IFFT Newsletter – January Edition
“Hey how’s it going man is there a thread you have on intermittent fasting? I wanna know the right time schedule to follow when doing it I know there’s many benefits.”
Okay, so the goal with Intermittent Fasting (at least the way I do it) is to maximise satiety on as few calories as realistically possible.
The problem most people have when they’re starting out on a diet is that they’re eating around the clock, constantly thinking about food, and their stomach’s are never really truly full. They’re never really satisfied. It’s a big problem.
The solution to this is to condense the eating window from ~16 hours, down to ~6 hours. During the six hour feeding window, you consume just as many calories (at the start), but in way less time. And boy, do you get full.
But what about the other ten hours? Do you not get really hungry?
There is a risk here, especially at the beginning when you’re not used to it. This is covered by either 1-2 coffees (ideally black), or 1-3 green tea’s or sparkling water.
All three will help to fill you up during the fasting period. And you’ll get this, plus being full to the brim from cramming your calories into a six hour feeding window. Then you can start reducing calories afterwards.
In terms of your specific timings, this will vary from one person to the next. But I, for example, usually wake up at 8am every morning. I will then wait until 12pm to have a small fruit snack. Then my meal #1 is at 1pm. Then meal #2 at 6pm.
So the eating window is 12pm-6pm.
But this doesn’t necessarily apply to you. If you get up at 5am, then feel free to bring it forwards by three hours. Or, don’t. And shift your eating window backwards a little. Either way, the most important thing is that you reduce the eating window down to 6-8 hours. I personally think six hours is better.
“Hey man, Hope it’s going well.
So far, I have lost around 81 pounds like I said, I am attaching my body composition slip, gonna go on weekend to get proper inbody scan results. So far, I have been playing with cutting calories and doing cardio and increasing deficit, I have been consistently maintaining around 1-9 or so IF window, and only drink black coffee outside, I work out fasted or on black coffee or pre workout powder.
I have not stalled, weight goes but slowly, I still have belly fat but can see abdominal wall now. I even tried Calipers and they put my body Fat around 23 percent. I wanted to know path ahead and specially about cheating and diet on heavy workout days and rest days. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, probably once in month or two. I can say more about diet if you wanna know.”
Great work on the 81 pounds – IF works!
It looks like you’re doing everything right in terms of the fasting, coffee and training.
I suspect your calipers are off (i.e. over-estimating your body fat %) if you can see the outline of your abs, but that’s only a side-point.
I then asked how often you cheat on your diet, and you responded with “Sometimes on the weekends, depending on urges”
So it seems to me that you’ve got the correct infrastructure in place, but the calories are ‘off’. It strikes me that you’re probably falling into the typical pattern that people do who cut calories too low:
Rapid fat loss for a while, but then the cravings become too much and you tend to sabotage progress.
The goal with Intermittent Fasting is to get to the point whereby you don’t even want to cheat on weekends. This is perfectly do-able, by the way, unless you’re about 8-9% body fat. At that point it’s really hard no matter what you do.
For you, as a plan A, I would:
1. Raise your total daily calories by 200
2. Increase your protein intake by an additional 0.2 grams per pound of bodyweight
This will make a big difference – making your cravings go down, and the desire to cheat. Because cheating is what is currently setting you back. If you didn’t cheat, you wouldn’t be having slow fat loss.
This will definitely increase your fullness, satiation and consistency.
However if you STILL have issues with cravings, then I would encourage you to take a one month maintenance period, because your hormones are likely a little ‘off’ from losing 81 pounds. You need to ‘lock-in’ the new body fat %, if you like.
How would this month look?
1. Keep doing everything you’re doing with IF, training and coffee
2. Raise total calories by 200 (like above) for the first week.
3. Raise total calories by another 100 for the second week.
4. Raise total calories by another 100 for the third week. Maintain this for the fourth.
5. Get back into a deficit.
But this is your plan B. Only do this if plan A doesn’t work.
Good luck.