I’m back on this sub after about a year because a few people here made me feel bad about struggling with my appetite, but I digress. I’m back.
I’ve lost a bit of weight since I left the sub. I was 204 lbs at 5’1, now I’m 169. I still have a ways to go, but I’ve been the same weight for a while. I’ve become complacent.
I’ve become frustrated with intermittent fasting because even though I can easily master a 24-hour fast, you can do a lot of damage within a small eating window. I’m tired of being the same weight now.
I work night shifts at a physical labor job if that matters. I’m still trying to adjust my sleeping/eating schedule and it really sucks. I feel like I do better if I just eat a little food before I go to bed rather than when I just get out of work because if I start eating, I can’t stop.
As much as I want to jump into a month-long fast, the longest I’ve gone without eating whatsoever has been four days. I want to get into rolling fasts but starting feels impossible now although I’ve fasted before.
It’s also frustrating because when I was at home at night, I didn’t have family members constantly asking me when I was going to eat because they’d be in bed. I just can’t deal with the hovering and pressure with other people around in the morning.
When I’m at home, all I do is eat. Now that the weather is cooling off, I’ll be even more bored.
It’s already Tuesday when I said I wanted to start on Saturday. I did intermittent fasting from Saturday morning to Sunday morning and Sunday morning to Monday morning but I always mess it up with eating too much…like within five minutes of breaking my fast.
I don’t know what exactly I’m hoping to achieve with this post, but I just thought here would be a good place for it if only to get it off my chest.
You’re not the only one who struggles! And for the record, you probably don’t need month long fasts to get to your goal, you may be in the slow and steady category.
As someone who has done a ton of long fasts up to and including a month, I still find it hard and have been like you where I say I’ll start Sunday and then find myself still eating on Tuesday. It’s a natural process and literally everything is working against you (evolution, genetics, your family, society, etc.).
I also sympathize with the idea of wanting to eat everything at home. I can binge a few thousand calories pretty quickly - welcome to the modern world.
HERES WHAT HELPS ME! Get into a good routine. You say 24 hours is doable and that’s awesome. Are you willing to commit to a schedule? Perhaps try alternate day fasting or OMAD. If you do either of those or whatever regimen, decide what you are going to eat exactly during the times you will eat and plan for it.
As ah example, my meal tomorrow will be sausages and sauerkraut - that’s it. This also works if you have gatherings, potlucks at work, family functions (thanksgiving is coming up) or want to go out to eat with a friend or family member.
This means that you have the ability to plan awesome meals that you actually want to eat based on your schedule. If you mess up get back on that horse immediately.
If you cheat or screw up the entire day ISNT ruined and your lizard brain will just say F it let’s just waste this day - don’t fall into this trap.
Another thing you may want to look at is your sleep. Are you getting adequate sleep? Is it quality? You do shift work and that’s always tough. You may want to invest in some blue blockers and wear those for a few hours before bed time, take a ZMA before sleep, have blackout curtains, etc.
When doing research online on prediabetes and diabetes I found that even one night of bad sleep can show up as insulin resistance the following day. I did experiments on myself and sure enough I’d wake up with high blood glucose and want to eat only sweet things and carbs even though I’m a meat and potatoes guy (savory, not sweet). To this day if I get crappy sleep I’m much hungrier and tend to make poor food choices and I know what it’s from. For you it may be similar if you’re not getting adequate sleep.
Lastly on boredom. It’s crazy how much more time you have when you’re not eating, cooking, and cleaning up. Find a hobby, go on many short walks, get out of the house if you can while it’s still warm outside.
You’ve already lost a considerable amount of weight so it means you’ve at least figured out part of the formula, now it’s time to work out some other parts. Try, experiment, and find an approach that works for you!
Good luck!