Hi! I am a newbie to IF. I have been doing 16/8 daily for two weeks and have fallen in love with it.
Originally I thought that this would be harder, but it has been fantastic. I feel better, the scale has dropped, and clothes are much looser already. I really see it as a permanent lifestyle. š
Yesterday I did OMAD to help with Thanksgiving overindulgence and it made a big difference. It got me thinking about trying difference fasting routines. I wondered if switching to 18:6 would give me better results.
Which one do you do? Why? Any personal experiences would be great.
My goals are weight loss, regulating hormones, and overall health.
Thanks in advance!
Iāve been doing OMAD for over 4 years. Lost my weight and maintained. Few reasons I like it best ā¦
1 - you can eat a very generous meal every single day to fullness. Fullness is very important to our biology - makes it feel food is plentiful. In this pattern I am never hungry during the day. Zero will power needed. Means my biology is happy, right?
2 - itās very flexible. I can eat breakfast, lunch or dinner (dinner is my normal). But I can switch around on short notice around social / business events. Not in a window like 16/8. In fact I went to Omad after getting home too late to eat in my window on 16/8. I hated the time pressures to finish eating by 8pm.
3 - super effective and healthy. Feel great. Eat healthy foods. Like to exercise. Dr happy with my weight and blood chemistry. Even gum heath improved. Itās very different living a healthy lifestyle naturally - vs having to use discipline to push yourself in these directions.
This isnāt just a weight loss method. Itās how I live every day. Going back to frequent eating and fighting cravings is completely unappealing.
Right now on a 47:1 to 44:4 to lose the excess weight but once I hit goal I see myself using 20:4 to 22:2 for maintenance. Not really a fan of downing everything in a single meal and prefer a 2 meals for variation.
A 20:4 would also allow enough time for a preworkout, commute time to and back and postworkout meal when I decide to bulk.
Iāve only been at it a few weeks, but 16:8 fits me pretty well so far. Itās basically what Iāve done naturally for a long time, except that I was snacking outside the 8 hours before (and of course without the intentionality). So all I had to do was make my morning coffee black and replace the snacks with water or tea.
I often stop eating in the evenings before my eating window ends, so it wouldnāt be hard at all to switch to 18:6. The 16:8 just leaves room for the times when I donāt get around to making dinner until later in the evening.
Iām a beginner as well but I switch between 16:8 and 18:6 depending on how my days are/has been. My āguidelineā is between 12PM and 6PM because itās easy to remember, but if Iām super hungry in the morning or get up earlier, I eat breakfast perhaps 1-2h earlier, or if I havenāt eaten enough throughout the day, I extend it. The fasting duration is more important than the eating window, although papers doesnāt showcase what the ābestā fasting duration is.
Iām normally very fatigued throughout the day (not related to fasting btw) so I want to be sure that Iāve eaten as much as I otherwise would during a ānormalā day š I find that itās easy to accidentally eat too little so counting calories, without obsessing over it, has been a good āreality checkā for me.
Whatās most important for me is that I donāt eat right before bed, which was a bad habit I had. As long as I havenāt done that - I still consider the day successful :)
I have done 5:2 a few times, but didnāt get any noticeable benefits from it besides saving money on groceries lol.
I feel best 18/6 with breakfast and lunch. In practice I canāt because I cook for my family (like to) and supper is the only meal we can all eat together.
So MWF I do lunch and supper, T&Th do breakfast and lunch and let them fend for themselves, weekends usually a late breakfast and teatime meal.
Been doing OMAD for 4 years now and itās just what works best for me.
The meal I eat is dinner as itās the meal mostly commonly shared with others. My eating habits before was never a large amount of food at once, but more of just eating constantly. OMAD has eliminated that. Iāve lost 130 pounds and Iām chipping away at another 30.
Usually 22:2. Or 21:3. I eat a one big meal and some kind of ādessertā later. Sometimes itās not even a dessert, maybe I eat more of the same food I ate earlier or have a protein shake if I didnāt get enough protein from my first meal. If its weekend and I have maybe few beers or something itās more like 16:8. :D