Frustrated perfectionist wanting to start IF - could use the PUSH

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1. Hungry at work? Tough it out. Remember all that junk food you stuffed your face with in 2020? Yeah, that’s your snack today. It’s still sitting on your hips, so dig in.

2. What’s the difference in stuffing your face for 4 hours instead of 3 times a day for 1 hour? Nothing. Control what you eat otherwise you’ll fail.

3. Black coffee in the morning. Pretend you’re a pioneer, or poor, or that you have chiseled abs. Black coffee is the breakfast of champions. YUM

4. Don’t worry about fasting longer than 24 hours yet. Start with something manageable. Get a week into IF and then consider a full day fast.

5. Water is the lunch of champions. It’s your best friend. You don’t need additives. Make some tea if you want flavor.

6. Bourbon, straight, inside your window. Dessert of champions.

IF will give you energy and it will make you feel powerful when you realize you can conquer food and sugar and snacking. You will lose weight, you will feel good. Have fun and good luck.

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100 lbs of weight gain in a year is a large amount. Have you spoken to a professional about this? I feel that more help will be required for lasting change. IF is great but it doesnt solve all medical or mental health issues and can actually be harmful for some. Take care!

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>getting hungry at work - how to cope if the window starts at 5pm?

Just like learning to swim, don’t jump in the deep end. Find a window that’s comfortable for you and slowly work your way up to where you want to be.

>diet during window - is it ok to just only focus on the fast, not worrying about intake/what is eaten (calories/amount)?

When you’re just getting started you can get away with a lot just by shifting all your calories for the day into a smaller window, but it’s certainly still possible to out eat even say one meal a day. Eventually you do need to work on your relationship with food. That doesn’t mean you can’t ever have things you enjoy, but how we ate before got us to where we were.

>coffee in the AM - big routine I share with my wife. We usually have sugar and cream. I understand that is no bueno… But black is ok?

Yep, but there are some folks who are strict water only. Generally it comes down to clean vs dirty fasting. Clean fasting is generally just water only, but some do view black coffee as okay too. Dirty fasting views certain substances to be worth their small number of calories.

>do long fasts (24 hrs+) do something to accelerate?

Only to the extent that they helped you eat fewer calories overall. At the end of the day fasting is just a tool, it doesn’t burn fat any faster than any other calories restriction. Though it does help with directing the bodies hormones to be using fat.

>water additives (like mio) for flavors - still calories? What about the energy drinks like the white monsters?

These get tricky and ultimately may just rely on personal experimentation. There’s evidence that even artificial sweeteners spike insulin and can make you hungry. But if that little hit of flavor helps curb your appetite for something else that might be worth it. For myself, I was a huge diet soda drinker. When I cut them out of my fasting window my snacking hunger basically vanished. I eventually cut them out of my eating window too after I started finding them too sweet. Though I still have probably one a week.

There’s lots of great sparkling water options these days that are flavored without calories or sweeteners. I always thought I didn’t care for the taste of them, but I think that was just my taste buds being used to everything being so sweet.

>alcohol?

I still have it, but it’s rarer. Alcohol itself aside, there’s nothing particularly bad about it, but a rule of thumb it’s best to avoid drinking your calories whenever possible. An equivalent amount of calories in food is far more satiating, where as alcohol is deceptively dense in calories for its volume. You can drink a lot before you feel full.

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So many of your questions are answered in this fabulous talk by Jason Fung. Highly recommend all of his videos but this one in particular is great. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nJgHBbEgsE&ab\_channel=CrossFit%C2%AE

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I’ll try and reply to all of em:

1. I use water, and eventually I learned to manage the hunger. Just takes time.

2. Yes, you don’t have to diet with IF, but it does work a lot better if you do.

3.milk and cream break the fast, black coffee or tea does not.

4. I’ve tried longer fasts, and they were very rough for me, especially since I am hitting the gym 5x a week and dieting. I started at 16/8Now I’m at 18/6.

5. unfortunately mio breaks the fast due to insulin spiking, same with ultra monsters.

6. My current motivation is so I can binge drink beer on football weekends, so yeah.

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Others covered your other questions but look into different herbal teas if you want flavor in your drinks. My favorites are rooibos varieties and chamomile teas because they taste great but don’t have caffeine. You can drink them all day without worrying about having caffeine too late in the day.

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If you look at hunger cycles, like Jason Fung does in the video I suggested below, if you get over the first hunger hump, it dies down after a few hours, and over time, the hormone that stimulates the hunger sensation improves over the days as you fast.

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1. My eating window starts at 5. I’ve been very consistent and don’t get truly hungry until after 4. Common sense would suggest that more consistency equals more appetite regulation. The exception is when I’ve been really active the day before and didn’t eat as much as what I could/should have. Yesterday, for example, I had a strenuous 5 mike hike and probably ended the day with a fairly large deficit. So, it’s 1pm today and I’m a bit hungry. I’m going to drink some coffee and get lost in a project I’m working on.

2. When you first start you should just focus on the window. You have enough to lose that the time restriction should be effective for months, as long as you aren’t regularly eating past being full. You’ll eventually figure out what foods keep you feeling full longer and should focus on those first. On the other hand, do not eat extra to “prepare for the fast’.

3. I drink my coffee black, but already enjoyed it that way. Try what works for you in the long run.

4. I’ve been doing 18:6 since may and have no interest in 24+ hour fasts. I don’t see it as better, a greater achievement, etc…

5. If it has only trace calories then I don’t worry about it. Strangely enough, I drink fewer artificially sweetened drinks now than I did before. I’m not intentionally avoiding them.

6. I still drink alcohol in moderation, as long as it’s in my eating window. Had two beers last week. Had an old fashioned last night with dinner. An advantage of an evening eating window and an iron stomach.

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To your first question: It turns out that after a fairly short initial adjustment period (maybe a couple weeks), most people don’t really feel hungry during their fasting period. The “hunger hormones” quiet down. Your body adjusts to the new schedule. A lot of hunger is based on habitual schedule — your body will send hunger signals at the times when it’s used to expecting food, whether or not it actually needs fuel. Change the meal schedule, and your body will get the new idea fairly quickly.

I’ve experienced this myself. Before IF, I got hungry every four hours. I wasn’t ever one of those people who could forget to eat. I couldn’t make it through a workday without a full breakfast, a full lunch, and at least two snacks, and then I’d still be starving by the time I got home. But now… I have a black coffee in the morning, drink water through the day, work is crazy and I have a million things to think about and do — and suddenly it’s 6 PM and I haven’t even thought about food.

To deal with feeling hungry during the initial adjustment phase: Drink sparkling water, black coffee, black/green/herbal tea (no milk or sugar). Distract yourself. Go for a walk. Chat with a coworker. Tell yourself to wait an hour and see how you feel (most urges to eat will pass). If you crave a specific snack, tell yourself you can have that snack as soon as your eating window opens, if you still want it — “delay, don’t deny.”

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