Feeling discouraged. I just finished 2 weeks of ADF and making sure I didn’t go way over my maintenance calories on eating days (maybe 200 - 300 over on a few days, with 600 calorie meals after each 24 hour fast). I got on the scale this morning and my weight was up a few pounds. I’ve tried different kinds of fasting on and off for nearly a year now, like OMAD, 20:4, and my weight stubbornly stays exactly the same each time, no matter how hard I work. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong.
Please, if you have had experience with weight plateaus with fasting, please share your story. I really don’t know what to do next.
First off, 2 weeks is not very long in this game. I feel like it takes at least 4 weeks to get into the proper swing of things and get your body adjusted. ADF is pretty advanced stuff. If you’ve been able to stick with it, good on you. That’s not easy. I had to work up to it over months.
ADF and eating at TDEE plus a couple hundred calories on eating days is still a 40% calorie deficit. If you are eating at a 40% deficit and not losing weight something is seriously wrong.
I see you mention 24 hour fasts. ADF is usually done with something closer to 36 hour fasts and a 12 hour eating window. You might try doing 36:12 instead. It isn’t that much more since the 36 hours will normally cover 2 sleep periods.
The other question is about diet. I’m insulin resistant and if I eat simple carbs, even staying within my calorie targets (TDEE+20%) then I will not lose weight. This means no cookies, cake, white bread, pizza, white flour pasta, and the list goes on. I am not trying to diagnose you, but I will ask if you eat a lot of simple carbohydrates in your eating periods. That could be working against you and eliminating them could be a good thing to try.
Give your body time to adjust.
I had done IF before so I knew what to expect, but when I started again after many years, I didn’t see results for nearly 3 months. Hopefully you don’t take that long, but results aren’t always quick.
Do you weigh yourself the same time and way every day?
On a low calorie (1000) fasting day I can easily drop a pound or two. Then it creeps back up as I eat more normally.
Unfortunately I think you are probably eating more calories than you think. Or drinking them.
If you’re 250 calories over on maintenance days over 7 days that’s half a pound.
Maybe really track your calories one day and what you’re eating. Then try switching in more fruits and veggies?
I have had great success with OMAD over the course of months, but I have had weeks where nothing changed. Losing weight is something that happens by changing your lifestyle, not dieting for a couple weeks. Try picking to whatever is easiest for you to implement and stick to it for a month or two to see how it happens.
Also look at the calories you are taking in and the type of calories you are taking in. Calories from alcohol and sugar will not be as good as calories from vegetables and meat.
I go relatively hard Mon-Wed… lots of coffee with whipping cream , diet pop, kombucha … sunflower seeds if desperate and maybe 4 or 5 pieces of meat or keto cracker and cream cheese style dip from Costco… 45min to an hour workout morning and night.. half of which is cardio on medium intensity… night work out is purely to avoid wanting to eat… a few beers maybe even that have 2grams of carbs max
Thurs and Fri add back salads .. sat and sun eat larger meals but still only at supper time as not hungry rest of the time… maybe some rockstars as well
Down 22lbs in 37days…
Only have gone 2 real full days of just water, coffee and maybe a bone broth drink… rest of the time I probably have minor food .. bought glucose monitor, blood pressure monitor and ketone monitor and measure morning afternoon and night…. interesting to see how blood pressure has gone from slightly elevated to below… plus use body composition scale daily so it keeps you honest as you look at it daily and don’t want to see it go up so night snacks are gone… just liquids