Intermittent Fasting- Advice please.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Mods, please move this if I’m off base. I’m looking for factual information on intermittent fasting, but I know there’s gonna be opinions involved.

Mrs Jumpbass and and I are interested in the benefits or drawbacks of intermittent fasting (IF for my purposes. I’m already tired of typing the whole thing out.)
Is it really safe, or is it the bunk?
How long should we go?
Do we eat one meal a day?
It seems like there’s a dozen ways to do it, but which is best? I imagine the right answer to that one is “depends”.
What are some good resources we can trust?

We’d also like to hear about your experiences if you’ve done it.

2

I do it and have been for about a year.

Here’s the thing: it’s no big deal, so don’t make a big deal out of it.

I don’t know how old you are, but when I was a kid in the 1950s, we ate dinner around six pm and ate breakfast around 7 am. We didn’t sit around snacking in the evening. When the kitchen closed after dinner, it stayed closed. There was no watching TV with a bag of chips or cookies. (One reason why I was skinny as a rail back then. :rolleyes:) So that’s automatically 13 hours of fasting/not eating every day. It was perfectly normal and didn’t have a label. See how simple?

I like breakfast fine… if someone else makes it for me, or if I go to a restaurant. But I can’t be bothered to do it for myself. So when I get up at 7-ish am, I walk for about 40 minutes. When I get home I make myself an espresso (yes, I do use milk and sugar), and then I don’t eat for the first time until about 11-ish. I eat dinner at around 6-ish, and I have an alarm on my Fitbit that goes off every day at 7:15 pm to remind me not to eat anything after that. I started that practice long before intermittent fasting, because if I ate within 2-4 hours of bedtime, it would sometimes give me an upset stomach.

So my daily IF routine is to consume all food between 11-ish am and 7 pm (usually closer to 6 pm). That’s roughly 17 hours of fasting. It isn’t even REMOTELY a hardship or complicated. If I have a substantial amount at lunch, I might have what I call a “snack dinner” at 6 – cheese, an apple, a banana, popcorn, peanut butter toast. I do allow myself one ice cream treat per day. I keep them in the freezer in the garage and just go out and get ONE after lunch. Do I get hungry? Sometimes, but I can either ignore it or eat an apple or banana.

There’s a TON of stuff on the interwebs about this, and plenty of books, too. I know you wanted personal experiences, so I hope this helps. I don’t make a bunch of rules about it. I’d suggest y’all start with skipping breakfast and don’t snack after dinner. See how that goes. That’s about all there is to it. :slight_smile:

My 2 cents.

3

The good thing about IF is at heart it’s very simple, very safe, and very tried and tested - humans have been fasting and losing weight since we were in the caves. So it’s got that going for it, you don’t need to drastically change the type of food you’re eating, or commit to any food-group style diet of dubious merit.

You need to be more discerning when evaluating claims that intermittent fasting provide health benefits way beyond simple weight loss. Things like prolonging lifespan, mental acuity etc. This is not necessarily complete bollox - calorie restriction is an area of serious scientific study with some really thought-provoking results, but it’s not something your average health blogger or diet book author will have any real insight into.

Anecdotally I do the 16-8 fast quite a bit which is similar to what ThelmaLou is describing, eat between noon and 8pm. It’s dead easy and basically just a structure to stop me snacking in the evening which is something I’m prone to - I find it easy to be a disciplined eater during the working day, but it’s way harder at home. I’d say it’s a good one to start with if you’re large as it will barely feel like you’re dieting yet still have an impact. If you’re just looking to lose a few pounds then it’s still a good structure but not a substitute for being careful with what you eat in the day.

4

I’ve been doing IF for a bit over a year, as well. Lots of info out there, so I understand someone new to it being confused.

I’d recommend continuing to read/watch information about IF as you go and as your schedule and interest permit. You will quickly to understand what is important to know about it, and what is relevant to your purposes.

For starters, I’d recommend aiming for a 16/8 six days a week. For most this amounts to skipping breakfast and distracting yourself from any midnight snacking, but your schedule might require some tweaking. It’s a generous window, however, and provides a few key benefits very quickly. One benefit being that you will personally experience how easy it is to do IF. Another benefit is that you will quickly experience and overcome what I call the “not really hungry hunger” that’s just your body craving carbs and/or expecting breakfast or a midnight snack out of habit rather than actual need.

Speaking of which, I definitely recommend cutting down on sugar/carbs, because that whole cycle is easy to kick as you start doing IF, and kicking it, in turn, makes it that much easier to stick with your planned eating regimen as the cravings for carbs/sugar will drastically reduce in a very short amount of time.

I also recommend counting calories (at least casually - it can be very difficult to keep an accurate, precise count, but a general ball-park is easy to keep an eye on). One of the stumbling blocks that people run into with starting IF is overdoing it on the amount of calories they consume in their eating window. Keeping track of calories is also a great way to encourage yourself to ensure that you are choosing nutrient rich foods over junk.

Lastly, get plenty of protein and fiber. Both are filling and provide long-term satiety.

If you follow these tips, after a few weeks you will be well-armed and confident to try out different types of IF that suit you, whether it’s a narrower window or even OMAD, or what have you.

And to paraphrase (slightly) Michael Pollan: Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants.

5

It’s not that difficult, but it makes my blood sugar go up (a relatively common problem for diabetics), so I don’t do it.

6

Interesting. It helps me keep my blood sugar under control. I’m type 2. I think it’s because my pancreas doesn’t have to work during my 16 or so hours of fasting.

7

The best way to do it is the way you can stick with. That’s true of diets generally.

8

I started just skipping breakfast. Maybe it would have been easier to move breakfast forward by 15 minutes per week until you might as well wait until lunch. Once you don’t mind skipping breakfast, move lunch forward until you’re only eating dinner.

Changing habits sucks, especially at first. Your body will be like a pack of cats crying out to be fed at the time it’s used to. Meditation helped me there in accepting the sensations of hunger and low blood sugar. Learning to not give in to your hunger/low blood sugar discomfort is more important than any single plan. I’d try a plan for one month then assess at the end of the month.

9

I’ve done an IF plan that I call “the every other day diet.” One day, I’ll eat anything I feel like. The next day, I won’t eat anything except one Slimfast shake and maybe a banana. Lots of black coffee, too. Then on the third day, I eat anything I want to again. Then another fast day, and etc. I find this takes off weight at a moderate speed, and isn’t too painful. If I have a craving, I know I can have it tomorrow. You might think that you’d totally pig out on the eating days, but I find that doesn’t happen.

When I get closer to my goal, I reduce the fasting to three days a week, then every third day, etc., until I’m back to normal.

10

I’m also type 2. Apparently the increased blood sugar is not uncommon for diabetics.

11

I do a fairly extreme form of IF (basically one meal a day) and it’s the only thing that’s worked for me in terms of losing weight.

But I don’t necessarily think there’s any special magic here. For me the reason it works is primarily because it’s something I can actually stick to long-term. I rarely ate breakfast anyway and I’m pretty good about not snacking after dinner, so I just sorta tightened it up. And this way I can have basically whatever I want for dinner-- not going crazy, mind you, but I don’t have to measure this and weigh that, I can just eat a regular meal and be happy and satisfied with it.

12

Precisely this has worked for me for nearly 20 years now.

Even while being a gym rat for most of my life, my IF schedule has mostly been 20fast/4feast.

I’ve cut back on the fitness stuff in the past 5 years due to wear and tear and lack of desire to suffer more than I need to. That has resulted in a 10 pound weight gain and waist size gain from 31 to 32. Psychologically the gain irritates the hell out of me. But the IF is a lifestyle and the norm for me in a way that I could not sustain with respect to the level of fitness as I begin to age into my late old enoughs to know better.

13

This must be a ymmv thing. Anecdotally, I have a friend who’s a type 2 diabetic whose blood sugar dropped back to normal after he started the “only eat from lunch to dinner” style of intermittent fasting. He’s still talking the same drugs, but now that’s enough to keep his blood sugar in a good range, where previously it kept going up.

14

Diabetes management is a whole lotta YMMV. :stuck_out_tongue: Can drive you nuts! (I’m living proof. :slight_smile: )

15

I was semi-fasting one or two days a week until the coronavirus hit. That is, I didn’t eat anything until supper time. During the day i just drank black tea and water. I lost a little weight, but mostly did it because it made me feel good. In particular, I REALLY enjoyed supper on my fast day. I didn’t pig out, i just enjoyed whatever i was eating.

I guess i stopped because i got sick. I mostly lost my appetite, and “restricting food” didn’t seem like a good idea. Now that i am better i should start again.

16

I did 16/8 for a long time and tried OMAD but I couldn’t stick with it because I would have to eat all my calories in 30 mins a day. FWIW, 16/8 was very effective for me but YMMV. I workout, go to school online, and I work a “day job” 40-60hrs and my own business around those hours. I sleep 7-8 hours. Like anything, it might be difficult to start but I find it incredibly easy to maintain the routine once I am used to not eating and allow myself to feel hunger and not worry about it. IF itself with no particular attention paid to calories or macros gave me more positive body composition results than any other restricted diets. I work nights and sleep during the day for the most part so my schedule is reversed, but for the most part my thing has always been to just delay the first food for as long as possible ( I do black coffee) and then cut it off within whatever window I’m going for. I think the noon-8pm eating window is very common for those on a typical day schedule. I do a 5pm-1am or 9pm-1am when I can. I tried eating 1 meal around 9pm but just couldn’t figure it out with my physical job.

17

I don’t consider myself to follow IF at all, although some might because I don’t eat breakfast and eat lunch around 11:15 - 11:30 AM (I do drink coffee with creamer). When I was a teen I started falling into the habit of wanting to sleep till I left for school, and while I do really enjoy breakfast food and will happily eat it if someone made pancakes or I was on vacation, I feel no urge to make it myself. I’m usually not hungry immediately upon waking up, so with coffee, it’s easy enough to go till 11:30 or so without any real food.

I do tend to snack a bit later than someone practicing IF though, since I like to stay up later in general.

It’s definitely not bunk, but it’s also not for everyone. It’s a tool, just like OMAD, keto, Weight Watchers, etc. Counting calories is the only way to make doubly sure you WILL eventually see results (assuming your math isn’t greatly off and you’re being honest with yourself about how much you consume). But not everyone has to resort to strict calorie counting, either. I mostly just decided to cut back on what I ate in general and stop boredom snacking so damn much. Lost me 80 lbs.

18

Interesting… I think I’m an intermittent faster, and have been for years. Never thought of it though.

I eat lunch, I eat dinner. And then I eat lunch the next day. I’ve never been a breakfast eater, and I guess this puts me on a schedule where I go 16 or so hours without eating. What do I win?

19

I’ve been doing it since January 1. In those 18 weeks I have lost 50 lbs.*

My eating hours are between noon and 8:00pm. Most days I eat 2 meals a day, lunch is almost always a salad with vegetables only (no meat/cheese/egg). Dinner is whatever I’m in the mood for within my restrictions.*

I am never hungry in the morning anyway, so skipping breakfast is totally painless. I do normally get hungry in the evening, but now I know I have an 8:00 cut-off time. I have not cheated yet.

It is not for everyone, but it certainly works for me.

Good luck!

mmm
*I am also following a very low carb diet and exercising regularly

20

My wife and I started doing it Feb. 1. Whoops, Feb. 2 was Super Bowl and our roof-top greenhouse comany had sent us a bonus of salsa and chips so we didn’t follow it that day. One other day, friends invited us to dinner so we didn’t do it that day either. We have a good breakfast between 7 and 8 and dinner between 1 and 2 and then don’t eat again that day. It wasn’t hard to start and has been easy to maintain. I have lost no weight and my wife has lost about 3 pounds, but we are not doing it to lose weight, but for its other claimed benefits, mainly according to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, that there is more fat burning and concomitant reduction in inflammation.

Some years ago, we had begun to have our main meal at 1 and just a light supper in the evening and no snacking because we seemed to sleep better under that regimen. So it was no drastic change for us. We do have a mid-morning snack–usually fruit–to avoid losing weight. It helps that we are both retired.

Our doctor says it is harmless, but he doubts that at our ages (83 and 81) it will make much of a difference.