2nd week of IF
2nd week of IF
Schedule: Started with 16 / 8, fasting 4 hours after dinner, 8 hours sleeping and 4 hours after waking. Trying 17 / 7 this week, delaying my first meal to 5 hours after waking.
Meals: Started with 3 meals in the 8 hour window. Lunch and dinner were at normal times, with breakfast delayed. This week I am combining breakfast and lunch and leaving dinner at the usual time. Too soon to evaluate, but so far it seems like a good plan.
Snacks: With the compressed feeding window, I haven’t found a need for snacks. The main reason I wanted to try IF was to eliminate the after dinner snacking. Weather it is a physical effect of fasting, or just a mental effect of not having that option, I haven’t needed the evening snack.
Fasting rules: I have seen a lot of videos and comments discussing what is allowed or does not break the fast, during the fasting period. Even Dr. Jason Fung allows bone broth and a couple teaspoons of cream during the fasting period. I am not sure if this is based on actual science that they do not slow down the benefits of fasting, or just a recognition that not allowing them would rule out fasting for a lot of people. I had been checking my blood sugar prior to trying IF, just as an experiment as to how different foods affect me. I saw a much larger increase in blood glucose after a tbls of cream in my coffee or drinking homemade chicken broth (no vegetables) than from a low carb meal. For this reason, for now, I am only drinking water, maybe a black coffee, during the fasting period.
Ketosis: I have never seen much of a reaction from keto sticks. Even so, I assumed I was in ketosis based on eating below 40 carbs and seeing articles or videos saying the sticks are not accurate. I have been following Atkins 72 for 3 weeks prior to starting IF last week and I now see the sticks turning purple. I am not sure if that means I was not in ketosis before, if the change is from Atkins 72, from IF or the combination. Weather or not I had been in ketosis is not really important, as I had lost a lot of weight either way, but it is curious and I am there now.
Comment: It has only been a week, so probably not fair to try to evaluate results but so far so good. The goal was to eliminate the after dinner snacking, so at least for the past week, it was successful. I can say I have not seen any other benefits yet, but I had already reached my goal weight, so I am not sure if I should expect to lose more just by adding IF. While I do some light exercise, I do not do any high intensity exercise so the benefits such as regulating blood sugar, hormones, etc., may not be obvious.
Last edited by dcc0455 : Fri, Sep-15-17 at 17:23.
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