Who wants to start intermittent fasting?

[cosypompoms]

I'm no expert but I have been doing Intermittent Fasting (IF) since September and I've lost 9kg/ a stone.

I eat breakfast at 7:30, lunch and the tea at 4. So my eating window is finished by 4:30pm. So it's a 9 hour eating window and 15 hours of fasting.

I haven't read any books about it but I do listen to podcasts about it.

open.spotify.com/episode/7hKdAJpfDEeRnGDEo42MWP?si=RpKRylgHTb6nJtmBPPH9dg

open.spotify.com/episode/5YEfEhHllXaFxiEO6WZxMq?si=11rhciaDSkKj_V8p2mAU6w

I don't know anyone in real life who does IF so thought there would be a community here.

Is anyone else finding themselves far more thirsty than usual? Not sure whether this is me or a fasting thing?

I fast till 2pm and during this time drink between 1 and 2 pints of water. I don’t know if it’s thirst or to prevent hunger but it works for me.

@NatureGlimmers I'm not entirely sure what the water represents on the scales other than I'm over half water so I'm definitely not dehydrated and surely the more water the better (within reason)

@AuntieJoyce I don't know if I'm thirstier but I definitely drink more water when fasting.

@AuntieJoyce I notice I drink more water. I do notice I’m thirsty and I wonder if that is just a way of replacing the liquid I would get through food I’m eating. So no cereal in the morning - no milk, no fruit as a mid morning snack - no water from fruit. And lots less tea!!!

Thanks all. Actually, that makes a lot of sense about the not getting liquid from food.

I found out today that I shouldn't have been drinking fruit teas in my 16hr window and felt very discouraged. Do others only stick to black coffee and tea and water? Started 16.8 2nd Jan and in first 2 weeks lost half a stone. The next week I had put on a pound! I'm not doing weekends and wonder if that makes a difference?

I drink green tea (plain), I hope that's ok.
If you've managed this far with fruit teas then you've done well- if you drop them now you should find it even easier as your insulin will be more stable.
I'm battling constipation - I feel like I'm drinking more water than usual, so I thought it was just not having breakfast that caused it (as I always ate something v high fibre). But maybe I'm just not getting enough water as I don't snack on fruit any more. Or drink pots of tea!

I've just weighed and have stayed the same which I'm happy enough with as I feel I've come to a weight I can stay at although any small loss would be good but at some point you have to say that's it I suppose.

Also it's my period so not sure how that affects things for me.

Green tea is OK, I stick to black coffee, water or green tea. Nothing with a sweet taste. I don't like black tea but you could have that too. Also could you be overeating at weekends? A few extra snacks at the weekend could see you lose the calorie deficit you'd built up during the week meaning no weight loss.

I can now manage black Earl Grey but can't do black coffee as I need sugar in coffee normally and don't like it as much as tea (which I don't have sugar in). I can't do black tea and don't like green tea, although I could give it another go as I've got used to the fruit teas whereas I used to have them with sugar.
At the weekends, I'm not going overboard on calories but will have a cake if I want it out with a friend. I did do 5:2 at one point, so might integrate that.

I'm glad to hear that green tea is ok.
I have weighed this morning, no weight loss showing, but that's ok, all in good time......

Weighed in today and have lost 2lbs this week. Really pleased as having no loss last week was demotivating but so glad I stuck with it. I also took measurements at the beginning of January and have lost 2” off hips and waist and 0.5” off my neck. I had no idea my neck was overweight!

since yesterday I’ve decided to weigh myself daily, inspired by Fast Feast Repeat I now have on my Kindle. I know that at the start of December I was 67kg and today I weighed in at 62.8 so clearly something is working.

Saturday will be interesting as I’ll be at a restaurant for breakfast with friends at 8:00! I can’t remember the last time I ate that early.

@passwordnotsecure if it helps (it probably doesn't but it helped me to feel less restricted) you can have anything from the Camellia sinensis plant, so that's black tea, green tea, oolong tea or white tea. Oolong and white are expensive but I keep a pack of each and have them occasionally when I get bored of green. Earl grey is definitely suspect as it contains flavourings, so it's UPF as well as probably a fast breaker. In Tim Spector's book Food for Life he says it can take around 10 times of trying something that is high in polyphenols (and therefore bitter) before your tastebuds start to associate the taste with the health effects of the plant and start to enjoy it. So it might be worth continuing to try sips of black coffee and wait for your tastebuds to adjust.

Well done on the weight loss all and to those who are staying motivated despite the scale not moving. @pippablackwell good to have another fellow daily weigh inand average-er! I find it so much less stressful than dreading the weekly weigh in. @NewYearNewYu It was my day to do measurements today too, and I was disappointed to find I didn't lose anything from waist or hips, but I did lose a few cms off my legs and my monthly comparison jeans that were originally 2 sizes too small now fit OK (although would be quite tight if I wore them all day).

Apparently adding a small pinch of salt to coffee can dull the bitterness so it tastes a bit sweeter. I think it like we have salted caramel. FWIW I have fasted in the past with two milky coffees in my fasting window and I did lose weight so if you can’t find drinks that work I do think it’s still worth fasting other than one or two drinks with milk in.

This is exactly my issue!

I’m 24 hrs into a 36 hr fast. Not sure how I will sleep tonight!!

@HairScratcher good luck!

Just to make you all laugh and appreciate how scales can vary...I always weigh myself on a Saturday morning in the bathroom and move the scales round to 3 different areas in the hard floor. This morning I weighed in at 160lb. I went downstairs to collect my breakfast (I don't fast at the weekend), came upstairs, had a wee, stood on the scales again (just to make sure) and I weighed 163lb! Nothing eaten or drunk and I was starkers not holding anything!? I am now taking my scales with a pinch of salt 😆😆😆
They are quite expensive, digital Bluetooth scales 🙄

@passwordnotsecure I find my scales vary so much, I move them around the bathroom to get the ‘best’ weight!

To carry on the tea conversion…
Is Camomile tea not OK? Nothing other than just Camomile? I’ve been drinking this and green tea so can just stick to green tea if needs be, but shame to loose it.

Been fasting this week fine but healthy eating been a bit rubbish due to time. Going to batch cook some nice soups and veggie chilli and curry this weekend!

Also after trying to stop eating crisps they have snuck back in. Bloody love crisps.

@OctopusRule I follow Gin Stephens's rules which are quite strict, so no chamomile. Which is a shame as I love it so I have plenty of cups of it in my eating window instead. The way she explains it is that if you did accidentally break the fast (by triggering a cephalic phase insulin response due to the sweet taste of chamomile for example), although you may well still lose weight, you'd be losing many of the health benefits of fasting, including the increase in metabolism, which is important when you are restricting how much you eat. And therefore is it worth the risk. But I know people feel strongly on both sides of this argument and there is probably no right answer.

I'm with you on that one @OctopusRule , no way am I giving up crisps! :D

Had my final weigh in of the week as I'm not around tomorrow and lost 0.5kg/1.1lb this week. So I lost 3kg/6.6lb in January in total. Long may this continue!

@NatureGlimmers thanks, happy to stick to green tea in that case.

I can’t have them in the house but this week when my DH had a rare day in the office I went into his wfh room to empty the bin. There were crisp packets everywhere but even a decent search didn’t find any with crisps in. Not sure what I’d have done if I had found any but luckily he’d hidden them from me.

On meant to say well done @NatureGlimmers , brilliant loss.

Only on the diet boards. Anywhere else on MN it would be an LTB for squirrelling away Family Snacks