I’m doing two meals a day. I’m trying to do lunch around 12:00 and be done with dinner by 6:00.
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I’ve been doing 8:00 pm - 12 noon. If I can make it to noon, I can push another couple of hours if I’m busy doing something.
That’s basically what I do. But I have coffee with a creamer around 10:30/11 so that’s when my fast ends. Lunch is usually a bit later, like 1-ish. Like Patrick, if I am busy, lunch can be a bit later or I may even skip it all together and have an even earlier dinner.
Well, I do coffee with cream in the morning. Is that hurting my efforts?
Technically, your fast ends with that cream. There are a couple really informative Youtube videos with a husband and wife who are doctors. The test their ketones (and glucose) every morning after drinking coffee in multiple different ways (both immediately after and waiting an hour). Only black coffee truly keeps the fast. I drink black tea every morning when I wake up because I can’t really handle black coffee. Whenever my fasting window ends, I break it with coffee with a little monkfruit and either cream or a keto creamer (not too much but enough that I believe it ends my fast).
That’s the whole thing for me around IMF…when we eat out or entertain, it’s rarely before 7:30pm and could easily end as late as 11pm. That said, it’s only been a few days for me and dry January generally curtails the socializing and eating out quite a bit. Bottom line is it won’t be too much of a challenge in the short term, but will require some experimenting if I want to do it longer term.
I’m on this schedule too. It probably works 90% of the time. I’d really rather finish eating in the evening by 7:30 or so, so I have 3 hours until bedtime.
That’s partially why I try to eat earlier. Also, last year I was diagnosed with acid reflux. I was hoping it might subside with a diet and weight loss (it’s early on the weight loss side). I’m not getting the acid coming up, but I’m still experiencing the gas and burps.
I don’t go to bed until after midnight. As soon that gets dialed back, I’ll move up dinner time.
Re: acid reflux. Now that you mention it, I have had almost zero acid reflux since Jan 1, and none in the evening.
Fourteen down, seventeen to go.
I’ve been on the board quite a bit today, but it hasn’t translated to a desire for wine. I am hosting an event on Sunday that definitely includes vodka and bubbly. As I planned the menu, taking a night off crossed my mind, but I’ll be having San Pelligrino.
Tonight’s musical selection is Dan Fogelberg’s “Same Old Lang Syne,” a bittersweet story about a traveling musician visiting his hometown and running into an old flame. Dan Fogelberg was singer songwriter with a gift for overlaying his voice into multi-part harmonies. After five nondescript albums, he finally broke through in 1979 with a song called “Longer.” If you were born in 1979 or 1980, let’s just say that chances are you were conceived to this song. You’re welcome.
Fogelberg’s next album, The Innocent Age, was a critical and commercial smash, with “Same Old Lang Syne” as the first single. The song has been on my mind for a couple of days. The old flame asks about his career and the lyric reply is “the audience was heavenly, but the traveling is hell.” Reading up on the song, I learned (today!) that the song is autobiographical!
The last verse is where they part ways.
The beer was empty and our tongues were tired
And running out of things to say
She gave me a kiss to me as I got out
And I watched her drive away
Just for a moment I was back in school
And felt that old familiar pain
The vocal harmonies, and the expert use of subtle musical ritards, brilliantly pulls the listener into the story. They’re no longer observing Dan and his high school crush. They are thinking, and feeling, their own loss. It is beautifully constructed.
Enjoy!
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Hello to day 15. Tomorrow morning is the 1/2 way point. It’s all downhill from the 16th morning!
In week 1, I exercised, intermittent fasted 4 days and ate better than usual and lost only 3 pounds (not much, I’m a big guy)
In week 2, did the same + ramped up the cardio a bit and ate a healthy salad for lunch and lost 5 more.
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Morning of Day 15, I’m down 5.3% of bodyweight. Hoping for an 8.5% drop for the month. 17 more days for another 3.5% from here…
My official weigh in is Monday, so we’ll see if any more progress.
I ‘publish’ this process and the weight loss on my Facebook page and also a family text chain. Why? Because by telling lots of people it gives me that extra incentive to keep going when workouts get tough or I just want that one single glass of bourbon…
24 hour fasts brought my glucose under control. I won’t say that it’s had any other impacts but until I went to 24 hours twice a week my A1C remained elevated. It took only a few weeks to drop it back into normal range. This was after years of Keto, exercise, and what was predominately a 16/8 couldn’t do. I say predominately because it wasn’t structured but I rarely ate breakfast, so eating was only between 1130 and 7:30 most days.
Edited to add, if looking for weight loss benefits I have found longer fasts to be better. If I need to jump start things, I’m usually going to do a 72 hour fast. For me a 72 hour fast every 2-3 months helps a lot for weight loss but obviously everyone is different and what works for me may not work for others.
That’s great! I know so many people who have been able to go off their meds through a combination of IF and keto or low carb diets, it’s extraordinary.
For my part, my labs are perfect, so I don’t need to improve anything there. I am hoping for a bit of kick in the weight loss as well as some autophagy. I am already quite lean, and scraping off the last couple of pounds or % body fat is really tough when you’re already eating well and working out. But there’s some evidence fasting slows energy expenditure for women, whereas it tends to give men a quick and brief ramp up. That’s speaking generally, of course, it’s not at all a given.
Isn’t that with longer durations? My wife had problems with fasts longer than 72 hours. Fasting 48-72 hours have only been beneficial for her. But again, everyone is different and responds differently.
I’m sure that was true for your wife - as you (and the rest of us) say, every body is different, so what’s true for one person doesn’t mean much of anything for others.
For the more general population, it’s not clear - most studies are done on men, so there’s a lack of information across the board. There have been some papers saying even 16:8 isn’t as good for women. So, too, with any calorie restriction, which seems to impact women’s level of energy expenditure more quickly than men’s. Also some indication keto might not be as good for women due to newly identified importance of a particular protein, and the fact that women metabolize fat differently and have different genes turned on and off in response to fasting.
That’s really great, Brian! When you do the 24 hour fasts, do you consume anything besides water? Do you work out on your fasting day(s) or is that a day off from exercise?
still dry, have gone through a lot of Pelligrino, am about to hit the “dreadmill”, at minus 8, am not tempted to run ourdoors today…tomorrow sounds more promising
I have no weight-loss or exercise programs/expectations attached to my sober January. But all this talk reminds me of an anti-diet/anti-exercise regimen I was once put through.
A few years ago I had a viral infection that attacked my thyroid and wreaked all kinds of havoc. The first month I had really bad thyroid hyperactivity, which basically made me feel like I was a meth addict. Jumpy. Twitchy. Heart racing. Always hungry. Shedding weight. Like 20 pounds in 2-3 weeks. Because the virus was the culprit, there was really nothing to do in terms of treatment. Just had to ride it out.
My doctor worried about two things – not getting my heart too revved up and in arrhythmia and not losing too much weight/muscle mass. I will never forget going into his office and hear him telling me this:
“I want you to eat as much as you want, whenever you want, whatever you want. And whatever you do, don’t exercise.” ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
The whole experience was dreadful, but I still get a chuckle when I tell people about my doctor’s anti-diet advice.