I’ll share mine. I’ve realized how much I was overloading my body by overeating.
Digestion is a lot of work for the body and I was wearing it down by giving it food and making it work almost every waking hour.
I’ve realized that I don’t need to eat as often as I used to. I’ve started kicking off each week with a 36 hour fast, and then try for 16 hour the rest of the week (often with one day off). It’s been crazy how less hungry I’ve been throughout the week!
Realization that hit me today: I function great on OMAD and on days like today where just enjoy the food I want (nothing excessive), I feel like crap. I was being more lenient on the weekends and OMAD Monday - Friday but no more. I feel like crap!
I was doing IF for ~450 days prior to taking a vacation. While on IF, I did mostly 16:8, eating around 1800 calories on average (my bmr), and doing low carb mostly but never restricting anything. I lost -40 lbs and brought my body fat from 45% to ~35%.
Then I went on vacation and, for 10 days, I did not follow IF and just ate everything I could throughout the day. I didn’t track calories, but I knew I was going way over what I usually ate. Way over. All meals were really carb heavy, I didn’t worry about how much or what I ate, and if it looked good, I tried it. I also did a fair amount of walking/hiking as well but nothing crazy and averaged 16k steps a day. A good amount but not nearly enough to balance all the food I was eating.
Obviously, I was sure I put on some weight and was very bloated. I knew the risk and I went for it. I had fun, so I wasn’t worried about it. Today, I completed my first 18:6 fast (started on the plane ride home) and I noticed a change in the day after returning. My stomach was back to being flat and I only gained 1.9 lbs in weight, which I’m sure is mostly from water weight and bloat from all the carbs I ate.
My evaluation is that by doing IF for so long and keeping my deficit small/going for slow weight loss, I turned my body into a fat burning machine. This allowed me to go a bit crazy while on vacation and eat tons of food and have very minimal repercussions, if any. I feel great, eating all that food felt great, and now I know my body can handle eating a lot of food. I probably won’t go 10 days of eating, but a day or 2 on occasion will be no problem.
Years of overeating/binge eating and not able to control sugar/fast food cravings were simply gone in about 2-3 weeks into IF. I was eating way over what my body needed to function (due to mental health) now i eat what I need.
Occasionally I have IF breaks of 24 hours where I eat whatever I want but even on those days I still don’t eat as much as I used to
My body functions very well with 2 meals a day and I can also do OMAD if I wanted to but I like to have a light breakfast and lunch.
My mental health is 1000% better than it was before IF and is not related to the weight loss (14kgs in 6 months), I simply feel healthier
I feel better at 35 than I did all my life
My digestion is calmer and more normal, brain fog I acquired during menopause has cleared I feel 10 years younger, combining IF with Keto I am feeling all sorts of benefits and love my food but can go without quite easily (19:5 most days )
It’s incredible how fast my stomach’s capacity changed. I mean, before IF I ate usually large portions. Just a couple of weeks in IF and now I just cannot finish even half of my meal, I get full more quickly
It reminds me of how incredible our human bodies are. I’m an athlete and I train fasted, it blows my mind how much power our bodies have without putting food in all the time. I’m no longer scared of hunger and I have overcome BED.
I feel like a lot of mine were related to having such a sweet tooth. Artificial sweeteners were making me hungrier and especially driving some of my snacking. Breaking a fast with simple carbs, especially sugars made me ravenous the rest of the day. My taste buds had gotten so accustomed to how saccharine everything was and finally dialing that back made me appreciate flavors and things I didn’t before.
The sheer quantity of food I could eat per one serving, just because it’s there. I do mostly modified AFD and CICO whilst eating a little bit of everything, and have learnt / am learning to listen to my body and to stop eating when actually satiated. Still am struggling sometimes when I cook for myself, as I hate to waste food, and sometimes eat more than I need because I don’t want to throw it away. Yesterday was feasting day, and I really craved some chocolate, but I just ate 2 rows instead of the whole tablet, because, well, it was enough. And that feels great.
I used to feel irritable and low-key sick throughout the day, and constantly think about my next snack/meal. Now my mind is so clear throughout the day and the “sickness” I was feeling has entirely gone away (I think it must have been low blood sugar from being on the carb roller coaster 24/7).
I’ve discovered that I seem to a minor gluten intolerance/sensitivity. It’s a lot easier to notice patterns of how you feel after eating certain things when you’re only eating once a day and there’s a limited amount of foods coming in that can be making you feel like garbage.