Five weeks and no progress?

Hello, I'm 33F, 5'9 and SW and CW is 165 lbs. My GW is 145 lbs. I've been doing 16:8 for five weeks with only one cheat day. I slowly lost weight and reached 161 lbs about four days ago, and now I'm suddenly back up to 165 lbs the past three days. I cycle 15 kms twice a week and do yoga/pilates 2-3 times a week (I'm recovering from an injury and can't go very heavy right now). My days are generally active as well and I walk and move a lot, I work as a bartender and performer. Since starting IF I've cut way back on alcohol and sweets, my two main vices. My desire to eat other unhealthy food has also diminished, and I eat much less in one sitting now than I ever did before. I normally fast from 10 pm - 2 pm. I felt so discouraged when I stepped on the scale for the third day in a row and found I weighed the same as I did five weeks ago before beginning. Can anyone offer any insight as to what's going on, or recommend any ways to push through this? Is this normal? Because of where I live I already find IF to be "culturally" difficult, as in, so much about where I live revolves around eating and drinking, and I feel increasing my fasting time would be very complicated socially. Thank you all in advance and best of luck in your fasting!

Answer

I am around the same weight goals as you (164-145), but I am a little shorter (5’6”) and older (44). 16:8 just doesn’t work for me unless I am super-strict on counting calories, but I have found that I am too lazy to count calories. The thing that works best for me is 23:1 with some 20:4 thrown in.

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I know you said its hard to shorten your window but I think you may need to if you want faster results. If you are opening your window at 2 pm could you close at 8 pm? That will get you from 16:8 to 18:6 and you may sleep better on an empty stomach (I do)

The other option is to try and move your window to a different time of day (mine is 12-4) before your work shift. I know it’s hard to get used to not eating socially - that’s the hardest part of IF imho.

A jump up on the scale like that is likely temporary. Good luck

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I find that sometimes you need to make sure you’re getting enough calories, or your body goes into starvation mode. I’ve had months where I lost nothing. Because I was working out too hard and having like 1600 calories a day I was also 350# at the time. When I moved it up to 2000-2600. I started losing weight again. IMO Ideally you want to lose weight slowly so your metabolism doesn’t get too used having way too few calories. I think Thomas Delauer on YouTube talked about it.

It could also be a thyroid issue, maybe talk to a doctor to eliminate other causes. Good luck.

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My next suggestion would be to extend your fasting window- 18:6/20:4/22:2 (even OMAD) and eliminate alcohol and reduce your carbohydrates, at least for now. The types of foods/beverages you are consuming are critical to your success.

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I never had much success with IF with regards to weight loss. I found it worked better for maintenance and reducing binge eating. You can still theoretically consume your daily energy needs within the 8 hour eating window.

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With weight loss, I do alternate day modified fasts, consuming vegies and a few water protein shakes during the fast. It keeps hunger pains really low. Whenever I get the grumbles, I’ll just eat a tomato or two and it goes away. :) So far I’m down 6.5kg (14 lbs?) after 26 days.