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Originally Posted by teaser
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This was an interesting read.
I have been doing 16:8 (ish) most every day for a few weeks now--I tried to do a 24-hour fast, and almost keeled over at 21 hours. Then I ate like crazy for the next two days, and I felt totally off-kilter and awful--my body was most displeased. 16:8, or 17:7, or 18:6, though, works great for me. I don't even snack anymore, really--sometimes I eat three times, sometimes I eat twice, but otherwise any moments of hunger are fleeting and I can just let them pass.
Yesterday, I had done a normal 16:8, and had breakfast around noon--eggs and sausage, a little bit of cheese, and a handful of cherry tomatoes. About 600 calories and 8 net carbs, which should have been enough to hold me for a good while.
But by 3 pm, I was getting hungry again, and even telling myself to just ride it out wasn't working. I kept being hungry, and not just "craving." I had a salad with full-fat dressing, and a handful of almonds. And twenty minutes later, I was so hungry again, and not able to ignore it. So, at 3:30, I ate what I had been planning to have for dinner, a chicken and cream cheese slow-cooker recipe. I ate slowly, I savored, and I easily stopped when I was satisfied, even though the amount I ate was probably more than I had planned on having at dinner. I didn't berate myself for "failing," I didn't measure, I didn't log, I didn't stuff it all into my mouth in a blur, I just listened to my body and ate until it told me I'd had enough.
At 7 pm, I had a bowl of blueberries with a splash of cream. And that was it until I had a cheese stick at 11:30 this morning, without any struggle. And I was down a pound. And today I'm not all that hungry.
I spent some time a few years ago getting very much into "intuitive eating," learning all about when I was really hungry, versus just craving food. And that there are times when your body is telling you it wants energy, and it's better to listen and eat until satisfied than to try to fight it and only end up overeating when you think it's the "right" time to eat.
So when the article linked to above concluded with "Don’t micromanage your brainstem by counting every calorie. You might be surprised at how well your health self-regulates," I thought of this, and thought about LCHF and its better satiating abilities compared to HCLF, and IF to take advantage of that by having a smaller window to eat--and then adding that intuitiveness into it, which granted takes a lot of work and self-awareness, can be a pretty potent combo.
(sorry, didn't mean for this to get long)