I started intermittent fasting in October of last year. I quickly lost 30 pounds. Down from 245 to 215. But now I’m really struggling to get back on the program I was on before. I had cut bread and sugar out of almost all of my diet when I was doing it earlier but now I just can’t stay away from the bread or sugar and my fast rhythm is all screwed up. Any suggestions would be appreciated
Baby steps. Start slow, like 16/8 and work up from there. So, maybe just skip breakfast and eat a small lunch. Then push your fasting period to 18, then 20 hours.
If I get hungry, I just drink some hot herbal tea or unsweetened sparkling water. I also know if I just say to myself that if I wait 20 minutes, my hunger will subside. I don’t really get hungry until the late afternoon now.
I never cut anything out totally (I eat little processed though), just made sure it fit in my calories and chose better options for the snacky foods. Instead of packaged cookies, I get something from the bakery (cals may be more, but I’ll enjoy it more and its made with real ingredients), breads I stick to full grain, peanut butter I just eat natural. This needs to be a long term thing for me (2.5 years in maintenance now), so I made changes that work in my life rather than quick fixes
Just take it day by day, you got this :)
It can be hard to cut things out entirely. They make light bread that I eat. I think the Sara Lee version is 45 calories, so half of normal bread. Tastes the same and you can expand your choices a bit while still keeping the calories down.
I would focus on getting into a rhythm with fasting first and then start making cuts where you want. I started at 16:8 and was just mainlining zero calorie artificially sweetened ice tea all day long for the first month or so. Then I worked up to 20:4/22:2, over about two weeks, and then fully cut out all artificial sweeteners. I had a wicked headache and was tired for the first few days, apparently had a little withdrawal from the sweeteners, but other then that it was a very easy transition. Baby steps, celebrate small accomplishments, give yourself a little grace to get back into it. The Fasting Method podcast calls these little things “fasting crutches” and says you can use them temporarily to build up your fasting muscles, I think that’s a good way to look at it. You can wean yourself off of bread and sugar as you go, for now let it be a crutch to help you get back into fasting. You won’t need them forever.