Intermittent Fasting- Anyone?

[Tim C 335]

I hit a 5 day stall about a week after surgery and started intermittent fasting. I take all of my calories in between 12 noon and 6pm. Then fst for 18 hours. It is pretty simple since I am not hungry anyway. It got the scales moving again. I think we have to fool our bodies sometime. I will hit anothe stll and I will try something else. This is working good for now. How bout you? Any Tricks?

[The Greater Fool 1,952]

Tim,

You're going to ignore me, but I'm gonna try anyhow.

This period is called the honeymoon period for a reason. No matter what you do, no matter how well or badly you follow your program, you will lose weight.

The honeymoon can teach you one of two lessons:

1) You can follow your program and you will receive the wonderfully positive feedback of losing weight. It's a great motivator to continue and to get the feedback. Month after month of staying on program and losing weight is a great teacher and motivator. By times the weight loss slows you will be at or near goal and you've built your lifetime habits so you won't regain.

2) You can do whatever you want and you will receive the wonderfully positive feedback of losing weight. It's a great motivator to continue and to get the feedback. When you leave the honeymoon and stop losing weight, or worse, gaining weight, you are now where you were pre-op: Working to learn a diet with little to no positive feedback.

Make a good choice.

From what you've described so far, you are basically in starvation mode. Even if you worked to follow your program you would be near starvation. Starving yourself for 8 hours then worse for 16 hours a day just puts that much more strain on your body. You NEED Protein to heal and right now you have to do the absolute best you can. This was supposed to be an action to get healthy, not, well...

Keeping your scale moving via starvation is not healthy. Watching the scale is screwing with your mind.

Talk about this honestly and frankly with your medical team. Listen to them.

[Hop_Scotch 1,626]

Stalls are normal for weight loss surgery,they are nothing out of the norm.

It's early days for you, I don't think i would be trying IF just yet, particularly on the low calorie amounts in the early days, and particularly moreso, if you haven't run this past your surgeon or dietician.

[catwoman7 10,867]

stalls are a normal part of the weight loss journey. Just follow your clinic's program and stay off the scale. The weight loss will start up again in 1-3 weeks. I wouldn't do anything but continue to follow your program.

[RickM 1,747]

I'm kinda with Greater Fool on this, in that almost anything will work at this point, and even for the next few months. 20-30 years ago, it was not uncommon for bariatric programs to tell their patients to "just eat like you always have, just less..." and they lost weight just fine eating the same way that got them fat in the first place. At least they did for the first few months to year and then they started gaining again because they never learned how to eat sustainably. It is not unusual to see people come into these forums after having failed at (insert favorite fad diet here - Keto, Paleo, IF, Atkins, Zone...) and they continue eating that way and gee, all of a sudden that's the only diet that will work with your WLS. I did much the same thing, too, adopting a basically balanced nutrition oriented diet that I could do forever - worked on evolving that for several years before surgery, then tailored that for the lower post op intake and continued with that as the intake naturally increased over time; still doing that ten years later.

IF works like most of those diets - by forcing a reduction in caloric intake. Some cut out fats, some carbohydrates, IF cuts out time, but they all are a mechanism for reducing caloric intake, which you really don't need at this point as you can't eat much to begin with. As noted, stalls will come and go, and there are as many personal experiences and hypotheses as to how to "break a stall" as there are people. I really have no input on how to break a stall as I never really had much of one, even at the dreaded three week point. Chalk it up to better diet, stronger underlying metabolism, not worrying about them - who knows.

As to your experience, consider that you have a data set of one - and it's real hard to establish a trend with a single data point. Just go with the flow! Good luck

[Tim C 335]

1 hour ago, The Greater Fool said:

Tim,

You're going to ignore me, but I'm gonna try anyhow.

This period is called the honeymoon period for a reason. No matter what you do, no matter how well or badly you follow your program, you will lose weight.

The honeymoon can teach you one of two lessons:

1) You can follow your program and you will receive the wonderfully positive feedback of losing weight. It's a great motivator to continue and to get the feedback. Month after month of staying on program and losing weight is a great teacher and motivator. By times the weight loss slows you will be at or near goal and you've built your lifetime habits so you won't regain.

2) You can do whatever you want and you will receive the wonderfully positive feedback of losing weight. It's a great motivator to continue and to get the feedback. When you leave the honeymoon and stop losing weight, or worse, gaining weight, you are now where you were pre-op: Working to learn a diet with little to no positive feedback.

Make a good choice.

From what you've described so far, you are basically in starvation mode. Even if you worked to follow your program you would be near starvation. Starving yourself for 8 hours then worse for 16 hours a day just puts that much more strain on your body. You NEED Protein to heal and right now you have to do the absolute best you can. This was supposed to be an action to get healthy, not, well...

Keeping your scale moving via starvation is not healthy. Watching the scale is screwing with your mind.

Talk about this honestly and frankly with your medical team. Listen to them.

Thanks for the advice. I will check in with my nutrisionist on Monday. I have never been much of Breakfast fan. I drink a shake with collgen Protein and whey protein and crushed ice and blend. I am getting in about 1000 calories a day,which is at the high end of what I am supposed to get in at this point. I sincerly thank everyone and appreciate your input!

[catwoman7 10,867]

10 minutes ago, Tim C said:

Thanks for the advice. I will check in with my nutrisionist on Monday. I have never been much of Breakfast fan. I drink a shake with collgen Protein and whey Protein and crushed ice and blend. I am getting in about 1000 calories a day,which is at the high end of what I am supposed to get in at this point. I sincerly thank everyone and appreciate your input!

a Protein Shake for breakfast is fine. I know several post-ops who can't stomach solid food in the morning, so they just drink a protein shake instead. I've done it, too...

[Tim C 335]

1 hour ago, catwoman7 said:

a Protein Shake for Breakfast is fine. I know several post-ops who can't stomach solid food in the morning, so they just drink a Protein shake instead. I've done it, too...

I feel like I could have a Protein Shake morning or mid day from here on out. They taste good to me and flll me up.

[catwoman7 10,867]

54 minutes ago, Tim C said:

I feel like I could have a Protein Shake morning or mid day from here on out. They taste good to me and flll me up.

I still drink one as my morning snack and I'm almost six years out (or sometimes I drink them for breakfast if I'm not really in the mood for eating real food...). They're a vehicle for my daily capful of Miralax - plus I like them, too. I often make fancy coffee drinks out of them, too - like iced "lattes". Or I'll throw some frozen fruit in there and make smoothies out of them. I've gotten pretty creative over the years...

[Tim C 335]

12 hours ago, RickM said:

I'm kinda with Greater Fool on this, in that almost anything will work at this point, and even for the next few months. 20-30 years ago, it was not uncommon for bariatric programs to tell their patients to "just eat like you always have, just less..." and they lost weight just fine eating the same way that got them fat in the first place. At least they did for the first few months to year and then they started gaining again because they never learned how to eat sustainably. It is not unusual to see people come into these forums after having failed at (insert favorite fad diet here - Keto, Paleo, IF, Atkins, Zone...) and they continue eating that way and gee, all of a sudden that's the only diet that will work with your WLS. I did much the same thing, too, adopting a basically balanced nutrition oriented diet that I could do forever - worked on evolving that for several years before surgery, then tailored that for the lower post op intake and continued with that as the intake naturally increased over time; still doing that ten years later.

IF works like most of those diets - by forcing a reduction in caloric intake. Some cut out fats, some carbohydrates, IF cuts out time, but they all are a mechanism for reducing caloric intake, which you really don't need at this point as you can't eat much to begin with. As noted, stalls will come and go, and there are as many personal experiences and hypotheses as to how to "break a stall" as there are people. I really have no input on how to break a stall as I never really had much of one, even at the dreaded three week point. Chalk it up to better diet, stronger underlying metabolism, not worrying about them - who knows.

As to your experience, consider that you have a data set of one - and it's real hard to establish a trend with a single data point. Just go with the flow! Good luck

Thanks!