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!!!

7 minutes ago, GreenTealael said:

Oh don't worry too much about it, apparently it takes time/effort to convert energy and store it as fat, the IF body would rather hold it as glycogen for quick release when you're in this pattern long enough. So you'll lose it again, the beauty of all of this is the end game

take a look at some of the studies, IF is super effective especially for men...

I'm sure I'll be fine, but thank you. This crap is freaking frustrating!

Side note, I had to send out my most recent wedding ring to get resized, dropped 2 full ring sizes. Downside is that I only have my original wedding band on and it's freaking tiny, my hand feels naked!

26 minutes ago, Matt Z said:

I'm sure I'll be fine, but thank you. This crap is freaking frustrating!

Side note, I had to send out my most recent wedding ring to get resized, dropped 2 full ring sizes. Downside is that I only have my original wedding band on and it's freaking tiny, my hand feels naked!

Hahahahahaha I'm sure ...

Ok, so ty for the birthday wishes! Had a great day (no IF--no UP or DD days lol). But I actually was pretty good all things considered and although I'm still up the 1.4lbs from the weekend, I'm not up from yesterday. So I will count that as a win. I'm still stuck at 161.8lbs today.

This actually doesn't bother me too much since I suspect this is a set-point for me from a long time running. The last time I weighed 160lbs was almost 19 years ago! And I was at that weight for a very long time. I'd weighed in the 150s (and briefly, the 140s) in high school. I was an athlete and had monster muscles--especially in my thighs and butt--of course that was very unpopular back then...go figure. So I'm pretty sure this will be a tough decade to break out of and through past the 150s. But I'm setting my jaw to get down to TCB. LOL. After today.

Today is my REAL birthday--we just celebrated with the sissies yesterday cuz my big sis was in town for it. Soooooooooo, I get a real live dinner date with Mr. F. tonight. I think we're going to Outback Steakhouse cuz it will be really easy to be good there and I think they have a steak and lobster special for $14.99 or something crazy like that. I'm actually toying with doing an OMAD day. I'm about to rev up the YouTube to see if I can find some women who do OMAD and see if there are any studies attached to it for women. Most of the studies on this stuff are done on men. And we all know we are so different in how IF affects us!

I quickly put some numbers together. If I can eat 7oz of protein, I'm in the 50g of protein for the day area. If I could also drink 3oz of Premier on the way to dinner--I'll either kill my appetite or boost the protein ingestion! LOL. I'm pretty sure that would be ALL I was eating! But for grins I did throw a few lettuce leaves and blue cheese dressing numbers around!

I know I've eaten 7-8oz by weight in a meal before--so my thought is that I will use this as an experiment to see just how much dense protein I can eat in a meal--eating protein first. If I fall short of my protein goals for the day--well--it would only be for one day. But if I can do it without overeating and stretching my pouch, then OMAD might be something I could/would consider. I used to do it when I was in college all the time. But I didn't know anything about protein reqs at that time!

33 minutes ago, FluffyChix said:

Ok, so ty for the birthday wishes! Had a great day (no IF--no UP or DD days lol). But I actually was pretty good all things considered and although I'm still up the 1.4lbs from the weekend, I'm not up from yesterday. So I will count that as a win. I'm still stuck at 161.8lbs today.

This actually doesn't bother me too much since I suspect this is a set-point for me from a long time running. The last time I weighed 160lbs was almost 19 years ago! And I was at that weight for a very long time. I'd weighed in the 150s (and briefly, the 140s) in high school. I was an athlete and had monster muscles--especially in my thighs and butt--of course that was very unpopular back then...go figure. So I'm pretty sure this will be a tough decade to break out of and through past the 150s. But I'm setting my jaw to get down to TCB. LOL. After today.

Today is my REAL birthday--we just celebrated with the sissies yesterday cuz my big sis was in town for it. Soooooooooo, I get a real live dinner date with Mr. F. tonight. I think we're going to Outback Steakhouse cuz it will be really easy to be good there and I think they have a steak and lobster special for $14.99 or something crazy like that. I'm actually toying with doing an OMAD day. I'm about to rev up the YouTube to see if I can find some women who do OMAD and see if there are any studies attached to it for women. Most of the studies on this stuff are done on men. And we all know we are so different in how IF affects us!

I quickly put some numbers together. If I can eat 7oz of Protein, I'm in the 50g of protein for the day area. If I could also drink 3oz of Premier on the way to dinner--I'll either kill my appetite or boost the protein ingestion! LOL. I'm pretty sure that would be ALL I was eating! But for grins I did throw a few lettuce leaves and blue cheese dressing numbers around!

I know I've eaten 7-8oz by weight in a meal before--so my thought is that I will use this as an experiment to see just how much dense protein I can eat in a meal--eating protein first. If I fall short of my protein goals for the day--well--it would only be for one day. But if I can do it without overeating and stretching my pouch, then OMAD might be something I could/would consider. I used to do it when I was in college all the time. But I didn't know anything about protein reqs at that time!

Happy real birthday! Have a wonderful time at Outback!

51 minutes ago, FluffyChix said:

Ok, so ty for the birthday wishes! Had a great day (no IF--no UP or DD days lol). But I actually was pretty good all things considered and although I'm still up the 1.4lbs from the weekend, I'm not up from yesterday. So I will count that as a win. I'm still stuck at 161.8lbs today.

This actually doesn't bother me too much since I suspect this is a set-point for me from a long time running. The last time I weighed 160lbs was almost 19 years ago! And I was at that weight for a very long time. I'd weighed in the 150s (and briefly, the 140s) in high school. I was an athlete and had monster muscles--especially in my thighs and butt--of course that was very unpopular back then...go figure. So I'm pretty sure this will be a tough decade to break out of and through past the 150s. But I'm setting my jaw to get down to TCB. LOL. After today.

Today is my REAL birthday--we just celebrated with the sissies yesterday cuz my big sis was in town for it. Soooooooooo, I get a real live dinner date with Mr. F. tonight. I think we're going to Outback Steakhouse cuz it will be really easy to be good there and I think they have a steak and lobster special for $14.99 or something crazy like that. I'm actually toying with doing an OMAD day. I'm about to rev up the YouTube to see if I can find some women who do OMAD and see if there are any studies attached to it for women. Most of the studies on this stuff are done on men. And we all know we are so different in how IF affects us!

I quickly put some numbers together. If I can eat 7oz of Protein, I'm in the 50g of protein for the day area. If I could also drink 3oz of Premier on the way to dinner--I'll either kill my appetite or boost the protein ingestion! LOL. I'm pretty sure that would be ALL I was eating! But for grins I did throw a few lettuce leaves and blue cheese dressing numbers around!

I know I've eaten 7-8oz by weight in a meal before--so my thought is that I will use this as an experiment to see just how much dense protein I can eat in a meal--eating protein first. If I fall short of my protein goals for the day--well--it would only be for one day. But if I can do it without overeating and stretching my pouch, then OMAD might be something I could/would consider. I used to do it when I was in college all the time. But I didn't know anything about protein reqs at that time!

Sorry for the missed Birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

HAPPY REAL BIRTHDAY @FluffyChix

This is cool. I’ve been thinking about going back on a liquid diet for a few days. I’m at stage 3 and actually gained 5 pounds. FML. I’m not doing something right.

Where did you find that printable diary for your food?

@fluffychix where did you find the food diary?

ugh... just ready to cry/cave in/give up/whatever...

Gained more weight, again. 224.2 lbs / 27.9% bf Monday, 225.8 lbs / 27.5% bf Tuesday, 226.6 lbs / 27.3% Today.

I know fluctuations are normal. I see that my body fat % is dropping even though the weight is climbing.
I'm hoping it's another "fill and flush"... because if it keeps going up I'm going to lose my mind.

sigh... just keep swimming right...

1 hour ago, Matt Z said:

ugh... just ready to cry/cave in/give up/whatever...

Gained more weight, again. 224.2 lbs / 27.9% bf Monday, 225.8 lbs / 27.5% bf Tuesday, 226.6 lbs / 27.3% Today.

I know fluctuations are normal. I see that my body fat % is dropping even though the weight is climbing.
I'm hoping it's another "fill and flush"... because if it keeps going up I'm going to lose my mind.

sigh... just keep swimming right...

Awww Matt! I'm sorry you're dealing with this. I hate that desperate feeling of not knowing if you're doing the right thing with what you eat! Maybe this is just leftover water/glycogen stores from the weekend and if you give it 4 good days, they will come back off? ((hugs)) and hang in there! It's. So. Hard!!! Don't give up. Keep on swimming!!!

7 hours ago, Patti said:

@fluffychix where did you find the food diary?

My Fitness Pal (MFP). You can fill in the day and scroll all the way down to the bottom where it says printable version. Click on it and it gives you that capture. Then do a screen shot of it and save it. Not to dissuade you but I think you should be at the minimum 4-6months out before even contemplating IF. At Stage 3 you are eating such small portions and so few calories. But if your diet is sloppy, then for sure clean it up and make sure you're following your surgeon's example. At stage 3 I was still eating baby meals (size-wise) and eating 6 times a day just to satisfy my protein needs. I was also only getting about 500-600 cals I think.

Ok, well the OMAD thing is not for me. First of all I flunked and it set me up to be bad--with kind of a binge rebound (involving Taco Hell crispy tacos). *sigh*

First off by the time I got to Outback I was Starvin Marvin (at 5pm--first meal). And the lobster was tiny--like 2oz cooked. So I ate some of Mr. F's prime rib, but felt bad about it, so I probably only ate 1.5oz total. Which "should" have been enough, except I also shared a little of his salad and a couple bites of broccoli. And it would have filled most of you--but not my beast of a tummy. And the food was crappy, and so expensive, I didn't want to order anything else.

By 9:30 after trivia was over and a glass of wine in my bellah (btw, the wine is bye-bye for a while now--until Mr. F's birthday next month)--I was ready to sacrifice and devour small animals. Nothing would stop me from my appointed rounds!!! I ate 2+ crispy tacos. Calories for the day were well over my limits and I'm up a lb today. I deserve it--even though I walked yesterday.

So I think what works best for me is doing my consistent meals. I may not do as "big" of a production for each meal, but I think I will get my 3 meals in over the 14/10 to 16/8 timeframe and continue to do ADF calorie restriction. I have done well with it in the past. And as much as I want to be one of you 20/4 or 23/1s, I can't make it work. It opens up the binge monster which I avoid at all costs whenever possible!!

Damn. I'm all over the board on this. It's such a learning curve! This is an enlightening interview with Dr. Jason Fung MD (nephrologist). Now I'm back to wanting to do a 24 hour fast today. And he says there is hope for loose skin!!! Autophagy=the body will lose it's lose skin and recycle the unneeded extra skin. But it takes longer fasts to do that. mTor regulates autophagy and it's turned off by protein and senses nutrients in your body.

5 hours ago, Matt Z said:

ugh... just ready to cry/cave in/give up/whatever...

Gained more weight, again. 224.2 lbs / 27.9% bf Monday, 225.8 lbs / 27.5% bf Tuesday, 226.6 lbs / 27.3% Today.

I know fluctuations are normal. I see that my body fat % is dropping even though the weight is climbing.
I'm hoping it's another "fill and flush"... because if it keeps going up I'm going to lose my mind.

sigh... just keep swimming right...

I know the feeling Matt ... hang in there!