? for those doing intermittent fasting

NinjaMom

NinjaMom

Cathlete
I am intrigued by this way of eating and started last week. So, Mondays & Thursdays, I consume 500 calories (or very close). I usually eat breakfast around 11, lunch around 2, and dinner around 6 then nothing after that (except tea & water) until breakfast the next day. I can't get over how amazing I feel after a "fast" day.

Example of my food intake:
Breakfast: 1/2 c fage + 1 T hemp seeds
Lunch: 1 c almond milk & 1 scoop Orgain protein powder
Dinner: 4oz boneless chicken breast, 2 c steamed cauliflower & broccoli
(or scramble together 2 large eggs, 2 c spinach, 3 slices canadian bacon, 1 tsp olive oil)
*This come in very close to 500 calories per day

I have not purchased the book and am wondering if it is really necessary? Is there anything more I need to know? I have seen a few people mention # of hours being in a fasted state so is timing of meals something I need adjust? Appreciate any input! Thanks!
 
Judi, I'm not doing IF right now, but if you're interested reading one of the IF books, why not check out your local library? Hopefully it has a good supply of health books, including an IF book or two for you to check out.
 
Hi Judi,
I haven't actually followed the diet, but I did buy 'the FastDiet Cookbook' by Spencer and Schenker. It has 150 recipes, some of which I have already tried. There are many more I plan to try. They are good, easy, not fussy recipes. So, maybe that would be a good book to pick up from your library if you don't want it on your shelf. ( The first 17 pages give general info about the diet and they do mention the 12 hour window. The end of the book includes menu plans and an index of their recipes based on calorie count -handy.) If I was doing the diet for any period of time, I think this cookbook would be helpful. Good recipes.:)
 
Hi,

Not sure if you are on MFP ( My Fitness Pal), but there is lots of info there, and an group that posts regularly. It's a free food logging etc website. I have done the 16:8 IF in the past and agree, it makes you feel great. there are also some posts here from the past as well. Not sure if in the Open forum or under Nutrition.
 
Thanks for your replies! I'll check the library for the book. I mainly wanted to know if there is anything more I need to know from the book or if just following 2 days of 500 calorie fasts is all I need. I noticed Cathe mentioned fasting in her recent blog post on metabolism.

Deb- When you say 16:8, does that mean you consume all your calories within 8 hours then fast for 16 hours? That is basically what I'm doing. The only hard part is I workout in the morning without eating so after 16 hours fasting and only 500 calories, it sometimes affects my workout.
 
Hi,

Yes, when I am doing IF, I fast for 16 hours then eat between 11:00 am and 7:00 pm. I don't think I could do both the 16:8 and the 2- 500 calorie days! :)
 
I am obviously behind the times on this topic. You can eat while doing IF (a low calorie day)? I just assumed it was X day(s) of zero eating. I do see also there are ratios (16 hrs no eating, 8 hrs eating), but I assumed it was at least a 24hr period of zero eating.

With absolutely no knowledge, a few weeks ago I tried one day of zero eating. I did my workouts first thing in the morning thinking I would have enough energy to complete (versus going an entire day without eating and then trying to exercise at night). I was fine during my exercises. However, as the day went on my stomach was growling LOUDLY and often! I also just felt famished. Not because I was "supposed" to eat at a specific time, but I was truly hungry. It may have been because I did hard workouts earlier. I finally caved and had a big bowl of bone broth and it was quite satisfying, but then my stomach continued to growl again LOUDLY and I just felt sluggish and was unproductive at work. I had to eat a full dinner. Are you not supposed to exercise during a 24 hour fast?

I don't count calories, so I am not sure how many I consume (I think it is on the higher end), but maybe I should try this low-calorie day(s), as the difference in my normal amount would be great.

Interesting topic. I am going to try again (maybe on a light exercise day).
 
fox2star said:
Hi,

Yes, when I am doing IF, I fast for 16 hours then eat between 11:00 am and 7:00 pm. I don't think I could do both the 16:8 and the 2- 500 calorie days! :)
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This is pretty much how I do it. I generally have a window of 8 hours to eat, stop eating around 8 or 9 pm. Thankfully I've never been a breakfast eater, so I'm not hungry in the morning anyway. I do have aloe vera juice, lemon and some powdered supplements along with coffee, around 9 am, but I don't consider that *food*. When I do get hungry around 1 to 2 pm, I'll have protein like eggs and yogurt, some berries, nuts. Dinner is always easy stuff, meat, fish, some veg. The only time I fast an entire day is when I'm sick. Not eating that long would also be detrimental to my workouts. There are lots of ways to do IF, the goal is not to eat for a minimum of 12 hours, but you should strive for 14-16 hours.
 
fox2star said:
Yes, when I am doing IF, I fast for 16 hours then eat between 11:00 am and 7:00 pm. I don't think I could do both the 16:8 and the 2- 500 calorie days
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DirtDiva said:
There are lots of ways to do IF, the goal is not to eat for a minimum of 12 hours, but you should strive for 14-16 hours.
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Hmmmm... maybe I'm not getting this right? I thought the plan meant you fasted 2 nonconsecutive days by consuming no more than 500 calories then go 12-16 hours before you eat again. So are you not restricting your calorie intake to 500 during your 8 hour "window" of eating but rather eating normally then going 16 hours before you eat again? I must admit my morning workouts suffer from having only eaten 500 calories the day before followed by fasting for 12+ hours so maybe I need to adjust what I'm doing.
 
NinjaMom said:
Hmmmm... maybe I'm not getting this right? I thought the plan meant you fasted 2 nonconsecutive days by consuming no more than 500 calories then go 12-16 hours before you eat again. So are you not restricting your calorie intake to 500 during your 8 hour "window" of eating but rather eating normally then going 16 hours before you eat again? I must admit my morning workouts suffer from having only eaten 500 calories the day before followed by fasting for 12+ hours so maybe I need to adjust what I'm doing.
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Indeed, I cannot fast 24 hours, it doesn't work for me, and truth be, for most women especially younger women of child bearing age or with children, it doesn't work well enough. I eat normally, just contain it within a window, and then let my body absorb and destroy...if that makes sense. End result is the body uses up excess glycogen and will balance out excess without getting into too much detail. The trick is finding out what your window is that is most convenient.
 
Yes, most people that do IF, do one or the other, but not both. I know some do a 500 day once in a while while doing 16:8, but I think that would be too much of a calorie deficit. The eating during the 8 hour window is supposed to be clean, good food etc.
 
Thanks again for your responses! That clears up my confusion and explains why I was struggling with my workouts since I was doing both :eek: I'll have to play around with doing 500 calorie day VS 16:8 and see where my body responds best.
 
Think of it in terms of hours or days. There's the plans that you fast on certain days, such as the 5:2 plan (5 days of regular eating, 2 days of fasting which is eating less than 500 calories), you can do 4:3 or 3:4 to change it up. OR there's the plans where you fast for a certain number of hours, such as 16:8 ... 16 hours of fasting, 8 hours of eating.
 
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