I would love to know if my increasing the fast window to 20hrs(+) has caused my plateau of several weeks after one successful month at 16:8, nothing for many weeks at 18hr+- So what is your experience with weight loss and the fast window you choose? :)
edit- thanks for advice to mix fasting protocol, its strange cos noone mentions this in their successful posts, they usually just say, one year or whatever at so and so regimen eg 18:6
Personally, I mix it up.
Monday through Friday I stick to 20:4 99% of the time. I will break early if I don’t feel well or onetime unique social engagements, weekly happy hour doesn’t count lol.
Weekends I strive for 20:4 but it’s often closer to 16:8. Reasoning is two-fold. 1) I workout in the am instead of afternoons 1b) I will occasionally do endurance cardio activities. 2) I don’t want to entirely deprive myself and avoid social gatherings. I will also often make more elaborate meals on the weekends.
I personally have had success using a combo of these protocols. It allows me to still do my workouts fasted. I pay close attention to my macros especially since I lift heavy. I haven’t seen any reduction on my lifts, % muscle, or 1RM’s rather they’ve all improved greatly! I’ve been considering tossing in an extended fast here and there but haven’t made the jump yet.
I’ve had a lot of success with longer fast periods that I mix. I didn’t experience any success at all with 16:8 and started aggressively losing weight when I started OMAD. I do OMAD every weekday and on some weekends. Some weekend days I do 18:6, but I notice I lose less weight when I do this. Then I also do a 72 hour fast about every month, but am trying out doing weekly 48 hour fasts instead. I did plateau once, but that was because of vacation when I relaxed all my schedules. It took about 2 weeks afterwards to start seeing any progress again.
I have lost 36 pounds since June 7th .
I started Keto and then moved onto OMAD after that for the rest of June.
Then in July I did one 72 and rolling 48s. Weekend is relaxed still OMAD.
So far in August I have been doing 72 hour fasts. Weekends are relaxed but I still do OMAD.
No stalling so far 🤞🏻
Good luck
I always thought I was “pushing the normal” by doing a longer eating window on the weekends. But I recently read Feast. Fast. Repeat. By Gin Stevens and she talked all about varying the windows and changing it up. Alternate day fasting or longer windows every so often. Lots of reasons this works, one is that when you eat more your metabolism ramps up. So if you do that every so often you’ll keep things humming along.