I tried IF for around 6 months 3 years ago. I lost around 20 lbs doing 16:8. But even though I snacked within my window, I would feel so guilty. Anytime I got hungry and ate, I would feel like a failure. I recognize this isn’t healthy, so I stopped IF. But now I’ve regained all the weight I lost plus 10lbs. So I want to start IF again, but I don’t know how to do it without feeling bad about eating. I considered getting a dietitian, but is IF considered an eating disorder? Would I get yelled at by a dietitian? I just want to find a way to feel at home in my body.
Why did you feel like a failure if you were only eating during your window and you were losing weight? You were obviously doing something right. I mean, that’s what IF is about, only eating during the time frame you give yourself.
This is not an eating disorder, it’s a disordered mindset. Nothing about the eating, itself, was wrong, you just felt like it was. You convinced yourself that it was.
So, you have to change your mindset. As long as you eat within your window and are not overeating, you are doing nothing wrong and there’s nothing to feel bad about.
You ate when hungry (so you ate intuitively), within your eating window, and you lost weight. That’s what most people strive for.
If you stopped eating three hours before bedtime and then did not eat until 10:00am you would be doing 16:8 Intermittent Fasting and also following the oldest dietary advice given and getting a solid eight hours sleep as well.
I don’t see how any dietician who follows the science would be able to take umbrage with that logic.
After that it’s just a matter of choosing healthy options during your window.
The question about a disorder is at the back of my mind, but the rest of my mind is saying “I’m generally hitting my daily macros each day, within a specific window, so I’m not actually depriving myself of anything”. Thus I don’t consider it a disorder.