For a few months, DH and I limited our intake to 8 hour periods, roughly from 10 am to 6 pm, except on days when practical difficulties didn’t allow the routine. I felt great, as did DH. Now we’ve strayed from it, due to work and other things.

The main benefit for me was avoidance of mindless eating in the evenings. My daytime eating has always been healthy, but at night I occasionally used to do self-destructive things like eating a pint of ice cream. Ending all intake at around 6 or 7 pm, and brushing my teeth immediately, has helped me develop more discipline in the evenings without much difficulty.

Also, I like the lightness at night and in the mornings that I feel with this routine. Can’t say there has been significant weight loss, but i do feel better.

I have been doing it since the beginning of September. Despite walking a lot, my weight had been creeping up. I haven't lost a ton - just the few Covid pounds that I gained (sourdough bread and chocolate chip cookie baking 😉), but the important thing is that I think that I have put the kibosh on gaining weight. I eat between noon and 8pm, and that schedule works well for me. I have basically been eating anything that I like during those hours, so if I want to lose more weight I will have to put more effort into limiting the chocolate and wine.😄

I never knew what this was, then saw it discussed somewhere, and realized it’s how I’ve always naturally eaten. I never knew it was a thing.

I have zero appetite in the mornings, never have. I eat my first meal between 12-1 ... then may or may not lightly snack until dinner (fruits, nuts) ... and have dinner around 6. Nothing after. Once I eat dinner, I don’t get hungry again at night.

I eat pretty much what I want, in moderation. I don’t like sweets and desserts at all, so that’s not a factor. My weaknesses are chips, cheesy things, and starchy foods, which, again, I allow myself moderately. I love salty, savory things! And too much of that is not compatible with hormone changes I’ve experienced since turning 50.

ETA: I do need to cut back on my evening wine consumption, which has risen during Covid.

At our 10 day retreats we eat as much breakfast at 7:30 AM as we want . We are served a substantial lunch at 12 noon. We get up at 5:30 AM and go to bed at 10 PM. Those are our only meals. We can have tea at 6 PM if we want but no snacks or fruit etc.

We have started back on this routine since we were just at a very short retreat experience. We had gotten away from it this past year. . I find it very easy to follow and never get hungry between times. We love the freedom of not cooking or cleaning up again after the noon meal. It’s amazing how much you can get done and how much less tired we are in the evening since we aren’t trying to digest food. I love feeling completely empty in the morning when we sit.

I've been doing it for about three years, ever since I learned it was okay, even beneficial, to skip breakfast. I try and keep my eating window from about 11 a.m.-noon till 5 or 6 p.m. On occasion, though, I wake up famished and I just go with it. I really love IF!

I have always realized that eating throughout the evening was not a good plan. I have a sister that was always overweight. She eats dinner at 4:30 and now has seen a significant weight loss. Nothing ever seemed to work for her.

Honestly, though, I think you still need to be mindful of portions.

An easy schedule to start would be breakfast at 8, dinner at 6. Done by 6:30.

I am like jinx in that I do not want anything when I first get up. I usually eat around 11:00. Mid afternoon I might want fruit, yogurt or maybe something left over. We are still eating dinner a bit late, but will move it up as the time changes. I am not an evening snacker at all. My problem is i have a sweet tooth!. I should probably get serious about intermittent fasting.

I do a very relaxed version of this. I eat between 10:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. on most days. On a day where I am physically active I will eat a bit sooner in the morning. If DH and I eat out later than 5:00 p.m. I don't stress about it. The next day I try to eat a little later and finish eating at the same time of 4:30 or 5:00 p.m.

At times I lose a few pounds but the big difference is I don't seem to gain any more weight.

I have a very restricted diet but within that I eat how much I want. Which is less than I used to eat admittedly.

Before I started purposely not eating in the evenings weight crept up even though I ate less than before so for me this works.

I’m assuming that those that stop eating after 5 or 6 are going to bed between 10-12, so stopping eating 4-6 hours before bedtime? How long are you up in the morning before you eat your first meal of the day?

I sometimes end up doing this naturally. I get up when the sun gets up (more or less), now that I'm retired and don't have to go to work in the dark. I usually go to bed at 8:30 or so, but read before I drop off. There's the bathroom break around 1 or 2 am every night, and I either read or drop online (like now) for a short while before dropping back to sleep.

Breakfast has always been important to me. While I can eat immediately upon rising, I don't usually do so. Somewhere between 8 am and 10 Is usual. Either leftovers or eggs. There will usually be a light lunch. I prefer dinner around 5 PM or so, and I don't snack after.

There are times I dont have lunch, but have a second and final meal around 3 PM.

Things change of course when I am making plans with other people.

I have been only eating from 9 to 6 for over two years now. I just read a study that said it actually shows no benefit to weight loss and it was a well done study. I did initially lose weight,about 15lbs but than hit a plateau and have just maintained. I am just entering menopause and have avoided the middle weight gain so this is a positive.

I might not be losing weight but I do notice I feel much better and sleep much better when I stop eating after 6pm. My body rhythm seems so natural now if that makes sense. I will not ever go back. I have far less bloating now too.

This routine along with strict sleep hygiene(9pm to5am), proper daily fiber and daily walking have improved my mental health if not actually lowering my weight. And I believe it is also responsible for putting my autoimmune disease in remission. My ANA has been negative for two years and all antiphospholipid antibodies are non detectable as well.

I've been doing this daily since early August. I am eating between 9 and 3 (at the latest, usually 2). I've lost 12lbs - some CV19 gain. I feel better/have more energy and my silent acid reflux is better. I don't crave anything between meals.

Joanie, we’re up at 5:45 every morning ... I do usually have one cup of coffee, but no food until noon or so.

I physically cannot go hours in the morning without eating when I wake up. I quickly start to feel nauseous, dizzy and then spike huge headaches. Otherwise I follow a version of intermittent fasting. I have a light breakfast, always a snack of a banana or yogurt mid morning, a light lunch, maybe a handful of unsalted roasted peanuts mid afternoon. We eat dinner at 6 and I'm done eating for the day by 6:30 or so. I don't eat anything after that.

But breakfast ASAP is a non negotiable for me. I've always wondered:for those who don't eat in the morning or eat hours after waking-do you FEEL ok? I can't imagine based on my own experience how someone can get up and function for hours on an empty stomach with no fuel at all but of course many people do. So what say you, skippers? How do you feel doing that daily morning fasting?

I feel fine not eating in the mornings, I just have no appetite at all. I’ve been this way since I was a teenager. I remember being pushed to eat something before school every morning, and how bloated and sick it made me.

When I lived in Germany, we were served cold cuts, cheese, and rock hard biscuits in the mornings ... I’d respectfully pass. :D

I absolutely love certain ”breakfast” foods — especially oatmeal with nuts and raisins, Mmmm — so I enjoy them for lunch or dinner sometimes.

RIP,

For most of my life, like you I needed to eat immediately or I would get hangry and/or feel sick. Two years ago I had some medical issues and lost my appetite. I rarely felt hungry, at any time during the day. I don’t know if it was the medical problems, the treatment for them, or a combination. It was an odd experience after 50+ years of my body acting a certain way. Since then, while I did regain my general appetite, I am never hungry in the morning. Pre-pandemic I would even go to the gym to workout and not eat until after that. Can you imagine? A full workout on an empty stomach! It’s a crazy time in my life. IDK why but now I can easily go 14 hours between dinner and breakfast and not feel hungry, angry, headachy, shaky, etc. 🤷🏼‍♀️ I do not recommend the medical problems or their treatment just to avoid morning grumpiness. 😆

RIP, I am like Jinx. I get up at 5 am have a cup of black coffee and nothing to around 9:30 or 10 and then I have a banana and a bowl of all bran with rice milk with my daily aspirin. I would go longer if not on aspirin therapy. I feel nausea if I eat too early it seems.

For me it's to bed around 11:30 p.m. and up somewhere between 6:30 and 8:30 a.m.

I feel fine and do not have any hypoglycemic symptoms as long as I eat my requisite number of calories.

My family life extended my dinner time too. I would love to have dinner by five pm but with work and sports it is never until 6pm sadly.

Even before I started IF I usually exercised before breakfast. I typically walk about 5-6 miles before eating.

I incorporated IF a few years ago. I started as a way to lose some pounds, and it worked. I continue IF to maintain my weight and because I like the way I feel. I've also since learned more about the cognitive benefits of IF, so that has also inspired me to continue.

I was strict at first and started with the 5:2 plan, which had been researched and widely publicized as effective in the UK. After that, I experimented with the various other methods (16:8, 24-hour fasts, etc).

It took a while to adjust and for my body to learn that it doesn't need a constant source of food to be functional. That whole 3-meals-plus-2-snacks theory to keep our "metabolism up" isn't true in most cases.

I do slow-to-medium cardio in a fasted state (which for me is brisk walking or cycling), which research has shown burns more fat when fasted. For more intense workouts where I'm focusing on muscle maintenance, I'm not fasted. There's research behind this, but I'm not a medical expert of any sort and will let you gather your own information.

I still practice but am much less rigid. For example, it's after noon here, and I haven't yet eaten today. Yes, my stomach is growling a bit, but I feel fine and functional otherwise. Yesterday (Sunday), I had brunch around 10. So, it varies by day, but I make sure that most days I have a good 16 hours without food. As others have stated, that's when I feel most clear-headed, less bloated, and have consistent energy.

I liked IF. For me it means first meal ( usually a salad ) was around 12-2. , then dinner 5-6;30.

BUT! I am now loving ADF( alternate Day fasting) . I actually like fasting day with no need to give food a thought. Only have lots of water and decaf all day....four cups, generally. If nothing else, it’s a good starter. I’ve dropped 7lbs. in 6 days. If I don’t continue this long term, I will return to IF. I do watch what I eat on both , and they are equally healthy, it seems. Constantly counting calories just does not work for me, and I’ve never liked breakfast. AND, As soon as I eat breakfast, I just want more soon after. keeping fingers crossed. Will let you know in a month.

I intermittent fast a few days weekly. My eating window is 2pm - 6pm. I feel so much better when I fast! I typically eat low carb, but if I cheat and have a pasta dinner, I am more hungry when I wake up and feel less able to fast the next day. For fasting info, I typically refer to Dr. Jason Fung. He has a Ted Talk and wrote a good book on IF.

There really doesn't seem to be anything magical about IF. Gosh, I wish there was. It is ONE way to cut calories. Combined with mindfulness, it can work for a lot of people. But a lot of different things can work for some people, like keto, like czarinalex mentioned, or going vegan.

Here is a study published JAMA Internal Medicine. They really found no difference in IF vs. standard timed meals in this particular randomized controlled trial. But it actually was a RCT. In both conditions, there were participants who did much better than others, and in both conditions, there even were people who gained weight. This type of graph is seen in any type of weight loss study. There is a mean/average but there are lots of individual differences, and these are often just due to people's lifestyle, schedule, and home/family dynamics like many of you stated. They saw no differences in any of the blood work for cholesterol, blood glucose, or Hemoglobin A1C.

Ethan Weiss twitter thread

Link to full article

Thanks for sharing the study, Gsciencechick. There are significant flaws in its design and implementation, though, so I would encourage anyone considering IF not to rely on its findings alone.

No study is perfect and is just one study. ETA, Gah, hate to give a "both sides" argument, but I'm not convinced by other readings that it's superior to anything else.

The trick is to find what YOU can stick to and if it WORKS for you. There are so many variables.

I do believe that stopping food intake earlier in the evening helps the body digest the food you have eaten throughout the day. This seems to matter for me.

My most difficult thing is drinking water. Water helps your body's organs do the job they are supposed to.

Someone once told me that if you don't drink enough, the liver has to then help your kidneys. This makes for a sluggish system. I can never drink the recommended amount of water, but I have given up my morning coffee in place of hot water with lemon. I then have another glass of water with my supplements. So, I at least get two out of the way. early

I like drinking tea but limit myself to two cups daily. I don't count this as water although some say you can count it as a half portion. After dinner, I drink more water with my supplements and Pravastatin.

The idea too is to drink your water slowly. No gulping. I have dry eyes and my optometrist told me this. It gives your body a chance to absorb the water rather than passing through.

RIP, I did not intentionally start IF, it’s just how I have eaten for years. I don’t wake up hungry and do not want to eat right away. It’s usually up around 3 hours before eating. When I worked, it was the same. I got up earlier then, but I always took or prepared food at my workplace (we had a kitchen).

I've done it every other day for over a year. I've lost 15 pounds. The tips that I read for this type of fasting said to eat the same meal on fast days and to only weigh yourself after a fast day.