I’m on Month #2 of IF where currently I am eating OMAD with a special focus on carbs and sugar. On an average day my *added* sugar intake is no more than 5g and my carbs have shifted more and more towards carbs that come from non starchy veggies. I went from needing creamer in my coffee in the mornings to now feeling I wake fully alert and black coffee becomes optional. My dependence on sugar and caffeine seems to have gone away. A huge motivator to look at my foods consumed has been Dr Fung’s Obesity Code as well as just seeing quite a bit of keto loss.
Is anyone else finding their diet changing? What are you associating it to?
I did a lot of shifting from empty calories to nutritious foods. I even keep finding foods that are more nutritious than others and so I switch them. Like for example, I used to eat whole oats quite a bit, and they’re not empty calories, but they’re also not as nutritious as many other foods, so I stopped consuming that. Basically, I try my best to only eat foods that will nourish my body the most. Of course, I also work on making everything delicious and so far is going tremendously well!
Also, I do not have cravings nearly as much as before. And I only get eating anxiety if something happens that stresses me out a lot; and even then I work hard to ignore it and it goes away within only a couple of hours, so it’s not That bad (at least not as before).
The overall changes have been night and day, really.
Probably not what you are looking for but after years of doing IF on and off I developed a binge eating disorder. So now I’m just trying to deal with that issue. I did an aggressive form of IF 2 hours eating 22 fasting which means i was eating between 1200-1500 calories in a seating and that just became the norm for me. So now I can just eat and eat and eat and never be content or full. Which means if I’m not counting my calories I gain weight very quickly.
Appetite correction is real, and it’s so crazy to watch it happen! I went from being a SUPER picky eater (basically would only touch ultra-processed foods made of sugar and flour) to now being sugar-free and flour-free and actually LOVING the food I eat. I don’t miss sugar or flour at all. No cravings for it, besides during PMS week (which super sucks, but I’m hoping that will improve over the months/years as well). With IF, I realized that I wanted real food and lots of protein, but breaking up with sugar and flour has taught me that my body thrives on eating mostly whole foods. I saw someone liken it to fuel grade once; so my body runs on premium fuel now. Lol.
I’ve been IFing for a few years. Biggest changes were overly sweet and creamy coffee to black, and less interest in sweets and complex carbs, less interest in dairy as well. It’s like my body naturally shifted to a cleaner diet. I was never a big junk food person, so it probably wasn’t as dramatic as others, but I really notice now how a less healthy meal effects me. It’s become just not appealing to take from the bread basket, or order dessert after dinner. My portions have regulated as well. It took months and months of consistency to start seeing these small changes, and I don’t plan “cheat” meals.
Just doing IF, 16:8 became 18:6 with random OMAD when I hit a plateau has cut out all snacking. That alone has been huge. I’ve lost my craving for sweets- game changer! I no longer eat processed foods and rarely eat out, partly because of Covid and partly because I have so much time due to job loss- I cook everything. Thinking humans weren’t meant to “graze”.
I realized doing 20:4 or omad I felt like I wasn’t getting much fruit and veg, so I opened up my eating window to add more protein veg and maybe a piece of fruit.
When I’m really cutting out the junk you almost have to look for calories, it’s kinda wild.
I have ALWAYS been a huge sugar addict. Any kind of sugar I wanted. After 2 weeks of 18:6 IF, I took a few bites of a slice of rich tiramisu that my husband brought home yesterday. It’s one of my favorites from a favorite bakery. In the past I would’ve snarfed that whole thing down and been looking for cookies an hour later. Yesterday i took about 4 bites of it and felt like my blood sugar SURGED and it was SO sweet that it wasn’t actually pleasant. I listened to my body when it said, that’s enough, and I put it down. Felt kinda sick after and couldn’t eat anything the rest of the day until dinner. CRAZY. Like, I’m still in shock that that happened.