I am new to fasting and I am wondering if there is a fasting plan where I’d be able to eat a lot in one day or two then go back to fasting for weight loss. I would also like to be in autophagy and I am not sure if I can eat like that and still have it. I am also worried about loose skin. I have trouble not eating a lot once I start and would like a day of time to eat. Thank you
There’s a lot in this post! There are different fasting plans, like alternate day, 5:2, and I know there are a few others. The only thing I need to point out to you is that even fasting plans that have “free days“ on them suggest that you can’t eat anything you want in any amounts. As a terribly extreme example, let’s say you do 5:2. For two non-consecutive days you have very restricted calories… 500 for a woman, 600 for a man. The other five days of the week you eat normally. But there it is… Normally! It’s not reasonable to expect weight loss if you fast for two days and then spend the other five days eating candy and ice cream and hundreds of calories over your needs. It just won’t work. Remember the old saying, “you can’t out exercise a bad diet“. It’s not all about calories, it’s about the kind of food that we eat.
On the other hand, if you start out with a very gentle 16:8 style plan, where you restrict your eating to an eight hour window every day, you might find that you no longer need to eat a lot. If you read through this sub Reddit and the intermittent fasting sub Reddit, you’ll see a lot of stories about people who struggle to eat enough! That’s not everybody of course, and we all have our setbacks, but one of the benefits of fasting is that you reprogram your body to not eat so much and so often.
Autophagy requires multiday fasting, and I don’t think that should be your initial goal. You need to get yourself into a routine that’s manageable and sustainable before you go further.
Regarding loose skin, I agree that is a concern. At the same time I would observe that it’s one of those “good problems to have“ situations. I would suggest not worrying about it right now and starting your fasting program. As you lose weight you’re going to feel so much better! Not just the scale, not just your clothing, but the way you feel as you walk around and live your life. If there is a loose skin problem you can deal with it later.
Finally, and I mention this only because I struggle with it, when I read that you wanted a day where you could eat a lot I immediately thought of emotional eating. I have no idea if this is your situation or not! But speaking only for myself, I do have a problem using food in inappropriate ways. When I’m bored, I feel like I want to eat. If I’m sad, I feel like I want to eat. It was so hard to break that habit! But that’s where intermittent fasting helped tremendously. If you are an emotional eater, and if you can face that head on, fasting will help “reprogram” your body and your mind. Another silly example… In the United States we are taught that breakfast is the most important meal of the day and you should have a pretty big one. OK… That’s fine. But I stopped having breakfast two years ago and I must admit that I simply don’t miss it. In the beginning I did! But many times what we think of as hunger is nothing more than our bodies reminding us “we normally eat around this time“. It’s not really hunger at all.
I realize I have assumed quite a bit about your question and your situation, so my apologies if any of this is inaccurate. Long story short, fasting is great for a lot of reasons. For me it really helped clarify my relationship with food. I no longer “reward myself“ with food… Because really, it’s not a reward at all.