Do you think intermittent fasting works because the number of calories eaten is reduced or because of how the body metabolizes the food because of the fasting?
I mean do you guys feel like you are eating just as much but still losing weight?
I’ve lost 10# and Beau has lost #20. Right now, we’re kind of stuck where we’re at. Our ‘fast’ starts at 6pm and we don’t eat again until Noon the next day, so we go 18 hours without food, but can drink water or have a hot tea before bed and coffee in the morning hours. SOMETIMES we have a ‘Movie & Popcorn Night’ but a lot of that gets tossed to the dog; our Beagle’s record is 9 catches in a row, LOL! I air pop it then use a LITTLE EVOO on it and some Seasoned Salt.
At Noon we either have a brunch-style breakfast, or a veggie & cheese wrap and soup. Supper is usually a lean meat, veggies (steamed or roasted) and a salad. Neither of us are ever going to be ‘skinny’ again; we’ve accepted that, but our BP is good, bloodwork always comes back clean and neither of us have any major health issues and just a little arthritis here and there. We are 64 and 63.
Here’s the ‘skinny’ on fasting:
“’Intermittent fasting contrasts with the normal eating pattern for most Americans, who eat throughout their waking hours,’ Mattson says. ‘If someone is eating three meals a day, plus snacks, and they’re not exercising, then every time they eat, they’re running on those calories and not burning their fat stores.’”
Intermittent fasting works by prolonging the period when your body has burned through the calories consumed during your last meal and begins burning fat.
This is a nice article from Johns Hopkins that describes intermittent fasting in much more detail than I'm capable of doing:
For me, loosely following the 16/8 method described in the article, combined with sensible portion control, has worked wonders. I found that after a couple months I literally couldn't overeat at a single sitting without feeling horribly stuffed and bloated. Once I got to that point the weight started to come off at a good rate. I'm getting close to my target weight now, and eating this way has become routine to me.
I made it through holloweeny and Thanksgiving this year without gaining any weight, which is a major accomplishment. Going forward, as long as I keep my wits about me it should be easy to reach my goal and stay there.