Backwards IF

[Mike ODonnell]

Originally Posted by Edward Friedman

eating window 5-10 p.m. for 2 reasons:

1) More social eating takes place during those hours;
2) Sleep blunts waking hunger. In other words, if most people ate early, the hunger in the remaining hours of waking day is too annoying.

Precisely why I do my eating 2-7 or 3-8 or 5-10....to have a life and still be able to live longer...

[Edward Friedman]

Originally Posted by Jeff Bearden

Thanks for all the input guys. I can imagine that falling asleep hungry would be difficult. So, I guess what I'm concerned about is the fact that I have to train in the AM from 0530 hrs to 0630 hrs because of the whole Army thing and if I IF during the day would it be too long to wait until 5 pm or later to break fast? Or, should I have lunch and supper and cut off evening feeding earlier than 10 pm?

Hi Jeff,

I don't think anyone can "answer" your question, except YOU !

Again, IMHO, you have to try to see what makes YOU feel best and most closely approximate the overall YOU seek. YOU may find that training early, eating late is no problem, whereas it would crush someone else. YOU may find that eating early, fasting late, ("falling asleep hungry",) is easy and comfortable, whereas someone else could simply not deal with it, etc.

As I see it, this is REAL self-experimentation !

Dr. Herring (Fast-5) has written stuff like, (paraphrasing,) "try it the way you think you want to do it, and have a snack handy in case you are simply too uncomfortable." I like that sort of thinking.

While I think the exchange of ideas and personal experience here and elsewhere (eg; Fast-5 forum, [IF] Yahoo Fasting Forum,) are great to help folks formulate their approach, nothing ultimately matters until YOU test how it works for YOU. Even this will vary. Some days I breeze my fast until 7 p.m., no problem. I've had days where I felt I simply had to eat at 4 p.m., and I did.

Another, IMO, important factor, is learning to be comfortable with discomfort. Not masochism, or eating disorder levels of "discomfort", just "wow, I'd like to eat now, and my window is in __________hours. O.K. I'll have a cup of tea and focus my attention on ______________." Voila ! The hunger evaporates or at least becomes VERY manageable, and the time passes while you got other good stuff done. You're IFing now Baby !

Hopefully, if one finds this is a good WOE, they will be doing it for decades. Time spent tweaking the individual application, even if that takes weeks or months, even if there are days that don't "work" as well as others, is time very well spent.

[Jeff Bearden]

Thanks Edward. Very well put. I will experiment a little but I am such a creature of habit, I guess that's why I'm looking for a cut and dry answer but I do understand that intermittent should truly be intermittent.

[Yvana van den Hork]

Just skip lunch and fast for 10-12 hrs, like what I did until recently when I added more fruits back in (but no protein & fats). This works reasonably well. Though I'm only doing this every other day and eat 5 meals on workout days (again every other day).
Problem solved: you sleep well because you've had a pre-bed time meal and you've also fed yourself right after (or before) working out.