Hi, I’d love to try IF for weight loss. But when I wake up, I feel extremely nauseous (among other symptoms) and the feelings worsen until I eat breakfast. It does go away after several hours if I ignore it, but I can’t spend several hours nauseated each morning.
Also, if I don’t eat in the evening, I sleep terribly, which is not acceptable as I already struggle with CFS and must be awake at my job.
So I was wondering if anyone has had success with mid-day fasting, like eating just breakfast and dinner but skipping lunch? I normally feel very hungry all day, especially on a workday, but I don’t see any other way to try IF.
Have you tried a (e.g. 7am to 5pm) midday fast? How did it work for you? Thanks.
While technically it’s not an intermittent fasting, 90% of IF weight loss comes from reducing calories. Sticking to 16:8 or whatever windows is just a framework which helps with that, because you are less hungry in that 8 hour window.
If you do 2 meals a day without any snacking in between and it helps you eat less - you will shed the weight.
Is it going to bee as efficient as 16:8? Probably not. But you have to start somewhere, right?
The reason people usually skip either breakfast or dinner is because it puts those hours together with the time you’re sleeping to equal a longer fast.
In the scenario you mentioned, your longest fast would actually be from 5 pm to 7 am the next day, which is 14 hours (assuming you can finish dinner at 5 pm). That’s not bad, but the biggest benefits come after 14 hours when your body starts to burn fat for energy. If you can push your dinner a little earlier and your breakfast a little later, you could get to 16:8 pretty easily. Then you wouldn’t have to skip lunch either, or you could have a late lunch/early dinner at the end of your eating period.
You can have non-caloric unsweetened beverages during your fast, in fact it’s recommended to keep hydrated. So you could try drinking water, black coffee, or unsweetened tea and see if that helps stave off the morning nausea.
For best results, you should feed and fast in one contiguous window. If you are breakfast and then dinner, this would essentially be a 12:12 routine. It’s okay if you’re just starting out but ideally you’ll want to move to 16:8 or 18:6 to really start seeing results.
Eat breakfast at 7am, dinner at 6pm at first. Make that 6pm meal heavy on protein and fat and zero carb if you can. Then just start pushing breakfast back a little, and move dinner up a little each day, maybe 15 minutes each day each meal. Your body needs time to adjust, but it will.