Results of Last Weeks' Experiment

I did intermittent fasting for a while and felt fantastic.  I've done it several ways.   The one I most enjoyed was an eating window,  I'd take all my meals say between 2pm and 6pm,  and then not eat again until 2pm the next day.   So every day I'd have 20 hours of fasting.   I still ate the same amount of calories though,  just condensed in that small period.   I have not tried to do this post VSG,  I think i might have trouble doing that unless I only did protein shakes.       I've also done alternate day fasting where one day i'd eat normal calories and the next day I'd eat 400 calories,  and cycle those.   That worked well too,  but obviously that was pre VSG and my "normal" days were 2000 calories.    I should try intermittent fasting again,  evenings are the hardest for me because I have a constant urge to snack,  so not being able to eat after 6-7pm would definitely help with that :)

 

Yeah, post VSG its better to spread it out, it would be hard to eat everything you needed to in a 4 hour window, plus you can take advantage of not being so hungry with VSG.

This is my second week of doing intermittent fasting.  I am doing the eating window of 3pm-9pm.  I am still trying to tweak it and do what works for me, but so far, I love it.  I have dropped about 5 pounds, and for someone that  has been stalled (my fault) for months, I was happy to see that!  It isn't nearly has hard as I thought it would be!  I also give myself a cheat day on the weekends to help keep things shook up. 

So you are basically fasting every day for 18 hours a day?

I would think this would slow your metabolism over time. This is my completely unqualified opinion, but my thinking on IF is to give periodic windows of fasting. A regular fasting period is similar to skipping breakfast which we think slows metabolism. The idea would be to give your body a consistent flow of food/energy and then skip that once or twice a week.

I am intrigued though. Can you give us periodic updates? I would love to see how your approach compares to others.

Yes, of course.  I got the idea from my son.  He just turned 21, and he is a male, so his metabolism is MUCH better than mine, but he started doing this type of IF last summer and really dropped some weight.  He didn't need to lose that much, but he ended up losing about 25 pounds. 

I will keep you posted on my progress!

I don't believe this would slow the metabolism.  There are many advocates out there for IF with 4-8 hour eating windows.   I know a lot of people who follow paleo eat this way as they believe that we were not meant to eat 3 meals or graze all day.    From what I've read,  if you're eating 2000 calories over 24 hours,  or 2000 calories spread out over 4 hours,  it still takes the same amount of time/energy for your body to digest the food so your metabolism would be the same.   Obviously we're not eating 2000 calories,  if you eat too few calories your metabolism will slow down (get more efficient),  but I don't think the meal frequency is really a factor,  other than if eating many small meals makes you feel satiated more or less it can be more or less helpful.

Martin Berkhan wrote a good article on the top 10 fasting myths:

http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

 

 

 

Melly, do you only drink water during the times you don't eat? 

ok, so you're not a nutritionist, or a scientist....but, somehow I think you are an engineer....yes?  you are most definitely creative.:)

I think it's great that you can do those kind of 'experiments', and you obviously had excellent results!  Congrats!

Sophie

Very interesting. Last week I too had a fast day and a protein shake only day. I also got good results (5lb loss). The day before my protein shake only day was an unplanned cheat day for me. I'm burning between 300-1000 calories a day during exercise. I tend to eat much less calories on my big run/big calorie burn days. And am hungrier on just my walking day.
My experiment seemed to shake my body up too.