I have been trying to do intermittent fasting for past 1 yr but keep failing. I lost my father 6 months ago and it has triggered crazy binge eating, especially over weekends when I am not working. I have been on ADHD meds for past 1 yrs as well and they help a bit to stick with intermittent fasting. But my food cravings are intense and I dont have any mental strength to control myself. I see everyone on this thread overcoming their issues and feel very defeated that I just am unable to make any progress. Usually, I can do 20:4 with some tea+creamer in the morning (dirty fasting). But on bad days at work or if I couldn't sleep well, I binge eat. Once I binge eat, I give up the whole intermittent fasting altogether. I am able to do only 3-4 days/week of 20:4 or 18:6 and rest is normal eating. I need to lose around 60 pounds.
1. For those that lost substantial amount of weight, how did your journey look?
2. How can I improve my mental strength to fight food urges? I feel this is more of a mind game issue.
Thanks for being an amazing community!
Answer
This is a lot for you to deal with, and I have not been in the same position as you, so I’ll say what works for me and what my situation is.
- Eating is one way I respond to stress and/or boredom.
- Keeping busy distracts me from eating, I find weekends difficult if I have nothing to do. I go for a long, boring walk to distract myself.
- I don’t believe “everyone on this thread overcoming their issues”. It seems that way because we each control what we look like online. It isn’t true.
- I lost 10kg (22 lb), not a large amount, over two years.
One big lesson for me is that I am not strong, I do not have the mental willpower to straight-up resist hunger. Instead, I have learned about myself, if I am bored, I eat. Therefore, my goal is not to not eat, it is to stay busy.