Intermittent Fasting is miserable

[Slowontheup]

Why would you spend half your waking hours feeling dizzy and sick with zero energy.

opt out of breakfast, the best meal of the day.

or, opt for a life that couldn't include eating dinner in a restaurant.

I don't get it but every health thing says to do it. Does it actually work (I don't need to lose weight anyway just health driven)

how long until it's bearable?

And the award for competitive underrating goes to.......

These threads always bring out the "I eat half an almond every 4 days, your BMI must be "basically dead" if you have 3 meals"

I did ok on when I tried it. But I lost more muscle than fat. Whatever I was doing i clearly wasn't getting enough protein.

Which of course meant as soon as I fell of the wagon fat piled back on.

I think it depends what the 'point' of it is to you. It probably still means you eat fewer calories overall than if you ate throughout your waking hours. There are claims that it also has hormonal effects, reduces insulin resistance, promotes healing processes in cells, and that for all of those you need to not take in any calories for a prolonged period, so milky tea will stop it being effective. BUT - and I say this as someone who loves 16/8 fasting and find it really good for me - my understanding is that the evidence is quite weak that daily intermittent fasting, as opposed to long 24 hour + fasts, actually does have all those benefits for most people.

I think it just suits some people more than others.

Breakfast has never really been that appealing to me, anyway, and I often skip it and wait until lunchtime naturally. I'm not that slim, so it's obviously not a magic wand!

I'm my 50's. I def don't need three meals a day! Skipping breakfast is easy for me as I'm not even hungry. I have lunch and dinner.

I'm encouraged by the responses here and considering giving it another go (another another go).

I couldn't do it I'd be fine with the not eating part but I need tea or coffee when I wake up and I don't like either black. With most diets you feel crappy the first week then your body adjusts and you usually find you feel great and have more energy, you just need to push through the first bit

I take a little milk in my tea or coffee - there's so little calories in a few mls of skim milk and even if there is I'm not a purist about it, it still works really well for me. There's no way I could do this if I had to stick to black tea and coffee no way! 😅

And just to add OP I'm a massive breakfast fan - love all the breakfast food, I just have it at lunchtime instead. I felt very hungry for the first week or so but then the hunger just disappeared as my body adjusted to it and now I don't even think about food in the morning (before I stated IM I used to feel so light headed and weak in the mornings until I ate, that was becasue my blood sugar was all over the place )

Then iv probably been doing it for years without realising as I don't really eat in the morning

Yes you've got to eat a lot of protein - I have upped my protein intake and life light weights and am in better shape now than I was in my 30s and 40s, I'm 55 now

Thats not normal. I have been IF since i was about 18, thats when they didnt have a fancy name for it tho 😂 - i only used to eat when i was hungry and found myself hungry at about 12 or 1pm - sometimes not at all - i would eat again at about 6 or 7 pm and thats it. Now i have kids i eat at 5pm with them. On the weekends i might have a drink the evenings so i am not religious about it, but i IF most days. You cant just do 16 hours, you have to gradually build up too.

I think all strict dieting and exercise is miserable tbh

you have to slowly build up to it! then you get used to it and not eating feels normal. no feeling of missing it. Perfect and easy solution! Also you can eat "bad stuff" if you want to, sometimes. On a traditional diet you would be way more restricted and miserable.

I hear you, i'm an eat little and often sort of person, i've never understood how people don't eat until mid-morning or even lunchtime, I'd be passing out!

What if you find it really easy though? I’ve been IFing for about six years now. Im not militant but I don’t really eat before 3pm
and I’m not bothered.

Seriously, I don’t give a fig what anyone else is doing or what their BMI is! And how would I possibly know? I’ve found a routine that works for me and is hopefully keeping diabetes (generations of it in my family) at bay.

I ate in a fairly considered way anyway, before I began IF, so it just concentrates what I was already doing. I eat a greedy person’s pescatarian diet, focused on vegetables and wholefoods. I bake, I don’t stint on extremely good wine, I go out and socialise. IF doesn’t prevent me from doing any of those things. It is only that at home I have breakfast at a normal time and then my main meal at around a late lunchtime. I don’t snack - unless I want to, and there are probably at least a couple of days a week where I maybe get home late and shove a pizza in the oven, or eat out or with friends and have a ‘normal’ evening meal.

But the general regime really works for me.

I just do it naturally as I am never hungry in the morning. I don't ever get dizzy or sick. I know some people get dizzy or nauseous unless they eat regularly but that's not me. If I am on holiday I would usually eat breakfast but other than that, hardly ever really. I don't even get hungry at lunch. But I do like a decent dinner.

Why give that pointless post a second thought, GhastlyGoodTaste? There's always somebody ready to slap down.

I'm interested in the fish that you eat as I'm very fond of fish but not very adventurous.

Following! Another poster who struggles with IF, mainly because I miss the 'treat' of something sustaining and tasty before I start work.

I don't specifically do it but often don't get to breakfast. It is currently 11:30 and I haven't eaten yet so will wait for lunch now. I am hungry but not uncomfortably so and I will enjoy my lunch more this way! I last ate a rice cake at 8pm last night when I got back from the gym so it will be 16 hours at least between meals. My BMI is a little over 25 but I'm fairly healthy.

Personally I find it a really easy way to control my food intake as I’m not a breakfast eater anyway so having a light lunch and an evening meal between 11-7 is ideal for me.

It does work. My friend lost 4 stone in 6 months sticking to the 8 hour window. She even had a few big lunches out with wine but made that her only meal each day.

All of the slim peri/post menopausal women I know do this to a greater or lesser extent. They all skip one meal a day and some add a once a week 24 hour fast to that. They never eat more than 2 meals a day, often it's just one (never eat breakfast, no time for lunch, oops.)
It does make space for social eating and drinking as calories are so repressed the rest of the time.

I have tried it and it makes me feel unwell. But I've gained 16kg between age 43 and 49.

If it’s not working for you then don’t do it.

We are all made differently and just because something works well for one group doesn’t mean it works for everyone.

Most of the evidence for IF has been done on men, like most other health and medical research.

Most people don’t need a special timed eating diet, you just need to eat healthily and sensibly. E.g. drop the UPF’s, booze, don’t regularly eat after dinner.

Stress management and movement are far more important IMHO