Background: I had gastric sleeve surgery before the pandemic and lost 140 lbs. I started at 315 lbs. I felt amazing! Then the pandemic started, I started working fr home and stopped exercising and eating a LOT more due to depression. I had pretty serious suicidal thoughts and was admitted inpatient almost two years ago. Since then I’ve been slowly recovering but always prioritized my mental health over my physical health/weight. Now I’m at a place where I realize how much I’ve gained back (too embarrassed to say how much lol), and I’m unhappy with how I look and feel. So I’m trying intermittent fasting.
I’m doing 16:8 and my eating hours are 2pm to 10pm. My problem is that I’m SO HUNGRY when I’m fasting. It’s 9:50am now, my stomach is growling like crazy and all I can think about is toasting myself a bagel and covering it with cream cheese. Help? I try chugging a bottle of water when I’m hungry and that doesn’t seem to help. I’m struggling over here lol.
I’ve been doing IF for only a week so far and I know it’ll get better, but for now I’m really struggling. Any tips to get through the initial hunger?
Thanks!
I know a lot of people are gonna be outraged at my suggestion- but this trick worked in getting me into into the IF game. The trick- I ate stalks of plain celery and water during my “fasting” period whenever I was hungry. This staved off my hunger until I got into my eating window.(Just for reference - I ate plain celery because 1 stalk is like 7 calories- it’s mostly water and fiber- which gives my stomach that “I just ate something”) I think per day I ate no more than 4- 5 stalks. Anyway - I only did this the 1st week of IF. Then the hunger pains died down and I was able to just fast on water tea and coffee- so I was able to drop the celery
You need to accept that you will feel hungry. Not only in the beginning - also in the long term. Not always of course, but sometimes.
What do you eat? Eating beans, lentils, animal protein etc helps with feeling full and suppressing hunger.
I am in the same boat with gastric sleeve and weight gain. I lost 125 in Jan 2019, but I am up around 40lbs from my lowest and trying to put the breaks on the weight gain (16lbs in the last 3 months). I have tried a few times to get into IF but have the same struggles with hunger or desire to eat during my fasting window. I am just about at 18hrs now and I am clock watching. Going to try IF for this month and see if I can adapt this time. Good luck with making IF work for you!
I have a family member with a similar situation regarding mental health. She has to take a number of meds for her condition but there’s one med in particular that is well known to trigger weight gain. It’s a non negotiable and she can’t cease taking it. I’ve been trying to persuade this family member to explore low carb eating as well as well as IF variations. I know she will do so when she’s ready.
I will share with you what is working for me. I’ve done a fair amount of research on low carb eating such as LCHF (Diet Doctor) and other low carb variations and I grasp the science of low carb eating. I am doing OMAD at the moment and I believe I’m not struggling with appetite because my carbs are low although I am taking in a conservative amount of what would be deemed healthy carbs during my 1 hour eating window. I believe I would be in a constant state of ravenous hunger if I wasn’t keeping carbs low. I hope this helps.
Eating keto will help you feel less hungry. Also, try doing a full 24 hours or longer fast. Once you do a few of those, feeling hungry for 5-6 hours is nothing. After a while, you’ll learn to like the feeling of an empty stomach.
That seems like a really late eating window to me, though it depends on what time you wake up and go to bed. Have you tried moving up your window? Personally, I aim my window to start around 4-6 hrs after I wake up, so usually around 12.
Maybe changing your eating window might help? I try to use the evening while I sleep as part of the fasting time. What’s been working for me is having my main meal around noon or even later, but I have a cup of coffee with cream only in the morning. It holds the hunger over till noon-ish. Food is mostly veggies and protein, little carbs. I found that eating carbs makes me more hungry later. Sometimes, you’re just gonna get hungry. Tell yourself that your body is eating it’s own fat (kinda works for me). I liked that one suggestion to eat one stalk of celery, you can do this until you just don’t really get as ravenous and then try stopping that. Sometimes, I’ll have a little bone broth for this reason as well. Good luck! We’re all in this journey together, let’s keep it going!
My diet mostly excludes processed foods and refined carbs, when I am strict about my diet, I am not hungry outside of my fasting window. When I go off of it, and eat pizza for dinner, I am starving for the next three days while I fast. The same thing after I drink alcohol for the first time in a long time, I am painfully hungry during my fast for days. Pizza is worth it to me, but I have learned to be comfortable with feeling hungry when I want to incorporate pizza and alcohol
Also, I try to focus my diet around healthy fats (which are satisfying and make me feel full longer), high fiber and a decent amount of protein
Start with fat fasting to get off carbs:
https://blog.thefastingmethod.com/what-is-fat-fasting-and-when-should-you-do-it/
Or, follow your doctor’s reset diet of 3 days of a liquid diet to reshrink your pouch. Or at least that’s what my sister said she has to do.
Something I’ve posted before:
Hunger is not the enemy. It’s not pain. In certain meditation paths eg Vipassana, they actually teach you to try and focus on pain or hunger or any sensation really… And really inspect it and try to examine it in a detached and objective way.
If you do that you’ll notice that the hunger is just some signals in your body… Like a little reminder alarm clock… But it’s ultimately quite harmless. It doesn’t have a will or emotions and isn’t out to get you. And you can learn to live with it or even appreciate it.
When I feel some hunger pangs during my fasting I’m like “oh good… I didn’t overeat during my window. Sorry Mr body… You can yell all you want but you’ll have to make due with those fat reserves around my beer gut. Go at it!”
To me feeling hungry now feels like “it’s working and I’m losing weight”.
I have really good luck in relabeling what I think is “hunger” as “cravings”.
Usually what we are fighting is cravings.
Hunger is physical; remember you can live off your own fat for days!
Cravings are mental; remembering this difference between the two is crucial for me.
Make sure you are eating enough in your eating window, and are eating enough protein. Also see if there is a rhythm your body prefers. It is way easier for me to end at 3 or 4 in the afternoon and break in the morning than it is for me to end in the evening and break in the afternoon.