Intermittant Fasting Starting to Pall

Submitted by Dana on Mon, 2010-06-07 18:56

I'm getting impatient with IF. It may just be a bad day -- and I admit, it's been a bad day, though for no reason in particular. I mean, nothing overwhelmingly awful happened. I've just felt cranky and snappish and short-tempered all day, you know? And now I'm exhausted, and it's not even 8 pm, and I got plenty of sleep last night.

In that context, I found IF particularly galling today. Once again, I had an appointment right at 2, when my food window was supposed to be opening. I'm good and hungry by 2, and it's hard not to say "NO! I can't (do X) then! That's when I'm supposed to start eating!" But it's also annoying to have to make a smoothie to take along. Worse, on days like today, the blender explodes on me, spraying proto-smoothie all over the place (I still need to wipe down the kitchen cabinets) including on my shirt, when I have ten minutes to get out of the house for a meeting -- and I still have no food to take along. It's a good thing I don't have one of those reality show crews following me around, that's all I can say. The cursing was not fit for prime time.

So I'm thinking I'll alter my plan; after all, I've given this the two weeks I planned to. I think instead I'll stop eating by 8 or shortly thereafter, and simply wait to eat the next day until I'm good and hungry. If that's at noon, fine. If it's by 10 am, that's fine, too. Then on days when I feel like I'm doing great, and not hungry/tired, maybe I'll skip lunch.

More free-form, you know?

I'll keep you posted as to how it goes.

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Intermittent fasting

Submitted by enelkay on Wed, 2010-06-16 02:03.

I've been doing my own form of IF for several months now, and it's working quite well for me. I don't have a specific time period every day during which I can eat. I just eat my breakfast whenever I feel like having it, and from that time I can eat anything I want (as long as it's low-carb, of course) for six hours. Before and after those hours I can have nothing except water, tea, coffee or occasionally caffeine-free diet ginger ale until the next day.

It doesn't interfere with other plans because I can change my "eating hours" to coordinate with whatever I plan to do that day. I usually have breakfast about 9 am, dinner at about 2 pm and at least one snack in between. But if we plan to go out for dinner with friends, I can eat my first meal of the day at about 2 pm and have dinner at 7 pm.

Free-Form IF

Submitted by Dana on Wed, 2010-06-16 08:36.

I like this idea. I am certainly waiting until I feel good and hungry to eat breakfast, and stopping eating earlier in the evening than I did, but I may try this format. Neat idea, thanks.

Bad day

Submitted by Sally on Tue, 2010-06-08 11:09.

Hi Dana. Sorry you had a bad day. I've been there with the exploding blender and protein powder dries a little cementy. I hope the bad day is not the beginning of NBIM's cold spreading. My own unexplained bad days are often cold-driven. If so, at least you've got the soup for it! I'm so interested to see how the more flexible IF'ing will feel and work for you. I've appreciated being able to keep tabs on your experiment. I'm IF'ing about twice a week now for a 24 hour stretch but I have found the carb cravings worse lately -- not sure if it's related to the IF'ing or if it's the begging for ice cream I hear from the backseat that is at fault. I hope your bad day is followed by a string of fabulous ones! Sally

IF

Submitted by gracie on Sat, 2010-06-12 20:37.

Being diabetic I'm afraid to even try this. I far and above prefer eating at regular intervals ( breakfast at about 5:30, lunch at noon, dinner at 6:30) and keep the whole thing under 20 net carbs.
Gotta say I love your books!
Hugs,
Gracie

Thank you!

Submitted by Dana on Tue, 2010-06-08 14:14.

I'm fine. I think I just blew it with my sleep schedule. Haven't talked about it here a lot, but I have a sleep disorder -- it's a circadian rhythm thing -- and I really need to be careful to stick to my bed time, and to get up at my usual rising time even if I do get to bed late. Otherwise, my body just starts falling asleep later and later and LATER, and I wind up -- well, tired and cranky and ill-tempered.

Left to its own devices, my body would sleep from 5 am till mid-afternoon. It's like a permanent case of jet-lag; I call it "Living on Tokyo time." It worked better when I was single, and didn't have so many responsibilities, you know?

So I've learned my lesson. Up on time every morning, to bed on time every night.