I saw an interesting post from a success story and she said that she plays it by ear. So some days she’ll do the OMAD, some 16:8 etc. I’ve tried to take that in mind. I woke up starving yesterday and managed to complete my usual fast, but today I was starving again, so I’m not fasting and just trying not to be a pig.
Maybe that will help you?
IF is (IMHO) a marathon not a sprint, take a long view of this, it’s retraining yourself for the rest of your life. Try and think in terms of eating like the person you wish to be for ever ;) Best of luck.
Try to hold yourself to a minimum fast of 12 hours and consider every hour of fasting added on to that to be a win. If you are tempted during your fast, tell yourself that you will have that food item tomorrow and you are a big person and can wait till your next feed. In the meantime, chew some sugar-free gum. If you are tempted to eat early (from hunger and not for a specific item) before your feed time goal, then try to go just one more hour without eating and drink something sugar-free. Often I will forget about wanting to eat by the time that hour is up.
So true! I’m in the same mental place. At first it was kind of a fun challenge - hunger is a mindset, you can keep going! One more hour! Now months in it starts to feel like - ok great, another morning of… nothing.
I started at 16:8 amd have kept that as my daily goal. I often fast much longer but by staying at 16:8 it makes it easy to reach my goal everyday. We are all motivated differently and recently I’ve struggled some with depression and feeling successful so although some might say to set goals to limit or push yourself, I’ve really thrived on meeting and EXCEEDING my expectations. So every time I fast longer than 16 hours (which is 95% of the time), I’m winning. This has really made it easy to stick with and now daily instead of goals I just play it by ear.
I haven’t had a 16 hr day in weeks (due to fasting longer than 16), and then today I was checking my app at 15.5 hours so when I hit 16 I broke fast. Because I don’t follow exact stop/start times, today I ended up eating earlier than normal but then I started my next fast again after a couple hours so now tomorrow I’m going to end up getting a longer fast in no matter what, because I’ll hit 16 hours at like 7am and I’m never really hungry in the AM. So I already know I’ll have a good fast length and all of that makes it all positive for me.
Congratulations, you have passed the honey moon phase. Now, you get to decide if what you want for your future. The thing is that almost everything worthwhile in life tends to get boring with time. The key is being okay with the boredom and just keep going. You get to decide.