If you can't drink black coffee, you don't really like coffee. You like the ritual of a warm, caffeinated beverage. Once I realized this, that made things easier. Consider green tea if you don't want any calories whatsoever with your caffeine. Variations of green (jasmine, mint, etc) all work without needing milk or sugar.

Alternatively, skip IF dogma and get to the root of calorie control. I put oat milk in my morning coffee (easily 150 calories), so in no way am I fasting. But I still do just one main meal a day, so I still benefit from the overall calorie reduction.

I agree with another poster who said to be strict on the time to start. Once you get the window down you’ll find that you crave the junky food less.
IF is set up to work for those with insulin over production. Read the book if you don’t believe me. It was never intended to be for everyone.
If this is your body- you’ll find that when you shorten the window of time you are setting your body does stop craving those ultra sugary foods.
Stress about the window & the rest will follow

Anonymous wrote:Is something like this worthwhile if you only do it half the days, or do you need to do it every day to make it work? I play in tennis matches a few times a week at 10 am and I have to eat a real meal around 7:30 or 8 am in order to do well.

You could do the other kind of IF where you do 5 normal days of eating (including your tennis days), and 2 fast days where you eat under 500 cals.

Is something like this worthwhile if you only do it half the days, or do you need to do it every day to make it work? I play in tennis matches a few times a week at 10 am and I have to eat a real meal around 7:30 or 8 am in order to do well.

I've lost 20 lbs since April doing IF and I have 2-3 cups of coffee every morning with h&h and splenda.

But I also exercise daily so perhaps the additional calories are being offset.

It took my body a couple weeks to adjust to IF, so don't get discouraged early on. Just try to stay busy, drinking water and chewing gum helps too. After that it your body starts to adjust to eating less food and you don't feel as hungry.

Pick your window based on your lifestyle. If dinner is the meal you enjoy the most, shift your window to later in the day so you can enjoy your meal with no regrets. If you're more into a heavier lunch, shift your window earlier etc.

And don't get too caught up in if you didn't make it exactly to your eating window or went over a little bit, it happens. Or if you need to take a day off here and there. Just get right back on the wagon soon as you can. It will get easier, consistency is key.

I do IF, start eating around noon or 1, done eating by 7. But I always always have my caffiene in the morning with milk, cream, or milk substitute ... Measure it out so you don't get too much (I tend to overpour) but it isn't worth drinking tea/coffee without some sort of dairy in it.

Don't stress about it. If you get hungry in the morning, know that the feeling is going to go away if you just wait 10-15 minutes. It really does.

I like the PPs suggestion to ease into it .... it is better to make 5 little changes over time than doing them all at once -- that is setting yourself up to fail.

Take a quick walk whenever you get up to have a snack instead of snacking.

Stay away from the kitchen.

Anonymous wrote:Ideas, tips, i find lunch during virtual work so hard. i end up eating no junk, but not a real meal, and so i snack. I think the 11-7 will help but looking for tips and pitfalls. Thanks

I found that I still really wanted to eat a little snack at night so I adjusted to 1 - 9pm

If going the full 16 hours at first seems daunting. Try to do 12 hours the first day, then the next day 13 hours, and so on up until 16.

I always swore I couldn't drink black coffee but I gave up half-and-half for IF. I started buying better coffee, grinding it myself, bought a better coffee maker and now I actually do enjoy my black coffee. If you drink it black, quality really matters.

I pretty quickly lost 10 lbs with IF, including really reducing my belly. I've plateaued recently and need to do better about what I'm eating in my "window".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ease into it. Or risk major headaches. I trained myself to drink black coffee because I chose zero calories, not even from cream.

I don't do IF but deleting cream from my coffee saved a huge amount of calories. The coffee is just barely tolerable now, which is sad, but no one needs multiple cups of 'extra cream, please' coffee throughout the day. Or so I tell myself....

Life is way to short to drink "barely tolerable" coffee. Good grief.

+1

I add half and half to my coffee every morning. I measure in 2 tbsp which is only 40 calories. You don't want to just pour a bunch in mindlessly but no reason to drink it black.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ease into it. Or risk major headaches. I trained myself to drink black coffee because I chose zero calories, not even from cream.

I don't do IF but deleting cream from my coffee saved a huge amount of calories. The coffee is just barely tolerable now, which is sad, but no one needs multiple cups of 'extra cream, please' coffee throughout the day. Or so I tell myself....

Life is way to short to drink "barely tolerable" coffee. Good grief.

I did this and this is how I started.

First of all ignore all the strict clean fast stuff at first. Your first step is to start a new habit. For the first couple of months I did this I put not only cream in my coffee, but my vanilla sugar creamer (the horror!). And every day by the time 11 rolled around I was STARVING and basically running to the kitchen for a giant meal.

In the beginning I put zero thought or restrictions into what I ate during my window. The only rule was to only eat between 11-7. I didn't lose much weight, but I did lose weight. Immediately I started slowly losing instead of slowly gaining. Basically I wanted to set myself up for success by not making it too hard.

Within a few months it was easy to get to 11 and I'd regularly go to noon or beyond without getting hungry. I also had naturally switched to just cream instead of cream and sugar in coffee. Sometimes I wouldn't even want coffee until after 11/12. I then started exercising around month 4 which stalled weight loss but made me feel great. Now, I know that jogging around 11am (I know this is not something that works with every schedule of course) staves off hunger and lets me extend my fast.

Today (about 7 months in) I am down about 18 pounds. I didn't eat today until 1:30 without any pushing myself, just natural. I did have coffee this morning with pumpkin spice creamer because I like it and its fall and this is a lifestyle not something where I need to be perfect every single day.

Good luck! My best advice is be both rigid and loose, rigid on the times, loose on the food and the 'clean fast' stuff. Prioritize establishing a habit that is sustainable beyond doing it exactly right.

I don't consider myself to be an IF-er but I don't eat breakfast (just black coffee) and then have lunch sometime around noon so I guess I am doing this to a degree. I don't snack between meals (just not a snacker). You have to eat substantial meals or you'll want to snack.

Here's a recent day, portion sizes are fairly big

7 am - black coffee
10 am - black coffee
noon - soup with pasta and beans, bread with butter, cucumber slices
6:30 pm - roasted salmon, rice, salad
8 pm - ice cream

Anonymous wrote:Ease into it. Or risk major headaches. I trained myself to drink black coffee because I chose zero calories, not even from cream.

I don't do IF but deleting cream from my coffee saved a huge amount of calories. The coffee is just barely tolerable now, which is sad, but no one needs multiple cups of 'extra cream, please' coffee throughout the day. Or so I tell myself....

Ease into it. Or risk major headaches. I trained myself to drink black coffee because I chose zero calories, not even from cream.

Ideas, tips, i find lunch during virtual work so hard. i end up eating no junk, but not a real meal, and so i snack. I think the 11-7 will help but looking for tips and pitfalls. Thanks