What is your most significant struggle with sustaining the discipline of practicing intermittent fasting daily?
No struggle at all. I started IF years ago and transitioned to OMAD with periodic extended fasting. I’m currently on day 5 of a fast. So I almost never eat more than one meal a day.
If you are really asking how to get better at it the key is not to beat yourself up if you slip. The ghrelin (hunger hormone) cycle will adjust over time and you’ll have less stomach grumbling over time until it goes away for that time frame. For instance I don’t get much stomach grumbling until about 5pm as we usually eat dinner between 5 and 8pm. So just keep at it. It gets easier with experience.
I’m pretty good at sticking to a daily 16/8 plan and I find that once the first few weeks were done and my body adjusted to the new schedule, I stopped feeling hungry in the mornings. The biggest problem for me is that I have little control over when I get to eat my supper because we have young kids, I’m the only one in the family fasting, and there’s always a million emergencies that come up to interrupt my meal and make me late to close my eating window. I’ve been thinking of trying 18/6 instead so that even if I’m late finishing supper some days I’m still under 8 hours.
No. But I try to do it at least once a week so my body remembers how and for maintenance. I usually do 1-2 week stretches and then life gets in the way. I do ADF or 36 hour fasts. Sometimes when I am on a roll instead of eating all day I do low carb OMAD. For women it’s easier to fast in the beginning of their cycle as hormones get cray cray toward the end.
The fasting itself isn’t a struggle. I honestly find the eating part more difficult. When it’s my eating window or my day off I find it hard to have enough meals which will give me all the nutrition I need without blasting my stomach.