Plateau period in weight loss after 6 months of IF

Hi all, this is my first post in reddit so forgive me if this has been asked too frequently. I started IF 16/8 about 6 months ago. Started off 78kg. I managed to lose weight till I'm around 71 after about 3 months. Now I feel like I'm at a plateau stage whereby my weight just couldn't go down anymore as it is stuck at 71kg for 3 months even though I am still fasting everyday. My target is 65kg. Throughout my IF journey, I didn't fully eliminate snacks or larger portion of meals completely. On somedays, I would have heavier lunch or dinner (more than my previous portion before I started fasting) or would have some snacks after dinner on days I feel like rewarding myself. Still, I managed to lose till 71. I should also add that I'm currently not exercising too because my schedule is too hectic. However, I still aim to hit my target. Should I also implement calorie deficits into my plan? I read somewhere that IF works by timing of your meals instead of a calorie deficit and some websites even suggested that calorie cut is not needed. I'm a little confused here and I would wanna hear from you guys on what steps I can do to break from my plateau and hit my target weight. Thx in advance!

Answer

Calories still play a role even when doing IF. The problem with Calories in Calories Out (CICO) occurs when it doesn’t take into account the effect of insulin in the body. What fasting does is drops your insulin levels which allows your body to consume all the glucose in your liver, and then start breaking down fat stores for food. If you overeat what your body needs while doing IF, you just increase the glucose in the liver and fat sources, and if you consume too much, the body isn’t able to have time to burn through it all.

If you have stopped loosing weight (and provided you still have surplus fat stores in your body) it is because your body isn’t able to burn the excess calories that you have eaten stored as glucose or fat during the fasting window. But the great thing about fasting is that you can manipulate what you do to reduce the energy stores in your body or increase the amount of time your body burns the energy stores for food.

As for solutions, the best thing to do is to try something that will work for you and see how it goes. Some options to reduce energy stores and increase the amount of time your body is using stored fat for fuel:

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cutting down carbohydrates (pasta, bread, potato, rice) and sugars (eat more protein and fats instead)
Stop snacking and only eat at lunch and dinner and ensure portions are not that much bigger than usual
Shorten your eating window or start to incorporate OMAD (one meal a day) into your week whether you do OMAD once or more a week, and 16:8 the other days.
If you try OMAD, later on, you might like to try a 36 or 48 hour extended fast.

Calorie counting can be helpful to make us more aware of what we eat, but studies have shown how difficult it is to correctly count calories. So I personally dont think it is necessary.

Answer

Calories absolutely matter here, the whole concept really is that you’re not snacking at all hours and more likely to pay attention to what you eat (as with any weight loss method), putting you in a deficit with less effort than a traditional diet, but you can still end up eating more than you burn.

Technically, OMAD/ IF is how I gained weight to start with lol (even tho I didnt know what it was at the time), Ive only ate one meal a day for nearly 5 years now…problem is that “meal” was everything the takeaway choice of that day could possibly offer until I couldnt move from how full I was, probably 4000+ cals a day, so I absolutely WISH the calories didn’t matter or id still be skinny haha

figure out what your average intake is, and as the other reply stated, either lower your eating timeframe so you unintentionally eat less, or actively see where you can cut calories on your current timeframe. I dont know what your caloric needs are, but lowering by 300-500 should help you start burning fat again