Quick Guide To Intermittent Fasting

A Quick Guide To Intermittent Fasting

Intermittent fasting is simple. Because of how simple it is, people find it tempting to overcomplicate it. If you’ve never heard of intermittent fasting before, or if you’re overwhelmed by all the information out there, this guide is for you.

What is intermittent fasting?

Intermittent fasting is the practice of not eating food during a certain portion of the day. Each day is divided into a fasting window and an eating window. For example, you might fast for 18 hours and eat during a 6 hour window. This is referred to as an 18:6. If you practice an 18:6, your days could look like this:

  • Fast from 8 pm to 2 pm (18 hours)
  • Eat each day between the hours of 2 pm and 8 pm. (6 hours)

You pick the window length, and the hours of the day the windows are in. You could choose to do a 14:10 and eat between 8 am and 6 pm every day. Some people prefer eating in the morning, some in the afternoon, some at night. Intermittent fasting is very flexible and can fit into almost any lifestyle.

How To Get Started

Start out with an easy window, just to see how you do with fasting. The shorter the fasting window is, the easier it will be. Most of us are used to eating all day without any restrictions, so keep this in mind. The main temptation will be to make intermittent fasting very difficult to hasten results. Resist the temptation.

  1. Look at your current life and think about how intermittent fasting could fit into it.
  2. Experiment with a short window and see how you do with it. When you can be consistent with a short window, move to step 3.
  3. Push out your window slowly and let your body adjust to the window before you move it out further.
  4. Once you find a window that works well with your life and is helping you lose weight, continue to use that window.

Remember to keep the end in mind. Think about what you want your life to look like in maintenance mode, and make your weight loss mode as close to that as possible. Some people make the mistake of restricting themselves very heavily, making the fasting window longer than they want, and then hit their goal weight only to gain it all back because they go back to eating how they ate before they lost weight. This is about making a permanent change in lifestyle. If you’d like to see how I practice intermittent fasting in my life, click here.

What To Eat

Eat whatever you want. I am an advocate for people allowing themselves all the foods in order to gain self-control. That is what worked for me. When certain foods or food groups are forbidden, they become irresistible, which leads to overeating. I personally eat a relatively high carb diet and have throughout the entire process of losing weight and keeping it off. A typical week of meals for me might include:

  • Spaghetti with meat sauce
  • Rice and beans
  • Man pleasing chicken and roasted vegetables
  • Breakfast for dinner (eggs, turkey bacon, grits, toast)
  • Tacos

Each person should decide for themselves what foods they want to eat. Here are some basic guidelines that have helped me:

  • Stop eating when you’re full.
  • Eat only when you are hungry.
  • Notice how you feel after eating each kind of food and adjust your eating based on that.
  • Resist the urge to stress eat (usually disguised as the desire to snack.)

Implementing Your Windows

Keep your window at the same time every day, so that your body gets used to this pattern. This minimizes hunger and makes it easier to stay in the habit of intermittent fasting. Some people choose to adjust their window every day based off on when their last meal ended the day before, but in my experience, this overcomplicates intermittent fasting and increases the difficulty needlessly.

Consistency and Patience

Many people get in a hurry and want to drop weight fast with intermittent fasting. Resist the urge. Slow and steady wins the race. First, get consistent with intermittent fasting. This means you’re eating only during your eating window. The second thing is to consistently track your weight. ( Go to this page for instructions on how to track.) If you are doing both of those things, then you can adjust your window as necessary until you find the window that will help you lose weight. This is different for every individual. Some people do well with a 14:10, and others don’t see any weight loss until getting to an 18:6, while others find that one meal a day (OMAD) works best for them. Experiment and see what works for you.

Expect to see some results after six weeks of consistent practice.  At that point, seeing about one pound of weight loss per week on average is a reasonable expectation if you’re obese or very overweight. If you’re near a normal BMI, it might be fractions of a pound each week on average. In any case, every individual loses weight at their own pace. Stay focused on consistency over time and only do those things which are sustainable for your life.

Remember: Intermittent Fasting Is Not Magic

It is entirely possible to gain weight because you’re overeating in your eating window. The real advantage of intermittent fasting is that it prevents a lot of emotional eating and creates self-control around food over time with consistent practice. The key overall, as with any weight loss plan is that you must burn more than what you’re consuming.

If you’re not losing any weight, here are some things you can try:

  • Notice how you are feeling after meals. If you’re overfull, you’re probably overeating. Take steps to slow down at your meals and work on stopping when full.
  • Try lengthening your fasting window by an hour or so.
  • Cut out snacking between meals and instead eat enough at your meals so that you can go from meal to meal without feeling the urge to snack.
  • Reevaluate where you’re at with your weight. If you’re in the normal range for BMI, why do you need to lose more?

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