16:8 does not feel like another shitty diet!. I managed to lose fat, have more energy and feel positive about life.

[sbh1991]

Hey,
I want to share my experience, I tried several diets in the past with little luck, I found them boring and I usually ended up caving in, binging on food and ending up back at square one.

However, I finally found the 16:8 fast really worked for me in losing weight.
I enjoy my food and more importantly I enjoy life without having to restrict myself anymore. Life is too short as they say!.

Weight loss can fill like a constant uphill battle, I know that feeling first hand. So, I would like to help where I can, let me know your struggles with the diet or what problems you have?. Happy to give tips or inspiration to others from my experience.

It is the little steps every day that add up to big results over time 😀. Let's all help and support one another!.

@Zombiemama I'm with you on the juice front, don't like the taste of water at all. I've always just added a dash to take the edge off. Hopefully that won't interfere too much.
Day two here and I've sat down for lunch at 12.01 😁 Homemade soup and flatbread.
Thinking 'kitchen is closed' at 8pm last night was immensely helpful. Warmer weather will hopefully deter stodgy food too.

Cold infusions are great for flavouring water without using sugar. I’m looking at my pot now and it says green tea, peppermint, apple pieces, natural pineapple, orange, coconut and mint flavourings. That’s it!

I know they’re not cheap but one teabag is strong enough to flavour two bottles of a large water container. So I reckon I must spend £2.79 a week on them which is the same as a takeaway coffee.

cold herbal tea (if you have a garden, lemon balm is amazing)
or cut of half an inch of a ginger root and pour hot water over it.
spice tea (yogi or chai) is pleasant and calorie free.

Hello
I’d like to join in too. In the interest of changing just one thing at a time, over the past week or more I’ve stopped snacking in the evening, which is the time of the day (kids finally in bed, exhausted, etc) that I tend to eat tonnes of sugary stuff, chocolate etc. So I’ve just completely stopped eating after dinner and I am sleeping better and waking up feeling less bloated and actually looking forward to a healthy breakfast. Next step is to prolong the fast period to reach 16:8 (it’s currently probably 7pm to 9am so only 14 hours). I am very inspired by everyone on this thread, I have about a stone to lose and it’d be great to eek a positive out of the lockdown situation. Also easier to do with with WFH as I can eat dinner Wright the family at 6pm whereas it used to be 8pm when commuting.
I love the “kitchen is closed” tag line.
Another tip that has helped me a lot is brushing my teeth immediately or very soon after my last meal of the day; being naturally lazy it stops me breaking my fast as I’d hate to have to brush my teeth again before bed

Wright = with

I do it every day as I just find now I’m into it it’s easier for me to keep on track that way. Some people have weekends off though I think or do it every other day.

Personally I drink flavoured fizzy water during my fasting period and I’ve still lost 4lb even though it’s a ‘dirty fast’. I still seem to be getting some of the benefits, for example I’m so much less hungry.

I have a tiny splash of skimmed milk in my coffee, I can’t drink it black.

I’m a week in and for the last few days I’ve been quite constipated! Has anyone else found this?

Not weighed myself yet so no idea of any loss, but according to my Fitbit, my resting heart rate has dropped 4bpm in the last week, so that’s great!

I’m really noticing big changes with my eating habits. Today was a special occasion so I had already decided I wouldn’t be fasting as we were planning a long walk and I was worried about doing that hungry, and also I would let myself eat what I wanted, including a planned takeaway, as it was a treat day. It would have been my first non-fast day for 14 days but when I woke up, I thought to myself, well you might as well try and see how you go and if you really get hungry you can have a day off today. So off we went and as soon as we started walking, I just wasn’t hungry. It got to 1.30 (I could eat from 12.30) and I hadn’t even realised! So I’d made it to my eating window! We decided to eat our picnic but I found I was full so quickly and made healthy choices - in the past I was almost eating because I was worried about being hungry later, eating food for the sake of it, and thinking about food all the time. It just felt like not a big deal and I wasn’t that bothered. THIS IS NOT LIKE ME!

So we had a lovely walk (and burnt 850 cals hurray!) and had planned a takeaway but in the end, ended up having posh readymade pizzas in the oven and I was almost RELIEVED. I didn’t want the takeaway, I enjoyed the less greasy, fresher pizzas, although not exactly healthy they felt not so bad. THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN, I love takeaways! We didn’t get them much for financial reasons but I bloody loved them before. Now I’m not really bothered. I couldn’t finish my much smaller supermarket pizza - I got full so quickly. I’d have never managed a takeaway size one (I’ve had no bother in the past, trust me) and I’d have wasted my money.

My friend had bought me my fave chocs and I ate some guilt free because I’d decided long ago this would be a treat day. For various reasons we have a lot more snack food in the house tonight, cakes, popcorn, chocolate, which were gifts. Normally I’d be snacking on these things all night, unable to stop thinking about them, needing to eat them until they were gone. But I was so full after that I had a small cake (like bite size) and then spotted it was nearly 8.30 so my brain went ‘kitchens closed’ and I didn’t even think about eating any of it. This never happens. It would be on my mind all the time normally, constantly thinking and bargaining with myself about having just a little more even though I didn’t need it.

So my treat day was still a treat day for other reasons, and I did have some unhealthy food don’t get me wrong, but it was nothing to what I’d normally do.

This is an essay, I’m sorry. I just had to share as this is such a revelation to me. It actually feels like a relief to me not to be thinking about food constantly. I finally feel like I’m in control.

By my treat day being a treat day for other reasons, I mean that it was still a fab and special day but it just didn’t revolve around ‘food treats’ as it normally would.

SkeletonSkins - Sounds great and I know what you mean about feeling “liberated” from obsessing about food. I find not eating (during the fast period) a lot **lot easier than trying to restrict myself to healthy or low cal food. So much less mental energy required!
Great that you enjoyed the day so much

I've been doing this for years because I always found if I ate breakfast I would then be starving the rest of the day. I didn't know it was a diet but I'm still overweight so not sure it works for me aside from stopping me eating more ! 🤔

So I posted last week at nearly 'crying with relief' that I'd discovered this way of eating, only to have fucked up all weekend as it was dd birthday.
I did still push my eating back and probably ate less than I would normally have but still we've had lots of cake and wine and takeaway. This is the key bit for me tho, and I guess why I'm posting...I need to simply get back on track and stop thinking I've blown it. That's normally what happens and all hell breaks loose

Lovelymonkey - don’t beat yourself up. The Obesity Code book talks about alternating periods of fasting and feasting. You had a feast because of a birthday and now you fast. People always used to feast on special occasions so that is totally allowed.

That’s how I can maintain this - I relax at weekends do 16 / 8 in week and minimise snacking on week. Got to goal weight in Feb and maintaining

@SkeletonSkins don’t apologise I loved reading your post! So much of what you say resonates with me.

I don’t know why I’m so scared of being hungry. I’ve never had to worry about where the next meal is coming from. I just love food (especially takeaways - DSs birthday on Thursday and I’m already looking forward to a Chinese and cake!) and I hate to think I’m missing out 😳

Cake by it’s nature us designed to be overeaten. All it takes is one bite and suddenly youve devoured half the bloody thing!!

This is where fasting really helps me. Nothing is naughty or off limits. I just eat it in my four hour window and always eat any sweet stuff after I’ve eaten my savoury meal as then it doesn’t spike insulin.

I was listening to Dr Fung talking on various podcasts at the weekend. He was explaining how difficult it is to stimulate your appetite with a small amount of food and then stop. It’s much easier to not eat and then stimulate you appetite with a meal you eat until you’re full and then stop. Something about that resonated so strongly with me.

We have to all remember that intermittent fasting is all about controlling insulin. So there’s no point in eating in a way across your eating window that will cause lots of insulin spikes as that’s the fat storage hormone. I’ve lost six pounds now in six days through eating 20:4 and I’m back into a healthy BMI. It’s honestly the only ‘diet’ I’ve done that actually works whilst eating the food I want to.

I don’t know why I’m so scared of being hungry. I’ve never had to worry about where the next meal is coming from. I just love food (especially takeaways - DSs birthday on Thursday and I’m already looking forward to a Chinese and cake!) and I hate to think I’m missing out

This was another thing Dr Fung discussed. The idea that if our Ghrelin levels cause the standard hunger signals (rumbly tummy etc) that if we don’t eat we’ll get hungrier and hungrier and then we’ll overeat later. Actually the reverse is true. If we ignore the rumbly tummy the Ghrelin reduces overtime and we are less hungry.

I’ve also found that my body knows when I normally eat (middle of the day) and sends me hunger signals around that time. Its really very clever! You absolutely can eat a takeaway and cake but what I would do is on that day only eat that. Have a longer fast and then have the takeaway and cake for afters so it’s one meal. Then straight back into a fast afterwards.

Loads of inspiration on this thread - I am going to give it a go

Been up 2 hours and only had coffee so far so going to aim for 12.30-8.30 I think

Going to weigh myself and measure my waist now...

Have said before if I eat nothing until lunchtime I feel fine but if I have a sugary carby breakfast as I used to by mid morning I’m shaky and “hungry” which is not hunger at all but a carb / sugar crash. Can’t believe taken me until 45 to work this out! Nhs dietary advice is wrong also “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” bollocks coined by breakfast cereal marketing companies in the 60s🙄

He reckoned that according to circadian rhythm we are the least hungry at 8am in the morning. When most people are trying to force down a healthy breakfast.

Interestingly when I was allowing myself late night carby food I was starving in the morning. Now of course my blood sugar is stable and in the morning I feel completely normal 🙄

Lots of interesting points on this thread.
We had a family birthday yesterday so it all went a bit out of the window however back on it today and not worrying about having had a day off.

I don’t know why I’m so scared of being hungry.

what fasting teaches you is that it is ok to be hungry
you will not stop to function because the stomach rumbles. quite the oposite.

Yeah that’s definitely what I’ve learnt @bluefoxmug. It’s fine to be a bit hungry and often the feeling goes away by itself - I don’t need to eat for it to go away. I can wait.

Love this thread so much.

@justanotherneighinparadise feeling very inspired by you. I went a bit off track over the weekend. We had a big zoom birthday party on Saturday night and I drank a lot of prosecco - was probably still drinking at midnight. I did wait until 11am to eat though so at least I've maintained the habit of not eating until later in the day.

I clean fasted from Sunday into Monday though and am just about to finish my fast today and I'm feeling super positive and motivated. Going to aim for 7 clean fasts of at least 16 hrs this week and really give it a chance to work.

Thanks all. I feel much better having read the messages since I posted about my cheat days! It's so hard getting out of the standard diet mentality.
In previous times I would have eaten a 'healthy' breakfast this morning and be starving now but as it is I'm fine on black coffee water and herbal tea.
Thanks for the motivation and info, I really felt I had 'messed up'