. My body has these obsessions and it apparently can count macros while I totally can’t without weighing everything and a program. Sometimes being able to go lower might help me in various ways. We will see.

Good luck, everyone!

I surely won’t try EF this month. But I expect I will diminish my food obsession/addiction so maybe I will be more ready for it later…? One can hope :wink: But I will be happy with a nice carni month and small eating windows.

(Michael) #3

31 hours in, no issues so far except my dog woke me up early, otherwise all good.

(Michael) #4

63 hours into my fast. I worked out yesterday and was hungry for most of the rest of the day. Not as hungry today, planning on breaking the fast tomorrow and already took out bone broth and food to start thawing.

I also have been measuring my Glucose and ketone levels. 5 and 1 at 56 hours in, so not the best ratio yet to signify catabolic metabolism. My IR is still quite prominent.

(Michael) #5

Completed my fast at 86 hours. Here is my data over the fast

time glucose ketone GKI Weight (in pounds) BP Hours into Fast Notes
3:15 PM 4.9 0.4 12.25 137.4 97/57/61 15 Last full meal was 9 pm previous night, but snacked while packed up pork belly, so ate some food at midnight
3:15 PM 5.7 0.6 9.50 136.6 101/65/57 38 had good workout lifting weights today before bloodwork, was hungry for rest of day though
7:35 AM 5.1 0.8 6.38 135 96/54/51 55
10:35 PM 4.5 1.3 3.46 134.6 94/56/49 70
7:35 AM 3.8 2.7 1.41 134.6 92/52/53 79
1:45 PM 4.5 1.5 3.00 137.8 86 lifted weights for previous hour before bloodwork (was great workout), weight is after I gained 3.2 pounds on refeed!
(Bob M) #6

@Naghite You worked out while fasting multiple days? That’s impressive. At one time, I could do that. Now, I will work out at about 32 hours, but I only fast until about 36 hours. If I’m intending to fast longer, I don’t exercise.

2.7 is pretty high.

I stopped taking my weight because of fasting. I could lose 5 pounds in a day, so trying to figure out what I actually weighed was tough. But I also weighed 90-100 pounds more than you at the time, depending one when I was fasting. Now that I’m a lot lighter, I think it might not change as much.

Made it about 32 hours or so, am about to do a body weight workout then start the process to get to work. Will eat sometime at work.

(Michael) #7

I work out if I can at least, this past fast I improved my reps on both workouts compared to pre-fast, so that is kind of cool. I certainly agree that working out and then eating shortly after to break a fast is the way to grow.

2.7 is great, but at 70+ hours into the fast, it takes too damn long still. I am going to try and chase some ketone numbers for a bit in an attempt to keep my insulin low enough to help reverse some IR. Not recommended on these forums, but I am planning on such anyway. Not even one week from finishing the fast, eating OMAD since then and my ketones are back down to 0.3 where I am sure they will hover.

#8

I started carni dinner OMAD, yay! I had 2 days this far, it goes very well. It’s so nice to be perfectly satiated even at 3am when it’s lunchtime! I was sitting at the dining table and everything and didn’t have the slightest urge to eat. Bigger meals always were very effective at making me satiated longer term.
We will see what will happen, somehow things always get messed up after a few very nice days and it takes time and effort to manage not to get hungry until late afternoon again, to start another OMAD stretch…
I am not against TMAD days here and there if necessary but I never could do that rhythm before. I usually like somewhat similar days, I just eventually lose the ability to have big enough carni meals… But maybe it will be different now… But I want to keep at least skipping lunch. 2 dinners here and there may be fine. Or not. These are exciting times :smiley:

Only one meal a day makes so many things easier and better… I always love my OMAD days, I just can’t often do such ones.

(Bob M) #9

Mine are always like that if I’m eating. I think what happens is your body gets better at using ketones, so they don’t need to be in the blood as much. I only get > 1.0 if I fast a while.

It’s too bad we don’t have pin-prick insulin meters. I’m not totally sure that higher ketones always = lower insulin. I was looking over at Dave Feldman’s webpage to see if his ketones went up while his insulin was also high, but can’t find what I’m looking for.

@Shinita I do think eating fewer meals is more freeing. It just takes a lot less thought and planning. And you get more time to do something else.

#10

Yes, planning is a little bit easier though not much moire. The planned food is the same and at some point I stopped planning how much to eat for my first meal, I just ate as much as I felt right. But I mess up my planning so maybe it’s not important… I would say it’s easier to plan for OMAD, one meal usually follows stricter (kind of) rules than “2-5 meals, somewhere between 2-3pm and 2am”. My non-OMAD days are less disciplined than me and that’s serious. But let’s forget about the night eating (a bigger afternoon meal solves it wonderfully), my normal IF days without that are still too varied and sometimes crazy. One single meal just works better - if I can pull it off.

What is important to me (beyond a bigger meal being longer lasting than the same food cut into 2 or more meals) that I need a bit less variety for OMAD. I don’t always want to eat the same items for 2 meals. And I have not many options. Food boredom is a danger in my life especially on carnivore and OMAD helps. It’s a new day and I welcome all my items more.

But there are other benefits for me. I just hope it helps with my food addiction too. My eating is okay-ish nowadays as long as I keep my carbs low but even perfect satiation never kept me from thinking about food way too much. Cooking is my hobby and somewhat my responsibility but I overdid it when I changed my woe multiple times and tried to figure out the best way. While the other parts of my life had problems. So it’s a complex thing but no matter what, I am very used to thinking about food too much so I will need time to get rid of that. The too much part, I gladly spend time on cooking, baking and thinking about food, I just need balance.

(Michael) #11

Started ADF this week. Hit 5.7 glucose and 1.3 bHB this morning after 32 hours fasted. Seems to be working. Going to continue eating T, Th, Sat, Sun for 2 weeks and see the ketone levels before eating. If this works I will continue for while and then recheck the NMR lipidprofile.

#12

My rare Unsatiable Day came and messed with my OMAD. But I won’t be at home until evening tomorrow so I probably won’t find it hard to go back to it. I am very stubborn now.

(KCKO, KCFO) #13

I have been doing a timed eating window, results in an 18/6 fast. So far I am liking the results.

The big change for me is I always started fasting after dinner meal. With this routine, I eat breakfast and lunch only. I have dropped everyday, not a lot, but slow downward movement, so I am happy with it.

I am targeting the 10 lbs. I put on since the beginning of the pandemic, and after less than a week of doing this, I only have 5 lbs to go. I am also finding it easier to fast so far.

(Bob M) #14

That’s supposedly the best way to do it, as eating late causes higher insulin and possibly blood sugar in the morning.

Speaking of eating too late, I was going to fast 36 hours last week, but broke instead for dinner…way too late. Like 8pm-9pm, then went right to bed. Did not sleep well. For OMAD, I have to move the time back, 6-7pm or earlier.

Hope to hit a 36 hour fast this week. We’ll see.

#15

Best way is what suits us :slight_smile: But I don’t like eating either early or late, I hope my night eating goes away for good now. I noticed that even eating after 8pm is odd, not as natural as before and I may have various problems. My sleep can’t get disrupted even if I eat a lot at 2am (a big meal right before bed makes me fall asleep easily, that’s neat but I still don’t want that), it’s something subtler but feels quite off, less controlled and joyous, usually, it varies but it’s never ideal. My natural eating window is in the afternoon, it’s very fixed and I don’t think it could ever change.

I am merely back to my smallish eating window now, 1-2 meals is often impossible lately so I stopped trying to skip lunch but I try to make TMAD happen if possible. It’s not convenient to have many meals in my small eating window so that won’t do. But if I had to, I eat 4-5 times, I can’t starve.

Good luck for the fast, Bob! My body STILL can’t imagine why I would want not to feed it each and every day but maybe it will change at some point… I don’t give it up the idea of a short EF so easily.
Now I am working on mental things, I try not to spend so much time with thinking about food, planning and thinking. That should be helpful in various ways.

(Michael) #16

Middle of my second week trying fasting on M, W, F. Anyone else ever tried an alternate day type fasting for any length of time? Not sure how I feel about it so far, but working it for now. Am just starting my Friday fast now, will eat again sometime Saturday.

#17

I got fatty pork and it helps with bigger meals and satiation so yesterday I managed an OMAD day, yay! I probably can’t expect it often but TMAD with a quite small eating window is fine with me too.

(Central Florida Bob ) #18

I’ve done ADFs for about six months, twice, a year apart. The second time I experimented with a 3 day fast once a week some weeks and the ADF another week. My fasts were from after dinner at the start to lunch time on the alternate day, so closer to 40 hours than just 24. That means I had more hours fasting in three alternate days than doing it in a three day stretch so I did the alternate days more often.

Short version: yes it works well, but my body seemed to adapt to it, and my weight loss would stall. I found it hard to determine what’s actually weight loss and what’s actually water loss. I have a body composition scale, but not the more accurate kind, just the kind you stand on barefoot.

Just guessing, but maybe trying to keep our body guessing is better. Do ADFs for a month, then something else for another month. I’ve seen people talking about a phone app or some sort of program that tells them what to eat or whether to eat every day. Like rolling dice, I guess.

(Michael) #19

Trying not to lose weight here ( for IR), sounds good though. 6 months is a long time, but I am thinking 3 to start and then decide.

(Central Florida Bob ) #20

That’s probably even better than six months.

Someone around here (Bob - @ctviggen ?) said once you start doing regular fasting, you’ll never know what you weigh. There’s lots of wisdom in that.