Hi, total noob here. Just heard about IF from coworker who is getting great results and decided to give it a try. 36/F/5'6"/CW204lbs/GW150lbs. I'm getting married next February and want to look my best plus I'm sick and tired of being overweight, weak, and exhausted.
I have a few dilemmas - I have a hard time getting to sleep at night, so I drink whiskey with diet Dr Pepper. I love my drink, I enjoy it, and it makes my mind stop so I can rest. I incorporated it into my fasting schedule, so I usually finish my drink at about 2am, get up at 10-10:30 am, go to work around 2pm and fast until 6pm. I'm on day 4 now and the mornings are really rough, I have so little energy and I'm ravenous! I've made it to or a little past my 16 hours every day so far, but yesterday I polished off more than half of an xl pizza as soon as I could. Didn't eat anything else all night, had my drink before bed and reset my fasting timer. When I'm at work I don't eat much so I don't think I really break the bank with calories, and I'm trying to pack better food. I also hate cooking, don't eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, and drinking water is a chore.
All this to say, I suppose, that I hope I'm going to do this right. I'm waiting until my body is used to this process to start trying to incorporate some exercise into my routine because I'm very sedentary. I hope that my energy level in the mornings will start to improve and I won't be so miserable not having breakfast. Any advice, tips, encouragement is very much appreciated!
Answer
Congrats on the upcoming nuptials :)
You have an advantage there, with a firm goal to work towards. 1 year is a really long time to lose some weight, so you can keep adjusting things until you find something that works well for you.
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A few tips:
- Keep talking to you colleague. Encourage each other
- Read the Obesity Code by Jason Fung. It’s not long, and gives you just about all the info and motivation you need
- I’m a keen drinker myself, I would drink nearly every day for the last 20 years, no kidding. Since I’ve started fasting I’ve cut it back to Friday/Saturday. Consider it, talk to your Fiancée about it. I really think drinking until the last minute until sleeping is bad for sleep (even without the caffeine in Dr Pepper), and it has calories that the body needs to burn off first before any benefits start to kick in. Just for this year, and only this year try to adjust your schedule with this. When I drink until the last minute before bed, my cravings go mad the next day, better if the last calorie you consume is something that can keep you full and not so late. There will be other ways to help sleep happen, research this a bit more.
- Don’t worry about killing half a pizza from time to time, but try to minimize this habit. Keep learning about what is in different foods and why it should be reduced. Never be hard on yourself though, there’s always tomorrow.
- Keep going. Don’t give up. This works!