Kenna Morton's Journal, 16 February 2022

Thanks for sharing this! 

I do I.F. every day.  

In a sense I do as well. Dinner at 5 and routinely don’t eat again till breakfast.. I eat my calories during day when I’m up and active. 

I just started a few days ago and so far so good I'm surprised... 

I started IF at the beginning of February & I have already seen a few pounds drop. I was going to try it for a month, but now I'm encouraged to continue & make it part of my daily routine.  

I eat 3 meals and no snacks between 8 am and 4 pm. I don't call it fasting just putting more structure into fueling my body with energy and nutrition. It is all the mindless eating that gets people in trouble with managing calorie intact. In my book the less time you spend thinking, preparing and eating meals or even talking about food the better. Fasting is a great way to put it all in perspective. 

Crazycatchick— just to clarify, you eat three meals in an 8 hour window without snacks between those meals. What happens after 4 pm? You fast until 8 am the next morning I hope. I eat a standard 400-500 calorie breakfast about 4 am, a 300-400 calorie yogurt concoction lunch about 11-12. That covers my active hours when I am running around doing errands, swimming, hiking, then a standard dinner at 5-6 and typically no snacks at night during the time I am relatively inactive. The body uses that down time from eating to heal and repair.. it cannot perform the function of digestion and heal/repair at the same time. Sleep time is for heal and repair— a time when all body functions slow down to (hopefully) concentrate on heal and repair and not have to still continue digesting food. I would love to just eat twice a day but would not be able to get the nutrition I need. I cannot tolerate that full, stuffed feeling from overeating. 

Kenna - yes no snacking or eating after last meal at 4 which is over in about 15 minutes. The rest of the afternoon/evening is just water. Breakfast and dinner are my heaviest/densest meals of the day. But calorie wise each meal is roughly 450-500 calories. I have now lost about 45 lbs... the majority of that came off in 2018/2019 when I was still working but then I did plan for am and afternoon snack at my desk. For the past year + I went to 3 meals a day no snacks which was relatively easily being in lockdown ! I am down 8 lbs since March 2020. Being so isolated in the house I knew I had to have a plan around food. Of course this isn't a hard rule... when socializing I obviously eat later in the day with friends and family. I have always been an early riser and early to bed person. So if I crawl in bed at 10 and can't sleep because I 'really' feel jungry I may get up and have something very light to eat... but that rarely happens. I think if you regulate your eating your body will eventually learn meals happen every 4 hours. Before I did this my stomach used to growl and I would be so distracted thinking I was starrving to death. I honestly can't remember when the last time I heard it growl ! The other thing is....... I eat whether my mind/body thinks I am hungry or not. I don't skip meals.  

PS when you eat all day, snack throughout the day your body and mind gets conditioned to always having a food intake. I believe if you put more structure in the timing of your meals and make them satiating it makes a world of difference. 

PS.. the planned snacks at my desk when I was working was a strategy. It kept me from eating junk out of the snack machines or random food brought into the office. Usually it was fruit/nuts/yogurt. I also brought my lunch to work almost every day unless there was a planned event or lunch out with coworkers. 

PSPS. My work day was 9+ hours so I was at my desk by 7:30 and out the door about 5:30. I had dinner immediately when getting home so even then I was "fasting" about 12+hours a day. But even then I didn't eat after the evening meal... no snacking at night. Hope this explains it more clearly. 

We have similar plans. Night time snacking is counter productive to weight loss. And maintenance.