The FastDay Forum

I couldn't do 16:8 at the beginning as I found it too restrictive to do that plus the 2 regular fasts during a week. Now, nearly a year after I began dieting, my WOE and even my appetite have changed drastically and I am not as hungry as I used to be so I did began to do a 19:5 without thinking about it. In fact it's not even that, as I have only one meal most of the days, the days I don't fast I just don't count the calories.

Did it make me lose weight ? I have no idea but I didn't began to do it for that anyway, just because I am usually not hungry before, at least, 3:00PM and I learned to listen to my body.

[carorees]

Hi all:

It is a shame this tent tolerates no opinions that are different than those held by the initial inhabitants. But I will ignore the attacks on me, the snide comments and the suggestion that I am some how a bad person for not agreeing that 16:8 is the best thing since sliced bread (and butter).

My opinion is simple - 16:8 is only what someone does with it. My opinion is much more eloquently and concisely portrayed in this post - have at the poster! - post127343.html#p127343

I never know what to say when things start getting awkward like this!

I agree that 16:8 is what you make it (and most people make it more than 16 and less than 8). But the same can be said of 5:2 as it is possible to feast too much on the 5 days off.
Surely we can coexist without feeling that we have to diss methods that are working for some simply because they don't work for everyone?

As no-one yet has done any scientific studies that can answer the question as to what fasting method is best overall, and even if they had the winner might not be right for everyone, well we each have to work out our own way of doing things. And that can change as often as we like.

Good luck to all whichever tent you're currently inhabiting is what I say!

[Debs]

Just popped in here to have a little look. I'll get me coat!!!

Morning Debs, don't run off, no problems we all love each other really. Have you had a good night? I'll pop over to the IT in a mo and see how things panned out during the dark hours

Ballerina x

Morning Debs, don't run off, no problems we all love each other really.
Ballerina x

Bit like a hippy commune yes we can all live happily together sharing one another's ideas + suggestions.
My weekdays have evolved into 16:8 plus my 4:3 this usually works best for me and that's the crux of this WOL finding exactly what suits + " fits " our own life + lifestyle it doesn't matter what its called or named providing it works.

Just popping in here, after opening my 16:8 window with a bacon sandwich, glad to see everyone getting on well here this morning!

What matters is individual outcomes and experimentation, not compulsory collective agreement on certain points or refining the semantics down to the nth degree. After all that is not going to help people lose weight, whereas an open mind and a willingness to try different ways will most likely do this eventually - as has been proved by more than one person on this forum. And the former is sooooo boring (but I realise that's just my opinion )

Have a nice day everyone!

Just had some of hubs beef and potato hash,mmmmm, delicious. This could be a two meal day today for me as I know I will find it hard to resist later. Thanks SD, well,said. Hope everyone has a great day whatever they choose to do,

Ballerina x

This is the research they did on mice for the time restricted eating:
http://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/abs ... 50-4131(12)00189-1 and I believe there are ongoing human studies too...this is just an example:
http://www.slideshare.net/ancestralheal ... ions-ahs13
Lots of papers out there saying 16:8 etc might/does have health positives...
for those interested in such things.

@carorees, you were once experimenting with a combination of 16:8 and pushing carb consumption off to later in the day in a smaller window. For example (if I'm recalling this correctly) your overall eating window might be from 1:00-9:00p.m. but you'd break your fast with a small zero-carb high protein meal of eggs or meat or nuts or something like that. Then you would break your secondary "carb-fast" later in the evening, say 6:00p.m.

The idea was to extend the duration of a daily ketosis and have a 16:8 IF strategy combined with a 21:3 low-carb strategy. Did this theory pan out either in your reading of the literature or in your personal experiments?

[carorees]

Hi @brucee

Well I'm still losing weight, albeit slowly now I've only got about 4lb to go.

My strategy at the moment is to eat between 12:30 and 8:30 at the latest. I believe that we should have a decent interval between our last food and bedtime. Ideally this should be 4 hours to allow the body to switch to fat burning over night and to allow normal cycling of leptin etc. I try, therefore to stop eating before 8:30 most days.

I also know that following a fast our insulin response to carbs is blunted (whether this applies to fasts as short as 16-18 hours I don't know). So, I aim to break my fast with a low carb lunch/snack most days.

I also believe that mixing things up is good for us and that carb refeeds help leptin levels, so I try to mix low carb/low calorie days with high carb/high calorie days each week. Overall I try to average less than 150g of carbs a day.

But I don't let these strategies get in the way of enjoying life so I sometimes have a carby breakfast, I sometimes eat outside the 8 hour window and some weeks I don't get a really low carb day! It's more about mindful eating IMHO.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for that Auriga, unfortunately I was unable to access the first link but the second one on 'Time restricted feeding' was very interesting, I especially loved the "don't eat if it is dark outside" advice......mmmmmm can't see me do that one but I get the reasoning behind it. All very interesting,

Ballerina x

Caroline, I seem to remember some time ago reading in one of your posts about breaking a fast with a low/no carb choice and I have been doing that. It makes no odds to my mouth whether I put eggs or toast into it so why not experiment? Like you I am not a slave to these things just very mindful of what and when I eat.

Ballerina x

Just opened my window with smashed avocado on wholegrain toast with black pepper and lemon juice.

Today's window will be closed at 8:00PM because I have trouble to sleep if I eat anything after that

I seem to have fallen into 16:8 naturally on my normal days. Once I started fasting I couldn't eat breakfast the day after a fast and I didn't eat breakfast when fasting, so on a 5:2 that would be 4 days a week when I didn't eat breakfast. The other 3 days of breakfast just fell by the wayside.

I now aim for a liquid fast on fast days, sometimes I don't succeed and have a stir fry or a salad. But generally I liquid fast. The only calories I will have is the splashes of milk in my tea and sometimes a mug of bouillion/ bovril.

On my normal days I don't eat till after midday, sometimes its 3pm when I do eat, but its only because the rest of the family are having something. I wonder if I stopped eating lunch because they are eating, if it would help my weight loss? I do try to make my first meal low carb as I don't want to wake up the carb craving, which is pretty bad at the moment as I have a malt loaf sat on my counter just waiting for my eat day tomorrow.

Generally a liquid only 5:2 plus 16:8 is comfortable for me. Though, is it a true 16:8 if I have splashes of milk in my tea before the window opens?

[carorees]

Splashes of milk are fine, a glass of milk not fine! Remember milk contains the sugar, lactose.

Also, remember not to overdo the fasting so keep your weekends for refeeding!