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Props on getting to that level! I tell my peers this all the time. They say “I’m old” and I tell them I feel better than I did in when I was 18. It’s all about maintenance and giving your body what it needs.
Fasting helped alleviate my asthma symptoms, helped me to lose 70lbs, maintains my high energy level. To go without food makes it so much easier to go without other things and gives you a strong discipline which translates to all aspects of my life.
I’m 52 and am getting back to the shape I was in in my teens and early 20s before my metabolism slowed down, having spent the last 2 decades a couple of stone overweight, hating it, and trying every diet. Fasting and OMAD have been a revelation. I don’t need to eat 3 meals + snacks to keep my blood sugar levels okay, hunger ebbs away. Weight drops, I don’t fixate on food all day, I feel great. Wish I had realised years ago. So many years wasted.
Like that previous woman’s comment, I’m 51 and have a body that’s better than many women half my age due to IF and consistent exercise over the last 30 years. Strength training, cardio and pushing myself to do things (40 was when I started doing triathlons, 1/2 marathons and spartan races) that most would be to afraid to try. IF is the only thing that got the Covid weight off (I gained about 12 pounds between Jan and June ) and then took off another 10.
My advice is Don’t let age be a reason to stop doing anything. If you haven’t already, start strength training. Hire a trainer to show you how to do it so you don’t injure yourself and never stop. Your 40, 50 and 60+ body will thank you. Weights, some cardio, IF, healthy eating 90% of the time and you’ll be golden for the rest of your life!
My blood sugar is so much more stable on OMAD than it ever was on 3 meals a day plus snacks. It turns out that I had reactive hypoglycemia, I suspect caused by underlying insulin resistance. My body would overreact to food and pump out way too much insulin, making my blood sugar crash four hours later. And it really was a crash. I felt confused, dizzy, irritable, nauseous. My blood sugar tested at 60 mg/dL three hours after a meal, and got lower from there. I could not function until I ate something. So I never thought I could fast.
I was tested for diabetes and didn’t have it. Doctor shrugged and said “Just eat small meals every four hours.” I felt tethered to food — if I forgot to pack a snack, it would ruin my afternoon completely.
I tried OMAD out of desperation to lose weight, figuring I would just suffer through the hypoglycemia. Not a healthy mindset, I know. But then I was truly startled to discover that when I’m fasting, my blood sugar doesn’t crash. It’s the food that triggers the crashes. Without eating, my body chills out on the insulin. Over the course of the day while I fast, my blood sugar slowly, gradually ramps down from 100 mg/dL upon waking to 70-80 mg/dL at 24 hours fasting (about 7 PM). It stays in the normal range all day, and I’m totally functional and stable. I don’t need to worry about packing a snack everywhere I go.
I feel like my body was made to fast for most of the day. And I’m down from 180 to 147 pounds, without even counting calories.
It really is amazing. Fasting is the single most important health-promoting tool I’ve picked up on over the last couple of years. It helps me regulate my other negative behaviors like my sweet tooth and binging. Not only that, but it led me down a rabbit-hole of learning nutrition and other health-promoting food behaviors. I’m grateful.
Thanks for sharing that with us.
I’m 63. I just broke a fast I started 12/17/2021. I lost 18 pounds on the scale and am in onederland! My plan is to gauge when to fast based on two limiting factors:
200 lb weight ceilingblood pressure not to exceed 130/90If either of these are triggered, I plan to fast until corrected. I suspect I may end up well below 200 pounds and with normal blood pressure as a result!
Fasting was the light at the end of the tunnel. It was such a relief to know I wasn’t going crazy to wonder why it felt impossible to lose weight for over 10 years of trying, including weeks of going to the gym 6 days a week. Then I learned about the biochemistry going on inside us, metabolic syndrome, and ultimately fasting.
I had a friend win a weight loss competition and I asked him how…he said he simply goes OMAD. I thought for sure he was hurting himself, so I started researching trying to find the science to explain fasting being dangerous, since that’s what I was told in school, and kept finding more and more evidence to the contrary. At that time, I hit 320 lbs, being my new heaviest weight by 30 lbs, and even after quitting soda 6 months prior.
At that moment, I figured I had nothing to lose. I started cutting back meals and going longer and longer without them. I will never forget the first time I made it to 40 hours… getting out of bed…and the first time in YEARS I noticed my feet didn’t hurt…like at all. Usually my feet would be stiff as hell, even though I was 26. My feet started getting worse and worse starting at 19 to the point I was scared to get old. And here it was gone. It came back after my fast but not as bad. Over the course of 12 months with intermittent fasting (working to a 20:4), and 48 hour fasts once per two weeks, my inflammation got better and better, and lost 40 lbs, even at half the exercising I used to do.
Now I’m 27, and my feet hurting like they did is almost like some bad nightmare. I can be on my feet all day and it’s now very manageable. I feel like I’m 20, most people think I’m 20-22. I’m down to 260 lbs, so I’ve still got 60 more lbs to go but my relationship with food has completely changed, my sugar addiction is gone, and I can just fast whenever I want. My body just switches right over to fat burning.
You just want everyone to feel this great. Truly a blessing. You just simply get your life back.
I kept waking up in the mornings with a belly full of undigested food and stomach acid that made me ill.
I started IF as a way to reduce this, and it worked. And I incidentally lost more than 22kg. as well.
Don’t misguide yourself on having a stronger immune system. If you and your contact set have been wearing masks and/or reducing close contact, that’s enough to prevent flu these last 2+ years. Everyone has had a reduced incidence of flu.
If you think of human evolution, I highly doubt we are every single day. Especially 3x a day. That’s ludicrous to think we are that much. I did a 33 day fast (water only) and had the most amazing experience. The mental clarity, energy and god-like high buzzing in my body I was able to experience by fasting with only water — whew -/ words don’t do it justice. I reversed A LOT of crap I had internally going on. I only had to sleep 4 hrs a night and was NEVER tired. Processing complex information came to me with significant ease.
Congratulations for your hard work. Fasting is not for the faint of heart. It’s mind over matter.
This taught me more than anything how incredible my mind is. How strong I really am and that I can exert control over ANYTHING. I took it day by day and fought through the tough first week and the week after. I kept going, I realized we are not supposed to stuff ourselves to oblivion. How I had destroyed my body with such crap and how I’ll never do that again. It’s enabled me to adapt a fasting lifestyle where I eat for 2 days, fast for 3 and just switch it up to see what works best for me. We are not made to eat every day-period. I don’t care what anyones says until they’ve done a true water only fast for an extended period of time. There is research on it, and what you seek (negative feedback or positive on fasting for this long) you shall find it. Fasting has changed my life and is the true fountain of youth.
I started fasting last fall and tbh I’m struggling to get more than 16-18 hours. I think my record was 22 and i felt really bad. I do it daily, i try to hit at least those 16 hours and it’s usually fine (some days are worse, some better) but more than that i can’t. Any advice ?