When does IF stop consuming your thoughts?

I’m on day 2, and I hate that any time I try to start new eating habits, I think about food all day. Over-analyzing everything (“Am I eating too much? Not enough?” etc.), not knowing where to draw the line in those gray areas (I should be able to eat a cookie and not feel guilty about it, but I also don’t need to give into every craving), etc. I really struggle with an “all-or-nothing” mentality— I’m either eating whatever high calorie processed crap I want all day every day and not caring, or I’m making better choices but doing this mentally exhausting back-and-forth in my mind constantly. I did really well yesterday (stuck to the schedule, grocery shopped, prepped, and ate a balanced diet), but at the end of the day I yelled at my kids (apologized immediately) and broke down sobbing. I think I just realized my relationship with food is much more damaged than I thought it was, and wrestling with my thoughts all day was so, so exhausting. Anyways— I guess I’m just looking to see if anyone can relate, and/or offer any encouragement/advice. I really want and need to make changes, but damn this is hard sometimes.

Answer

The first week on IF was hard on me. I acknowledged it and spoke with my family about it and my need for their support and understanding. The second week was so-so, and then it went so much better. You need time and more experience. Every day, you will learn something about yourself, your relationship with food, food itself, IF method, etc. Give yourself a bit grace and a chance to catch up. You can totally do it!

Answer

I’ve been on and off IF since 2016. I use it to lose weight almost every late winter/early spring. I call it “shedding my winter coat” haha. Whenever I hop back on, I do it pretty loosely (16:8) for the first week or two, where I don’t really watch what I eat and instead only focus on eating within the eating window. Then I naturally just start eating healthier and making smarter food choices, and naturally move to 18:6 because I find that it just gets easier to do so. I’m currently pushing to 20:4 which I think might be a stretch but I’m down to try, it gets easier through time.

Anyway, that said— I think it’d help you to just ease into it! Don’t think about the food for now, instead just focus on the timing. You’ll realize how much you might naturally munch in the mornings and at nights, which is pretty enlightening. Also, it’s extremely easy to fast when I’m busy, too… when I’m bored I very much obsess over being in my fasting and eating Windows… and what foods I plan to eat, etc etc

Answer

The first week or two was hard but I’ve been doing IF now for about 5 weeks and it has gotten much easier. I started with 14:10 gradually moved to 15:9, then 16:8 and now I’m at 17:7 some days 18:6. I use the simple app to keep track and that has helped ALOT. It takes away the stress of having to mentally keep track, I let the app do the calculating for me and it even sends me notifications when I can start eating again and when to log my last meal and to know its time to not eat anything else. Start small. Start by sticking to the eating window. Then slowly adjust each day one thing or two things on how you’re going to improve on your current ways of eating. This mindset has truly helped me. Full tilt all or nothing will lead right back to square one as it has for me in the past. This time I feel I’m really going to be able to stick to this as I’m making slow changes gradually.