My main meal has not changed. I always ate fairly healthy.
The success comes from snacking less.
You wait to eat say some chocolate till your eating window. Then after you have your meal you feel to full to even have it.
Similar to saving money, by not impuls buying, but have another sleep/think about your decision.
For me, it is definitely a full package. IF and healthy eating. After 3 weeks, I started doing CICO.
Before IF, my strong will was almost not existent. I could promise myself not to eat this and that or not snack between meals or during a night when I couldn’t sleep and I couldn’t stick to it. It was very demotivating, and I lost hope that something actually would change, and one day, I would lose weight and be happy with my eating habits.
This first fast from about 5 pm to 1 pm the next day was crucial for me. When I started preparing my meal, I thought that I could actually do it.Yes, it was a healthy meal, and so are the others. I think cutting sugar and simple carbs was very beneficial for me.
I finished my 70 hours fast today. Before IF, I was not able to survive two hours without eating or drinking something with calories in it. I really don’t think it’s my strong will, but this ability is connected to fasting.
When I started IF I also went low carb because of what I had learned when I started looking around and paying attention to what I was learning. For me it’s about the numbers coming back from the semiannual blood tests. Weight loss was a happy coincidence. True benefit was being no longer pre-diabetic. Over four years I lost 70 pounds and 4 waist line inches. Over the last year, after relaxing carbohydrate discipline, I have gained back just under 20 pounds. I’m still doing mostly IF 20-4 or OMAD some days randomly, but only because it’s a good habit for me.