My fasting experience

[PowerthruIT]

Hi all,

Like many with the rise in fasting as a hot topic I started it about a year ago, I wasn't needing to lose loads of weight but just felt I wanted to change my body composition and feel more healthy. Started with the 16:8 then did some 5:2 and then tried some extended fasts (max managed was 72hrs and felt amazing).

It's basically just taught me that for years I was eating far too much, and just because it was breakfast time/lunctime etc. I highly recommend it to retune your body and relationship with food, and ability to listen to your body.

Now I am what you may call a 'fast when you feel like it' practitioner. So I don't follow a strict fasting routine but will just listen to my body, and if I am not feeling hungry one morning then I just won't eat till maybe later in the day. Or if I wake and am starving as have been hitting the gym then clearly my body needs some protein and carbs and nutrients so I stock up. One thing is for sure I no longer need or have the desire for three square meals a day.

I still try to do one 24 fast a week so a dinner to dinner or breakfast to breakfast as I feel this just gives my body a cleanse and break from food.

I’ve eaten like this for years. I don’t think of it as fasting, just not eating according to a clock.

I was going to say exactly the same.

I'm in my mid fifties and I've eaten this way since I was a teenager really. I eat when I'm hungry and I don't when I'm not.

Over the years my eating settled into a bit of a pattern so more often than not...

Breakfast = None

Lunch = 12 o'clock ish

Dinner = 6pm ish

Then I won't eat again until lunchtime the following day as a rule, although very occasionally I'll have a small snack if I haven't eaten enough dinner.

None of it's forced though, it's just a natural habit and I've never struggled with my weight, despite now being menopausal with a very underactive thyroid.

Exactly that. I think fasting is really only when you go for 24hrs or more with no food. I did follow a fasting schedule (tried different ones) for around 8 months but then just adopted the 'eat when hungry'. What the 'fasting' schedules did was reeducate my body and mind I didn't need the three meals and was often just shoving stuff in my gob that I didn't need, and wondered why I was getting crashes or feeling bloated.

Naturally it all goes hand in hand its also not when you eat, its what you eat!

Yes, I think this is a good idea if it works for you. Lots of people have to eat around other committments though. I did Very Fast 800 successfuly in lockdown but as soon as I was rushing around again there was no way I could stick to it, and work or family life sometimes got in the way of 5:2 or restricted hours eating.

Lots of times I only eat brunch and dinner though - but it's because it affects how much I eat - the timing of eating food doesn't affect things in of itself, for me.