Intermittent Fasting

[Projectme]

Hi all. I'm 4 stone overweight. I'm menopausal (54). How effective have any of you found IF for weight loss as this time of life?

Weight loss just seems to be SO hard. Keeping up the motivation even harder but I keep hearing great things about this way of eating so would love to hear some positive IF stories whilst battling against menopause symptoms and the constant food chatter! 😊

@Projectme I'm 57. Post meno. Since my early 50s I've just been getting fatter particularly tummy. I enjoy food and the idea of counting cals every day depresses me. I've lost 4 kgs doing 5:2 since April. I'm my experience you have to do 2 days per week at 500 cals on a FD. I'm not completely anal about working out the cals. I weigh myself the day after every fast, before breakfast and I can see the general downward trend in weight which is motivating. Fasting does get easier - at the beginning the hunger was terrible! However I feel weak and lacking in energy on FDs. However you know it's ONLY for that day which is what I love about this method. So far it's working for me!

@Liz2022
thank you for replying. I haven't tried a 5/2 fasting plan as I know I'd fail. I just know I'd feel so miserable on such little food, even if it was just for 2 days out of 7.

I'm more thinking of the time restricted IF, i.e. 14 hours of no food followed by an eating window of 10 hours and once I've got used to that, reducing the fasting window eventually to 16:8 ratio.

Good to hear you've had success on the 5/2 plan though!

It's just at this time of life, I'm hearing more frequently that a form of IF eating is the best way to lose weight compared to calorie counting or other forms of 'diets'. Urgh, the thought of being on a 'diet' makes me want to cry! 😂

Just want to echo what @Liz2022 says - the best thing about doing 5:2 is that while it is hard - it gets easier after 3 or 4 weeks and on FDs you get through them by remembering you can eat basically normally the next day. Thinking about when and how much you can eat every single day is what makes me fall off the waggon because you think about food all the time, rather than just 2 days a week.

Also, I found it far more effective for weight loss than eating within an eating window.

A surprising side effect was that even though I could eat what I wanted on other days, fasting on 5:2 seemed to reset my appetite without any effort on my part. I found that while I made no attempt to change what or how much I ate on non fast days, I craved less and got full faster.