Ahoy!
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First excuse my english, I am not a native speaker.
Mid january I started IF for the first time in my life using the 18:6 protocol with a caloric deficit of about 400 kcal. My goal was (and still is) to lose weight (Edit: actually, my goal is to lose fat while gaining a bit more muscle masss), for which IF seemed perfect because I thought it could help me to keep my fingers off of food in the fasting periods (which it did).
Now, I am a psychiatric nurse (male) and a good chunk of my day consists of sitting and talking. Meaning I don’t really have to spend that much energy in my job. Physically, I mean.
After switching to 20:4 with “refeeding” weekends mid february, because it fit better into my schedule, I noticed an increase in energy levels, I almost felt hypervigilant. So I assumed that this is the way for me.
Fast forward two weeks: I feel like shit. I’m tired all the time, feel jittery and sometimes even nauseous. My RHR dropped to 50 bpm (blood pressure is ok though) I read a lot about electrolytes, made sure my micros are on point. No difference, still feel like crap.
The only thing I hadn’t checked for a while was my TDEE.
So I went back and recalculated my TDEE / BMR. I’m 174 cm tall, weigh 70 kg (starting 76,6) and have a body fat percentage of 18.9 (dropped 1,1 % since january).
My BMR is \~1650. But since I have a rather sedentary job, my TDEE is only around 1930 kcal (including moderate weight lifting 5x a week).
I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around how to proceed.
I know one should not eat at or below BMR, but how am I supposed to lose weight? In the past two weeks I noticed I started obsessing over micos/macros because I just wanted to make it work so badly.
I’m thinking about switching to the 5:2 protocol and see if that makes any difference. But I’m frustrated and feel disenchanted.
Maybe IF isn’t for everyone after all :(
People too often treat IF like a typical diet. What finally worked for me was thinking about implementing it in a sustainable way. I sat down and thought what are my biggest issues and what do I want to solve. For me that was my drinking and weight. So I decided that for as long as it takes I would fix that. Trying to fix too many things are one time is often times too hard. And trying to do it on a set timeline just adds deadlines and stress you don’t need to have. What you want to do is make IF something that is easy to integrate and you don’t have to think about. So for me that was not having a scale at all. So I didn’t even weigh myself for the first year I was doing it. So I concentrated on not drinking and doing IF.
You can see my longer results post but I just focused on that. I knew it was never going to be fast but I decided to get to my GW and then worry about the fitness. I kept doing basic things like walking and hiking for that first year but no real hard workouts. And finally I stopped caring about dates and time. Doesn’t matter how long it takes as long as you are moving in the right direction and learning as you go. Get away from daily or even weekly weighins. To figure out what works best for you as we are all different.
For me IF was a game changes as I have ADHD. So it was just a game for me. I set hard limits in eating and just didn’t eat during it. And slowly I learned over that 1-2 years to find a natural balance where I don’t have to count calories. For example I never calculated my TDEE or BMR. I just did it in a slow controlled way. Where I cut food until I felt I could go about my day but was still seeing loss. Now that mean the first year was only 20-30 pounds lost but the goal is to do it like that so you can maintain long term. I really believe that doing it like this is the reason I am still finding success 3.5 years later.