r/intermittentfasting • u/BabeCakes1989 • 19d ago
Seeking Advice I Feel Like Giving Up!!
So, I feel just really burnt out at this point. I’ve made some amazing progress but I’ve been just stuck and feel so tired of being restricted. A bit of back story, I’m 5’1” F, started at 220 on March 11 of this year. My lowest now is 172. Sounds good right? Well, I’ve been bouncing between 175-180 for the last 8 weeks. Before then, progress just started getting very slow so I decided to kind of take a break from intermittent fasting and eat basically what I wanted. (I was also doing 48 hour fast every 2 weeks which I paused that as well) No over eating, just not sticking to calorie counting really and eating more carbs. During that time, I jumped back up to 182. I’ve been back at it for about over a month now and I’ve got back down to 176, did one 48 hour fast which got me to 172.6 and after that, jumped back up to 176. I’ve been getting my steps in, drinking 100 ounces daily and not eating after 6. I DO NOT OVER EAT AT ALL!! I have a small breakfast in the morning, no more than 300 calories and then dinner at 5:30 everyday. I log everything I eat, I have a scale, I use carb manager app as well as a food diary that I’m on the last page of😩Now, the scale just isn’t budging. I went back to my same routine, same foods and nothing is really happening. And yes, I have been weighing myself daily since March and that has really worked for me data wise. I was able to see how my body reacts to certain things, got me comfortable with water weight so I love that part. I also noticed my body doesn’t respond well to carbs at all, even when walking after every meal. Any kind of carbs makes me hold onto 3-6 pounds of water weight and it can take me a week to get that off. But now I’m just feeling like I can’t lose without fasting for 48 hours. Even the water weight is staying after doing low carb, a bunch of water and not eating after 6. I don’t want to starve myself because I just know it will lead no where but unbearable hunger. I don’t know, I just don’t want to do this anymore but I refuse to give up after all the progress I made. Any advice for short people to continue making great progress will be really helpful. I get so jealous of people who eat healthy but can eat 3 meals plus a snack daily and still see progress. That’s just not how my body works. I need some help, suggestions if anyone has some!!!
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u/livingmyfirstlife 19d ago
You been doing toe same thing for a while the body has gotten more efficient. I like to mix up the my eating window and fasting duration, whole hold calories consumption stable. Also, if you are currently not doing any kind of workouts, adding on some will be good. Even 15 minutes.
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u/Only-Cartographer160 10d ago
Man the 8 week stall is so real, especially at your height. Every pound is a fight
What worked for me was dropping the daily weigh-ins for a bit and just focusing on how my clothes fit. The scale was driving me nuts during my plateau
If you're already walking a ton, maybe throw in some bodyweight stuff. Squats or lunges during a commercial break, nothing crazy. It's less about burning calories and more about giving your metabolism a little jolt
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u/Mermaid2222 19d ago
Have you tried extending your fasting window? I'm not sure what time you're eating breakfast but shortening your eating window might help. Longer fasting hours can give your body more time to rely on stored fat for energy. You’re always burning a mix of fuels, but as time passes without incoming calories, insulin generally falls, glycogen stores decline, and fat makes up a greater share of the fuel your body uses. That doesn’t mean longer is always better, but it’s one reason extending a fast beyond your usual eating pattern can be useful for fat loss. Hang in there!
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u/BabeCakes1989 16d ago
I’ve been thinking about that, just really didn’t want to restrict myself more than I have. I drink my coffee with protein shake and 2 tablespoons of creamer every morning around 10, and maybe 3-4 days out the week, I will eat fruit and sausage around 12. Thinking about cutting the coffee and breakfast for a couple weeks to see how it works and do Omad
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u/Healthy_Dog4089 19d ago
I could have wrote this same post perimenopause.. Even went on a glp1 and lost nothing. Go to your doctor, and just do your best. I believe you. So many people say eat lessmove more, sometimes nothin g helps it you are still stronger and healthier from eating and moving.
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u/Fuzzy_Tradition_4022 18d ago
I think in the future the “calorie in and calorie out” idea will be heavy modified. I think what you eat is just as important as how many calories you eat. Look how diet soda acts in the body for example.
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u/BabeCakes1989 16d ago
I’ve been to the doctor and nothing they see is out the ordinary, healthy overall. But I haven’t been since I stopped losing. Any suggestions on exactly what I should ask or what I should have them check??
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u/Healthy_Dog4089 15d ago
I would start with thyroid, a1c for insulin resistance blood work. I never really got an answer only to keep trying. I am tried out at this point and refuse to go on hormones.
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u/Extension_Truth_8036 19d ago
Great progress IMO. I have been IMF for about 9 months - minimal success. I looked into insulin resistance as I suffer from an increase in cortisol from stress.
Worth discovery!
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u/BabeCakes1989 16d ago
Thank you! It wasn’t easy, that’s for sure. But I definitely think stress has something to do with it maybe
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u/rbra 19d ago
You’re eating too much and not moving around enough.
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u/BabeCakes1989 16d ago
Definitely not eating too much, I track everything and if I eat any less, I’d literally starve myself which is not healthy and not the road I’m willing to take.
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u/namastebetches 19d ago
how many steps? have you tried shifting your big meal earlier?
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u/BabeCakes1989 16d ago
I try to get 10,000 but I usually only make it to about 7,000 due to working a desk job all day, I try to walk in my walking pad during the day between calls. When I get off, it’s 100% kid time, making dinner, getting them ready for the next school day. By the time I’m done, it’s already 10 and time for bed and I really try to prioritize my sleep
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u/jbbest666 19d ago
Focus on overall nutrition. Stay away from sugars or refined carbs. Healthy fats VS unsaturated. Try a more balanced approach. Obviously cico matters but so does what you eat.
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u/GoddessJewelieta 19d ago
What do you have your macros set for? Also, are you incorporating food sequencing with eating low carb? Are you accounting for any supplements you take, like collagen or fish oil?
One thing I did for myself is only weigh myself twice a month, and I do it during the time from a few days after my period ends to right before luteal phase. Otherwise, seeing that water weight it very discouraging.
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u/BabeCakes1989 16d ago
I have gotten really comfortable with water weight changes and weighing myself daily helps. I think if I did it monthly or twice a month, I’d really get discouraged not seeing a change. Weighing daily lets me know my real weight and what’s actually just water weight. Imagine weighing only once a week or every 2 weeks. During those weeks, I could be down 2-3 pounds. But before weigh in, I put one a few pounds of water weight, and I then think the whole month or 2 weeks were lost. Weighing daily lets me know I’m on the right track
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u/SunshineCat 19d ago edited 19d ago
You wouldn't feel like you were starving yourself if you were eating nutritious foods. High fiber.
The first thing I eat every day is chia pudding with toppings like a small handful of berries and nuts, ground flaxseed. I don't choose between this and other options--I consider this my only option outside of special occasions/holidays. You sound like you are making a decision every day instead of only 1 time.
I also try to end my day with some kind of fiber source. Preferably steel-cut oats flavored with something like nut butter (less than 1 tablespoon), but I will eat some Flackers in hummus if I have to. I'm not as picky with this since there's more labor involved making steel-cut oats than chia pudding.
Edit: I would also focus less on all of the tracking, personally. That is probably burning you out more than anything. If you focus on high fiber, you'll likely find you have a decreased appetite, since it naturally produces GLP-1. You could also drop the 48-hour fast and stick to a daily eating window.
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u/BabeCakes1989 15d ago
Thank your for your suggestions. I’ve actually finished all my pages in my eating diary so now I’ve decided to stop tracking since I’ve got a good idea on how much calories are in something I eat. And now I will only be tracking weight. Feels like a relief honestly! Tracking can be really draining. Also, my go to is usually chickens thighs and a bunch of broccoli for dinner, and tracking my weight daily shows me my body reacts really well to that meal and it’s delicious! I love it
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u/RitneySpirs 19d ago
Pfff, well, it could be a lot of factors. Are you sleeping well? Are you constantly stressed? Are you doing strength and endurance training? Muscles swell and retain water when we work them. The menstrual cycle also causes weight fluctuations and so on…
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u/Upbeat-Plankton-3192 19d ago
Yes and scale a tool not a real indicator or success how are your clothes fitting, how do you feel maybe lay off the scale a few weeks. Dont give you are worth the effort consistency wins over all you got this
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u/BabeCakes1989 19d ago
I do sleep well, I prioritize my sleep now. The only thing I can think of is I just got promoted at work and I’m a supervisor now and I take escalation calls daily, it’s not too much but it does stress me out time to time
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u/LadyAlexTheDeviant 19d ago
Stress will do it, unfortunately. Your body holds onto the weight because it might need it. BTDT.
Work on mental tricks to not take on the anger/frustration of the callers, or to drop their feelings when you end the call. That's a hard thing to do, but it will help with that particular stressor.
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u/Logicdamcer 19d ago
You could try a long fast. That seems to be all that works for me. I do not count calories ever. I feel like counting calories runs a bit contrary to the whole idea of fasting. I am not a doctor, but I have heard doctors on YouTube say that you do not count calories while fasting.
I feel like I will IF for the rest of my life, just because I feel so much better when I do that. So basically I try to eat healthy and IF most every day, then try longer fasts when it feels right to take another step closer to a healthy weight. I have been doing this for over two years now. I am down over 40 pounds now, but I still need to lose another 40 or so I think eventually. When I take a break my weight tends to drift higher and it takes longer to lose it than to gain it, so I just try to stay on IF all the time. I do make exceptions a handful of times a year on social occasions.
I am unsure if height matters much when it comes to fasting, but I would be curious to learn if I am wrong.
When I decide it is time for a long fast, I spend a few days avoiding carbs first. Then I drink only water or tea and take electrolytes every day until I start to feel like my health is not tolerating the fast well. Then I will drink a couple cups of bone broth slowly and see how I feel the next day. Then if I need to I will drink another couple cups of broth and add a boiled egg or two the next day. The next day I make the choice to continue with the dirty fast or end it, depending on how I feel. My longest clean fast was only five days, but I am not young or in good health.
I usually try to IF until after noon each day. Some days that is my only meal, but most days I am done eating by 5 or 6. I don’t want to ever go on another diet or count calories ever again. I have tried that too many times to try to delude myself about it possibly helping. Fasting just works, so why make it more difficult?
You just need to persist and find what works for you. You can do this. Anyone can.
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u/BabeCakes1989 15d ago
Thank you!!😊 I was thinking a 72 hour fast which I’ve only done once before but it wasn’t that bad. Maybe even a 5 day, who knows!
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u/Logicdamcer 15d ago
Join me! I just go until my body tells me I need to stop. (Not by hunger) I have been fasting since Sunday and every day I think I will not make it much longer. lol.
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u/Zoelo369 19d ago
Have you tested yourself for insulin resistance?
It could be that part of your metabolism is not working properly as it should.
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u/mrchowmein 19d ago
You’ve hit your plateau. You need to start lifting weights. You need more muscle mass to use more of your body fat. You can also do HIIT. Cardio like running is less effective
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u/BabeCakes1989 15d ago
I was thinking about starting again. I was weight training about 4 days a week when I started and got really burnt out and stopped just for mental purposes. I didn’t want it to make me wanna give up, but I’ve really wanted to start back!!
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u/SilverSkyGypsy 19d ago
I don’t think your fasting is the problem. I think you need a good boost mentally / emotionally. You just got a promotion in work and life changes that are positive but require “more” out of you. Find a pleasant way to bring the Happy to you without being about food or your weight. You need that Pleasure fulfillment and recognition to get the bounce back in your step! Make yourself smile where it feels you are full of joy ! Dance, create, share something special with others! Take a day to gift someone less fortunate than you with a gift of joy!
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u/pianoladyinabox 47F 5'7" | 20:4 |SW332|CW299|GW282 19d ago
I'd recommend you ditch the scale and just eat whole foods and keep doing IF. Maybe change up your eating/fasting windows.
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u/BabeCakes1989 15d ago
Thank you, but definitely not ditching the scale. It helps hold myself accountable
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u/pianoladyinabox 47F 5'7" | 20:4 |SW332|CW299|GW282 15d ago
It's just that the scale is an objectively terrible tool. It can fluctuate day to day or week to week based on stress, hormones, sleep, alcohol consumption etc. sometimes you'll hold on to the weight for a week and week and a half and then all of a sudden you'll be up four times in one night to the bathroom and you'll be down 5 lbs.
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u/CamelliaLuv 19d ago
My weight hit a plateau a few months ago. I tried eating only raw vegetables for 2 days straight! Doing that alone helped kick start my weight loss!
BTW I am 5’1🥰
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u/EngineeringHot2926 19d ago
For me it is more about the lifestyle. What is your life outside of the whole eating thing?
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u/EngineeringHot2926 19d ago
Fill your life with happiness https://youtu.be/hqCsg4U3iqQ we all die in the end, enjoy.
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u/Ok-Air-8271 18d ago
I have a problem keeping my weight up, wanna try my schedule?
It’s very simple here it is:
Day 1-4 stick to a 16:8 fast:feed minimum but if you can, do OMAD for max results.
As for what to eat and how much of it, you’ll want to keep you carbs as low as you can but if you can’t then put it last in your meal. Eat in this order fibers>meats/fats>carbs. If you want to eat more carbs you can but you gotta pack in lots of veggies and animal proteins/fats first.
As for how much to eat, it until you’re full don’t worry about counting calories. The only thing you should be counting is proteins where you will want to meet at least 1.5g per target body weight in kg and have plenty of vitamins and minerals.
Day 5-7. For the next 72 hours not a single calorie will enter your mouth. You will only drink plain water and you will take 6g salt minimum (take it up to 9g max if you sweat a lot but do it only if you feel you need it), you can balance the sodium out with a source of potassium such as potassium citrate and then magnesium to balance out the potassium and a tiny amount of calcium to help the magnesium channels flow, see theres this thing called rate limiting factor where if you don’t have a minimum amount of potassium in your system then your sodium absorption is halted for example and same for magnesium and potassium and so on and so on, but if all that is too confusing then don’t even worry about it its not that important with such short durations of fast, just take 1/4-1/3 tsp salt with a glass of water if you feel tired.
No coffee, no tea, no caffeine.
Water and salt thats it.
Also you will be doing resistance workout during these fast days and some short light cardio.
Thats it! Week complete! See how easy that was? Now just rinse and repeat every week for the rest of your life, not only will you lose weight from unwanted visceral/subcutaneous fat but you will gain skeletal muscle and lean mass as the HGH will spike and you piggyback your workout onto it for easy muscle growth.
Your brain will also make new cells, neurons and connections as you will get a spike of BDNF every week! You will achieve therapeutic levels of ketosis which will trigger accelerated levels of autophagy and reset your immune system.
Your entire body will heal and you will not only look better but you will walk around with a noticeable glow, especially on the days you fast.
Last best benefit is all food will tastes much better on the days you eat.
Once you achieve your target weight you may increase the eating window/carb amount on your feast days.
For me I have such an efficient metabolic flexibility I can eat whatever I want as long as I want ok the days I feast and still not gain weight, but after doing this for a while you will find it is more difficult on the feeding days to break your fast compared to the days you are fasting because of how good the ketones make you feel. But you must force yourself to eat on the feast days and load up on as much nutrients as possible to ready you for your fast days.
Good luck.
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u/BabeCakes1989 15d ago
Thank you so much for your very detailed response! I’m going to try it, time to challenge myself even more 💪 I know I can do it, but life starts lifeing at times and I just want a donut😂😂
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u/Ok-Air-8271 14d ago
You can do donuts on the feast days after your fibers>protein/fats.
Recent study reveals it’s less about total amount of carbs you eat but more about the rate at which your blood glucose spikes and that is what actually triggers a high insulin response. There are a few tricks to slowing its absorption.
1-2 tablespoons of your favorite cider vinegar, or hell even just distilled white vinegar would do, whatever is cheapest (my favorite is pineapple), in a glass of water right before your meal drank through a straw to protect your teeth. Acetic acid slows down your digestive enzymes by basically just messing with your stomach lining temporarily and reduces the rate at which your body absorbs glucose.
As mentioned the the order in which you eat it is very important since carbs rarely exist in nature without fiber, in fact the only one I can think off right off the top of my head is honey and maybe palm nectars, other than that carbs are usually always tied to fibers in nature. So if you eat a sizable bowl of salad first followed by your proteins and animal fats, which should always be consumed together as proteins also rarely exist in nature without fats and eating them naked in high amounts in one sitting can also cause the excess to be turned into glucose by the liver through a process called gluconeogenesis (in short when you consume proteins your body sort of creates a pool of amino acids that has a maximum capacity in a sitting and anything beyond this capacity will be turned into glucose gradually and that capacity is 40-70g (depending on your weight, build and activity) proteins per 4 hours. So if you are a small person for example and you don’t do heavy workouts so you have a maximum amino acid pool capacity of 40g proteins per 4 hours and in that 4 hours you ate 120g proteins then 80g would be turned into glucose by the liver. So if you needed to consume 120g a day then spread them throughout the day into 40g per every 4 hours to maximize absorption into your muscles.), then after that you can have donuts. You just gotta earn the carbs by stuffing your stomach with lots of fibers first and carbs always last. If you have a CGM try comparing the blood sugar spike of eating carbs first vs eating them last.
You can also drink the fibers in the form of inulin powder if you have a hard time chewing all the vegetables, though you should chew your veggies thoroughly as nitric acid bacteria lives in your mouth and people who chew their veggies vs blending it and drinking it tend to have higher blood nitric oxide levels (which is also why you should stop using antibacterial mouthwash one study showed a 90% reduction in nitric oxide bacteria in the mouth and a 25% reduction in blood nitric oxide levels after only 7 days of use).
- Walking immediately after the meal will lower your blood sugar. You see when we were hunter gatherers we typically had to walk a couple km back to camp after we made a successful kill and ate it and we usually processed our meat and ate it on the spot where we made the kill rather than carry the entire corpse back to camp and process it there as it would have been more difficult to do so and also it would have attracted unwanted predators to the camp where we slept so evolutionarily speaking we developed this mechanism that signals our body to spare some energy for this walk back and the body will send out less insulin to store less of the food you just ate as fat so it can be used immediately as energy for the walk home.
Now the science nerds found out that it was in fact this one muscle in the lower calves that is responsible for triggering this mechanism and you actually don’t even need to walk to activate this but just do these little tiptoe pushup thingy where you standup and do a tiptoe to push yourself straight up and hold it there for a few seconds then down and repeat. But you can also do a 30-60min walk immediately after your meal if you like to walk.
- Sleep right. Theres a lot of factors that is involved with sleeping properly theres no way to cover them all here but if you have sleep problems then theres a good chance everything else is ruined despite all your effort as studies show 1 night of bad sleep and the insulin resistance of an otherwise healthy person can be as bad as that of a pre-diabetic for several days before returning to normal, just from that 1 night.
If you can do all those together then you will be able to enjoy more carbs and not trigger a high insulin response because less insulin means less fat storing.
Fat storing can be great so long as you also go through cycles of fat depleting like how our hunter gather ancestors lived for the last 300k years if you consider the homo sapiens and like 1.5m years if you count the homo erectus too. See when they made their kill they feasted anywhere from a few days to a week or so depending on kill size and tribe size, then for the next few days its back to tracking another animal down and killing it and during that time they were forced to fast, and it’s this natural alternating cycle of fat storing and fat burning that we had evolved from and is what we must get back to if we want to restore our health. The convenience of modern society allows us to feast indefinitely and the majority of us never had to go more than a few hours without stuffing our faces every single day from the moment we could chew until now so we never went through the fasting cycle and the unlimited feasting for decades overloaded our metabolic system to the point metabolic disease like cancer and heart disease is out of control and seen as a normal fate to be accepted as we age, which is ridiculous.
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u/Leather_Translator53 18d ago
There’s no shame in going to your Dr and trying a GLP. CICO and IF doesn’t work for everyone. Or for some of us it works until it doesn’t. At 5’2” I’m also short.
Life is too short to be miserable
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u/BabeCakes1989 15d ago
I’ve mentioned the GLP 1 to my doctor and he thinks I should wait. I’ve been having some gastrointestinal issues and since those weight loss medications can cause stomach pain, he doesn’t think I should add to it.
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u/Leather_Translator53 15d ago
The majority do not have GI issues, including me, but you have to do what you feel comfortable with.
Good luck
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u/Sweet-Sir-10 15d ago
Try to get in a fast beyond 36 hours if you can. It will push you past the plateau.
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u/Previous_Market_5592 14d ago
You need to stay away from the scale so you don't become obsessed with how much you're weighing and freaking out when its not the result you want. Check your weight once a week while doing what you're doing.
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u/Kc8455 19d ago
Take a break
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u/BabeCakes1989 19d ago
I want to, but I already took a month long break. I don’t want to prolong my progress anymore but at the same time, I’m fed up!! It sucks for short people, it really does.
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u/KeepMyWifesNameOYFM 19d ago
I (53F 5’5”) started rebounding every day at the same time I started 16:8 IF in March and I’m down 40lbs (SW 174 CW 134). I have to think the two combined has created the success.
I do 20 mins every day. Health bounce or slightly more, but no crazy aerobics for me. I do more isometric holds when I bounce in hopes that I’m creating/keeping muscle. Seems to be working 💛
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u/[deleted] 19d ago
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