I am borderline overweight/ just over normal BMI (BMI is \~25). I find that I don’t lose weight (or very very very slowly) doing 16:8 or even OMAD. Can I get suggestions on what fasting protocol do people in my range follow to lose weight? & how long woult it take to lose weight on this protocol? My goal is to get to the lower end of normal BMI (BMI \~20 would be good). Thanks!
Are you tracking calories? It doesn’t matter how short your window is, if you’re eating above your TDEE, you’ll stay the same or gain. IF is just an easier way to cut out calories by cutting down on meals, still super easy to over eat though
I did an 18:6 dirty fast (coffee with almond milk in the morning) and ate roughly 500cals under my TDEE and lost 60lbs, back at maintenance and stayed the same for about 2.5 years still doing 18:6
Most weight loss is slow. People seeing quick changes are just seeing quick changes in water weight or other reconfigurations. You have to be careful to become too fixated on this number. Better to also take pictures and measurement. Many times peoples weight doesn’t change but those can.
In my experience loss isn’t linear. So if you lose 10 pounds the first month expecting that to continue month after month can lead to frustration. I really advocate for less scale stuff. Daily and even weekly isn’t really going to show you much. The opposite is true. Some people start something and see very slow progress at first but again that isn’t to say that it isn’t working.
So if you put yourself into a 500 calories deficit a day and that is 1 pound a week of fat lost. If you do that perfectly for a month that is 4 pounds of weight. I can see an 8 pound swing daily in water weight so even in a month that weight loss could be easily masked by normal variations. So what if you lost 3 but that day you get on the scale you are up 5 pounds in water weight. Your scale will show a 2 pound gain in a month when you actually lost real weight. Again the number on the scale does not tell the whole story.
So do all the regular things. If you know you are eating in a deficit by counting calories than just continue what you are doing. If you aren’t then you need to make sure. IF is just a means for you to control your intake. Sure fasting has benefit but if you are eating 1000 calories more than maintenance a day you are not going to lose weight even if you IF.
As I get closer to my goal weight, it gets harder to lose weight- that’s very normal.
I worked my way up to 23:1 OMAD and was losing weight with that plan, but then I stalled for 3 weeks. I just switched this week to ADF (alternate day fasting) where I fast Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and eat in a 4-6 hour window on my eating days- no more than 1500 calories on those days (with the occasional higher calorie day when I am social).
Within 3 days of this plan, I finally saw the scale start to move again (just a tiny bit). I will re-evaluate every week to decide if this is still working, if it still feels good, etc. but changing my fasting protocol is what has helped me.
If OMAD is comfortable for you I would stick with it and look very closely at total calories. As others have said, keep a daily deficit and ultimately you’ll lose wait, but it won’t be as linear as you’d expect. I find the app Happy Scale is great because it smoothes some of the daily fluctuations, and measurements are helpful to show change when the scale isn’t cooperating. If you’re really stuck for awhile consider throwing in a fast of 24-48 hours and then return to your regular IF schedule.
Best of luck, it takes a lot of persistence and patience when you’re close to goal weight.