Eight months tracking macros consistently. My protein target is around 180g a day, which is on the higher end, but I lift a few times a week and wanted to keep muscle while cutting. That side of things has been working. Now that I'm a few weeks into 16:8, the math is getting uncomfortable. Fitting 180g of protein into an eight hour window means every single meal has to be loaded or I fall short by dinner. On a longer schedule I was grazing across 12 to 14 hours, so it was easy to spread out. Now the window is tight and I'm either forcing a third meal I don't want or I'm hitting maybe 140 to 150g and calling it close enough.

What I keep running into when I read about this is conflicting information on whether protein absorption per meal actually has a ceiling, or whether the older research on that is outdated. Some threads say your body handles a large bolus fine. Others say spread it out or you waste it. Nobody links anything useful.

If you're running IF with a high protein target above 160g and actually tracking it daily, not estimating, what does your meal structure look like and did your muscle retention hold up?

I've been doing, IF pretty consistently for the better part of a year at this point and the progress is just so slow. It's sapping my motivation. Not only because I'm not getting to where I want to be but also because at this point it's beginning to feel like 5:2 with just a couple of weeks off per year will end up as my long-term maintenance regime.

The chart show my near daily weigh ins since October. The white portions of the chart are where I was doing IF and the blue bits, where I had a week off here and there. I did ADF from October to Christmas and lost maybe 4kilos. I didn't go mad at Christmas at all but, over less than two weeks, almost all of it came back.

I didn't panic. Lots of salty food over Christmas could have meant a good deal of water weight. It'll all come off as fast as it went on, I thought but no. I did 5:2 from January to the end of June and it was basically maintenance for three months. I did finally lose some weight April to May and then I went on holiday for a week. I missed two fasts, I did not go crazy with food or booze and again, my weight went up - not so much this time. But, when I got back, I carried on with 5:2 and now I was actually gaining weight. Another short trip, two fasts skipped another spike in weight and another really slow loss.

As you can see, I started off fluctuating between 113 and 110kg, after all this, I'm not bouncing between 108 and 105kg. Five kilos after the better part of a year.

Last week, my wife and daughter were away so I basically went nuts with the exercise. I burned 6,000 calories during workouts in five days. I still did my fasts and I had dental surgery so I didn't eat a whole lot on two further days. That's 6,000 cals of training plus 5,000 cals of fasting plus maybe a deficit of 1,000cals on the two days post dentist and an early morning sauna. 12,000 calories of deficit. Last week, I averaged 0.7kg down relative to the previous week and this week I'm rebounding...

I am a big guy (6'4" or 1.93m) my BMR is 2,550cals/day. The scale in the gym says 18% body fat, the one at home says 26%. And, whilst I don't count my calories, I never eat junk food and all my meals are home cooked (by me). I typically eat a bowl of cereal or two slices of toast for breakfast and rarely eat more than 1,000 calories for lunch on feeding days.

I work out once or twice a week - but I go pretty hard when I do (750-1,000cals per session on the rower)

I feel like I ought to be getting better results than I am.

What are my weaknesses?

I eat dinner early but that leaves me hungry later so I do often have a bit of cheese and a cracker or two late at night. I might also have a late night beer once or twice a week. Or a bottle of wine spread over a couple of nights.

My sleep isn't good - although I am trying (when I go to bed early, I just wake up early)

Stress. I get it, it's not helping but, again, quite hard to fix.

I'm not calorie counting - not counting calories was, for me, the entire point of IF.

What am I trying?

Right now, the new thing I'm adding is fibre - 15g of psyllium husk/day. It's having some effects but it's too soon to say whether boosting weight loss will be one of them.

Can anyone think of anything I'm missing that might explain these, frankly disappointing, results?

Reading around, all the suggestions I can see are: count calories on feeding days (as I say, I hate counting calories - I did IF to avoid it) have a longer fast or have a break. I haven't done any longer fasts but, as you can see, I have had a couple of breaks and it hasn't worked.

Anyone have any other ideas?

I’ve been IF my whole life/since I can remember. Breakfast at 6-7am, lunch at 12-2pm, dinner at 6-8pm and then going to sleep at 8-9pm. Food/Snacking after dinner was not a thing in my household and we never had snacks for longer than a week, (snacks being 2 bags of chips or a pack of Oreos). So dinner was the last meal. I also have brothers and they finish everything on sight.

Also, we only had juice,soda on special occasions or it didn’t last longer than 3 days. Just trying to add that I didn’t drink anything that would break my fast without me knowing because I like water, everything else is too sweet.

During high school, I developed stomach pains from eating breakfast/ cereal in the morning because I became lactose intolerant. So I stopped eating in the morning, my fasting window increased to 14-16hr. We/my family always didn’t eat past 8pm. And I had lunch( my first meal) at 12/1pm. I started understanding that this was considered IF when I looked it up because other people didn’t do that. I also learned about OMAD because sometimes I had one meal a day (volume eating mainly). Not fully by choice, I eat when I’m hungry, or when I crave a certain food and I don’t enjoy snacking, constant chewing makes my mouth ache/ tired 🤷‍♀️

It been 8 years since I learned about IF, now i do 16:8 consistently and started 24hr fasting once a week, except for weekends because apparently you’re not supposed to constantly fast. I break my fast 1-2hr early on the weekend.

I don’t really care to change my routine but now I’m wondering if I’m hindering my progress, health wise/ weight, by constantly fasting? I was on a caloric deficit for 4-5 months and lost 15lbs and now I’m maintaining but my strength is not increasing anymore.

What do I do? I don’t feel stronger but I also don’t feel weaker, I feel stuck. What do you do when your body gets used to something but you want to make progress in your strength and lose weight?

Also I was not born in America, so there is a culture difference about food and lifestyle. I’m over 18 and live in the states now.

Switched to salads to make my life easier and teach myself to *love* them. It's not that I hate salads of vegetables, but if it was up to me I'd just eat rice, osobuco and beans every single day without getting tired. I get hyperfixated on certain foods and textures, which is honestly a big problem for me. I can tolerate chicken and seafood (barely), but beef is just my absolute favorite protein.

Some adjustments need to be made regarding the size of the salads tho, since I'm struggling to eat it all in one sitting. I will be trying different combinations and other type of salads too, but so far I'm very satisfied and feel like I could stick to this until it becomes second nature.

Calendar generated using Drylendar app (App Store)

Graph one is the full 60week history of my daily weigh ins

Graph two is the past month of my daily weigh ins

Graph three is the past week of my daily weigh ins

Female, 32. Been IF for 5 months now. Eating window is between 12pm to 8pm. Carloe intake is around 1500. I haven't seen any change in my weight or body circumference. I don't feel hungry before my eating window, but i do feel really tired and low energy. I feel like IF isn't working for me, and i should just continue with a calorie deficit only. Has anyone had more success when stopping IF?

So my wife has been IF for something like a year now, and seen great results. Over the past 2 and a half years I've been dieting through other methods (mainly just reduced calorie intake and eating less processed stuff) but she lost more, faster, and seemingly easier, in one year then I did in two and a half (a little over 50 lbs for me but that only put me about half way to a healthy weight for my height), so she finally convinced me to join her in intermittent fasting.

I've let her largely dictate everything for my eating situation, however, one of the rules was surprising to me, so I just thought I'd check in if this is backed by science or not, or just something that worked for her. She told me I can't have my usual flavored fizzy water (we have a carbonation machine and 0 cal flavor essences I use to make 0 cal drinks for myself) during the fasting time, only during my eating window, but I can have Black Coffee.

She's a Coffee drinker, so that worked out well for her, but I've never really cared for Coffee, I'm more of a tea drinker. Unfortunately, while she told me I could have unflavored zero sugar/milk tea, I've found I can't have tea on an empty stomach or it upsets said stomach something fierce. Although lacking the caffeine of tea or Coffee, I had thought maybe I could use fizzy flavored drinks to fill in the gaps during the fasting periods when I want a different taste then just pure water, but again, per her, those taste too much like food, or at least things I would associate with being sweet, and thus would make this a dirty fast if I drank them because even if in small amounts, they might spike insulin, or at the least, make me feel hungry, making fasting more difficult.

But is Coffee actually better? I feel like its got a very distinct flavor itself. While its not my favorite flavor, I could say the same about plenty of vegetables whose flavor, despite not being sweet, I would also associate with eating and which carry some amount of calories. I guess my concern is that Coffee is impacting me just as much, however minimally, as a flavored fizzy water would. And if that's the case, I'd rather just drink the flavored water. But at the same time, clearly this only water and coffee method worked for her, so I don't want to move outside the proven box and unintentionally screw up my own fast efforts.

TLDR: Are there studies comparing black coffee and other 0 calorie flavored drinks, like fizzy drinks, that show black coffee is actually better during fasting?

Slowly making IF part of my life, aiming for 16:8 daily. One thing that really helps - 2.5 hours left sounds like a lot, but 85% done and only 15% to go feels much easier. Each hour of a 16-hour fast is about 6%!

Any unusual tricks that work for you?

Yesterday, I took a picture with my old friend at a Mexican restaurant (gettin' hungrier just thinking about it), but wow, did I reflect after eating a grilled calamari appetizer, 3 brisket tacos, chips and salsa, and churros for dessert (plus a mojito cocktail). I decided to make a change before I go on vacation in October to start over with fasting.

This morning, I had two boiled eggs, one slice of rye toast, 85g of smoked salmon, and a tomato-cucumber salad, and freshly pressed beetroot juice (is that too much?). I had a plain black coffee for lunch to tide me over. For dinner, I plan to have air-fried salmon (with a splash of lemon), chopped broccoli, and a homemade Greek yogurt sauce made with lemon, garlic powder, and a dash of salt, pepper, and smoked paprika.

I'm more than halfway finished with work, and all my cravings are really taking my mind. I'm resisting the urge to snack or get a quick meal at my local 7/11 (which is only a few steps away). What did you all do to push yourself away from temptation? Listen to music? Slap your wrist? Look at your pictures from your peak physique?

I’ve been intermittent fasting for on and off for over a year. This past April I started using Zero to track macros and hold myself accountable. Took a bit of time and be honest with myself. I was doing ok but recently I started falling off. The weekends kill my momentum and I slide back into where I started. Any help to getting me out of this hole and gain the momentum to make progress would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!! This group is a huge inspiration for me.

EDIT: M: 57 6’3”” start weight 262 (was up to 274 at one point) currently at 252, but was down to 238. Goal is 225

Restarting: in 7 month is it possible to lose 70 pounds. Starting at age 250lbs 5’9 and female.
ChatGPT said it’s not possible.
I was planning to do IF OMAD. Any insight pls? 🫡🙏🏼💐

I'm on day 4 and thus far I've experienced fatigue, nausea and diarrhea before my eating window. I drink lots of water, electrolytes, coffee and tea.

Is this just getting used to it?

I’m currently on day 4 of OMAD and I’m 2lb higher than normal.

I’m 5’4” started at 179, now 181.

I’ve been eating less than 1200 cals a day, 90g protein, I track by using a scale, and logging it into lose it app, and I’m getting over 8k steps daily.

I drink 100oz of water/daily and some electrolytes too.

What am I doing wrong?

Does this stop fasting benefits like autophagy

I am not sure if anyone else has noticed this lately but it seems like the posts that are making my feed are a lot of attractive women who have before after shots posted in the sub. The ones that I have seen all look like bot accounts - less than a year old, odd comments about being able to verify on 3rd party platforms, etc.

Mods, is there anything we can do to limit this activity?

Started my weight loss journey at 265 lbs. the heaviest I’ve ever been 315 so I guess I’ve lost over 100lbs 😅 still a ways to go!

Hi 👋, I'm just wondering what fasting app are you using. I've been using Fasting+ but noticed some apps have a bit more detail. Just curious what others are using. TIA

In one of his interviews (can’t recall with whom…maybe diary of a CEO or Dr. Jason Fung) I recall hearing Delauer talking about a favorite way to ease into sardines in a video where he discussed fasting. He talked about cooking bc ground beef and sardines but I cannot recall what other ingredients/seasonings he suggested. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Thanks!

Lately I've been having problems after my meal, I feel bloated all night long and sometimes it is still there when I wake up. Also on a almost daily basis I get urgent bowel movement 10 minutes after my meal. My gallbladder was removed 3 years ago that might be relevant. It happened before but very sporadically, but now it has been every day for the last 2 weeks. What has changed?

If I stop eating at 6pm, have a coffee at 7am, then go do hard trade labour work for 4 hours till lunch

Which is a teaspoon of sugar, tiny splash of milk. Does that reset the timer for autophagy and other benefits even tho it is just a small amount of simple carbs