From personal experience I can tell you that if you have any kind of unresolved eating issues (which it sounds like to my amateur self), fasting will do nothing to resolve anything. You have to face your demons and address whatever causes you to eat the way you do.
If I had to guess, the reason you’re not losing weight is a combination of your menstrual cycle, and stressing over weight loss (I don’t buy the “curiosity” explanation). I don’t know what your fasting protocol is, but if you’re doing something like IF or OMAD or ADF, I’m guessing that you overeat during your eating windows at least some of the time.
Just wanted to share some personal insights:Fasting and weightloss worked well for the initial months. Then somewhat plateaued. Then I started gaining weight again.
So what happened?
I thought while doing intermittent fasting I could eat anything I wanted during the eating window, and still lose weight. Because that’s the what I initially experienced. But, and it’s a big BUT, during those first few months I was very active doing some running, lots of walking and hiking daily, and otherwise kept active. This in combination with doing intermittent fasting made me lose around 25 pounds in just a few months.
Then changed jobs during the summer, became a lot less active, and what happened? I kept eating candy, crisps, and garbage food, thinking I would keep dropping. But NOOO, I actually started to gain weight.. 😳
So while fasting, work on cleaning up your eating habits slowly and also add movement and activity slowly. The combination of doing all three is a weightloss powerhouse!
My personal recommendation for eating:Eat clean = no processed food. Limit carbs, especially wheat flour, pasta, refined sugar, and candy. Eat more animal-based and foods rich in nutrition. Drop all use of vegetable oils.
Oh, and keep fasting! There are lots of other benefits too. 😊 Good luck!
If you’re fasting to lose weight, what else are you doing? Are you working out, building muscle, eating clean, eating less, etc.? If you’re just fasting, you likely need something more.
The majority of the first 15 lbs you dropped were likely water weight and your body making a quick adjustment to the sudden decrease in calories. It’s now more adjusted to a low/no cal diet and the weight isn’t going to come off as fast.
Personally, I like fasting as a support in weight loss but have had very limited success with just doing any of the 16:8, 18:6, etc. all the time or even 24 hour fasts 1-2x a week without doing anything else. But it’s worked great when combined with CICO, weight training, and cardio.