Ah, a fellow hermit! I just left Facebook and have gone over to Quora so I can answer questions and appear to be wise.

I bring that up because one of the questions I answered this morning was:
"What is the most overlooked pleasure in life?"
My answer: "Being alone."

I resemble that remark

I find myself feeling irritated by all the lifestyle gurus who push socialization as the cure for all that ails us, especially us older folk. I like a bit of social interaction now and again but truly, long frequent doses of it wear me out. I like living alone, being alone, socializing on my walks with the people I meet and greet and then retreating to my apartment. The life of a semi-hermit suits me well. Then there are my internet acquaintances. I enjoy them too.

I'm with you! While I am doing TRE and some fasting now, I also still enjoy similar evenings with friends and family, including a couple glasses of wine or a good whiskey. This works for me. What wouldn't work: Rigidity. Flexibility is what really makes a long term commitment possible, IMHO.

Great thread.

Let's remember that Dr Fung didn't set out to become some weight loss guru - he's a nephrologist who was fed up of his patients dying of end-stage T2D as if it was an untreatable illness. Also remember that a lot of his motivation for getting patients into IF/TRE is their financial state. I haven't read his books, but Megan mentions this in talks. It's 100% good advice, in that sense, I think. Consider poverty food - you're better off investing what small amount of money you have on one decent meal per day over grazing on - and trying to avoid a binge on - cereal, potatoes and the like. It wasn't really intentional, but I ended up practicing TRE like this when I was super-broke a number of years ago (already a LCer and determined not to give that up.)

I've had lots of lifestyle changes over my years on this forum - I think a lot of us do. I think it's important to educate yourself on different options, and have different tools in your tool box, so to speak. Right now, I'm working shift, and strict TRE ain't happening. I get about 5 hours sleep and a nap in the afternoon most days. I eat a meal at work because they ding my pay cheque regardless, and it saves me grocery money plus time. I also want a half-decent dinner with my husband, because I actually still like him ( ) and if I don't cook something decent, he'll just eat chips. Over the summer, I'll probably be laid off. That's more my IF season - when it's hot, we have no A/C, and I don't feel like eating. OTOH, if I don't feel like restricting, I won't restrict! Gimme that homemade SF strawberry ice cream.

...so in other words, what works for you now might not work next week. Flexibility is important, like CityGirl8 just said.

Nothing beats a good solitary hike while fasted

Yes, I wonder about those who exhort people to join groups, organizations to connect, assuming that is far better than solitary moments. I like people, but to be accurate, I am on the introvert scale. This is a sliding scale, as no one is 100% introvert or extrovert. The definition that most resonated with me is the following: Introverts derive and recover their energy during moments of being alone, extroverts derive their energy by being with others. I enjoy people, but need and cherish my time alone. Some of the best experiences I've had were when I was doing international business travel alone. I could connect with people, then retire to my hotel room or make solo excursions in a new area. Some of the best times I've had.

Kristine, I never thought about the Poverty aspect of doing IF. I'll be aware of it when I watch Dr. Fung again. A meal of GOOD food goes much farther than a constant feed of junk. Unfortunately, the dollar I hand out to the homeless person on the corner might only go as far as the nearest burger joint. Sigh.

As for being alone: oh yes. When I look at my calendar, I'm grateful for the days when I have "nothing to do." Likewise I'm grateful for the days when I have something meaningful to do involving other people. Life is good.

What I treasure more than being alone? SILENCE.

I did not grow up with music plugged into my ears at all times, or NPR on the car radio at all times, or (AAAACK!!!) a television in every room, always on. Who knows the value of silence--and the beautiful things you can hear in the midst of it--anymore.

This Forum is, of course, a quiet place physically. But also a quiet place to be and think. Thanks everyone.

Solitude is a key part of sanity for me. At work it's always made me roll my eyes that so many people (starting with HR) seem to want to make everything a sorority. And I'm ok with high-social environs -- but temporarily for goodness sake. Extended socialization seems mostly for people who cannot stand being alone... and to me that has always seemed a symptom more than an innate personality issue.

I've tried a lot of versions of 'timed eating' from just cycling carbs to fasting for a day or most of a day ongoing.

20/4 or 19/5 is easy, and I like how it seems I can eat more, sometimes more carbs, doing that, less concern about what the meal is (assuming it's good of course).

But I cannot get enough food down my throat in the time allowed, is the problem. I'm just not hungry enough to eat the amount of protein and fats I want my body to have daily, in that short a time. If I eat a lot of protein and fats, I'm not hungry for a good 8 hours... or more.

Then I end up under-eating, and then eventually it's not working for me anymore (or I'm losing weight 'yay' but feel like crap, and am probably losing more LBM than fat).

When I was young, I was a workaholic pretty young, but very active -- from early morning to night, 6-7 days a week sometimes, and I was running warehouses and many depts. in my youngest days so it was pretty physical -- and I was almost never ill. Not off work anyway. I sometimes felt ill, and naturally, I would just stop eating. My coworkers and boss would give me a hard time about it, but it just felt like the thing to do. I realized one day that my cats did this. When they were injured they stopped eating temporarily. I always felt like my body had a lot of stuff to deal with so I would eat one "solid" thing as I thought of it (usually a fat shredded-beef burrito with cheese) and then just not eat for a couple days and drink mostly water. As a variant sometimes I would eat a little raw garlic, scallions, and cheddar cheese... my coworkers thought that was even crazier lol. I don't know if it helped or not, I only knew that my immune system seemed to be really good, sickness was very rare and never held on.

Lately I've been thinking about how my body seems to have its own sort of natural cycles, and my desire to have A PLAN that is consistent tends to result in my seldom making the plan work as desired and then feeling guilty about that, on top of which it doesn't work for my body very well when I do get it right. I'm thinking about coming up with a (don't laugh) 'plan' that by its nature rather than designing a lot of food or a little food or mostly fasting or mostly eating, shifts it back and forth maybe every couple days, like a lot of protein/fats (food) for a couple days, and then very very light food for a day or two (anywhere between fasting and just 'eating very lightly'). I don't know if it will work any better than anything else but I hope it will better match the seeming tendency for food intake my body wants already.

I agree that fasting is a bit of an extreme in a way. On the other hand I think the combination of our food options, our really low sun exposure and exercise, the dramatic amount of harmful environmental toxins we live and breathe, might make more dense nutrition -- and more intense 'compensation behaviors' where needed -- a reasonable thing.

As noted by others, attempting to deal with a serious health issue -- including severe obesity but also organ issues etc. -- brings a different factor in than merely wanting to be healthier in general. Fat loss vs. maintenance would matter as well.

I love that we have a forum where people can talk about this stuff. Nobody in my offline life cares. :-)

PJ

On poverty: sometimes I've worked out pricing at the store and carefully chosen things based on how much protein per $ it could afford. When I was really sick and spending most my money on house/health help and supplements I had to do that. It really brings home how much unfood ("ingestible entertainment" is how I think of much of the SAD) doesn't have much in the way of protein and good fats for the cost. I'm pretty sure you could live on Top Ramen and be slowly dying of malnourishment. Eventually you'd have disease and someone would say "Maybe it runs in your family." Yeah but maybe you just had low protein, low good-fats, and insufficient magnesium and such for long enough that the body broke down wherever the genetic weakest points were.

PJ

I've also calculated food costs per serving of protein, since that is the only essential part of the diet. I search flyers for which good sources of protein (meat, poultry, fish, eggs) are on sale, add extra good fats (if needed) and a couple of servings of LC vegetables (often fresh-frozen and bought on sale) for some vitamins & minerals and have managed to eat for Cdn$5/day when I had to, but easily under $10/day since I have 2 meals & no snacks per day. Back when I was high-carb eating, I had my weekly grocery store costs, but because I was constantly hungry I often paid for coffee & snacks during the week too, which I don't do now except for rare special occasions. So I've never believed that LC is more expensive. Not to mention the costs of all of the OTC pain relievers, allergy & sinus meds that I took 365 days/yr to relieve carb-induced symptoms (at least Cdn$1/day).

I was just re-reading one of Dr. Fung’s books where he mentioned first suggesting a low carb diet to his mostly very ill patients, and finding their health didn’t improve, only to find they really weren’t doing LC properly- still having noodles and bread, etc. So almost as a “Hail Mary” idea he got the idea of suggesting they just not eat anything! And was surprised at how quickly he began seeing results.

And even before Dr. Fung I remember reading about a patient of Dr. Michael Eades. He said she’d lost to her goal weight on LC, but found that to keep the weight off she couldn’t eat over 1000 calories a day, which felt seriously deprivational to her. But she found that if she alternated between days of 500 calories and days of 1500 calories she still averaged 1000 and kept the weight off, and the 1500-calorie days allowed her to eat in a more normal manner. Certainly IF could do the same thing!

Anyway 👍 fellow introvert here. I love my alone time. After my son died last summer my DiL did I little hinting that I should come to live with her and the grandkids. But dearly as I love them that would the complete end of life as I know it. I adore having the grandkids come to visit and I adore when they go home and I can be along! And I also love my silence. I like music (sang in choirs and choruses for nearly 40 years) but I love my silence even more. I have a TV but it’s never on unless the grandkids are over. I’m an artist and occasionally get together with a few others to paint. I HATE that one of the first questions always asked is “what sort of music shall we listen to?” No one else ever likes my answer of “none”.😂

Anyway I do love the whole idea of IF and am trying to get back to it after my 7-month junk funk since my house fire and the death of my son on the very same day last August. If a few weeks I hope my home repairs will be done and being back in my own home will help with my healing too.

Watched a movie last night: "The Science of Fasting."

Very well done:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1b08X-GvRs

I love this thread. I love this group of people. I'm on the same wavelength as far as time alone vs. socializing. As far as fasting, well, I'm on the fence with that. I did it for a while and started undernourishing and underhydrating myself. Four smaller meals throughout the day work for me. However, I do stop eating reasonably early in the evening and don't have breakfast until I'm actually hungry, which naturally resembles 14/10 or 16/8 fasting. I think it's good to give your digestive system a chance to rest at the beginning and end of every day and do its thing.