I’m new to IF. I did well all weekend through this week, until yesterday. Idk what came over me but I gorged like 1500-2000 calories before bed.
How rough is this in my fast? I like feel bad about it cause I’m really trying to do this and lose weight
Edit: thanks everyone. Appreciate it. Learned this is lifestyle and one set back won’t ruin it. I’ve been all in today and am still on track. No sweat. Great community, thank you!
Fails will happen, like… often. The most important thing to remember with IF is to NOT overcompensate for it the next day, and to just go back to your normal IF. Overcompensating will lead to a binge cycle.
I schedule 5-6 cheat days /month; I’ve been doing IF for about a year. Your cheats will get less and less “bad” over time with IF because your body won’t want them/ bad food as much.
If you’re planning on eating IF forever (which in general, you should be thinking about it as a lifestyle and not a diet to keep the weight off)—it makes no difference. I’m still about 20-25 lbs from goal, but I’ve lost 90 lbs in a year and I eat a range of OMAD to 16/8 to sometimes no IF at all if social situations dictate my eating patterns. My rule of thumb is around social stuff. I try not to break my eating patterns for dumb reasons like wanting a pizza at midnight, but if I can feel that I am very hungry and getting crabby then sometimes I’ll flex. And I don’t turn down events with friends, I just do my best to keep my window without making it hard for everyone else. Like tomorrow I’m changed a lunch date with a friend for a coffee date because I have dinner plans with a different friend already. If I hadn’t had dinner plans, I would have kept the lunch plans and just stopped eating earlier in the day.
Find your balance - life is going to require it if you keep up IF long-term.
LOL! Don’t sweat it! Just get back on the proverbial horse.
Unpopular opinion….I have one cheat day a week. Mind you I’m not going crazy and eating everything in site but if I want a burger or pizza…I have it.
There’s going to be days you eat too soon or eat too many calories. It happens.
Try harder the next day, and remember that most of the success stories on here likely had a few “bad days” too, but they kept at it. You can, too.
Its not much of a setback if you go back to normal routine the next day. I do it all the time, somtimes even go 2 days straight stuffing my face, but the key is to go back to nornal routine right after.
I’ve done that plenty. It will stall your weight loss but recovering is easy get back on the wagon the next day.
The thing you have to avoid is the spiral. Giving up on tomorrow because you gave up on yesterday.
This has gotten me a few times because I’ll weigh myself and think “oh not so bad! Didn’t do that much damage” and that encourages me to do it again. Keep the long term goals in sight. Picture yourself sitting on a beach with a body you’re proud of really enjoying a guilt free cocktail with friends. Way better than a midnight pizza.
I am trying to do 17/7 or 18/6 during the week. Weekends I eat my first meal when I want to, as long as it is at least 14 hours (but I’ve never been a breakfast eater), and don’t worry so much about sticking to the window. And sometimes life happens, I get a last minute lunch invite, etc. it’s ok. I find the all or nothing mentality to produce binges.
I had a fail week, then picked it up again just like I did when I first started IF by telling myself not to stress over what I eat, just get my schedule in place and baddabing baddabomb, lost 4 lbs and still going.
Little blips aren’t a big deal. If I eat late at night, I’ll just count 16 hours until I eat next day.
It happens. Just the other night at like 11pm, I had sudden hunger that hit me and it didn’t help that I was watching a video of a guy eating food. Anyway, I went downstairs and had a slice of chocolate cake, ice cream, and two bowls of beef stew and rice lol. I was happy and I said to myself that I don’t do that often so it’s okay. I went to bed with no regret and I was happy the next day.
It’s fine, don’t let it turn in to a multiple day binge. I give myself 10% surplus days so it averages out to 1 out of every 10 days I’ll go over my calories. This has worked well for me as I’m now 523 days in to OMAD and lost all of the weight. I had uos and downs on the scale but kept pushing through the discouraging moments
I lost 10 pounds in a little under two months using IF, 1500 calorie limit, and cardio four times a week for 30 minutes.
I gave myself a week off and then have been sick for a second week. In this time I haven’t worked out, haven’t practiced IF and didn’t concern myself with diet (didn’t go too crazy either). I haven’t gained a pound back.
Sometimes life happens. Keep the habit, don’t sweat it if you stumble. It’s going to happen.
You must pull one tooth out of your mouth every time this happens! Ha!Seriously, if you keep intermittent fasting over a long period of time you are going to have some bumps in the road. Just get back on the wagon and keep a better watch for potholes.
Its obviously not ideal. Note worthy that 1 lb is equal to about 3500 calories, so you negated about a half a lb that would have been otherwise lost. This is obviously a huge oversimplification of what happens in your body, but overall no harm done, just keep with it!
Don’t beat yourself up. I hammered some ice cream the other night. Like, way too much. My body doesn’t even do well with dairy. It was I dumb mistake. But that was 2 weeks ago and I’ve been doing real ok since. As you progress, your will power will grown and your cravings will subside. Will power is like a muscle. it gets stronger. Good luck keep it up you got this!!
Who decided it’s a mess up? The IF gods?
I’m very loose with my intermittent fasting, it’s the only way I can sustain it long term… For instance, I’m doing 20/4 IF right now. Yesterday my mom made chocolate chip cookies (my favorite) at 1pm. I wasnt supposed to eat til 5. I had 2 cookies. No big deal, log the calories, move on. On Sunday my husband’s taking me out to dinner. I will definitely eat over my calories for the day. I’ll still track them, and eat appropriately the next day. You gain/lose weight from long term habits, not a day. So it 5/7 days a week I eat within my designated times and under my designated calories, long term, I’ll lose weight. Being hard on myself after a “mess up” just throws me right into the shame spiral that triggers my binge eating.
You need to consider intermittent fasting as a behavior change not diet. One thing you might consider is tracking your calories. When I started this I would look at my app, say I’ve already had my calories today do I really need more? No. Ok breakfast is going to be good and just 1 sleep away and go to bed. This works MOST of the time! Every once in awhile I’ll eat some junk food. But I figure each day is about 14% in a week and 86% is still passing
Don’t worry about it! I’ve started going sugar free and it took me an entire year to actually completely accomplish it. Everytime I had a set back I learned what triggered me for that set back and avoided it next time. Throughout the year I got more and more sugarfree and just made more and more progress. Now, I’m completly sugar free and have no cravings anymore and it’s because of all the times I had a set back. Those set backs were important and really helped me learn from my triggers
Also, when you have a set back, you don’t go back to level 1. You go from level 6 to level 5 because you’ve still made progress and still learned from your other exeprinces. Even if your set back is really bad, you still don’t go back to level 1. I think you still stay at level 5 because you still have all that knowledge and exeprince with it. You just stay at level 5 until you’re ready to try level 6 again.
So remember, set backs aren’t bad. They help you get closer to your goal if you use them to learn about what triggered you that time.
I’m reading all the comments & loving the encouragement here because I went over on my intake today, and then dinner got delayed so I missed my usual start time by an hour or so.
Theres absolute joy/comfort in knowing that even if I was late starting I can still fast. I haven’t missed the boat at all.
As people have said. Just jump back on the horse and take it in stride.