Hey y'all! Anyone and everyone is welcome to jump in and join us.

This is the Intermittent Fasting DAily Menu/Results/Accountability Thread. It's where a few of us (or many) are going to log in and encourage each other while we experiment with our own IF plans. You can list or talk about anything--not just your food. I look forward to adding in HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and core exercises to my walking plan while practicing IF. So expect to hear about that too. hehe I expect some of us will talk about the known IF side-effects like insomnia, circadian rhythm disturbance, etc. It's all good! Let's hack this IF mofo! mkay?

There is not any 1 specific IF plan--there are so many to choose from, so this is a BYOIFP (bring-your-own-IF-plan) and join the fun! This is the thread where we'll post our daily menus and maybe some piccys at times! We can discuss progress, issues we might notice, look at how we may want to refine our own personal plans. I do think you should be healed from surgery and have your doctor's and RD's blessings to try something like this and you should do a ton of research and reading about Intermittent Fasting.

IF isn't only about weight loss, it's about taking specific measures to limit either quantities, calories, macros, or sometimes only consciously altering eating windows/schedules in order to effect metabolic change and reduce inflammation and improve health markers.

Ok, let's do this thang!!!

1 minute ago, sillykitty said:

I'm not drinking Water ... did you know a Double Gulp is 64 oz?

I'm unfortunately neither a coffee or tea drinker. I find both completely intolerable unless they are sweet and creamy, like milky chai, or vietnamese coffee. Since Protein is one of my January goals, I might start making faux Vietnamese coffee again with PP caramel, but I'll try to do it in my non fasting window, since I need a lot of PP to get it sweet enough for me.

Any liquid is good liquid at this point. Right? I don't think they're making PP Caramel until spring? But try it with the vanilla! You might like it. Also Nestle makes Crema Media which is like really thick unsweetened evaporated milk, you might be able to come up with a solution. Miss my Vietnamese coffee from Tee Wais in Denver (closed now).

I have some caramel leftover from before I fell off the protein wagon

I made it! Didn't break my fast until after 3pm, and have already met my 64 oz fluid goal!

@FluffyChix - These are for you

Grilled chicken with Thai Red Curry Sauce

Red Curry - 2 tbs or 1.4 oz

Chicken - 1.15 oz cooked

The ramekin is 1/2 cup at the inner line, and 3/4 to the very top

There was .65 oz of sauce leftover

Total consumption is right about 2 oz. Total volume, let's say 1/3 cup? I'm comfortably full. I could eat about another 1/2 oz before I'd really feel my restriction in an uncomfortable way.

BTW, this is me on first day of the January Challenge on my very best behavior. It's all downhill from here!

Is it normal to feel like I’m eating too frequently over the non-fasting time? I can’t eat more than 1/2 cup over half an hour, and if I drink anything obviously that fills me up too. Am I supposed to be eating the same amount I’d usually eat all day long in the 8 hour window?

I'm not getting hungry during the fast hours, just nudged by social-conditioning prompts. And I didn’t eat a ton today, but the pace at which I ate it feels dramatic. Normal?

4 minutes ago, sideeye said:

Is it normal to feel like I’m eating too frequently over the non-fasting time? I can’t eat more than 1/2 cup over half an hour, and if I drink anything obviously that fills me up too. Am I supposed to be eating the same amount I’d usually eat all day long in the 8 hour window?

I'm not getting hungry during the fast hours, just nudged by social-conditioning prompts. And I didn’t eat a ton today, but the pace at which I ate it feels dramatic. Normal?

What I am going to say is when I'm on plan ....

I don't eat when I'm not hungry, unless it is to meet protein goals. If that means I only eat 2 meals, then so be it. I'm no where near starvation weight, so if I don't eat 3 or as some plans say 5-6 meals per day, or get X number of calories, then I don't sweat it.

14 hours ago, sillykitty said:

I made it! Didn't break my fast until after 3pm, and have already met my 64 oz Fluid goal!

@FluffyChix - These are for you

Grilled chicken with Thai Red Curry Sauce

Red Curry - 2 tbs or 1.4 oz

Chicken - 1.15 oz cooked

The ramekin is 1/2 cup at the inner line, and 3/4 to the very top

There was .65 oz of sauce leftover

Total consumption is right about 2 oz. Total volume, let's say 1/3 cup? I'm comfortably full. I could eat about another 1/2 oz before I'd really feel my restriction in an uncomfortable way.

BTW, this is me on first day of the January Challenge on my very best behavior. It's all downhill from here!

Thank you sweetie! That really helps me! And BTW, it looks FABULOUS!!! Like I wanna bathe in it!

I've been being "so good" (for me) with keeping to 1cup total. Trust me, that's hard. I can eat. Then last night all hell broke loose at our fam Christmas party. *sigh* I ate probably 4oz of chicken fajita meat wrapped up into 2 jicama tacos filled with pico and guac and a squeeze of lime. I also ate prolly 1/8c refried beans and 1/8c Mexi rice. *sigh* I don't think the damage is horrible from that amt of calories. But I'm disappointed that I could eat that volume. Cuz I overate according to the docs. I felt comfortably full after that...UGH! I'm such a hoser.

And conversely, scale is down to 147.6lbs this morning.

Edited January 5, 20197 yr by FluffyChix

I’m on week three of a stall, I was wondering if IF would shift it (and admittedly am only on Day 3) but if anything it’s incrementally nudging me upward. Is there some sort of IF adjustment period where your body rejigs itself to the new regimen?

It’s not the end of the world, and I think that other things are happening with weight shifting around on my body which is kind of interesting, but still! Three weeks!

Also my pants are getting loose but I don’t want to go out and buy new ones because I fell for this trick before, with bras, where is soon as I bought them I suddenly dropped 7 pounds.

edit- never mind, may have found the culprit: just matched up my weight loss with menstrual cycles and I may be on the edge of a cliff. So no buying pants for me.

Edited January 5, 20197 yr by sideeye

@sideeye wt does shift around, push liquids...the body is amazing - take some measurements, sometimes during a stall you lose inches like crazy. Embrace the process.

12 hours ago, FluffyChix said:

But I'm disappointed that I could eat that volume. Cuz I overate according to the docs. I felt comfortably full after that...UGH! I'm such a hoser.

It's interesting, does RNY have a larger capacity than sleeves? Does food just not stay in the stomach the same way to give restriction?

It's weird to me that @Orchids&Dragons could go from a string bean sleeve, to having more capacity after her revision, when it was only the restrictive sleeve to form the pouch out of?

So yesterday was the first day of the January challenge that I played along. I think I may have a problem, if I focus on protein and do IF, only eating when hungry, my calorie total is too low for maintenance. For instance this was yesterday

I mean it's a nice problem to have ... but ...

Oof. Yeah, I’m eating probably half again what you are and that’s eating when I’m NOT hungry but am in the non-fasting zone.

This is not an easy balance. Factors involved: capacity, hunger, protein’s ability to stave off hunger while making you feel full, then add the IF timeframe. Today I deliberately upped carbs so I wouldn’t feel like I was overeating (protein+time) if I ate more during the 8 hours. Realistically, if I want to get in spinach, I HAVE to cut down on IF protein because otherwise there’s just not enough time.

Would it be better to do the whole-day IF schedule, the 5/2 or whatever?

9 hours ago, sillykitty said:

It's weird to me that @Orchids&Dragons could go from a string bean sleeve, to having more capacity after her revision, when it was only the restrictive sleeve to form the pouch out of?

In my case the surgeon said they didn't really form a pouch, they just connected the "stomach" to the small intestine and food just drops through. I thought this was controlled by the size of the stoma, but it sounds like the stoma, in my case, does not provide any restriction at all. My "string bean" was so restrictive because of the valve at the bottom so I couldn't overfill it. Now, there's no valve.

Edited January 6, 20197 yr by Orchids&Dragons

So your accountability speed governer was deleted, now it is full speed ahead with no GERD? I think I now understand.

11 hours ago, sillykitty said:

So yesterday was the first day of the January challenge that I played along. I think I may have a problem, if I focus on Protein and do IF, only eating when hungry, my calorie total is too low for maintenance. For instance this was yesterday

I mean it's a nice problem to have ... but ...

Can you "tart out" your meals? Like say for the smoothie, add peanut butter and blueberries and spinach? Then blend the hell outta it with ice? So that could add 250cals right there. You could even add a couple ounces of avocado for another 100cals and it makes it very buttery and thick like a shake.

For dinner, could you add a small 1/4 cup of salad with homemade blue cheese dressing? That adds another 140-180 cals.

For Lunch, could you add a veg with butter or sesame oil on it? That could add another 100-150 cals right there.

Then add a small snack of 1 oz of nuts of some sort? Or a meat/cheese stick? Or a P3 or something like that to add plenty of fat?

1 minute ago, FluffyChix said:

For dinner, could you add a small 1/4 cup of salad with homemade blue cheese dressing? That adds another 140-180 cals.

Holy cow, Fluff! How much salad dressing can you put on 1/4 cup of salad?