My friend is very skeptical that intermittent fasting is really that different from counting calories. They think that IF primarily works because you’re just eating less calories overall because your window is smaller than average—not because the actual timing/window matters at all. Meaning, if someone ate 1500 calories throughout the day whenever they wanted, they would lose the same amount of weight and at the same pace, as if they ate 1500 calories in a 6 or 8 hour eating window.
I’ve tried to share the data that IF really is different from counting calories in so many ways, but im wondering if anyone can share personal stories, as those might be more convincing.
Looking for stories of people who maybe tried counting calories but weren’t seeing much success, then you changed to about the same amount of calories but eating only in a certain window, and you started seeing results or saw better results (in weight, blood sugar, etc).
It’s a touchy topic on this sub, and I can only speak anecdotally from my personal experience.
CICO (for me) is untenable. It makes me super food obsessed. And I label things “good” and “bad” and “clean” and “unclean”, which is a bummer!
I also remember a time where I was eating “super clean” and only consuming around 800 (meticulously counted) calories a day and running 5 miles daily and NOT LOSING WEIGHT.
Intermittent fasting has turned everything around. I do not worry about my food intake as long as I am in my window. I drink wine with my meals. I still lose weight.
Granted, my weight loss may be slower than someone who’s actively counting something…but I just can’t. It messes with my head. And I’m still seeing success. And more success than when I was following a CICO approach.
Personally, I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, so no worries that I’d eat a whole box of cookies or something like that. But, I do love salty snacks. Intermittent fasting has all but eliminated them from my diet, as I rarely snack now.
I think IF has a lot of great benefits and healing benefits. Like others said, it helps me to not snack and therefore I consume less calories. But honestly if I don’t do IF, I lose the same amount of weight when I consume the same amount of calories as I would in my window. It’s just more depressing lol.
I would love to see the data you shared them.
This is a very controversial topic on the sub. A lot of people do truly believe that it’s all about CICO.
Anecdotally, I have heard otherwise from a lot of people, and I have personally experienced that you can definitely eat a little more the tighter and tighter your fasting window is.
Please feel free to share your info.
I dropped so many things from my diet. Completely stopped soda… no change. Completely stopped alcohol… no change. Added intense exercise twice a week… no change.
Started IF (combined with the above still) and immediately stated losing weight. It’s slow because I also have hypothyroidism, but it’s the only thing to finally make the scale go down. After some bloodwork, I was told I have insulin resistance, and that’s what led me here. My fasting glucose is going down, and I have a feeling my next c-peptide and cholesterol checks are going to be impressive regardless of the scale.
You are not going to find support for your claim. Every single post I see about successful IFers incorporates several changes. They change what they eat and how they eat as well as narrowing it down to a specific window. For a lot of people it’s a reset. They tried doing some of their other things like keto and reduced cals and more exercise, but it wasn’t until they pulled it all together with a time restricted eating window that they stuck with it for long enough to be successful. And I also see a lot of posts for people asking for support and rallying because they did it and stopped and want to resume. Your best bet is to do a self experiment. If you were already eating 1500 cals per day and your weight is maintained, then start limiting yourself to a time window and see if you drop any weight.
There’s an excellent podcast called Intermittent Fasting Stories and it’s all people telling their story about IF. https://open.spotify.com/show/6n1COy5QmVDdNK61uCo2Fd?si=HiM6vW0WTH273xfyZxYQew. It’s available on other podcast sites as well.
Your buddy is right they’ve done many studies that people lose the same weight when calories are equated. Look up biolayne in YouTube. It’s probably that you are actually eating more when you’re not fasting. It’s easy to slip in 100 calories of coffee creamer, a soda, etc. When you’re fasting it’s pretty cut and dry where it keeps you from slipping those in outside your eating window.