Need advice to begin IF

I'm a 20 year old woman wanting to lose some of that freshman fifteen (or twenty five, rather). I have read about intermittent fasting and would love to hear about some of your experiences. I also have some questions and would appreciate some advice. I am thinking about doing the 8 hour window and the 16 hours of fasting. Do you think this will be enough for steady weight loss? Should I continue to eat at a deficit during this window? Additionally, is IF something I have to commit to for the rest of my life or can I transition to eating at more normal schedule after I loose the weight (of course I would continue to eat well!). I'd appreciate any advice :)

Answer

From my personal experience the 16:8 has been very workable & in the 3 weeks since I started, I’m seeing/feeling non scale victories.

These first few weeks has been getting used to the eating window of 8 hours. That’s the 1st phase.

My next phase is tightening up the “what goes in the mouth”. I eat healthy 75% of the time now, yet, I could add more items like salad.

Exercise is key…not only to create a calorie deficit to burn more calories but also to keep you in that lifelong habit.

Water - go nutz on drinking water 😁 not all at once, but throughout the day. 1/2 your weight in ounces.

As far as lifelong…that’s something you’ll have to determine…it’s not a bad way to go IMHO. See what works for you…what makes you feel your best.

You got this!

Answer

16:8 is absolutely the way to go, do it consistently but take advantage of the flexibility of shifting the window around if you have social events. I usually finish eating dinner at six but if I’m going out and having dinner and drinks and I finish that at nine then I just don’t eat again until noon or one the next day. I’ve been doing this for 2 months and most of my fasts have been 16 or 17 hours, but a handful have been 12-15.

That’s still a great fasting length as long as you’re eating the same amount of food during your feeding window as you would be if you fasted for 16 hours. So, my advice is that if you end up with a day that your fasting window is shorter, do not beat yourself up about it. Just eat as you normally would and your daily calorie intake is the same as it would’ve been if you’d fasted for 16 hours. Master the 16 hour fast and also try to not eat in between meals. That is difficult for me because I am very active and don’t like to eat enormous meals. So, I might have one snack per day plus lunch & big dinners But if you can just eat lunch and dinner the weight is going to fly off if you do this for at least a month.

You can do it!

Answer

Oh, and you’re gonna have to really limit how much alcohol you drink. I don’t know if you drink very much/at all, but eliminating alcohol usually helps people drop 5 pounds within a month. If you still want to drink socially, keep it to a couple low sugar drinks and don’t eat a pizza afterward.