3 ms·

I occasionally use intermittent fasting for weight control, and the reason it works for me is because time-restricted eating makes it easy to consume less food.

by skohan 7y ago

I occasionally use intermittent fasting for weight control, and the reason it works for me is because time-restricted eating makes it easy to consume less food. If I skip breakfast, and sometimes lunch, after a couple days I don't get hungry in the morning anymore, and I simply eat what I want the rest of the day, which ends up being significantly less. I have had much less success with things like calorie counting and portion control. Those diets felt like constant self-denial, and I would inevitably end up fudging the numbers to allow myself to eat more, or would eventually just break down and binge. So if your point is to say these numbers aren't that interesting because it's "really" just the caloric deficit doing the work here, I would say that could very well be right. But there are a lot of ways to get to a caloric deficit, and time-restricted eating has particular benefits over many of those methods.

jackmodern 7y ago
My experience is the same. TRE/IF are much easier to adhere to then typical caloric restriction diets or more extreme diets like Paleo or Keto. Skipping a meal is something I get used to after a few days, constantly depriving myself every meal is so damn hard.
- skohan 7y ago
  Yeah I made a serious go of Keto a couple years ago for about 4 months, and I had really good results with it, but there were a ton of drawbacks as well. Once I got adapted, I didn't have major cravings for carbohydrates, and I felt pretty good on a day-to-day basis, but every time I "cheated" and had a bite of cake for a colleagues birthday or something, I would crash and burn and basically go on a bender of compulsively eating carbs until I could get myself under control. Then it would take another week or so of willpower testing to get myself back on the wagon. Basically it felt like a very all or nothing thing. There were a couple "weird" things as well. For instance, it affected my sleep, athletic performance and even though I was eating a ton of fiber and taking magnesium supplements, my regularity suffered to a massive degree. The other thing was that my weight rebounded fairly quickly after going off of it. Basically, Keto seemed like I was doing something sort of extreme to my body, whereas fasting is just simply not eating sometimes, and feels very natural. Also you never have to order off-menu items, or explain why you can't take the cookie somebody baked for you.
  - jackmodern 7y ago
    this was my experience with keto as well, every time I had to requit carbs I had to go through a multi day to week long carb withdrawal/craving cycle, and the binge risk was so high. cutting weight is only useful if it isn't going to instantly be regained, especially when you are making so many sacrifices to lose it!

by skohan 7y ago

jackmodern 7y ago

My experience is the same. TRE/IF are much easier to adhere to then typical caloric restriction diets or more extreme diets like Paleo or Keto. Skipping a meal is something I get used to after a few days, constantly depriving myself every meal is so damn hard.

skohan 7y ago
Yeah I made a serious go of Keto a couple years ago for about 4 months, and I had really good results with it, but there were a ton of drawbacks as well. Once I got adapted, I didn't have major cravings for carbohydrates, and I felt pretty good on a day-to-day basis, but every time I "cheated" and had a bite of cake for a colleagues birthday or something, I would crash and burn and basically go on a bender of compulsively eating carbs until I could get myself under control. Then it would take another week or so of willpower testing to get myself back on the wagon. Basically it felt like a very all or nothing thing. There were a couple "weird" things as well. For instance, it affected my sleep, athletic performance and even though I was eating a ton of fiber and taking magnesium supplements, my regularity suffered to a massive degree. The other thing was that my weight rebounded fairly quickly after going off of it. Basically, Keto seemed like I was doing something sort of extreme to my body, whereas fasting is just simply not eating sometimes, and feels very natural. Also you never have to order off-menu items, or explain why you can't take the cookie somebody baked for you.
- jackmodern 7y ago
  this was my experience with keto as well, every time I had to requit carbs I had to go through a multi day to week long carb withdrawal/craving cycle, and the binge risk was so high. cutting weight is only useful if it isn't going to instantly be regained, especially when you are making so many sacrifices to lose it!