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?

I tried for almost a year and never really got on with it. I’d think about food a lot in the morning, never had the clear head so many describe, and then overeat in my eating window and get sleepy. I clean-fasted, experimented with 16/18/20 hour fasts, etc.

I’ve done all the diets 🤣. For me fasting was less successful than calorie/macro counting with stupid high levels of protein and lowish carb.

Now I just try to eat 3 meals and no snacks. Some days are more successful than others.

I've been doing IF for about 15 years, in one form or another. Started to help my gastritis and ADF for my asthma.

Now I do daily 18:6 and often 36 hour fasts 2-3 times a week if I'm not working out.

The best thing about it is that you choose which window works best, some eat breakfast, lunch and skip dinner, or you can still eat 3 times but in a shorter timeframe.

Some fast for health, others fast for weight loss so it depends on your goal.

Some people are actually trying to gain weight - OH was in hospital for two weeks in July and is still considered underweight.

I also find it very hard OP. I don't eat a huge amount but I can't bear to be really hungry (like an 8 or 9 out of 10 hungry) because 1. I feel nauseous, 2. I cannot concentrate on anything and 3. an empty stomach gives terrible bad breath!

IF won't work for everyone; and the last thing you want is to stress your body and mind more- increasing cortisol levels and not helping in any way.
Some research suggests it could possibly increase risk of type 2 diabetes. I don't know the details but I believe it's to do with the fat distribution and even with weight loss the concentration was higher around waist.

Also, it depends on how much you move/workout. If you're doing some sort of exercise, you'll feel hungrier.

I try it sometimes, skip breakfast, but it lasts a few days, to maybe a week and then I'm back to 3 meals. I do workout, and just try not to overeat (easier said than done).

I have a friend who only eats one meal a day. I honestly don't know how she does it, she's a regular at the gym too, doing a lot of strength training- I'd pass out if that was me 😂

I think the point is that IF isn't and shouldn't be seen as restrictive, its not a low-calories diet. You're not supposed to suffer.
People who do IF don't do it by sheer willpower, but because they feel good / not famished.

I hate running, I tried, I'd like to be the kind of person who gets up at dawn with itchy legs and an urge to do 20k, but truth is, its not for me, and its fine. I'm no less of a person because I don't run, and people who don't do well with IF are not defective either.

I don't understand how anyone who says they work out can then say they fast and only have one miniscule meal and day. You need food for energy.

The competiveness in this thread is ridiculous and unhealthy.

Another advocate here! I committed fully to IF last January and kept it up all year. I finally shifted a stubborn stone and my weight has settled at 9st. I’m 5ft 3 so not thin but comfortably healthy bmi.

I really do feel good. I always exercise in the mornings and usually eat a breakfast type meal around 12-1pm. No food after 8pm
is manageable.

I think we have to get used to feeling a bit hungry sometimes. That’s normal.

Really? I don't agree. I enjoy whatever I want to eat in my 8 hour window, I work out and have great health, am rarely sick and only ever colds, not flu Covid etc

@LyingWitchInTheWardrobe the best ever source was Pesky Fish, but the business has been dissolved unfortunately. If I want fresh fish I order from a fishmonger. I don’t buy it from supermarkets and find frozen fish indescribably boring so have pretty much given up on it.

I tend to buy a certain amount every month from

The Tinned Fish Market

and intersperse those with the best tinned fish I can get with my supermarket delivery.

And, although I’m generally perfectly capable of making my own fish stock / broth I have recently discovered

Borough Broth

which makes a wonderful fish bone broth that has sustained me through a period of domestic disruption.

Obviously in restaurants I choose as carefully as I can and then eat what I’m given.

So between fish, plentiful wholefoods mostly from

Hodmedods

and a weekly veg box, my IF is an absolute joy and I eat very well indeed.

Whatever you choose to do needs to be sustainable and it won’t be if you are miserable.

I like the 5:2 regime. I plan my days so that I fast when I’m not going to find it too challenging. Often I’m not particularly hungry the next day so it can’t be actually starving me! I can still eat out and enjoy indulgent meals when the occasion arises. I tend to eat what I crave (within reason) on non-fasting days. Overall I feel better and am steadily losing some of my extra weight.

But it’s not for everyone.

Dead easy for me as I don't feel hungry until 12, then stopped at 8pm

Sometimes I found the 8pm cut off hard as I'd only finish work at 7.30.

I do IF and have done for 18months.
My eating window is 1pm to 7pm.
Lost over 2.5 stone and kept it off.
Only time I break my fast is we are away.
My daughter joined me on IF and has gone from a tight 14 to a size 8 in 18 months.
Love IF easy to do and as we only eat light at lunch we don’t struggle with it.
it’s becoming a way of life for us.

Start slowly, do half a day and build up to it. Drink plenty of water and have a cup of lemon juice mixed with a bit of water and salt in the morning.

HMMM. I've just found Stacy Solomon on this. (FYI she says 'athlete' includes anyone who exercises on purpose, not necessarily elite, competitive, etc)

Thoughts on this?

if you’re a woman who is adding athletics on top of intermittent fasting, it can be harmful to both your performance and your health.
It comes down to kisspeptin, is a neuropeptide that’s responsible for sex hormones and endocrine and reproductive function, which also plays a significant role in maintaining healthy glucose levels, appetite regulation, and body composition. It’s also more sensitive in women than men. When it gets perturbed, our sex hormones aren’t produced and released the way we need them to be.
Intermittent fasting and keto both disrupt kisspeptin production. When our brain perceives we have a deficiency in nutrients, especially carbohydrate, we have a marked reduction in kisspeptin stimulation, which not only increases our appetite, but also reduces our sensitivity to insulin. This is why research shows intermittent fasting is more likely to cause impaired glucose intolerance in women, but not men.
What happens when we layer exercise stress on top of the stress of denying our bodies an important fuel source? Stress hormones like cortisol rise even higher. As you keep increasing that stress, it keeps your sympathetic drive high and reduces your ability to relax. Your thyroid activity is depressed, which messes with your menstrual cycle. Your body also starts storing more belly fat.
So now you’re looking at disrupted menstrual cycles, higher anxiety and stress, impaired performance and often weight gain—pretty much the opposite of what you’re looking for!
The ketogenic diet has very similar effects on women athletes. We hear people rave about the increased mental focus with a keto diet. In men, yes. They have an increase in their parasympathetic (a.k.a. rest and digest) activity, so they can be more relaxed and present. In women, keto kicks up our sympathetic (a.k.a. fight or flight) drive, so we’re more anxious, more prone to being depressed, and we can’t sleep very well, which again hurts our hormonal health, performance, well being, and body composition.
Sometimes women will contend that these diets work so well for them. And they might for the first three months, because nearly any diet will yield some effects in the short term. The long term effects for women athletes, however, is endocrine dysfunction, increases in abdominal fat, more depression, and a backlash of subsequent fat gain.
Women athletes perform far better in a fed state. Women athletes need to eat.

I wondered how long it would be before the accusations of “competitive undereating” started.

It’s the equivalent of Godwin’s Law for eating threads.

I generally don’t eat between 10.30pm and 5pm as I just don’t feel hungry. Doesn’t stop me eating a shit tonne in those few hours and failing to lose any weight. Sugar addiction 😤

I love it. I have never liked breakfast, and I’m not hungry till lunchtime, anyway. I have always just eaten (hearty) lunch and dinner, and only just discovered it was a ‘thing’. 🤣

I agree that people’s metabolisms (and preferences) vary hugely, though. It’s definitely not for everyone!

ETA: I’m not doing it to lose weight (and I’m certainly not losing any). It’s just how I eat.

That's interesting @Slowontheup i've always wondered how people manage to exercise and do IF! I can exercise first thing in a morning but if I didn't eat breakfast for another few hours afterwards I'd be starving and there's no way I could run longer distances or do intense cardio activity on an empty stomach or one meal a day.

The timing of your sleep vs when you stopped eating really impacts how hungry you are the next day IME. I only discovered this because I live alone and work for myself, and my sleep pattern is all over the place.

I have an app which tracks how long my fast has been, and if I'm up/awake before I've fasted 12 hours, then I'm really going to struggle that day. Essentially the more of the middle part of a fast you can be asleep, the better!

I can wake up and go 2-4 hours without eating fairly easily. But that isn't enough to get to the 16-18 hours I was aiming for if I'm getting up at 6 and expecting to eat at 12 or 1pm.

Recently I stayed with DM for a bit and we'd eat our evening meal together finishing at 8 or 9pm, then I was getting up at 4am to meet a project deadline. 9 hours awake fasting was hell!

But now I'm back home with a much more erratic and flexible routine, I try and have my last meal about 4-6 hours before I go to sleep. Then I sleep for 6-8 hours, and the morning is easy.

I am fully aware if people go to bed at 10pm, then having their last meal as early as 4pm and not eating with the family probably isn't desirable or practical! However it's something to bear in mind, if you can move the time of your evening meal at all it'll really help.

What's interesting is that in having the total flexibility to have my evening meal at 2pm if I want, or 2am if that's better, it's actually meant I've accidentally moved to having just one 'big' meal a day. By the time I'm getting properly hungry for breakfast/lunch, it's basically an hour or two before I intended to have dinner, so I may as well stick it out or if I can't, bring it forward.

So this isn't really a suggestion to start having a solitary and lonely eating schedule that doesn't work for you, but to bear in mind that IME if you're awake anywhere from 8-12 hours fasted, it's fucking miserable. I did it for weeks and I never ever got used to it. But if you can wake up towards the tail end of that horrible middle part, then you've slept through the bitch bit and aren't that hungry for the last part.

Idk, this might help some people who don't have really rigid evening routines or can adapt a bit.

YANBU. Re-marketed eating disorder.

I used to do 5:2 and found it easy on busy days, but when I hit perimenopause with fluctuating hormons levels it was stressing my body. I changed to 16:8 which was easier, building up to it gradually. Dr Mindy Pelz on YouTube has loads of videos about fasting to do with you hormone cycle and varying your fasts, accordingly.

If I do a workout, I do protein cycling - take regular meals with protein. If it's a rest day, I fast. If I feel faint, dizzy or hungry, I would eat. Fasting is supposed to provide low-level stress, which benefits your body - like resistance exercise - if it is over-stressing your body, it is not benefitting you.

Forget that lol 😂 I drink plenty in the day. As I said I don’t IF for IF sake.

I do just eat like that normally. And drink whatever I want whenever I want it.

I think intermittent fasting is probably easier for people who don't usually eat breakfast in the morning anyway?
If you're someone who always wants/needs to eat breakfast its presumably going to feel more difficult to restrict the hours in which you eat.
I don't find breakfast to be the best meal of the day because I'm not a morning person so I wouldn't enjoy getting up early to cook myself a proper meal and I don't really find cereal/toast (the standard quick & easy options) to be of much interest.
So delaying my first meal of the day to lunchtime is natural for me.
If you're a morning person and used to having a nice meal before you start your day then maybe try having an early dinner and fasting through the night?
FWIW I do a fast usually from around 7pm - 12pm most days but you don't need to fast that long. 7pm - 7am could work for you?
I also don't worry about having a later dinner or if I'm having a meal out or at someone else's house. I don't worry about eating early if I go out for brunch. I'm not bothered about being that rigid. But I'm also not in a situation where eating out every week is my normal, so its less of an impacting factor for me.

I have done IF all the time because I'm simply not hungry in the morning. Lunch and dinner is a must though. And I eat what I want, healthy food but always dessert. Works well for me because I don't make any effort. My DS is like me, no appetite in the morning, but I force him to eat in the morning if he's got school but during the week-end he eats like me. DH loves his breakfast so we're all different..