16:8 fasting/diet/whateveritis

[Chicchicchicchiclana]

This is (as sold) just not eating breakfast and not snacking after dinner, right?

I do 16:8. I have a small breakfast at 930 and eat dinner at 5pm making sure I'm finished by 530. Sometimes I skip breakfast so fast 18/19hrs, this when I really lose weight. I think because 16:8 falls into my usual routine anyway I dont lose weight with it.

I do struggle to get my head around missing breakfast though, I'd always been taught it was the most important meal of the day and everyone should eat it. I love big breakfasts to so eating a bowl of cereal seems wrong to me but I'm persevering with it

I've been following this since mid May and have lost 8kg. Eating a good lunch at 12 and then again around 6. Cut down on white bread, refined carbs and I feel great. Another 16 kg to loose.......

I started a week ago, and I've lost 5 lbs already!

Its important to stick to water and black coffee/tea or green tea in the fasting window. Sparkling water is fine though!

I eat 3 meals between 10:00am and 6:00pm and have done for a couple of years. I didn't lose much weight until I went low carb 3 weeks ago and I've lost half a stone. I was a sugar fiend. No calorie counting involved, just weighing my macros.

I'm trying to do 23/1. 16/8 and 18/6 has no impact on my weight. I'm 49 years old and suspect my weight gain is hormone related. I'm on day 3 of this and so far ok, although I flag at 2pm.

I have to admit, although the science makes sense to me, I've always thought breakfast was important too and TBH all the people I know who have consistently been a healthy weight all their life do eat a proper breakfast.

I was thinking about my grandad , in this context yesterday, who started everyday with a full fry up and was never overweight. But his dinner was on the table when he got in from work at 5pm and snacking wasn't done in those days, so actually he probably did, more or less, do 16:8. (Maybe 14:10)

I have adopted this approach my entire life to control my weight. At a time when every expert were coming out saying that kissing breakfast was the absolute worse thing you could do to lose or keep weight down.

I tried everything else and in the end always reverted to the 16/8. My friend who is a dietician always went on about how this didn't work and was very bad for you.

I feel a bit vindicated that it's now recognise as a method. Certainly doesn't work for everyone, but worked for me for decades.

Michael Mosley advocates 16:8 fasting with his Fast800 and Blood Sugar Diet. Have a look at his websites for further info, and if you follow this for weight loss or to reverse diabetes then you need to be eating and drinking the right things for it to work for these conditions.

Hi OP

I’ve been doing 16:8 for a while, slow but steady weight loss. I eat btw 12:30 and 7:30 usually - it fits with our family routine best.

I combine it with low carb. If you are on two meals a day, and no snacking in the evening but not losing weight, it’s probably down to what you are eating.

I was thinking about my grandad , in this context yesterday, who started everyday with a full fry up and was never overweight. But his dinner was on the table when he got in from work at 5pm and snacking wasn't done in those days, so actually he probably did, more or less, do 16:8. (Maybe 14:10)

Also maybe your grandad did a job that involved physical labour instead of sitting in an office (or in these times, the sofa). Actual average calorie intake hasn’t changed drastically from 50 years ago - it’s a bit of a myth that people are constantly gorging themselves now. However, physical activity has changed hugely as people in the 50s and 60s were burning almost 3000 calories a day, which is much higher than today’s average. A guy who ate a full fry up every day and then worked from home on the sofa would be very likely to be overweight even if he didn’t snack. A manual labourer on the other hand could easily get away with it and stay a healthy weight (although maybe his heart and arteries wouldn’t be in great shape).

Also, a fry up isn't actually that "bad". Depending on what you have and the quantity, not that different in calories to a "healthy" processed cereal (where you always eat more than the published portion size) and a latte and far more likely to satisfy until lunch.

I was doing this before lockdown and lost over a stone and a half, gained about 9lbs during lockdown and am now back on the 16:8 and have lost all the weight gain in 7 weeks.

I eat between 12pm and8pm 5 days a week and the other 2 days I eat normally.

I'm late to this, as I bookmarked it to read later.

I'm glad another poster mentioned drinks. I have no problem at all with the not-eating part, I've never been a breakfast person, so I can easily hold out until lunch time. But the habit of a morning brew is so ingrained that I'm finding it hard to shake. I can happily drink green tea, or rooibos, later in the day, but that morning brew, it's a sacred thing!

Thinking about it as "breaking the fast" though, has got me thinking. A drink with milk in (and sugar, if you take it), is basically a snack. When I think of it like that, I realise what a short time period there is in between snacks! It's actually shocking, and even though I consider my diet reasonably healthy, a snack every couple of hours is just insanity, what must that be doing to my blood sugar???

I do 16:8. I eat from 11-7, though make exceptions when eating out at restaurants. It’s brilliant—I was prediabetic and now I’m now.

Now I’m not, that should say!