(19,M) I am an IF success story. I went from 280 to 160. But, I’m home from my first semester at college. I didn’t do IF all semester and I stopped regularly running (though I did walk 25k - 30k steps a day), combine that with drinking 3 nights a week followed by eating fried foods at a late-night cafe on campus (a ritual celebrated by all party-goers) and presto I gained some weight. My waist was 32 inches at its smallest last December and it inched up to 34 over the summer but now we’re sitting at 37-38 inches of blubbery fat on my frame. I don’t look fat (I think), but it’s disheartening to see my pants get tighter and my jawline (my crown jewel of my good looks) round out. Over break I picked up running again and, much to my surprise, I bounced back running my fastest 10k and longest continuous run in the same run after only 5 runs. “Perfect!” I thought to myself. But, of course, now that the seasons are changing, my ability to run outdoors is getting limited and I hate treadmills with a passion.
We all know you can’t outrun a bad diet as the saying goes so I tried to get back into IF. I had successfully done the 16:8 method in the past with no issues and figured I’d try to get readjusted before I return to school on the 10th. I am STRUGGLING! I’ve failed every single attempt at a fast so far. In order for this to work with my class schedule and my university dining hall’s schedule, I have to do a feeding window from 1pm to 9pm. Easy enough as I did noon to 8pm before I thought. However, I find myself struggling to get to sleep at night, and eventually caving in and eating around 3am and then waking up utterly ravenous around 11am (way too late especially when I go back to classes).
To complicate things further, I am now getting into strength training. I haven’t started yet but I decided to implement a fail-safe I knew I couldn’t get around: making weightlifting a class. I go to a lib arts school and PE classes are required to get a degree so it seemed perfect. I know I have the most potential to be successful now because I am young, have access to a state-of-the-art gym, and my university serves extremely healthy (and chef-made) meals all day long. I know IF promotes autophagy which is great for fat loss and muscle building but I can’t seem to get back into the routine of it. I easily drink a gallon of water every day and pee clear (and often) because of it. I’m following all the tips and tricks I used to follow that made me so successful before but my body seems so stubborn now and I don’t get it.
Could anyone shed some light on what I should do or why my body is being such a dick right now? This seems like the perfect time in my life to get really fit and I don’t think I’ll ever regret it; I just want to get back on track.
Start small, do an 8 hrs stretch for a few days, then 10 then 12, etc. Hold at whatever increment for as long as you need before pushing yourselfto the next one. For example I used to do up to 16/8 and had a hard time increasing. I’m now in mt second week of 20/4 (for reference I’m 34F with lots of bad eating habits). I also took some opportunities to increase my window, example: I forgot to bring lunch one day, woke up later than usual another day etc.
Also may be experiment with your eating window. For me I can’t start my day with an empty belly and the Nespresso coffee imho isn’t good enough to be drank black, so I have to eat soon after waking up and make sure i consume enough calories to keep me functional but not overfed. Good lunch luck!