Was thinking of adding IF to my CICO routine

Currently losing about 4.5 lbs per month. I'm 28 lbs away from my goal and I'd like to get there a bit faster cuz at this pace it's gonna take a while. What's a reasonable target for a fast weight lost? I know the usual upper echelon is 8lbs but could I push it to 10-12 lbs? Right now I'm at a 650ish calorie deficit and it works well for me. I was thinking of adding a day or two of fasting during the week to shed the pounds faster. Here are my questions: Is a 10-12lbs per month loss achievable and healthy?(ie I don't want to feel like shit the whole time) Could a 650ish calories deficit paired with 2 days of IF per week get me there? How exactly am I supposed to do those IF days? Do I straight up not eat any calories for 24 hours or?

Answer

Most folks who do IF will fast for “X” hours and have an eating window of “Y” hours where “X”+”Y”= 24.

During your fasting time, you would be able to drink water, coffee, tea or a beverage that is zero calorie or close to it generally speaking.

Fasting, is slow as the body needs some time to adjust to the change in eating pattern. Fasting as a weight loss strategy is best described as a marathon and not a sprint. A realistic expectation of time for body transformation through fasting should be a long term approach that may take 18 months or longer. One benefit is that it is a fairly easy concept to grasp and you don’t need to buy special food to do it. So some folks, myself included, choose to do IF because it has few moving parts than other diet strategies, gives flexibility for eating window duration, and generally improves health factors over several different axis eg quality of sleep, improved insulin sensitivity, improved leptin sensitivity, improved glucose levels.

I’m not a fan of calorie counting to be frank as the calorie is a flawed unit of measure but in the model you are suggesting a 650 calorie deficit gets to 3500 (1lb of fat) in about 5 and half days. 30 divided by 5.5, ironically , gives about 5.5 or 5.5lbs per month of fat loss. So instead of losing 4.5 lbs per month you could lose 5.5 lbs per month. Assuming you are maintaining this new rate 5.5lbs fat loss per month, to lose an additional 4.5 to 6.5lbs per month of fat to reach a theoretical 10-12lbs per month you’ll need to convert the equivalent of fat from stored energy to kinetic energy. So the range works out to 4.5x 3500 = 15,750 cal and 6.5 x 3500=22,750 cal.

So if we divide these numbers by avg days in a month we can see what the extra output looks like, 15750/30 = 525cal per day and 22750/30 = 758 cal per day. So if you put in work to burn an additional 525 calories to 758 calories per day while maintaining your 650 calorie deficit you could in theory lose 10-12 lbs.

Unless you are severely obese I wouldn’t try to do any of this. These numbers are theoretical and I do not believe accurately depict how the body responds when pressed into these conditions.

If you have a plan that works, just be patient and stick with that