Anonymous wrote:OP ~ if you have concerns, don't do it. You need to learn how to be your best self. Focus on that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually find it more shocking that people are so uncomfortable with something as simple as skipping breakfast. Is it completely unfathomable to you that some people just don't get as hungry in between meals? It does not matter if you are eating small, frequent meals or larger, less frequent meals. If you are taking in the right amount of calories and nutrients, you're good to go. It is amazing to me that people want to label that disordered. Are you assuming that people doing IF are severely restricting calories or something?

I couldn't care less if people skip breakfast. It's creating rules around it that strikes me as problematic. If you're not hungry for breakfast, then don't eat it. But I don't buy for a second that everyone, or even most people doing IF are just naturally not hungry. If they were, they wouldn't need to label their eating with anything. They'd just eat when they're hungry. That's not IF.

There is a theory that we have trained our bodies to be fed on these "schedules" (such as eating breakfast first thing in the morning) as opposed to simply eating when hungry. Americans don't just eat when they're hungry, so what some doctors who promote IF claim is that if you start out by "restricting" yourself to a different schedule (like 16:8), your hormones will regulate themselves and you will naturally want to eat on that kind of schedule. I am not a doctor so I cannot speak to the validity of that, but I also have PCOS which causes insulin resistance, and I have found that eating just lunch and dinner means I am so much less hungry overall. I eat normal sized meals with normal portions, and I'm more satisfied. For years, I would try to do small, frequent meals, starting with breakfast to jumpstart my metabolism and a) it never worked for me and b) it meant I was pretty much always hungry/never full.

I understand that if you don't fully understand why someone would try IF you could label it as problematic, but I actually found that for me personally, small meals were more problematic and lead to much worse behaviors, things like cheat meals. So my point is that the "rules" of IF are no different than the "rules" of having a breakfast, lunch and dinner. Those are just made up labels based on societal norms. It doesn't mean that they are better (or worse) for you.

You guys are missing the point though. People who are not disordered don't even use terms like "cheat meals" or think of eating as something that necessitates 'rules.'

Anonymous wrote:So, training your body to not be hungry anymore is what folks with eating disorders do

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually find it more shocking that people are so uncomfortable with something as simple as skipping breakfast. Is it completely unfathomable to you that some people just don't get as hungry in between meals? It does not matter if you are eating small, frequent meals or larger, less frequent meals. If you are taking in the right amount of calories and nutrients, you're good to go. It is amazing to me that people want to label that disordered. Are you assuming that people doing IF are severely restricting calories or something?

I couldn't care less if people skip breakfast. It's creating rules around it that strikes me as problematic. If you're not hungry for breakfast, then don't eat it. But I don't buy for a second that everyone, or even most people doing IF are just naturally not hungry. If they were, they wouldn't need to label their eating with anything. They'd just eat when they're hungry. That's not IF.

There is a theory that we have trained our bodies to be fed on these "schedules" (such as eating breakfast first thing in the morning) as opposed to simply eating when hungry. Americans don't just eat when they're hungry, so what some doctors who promote IF claim is that if you start out by "restricting" yourself to a different schedule (like 16:8), your hormones will regulate themselves and you will naturally want to eat on that kind of schedule. I am not a doctor so I cannot speak to the validity of that, but I also have PCOS which causes insulin resistance, and I have found that eating just lunch and dinner means I am so much less hungry overall. I eat normal sized meals with normal portions, and I'm more satisfied. For years, I would try to do small, frequent meals, starting with breakfast to jumpstart my metabolism and a) it never worked for me and b) it meant I was pretty much always hungry/never full.

I understand that if you don't fully understand why someone would try IF you could label it as problematic, but I actually found that for me personally, small meals were more problematic and lead to much worse behaviors, things like cheat meals. So my point is that the "rules" of IF are no different than the "rules" of having a breakfast, lunch and dinner. Those are just made up labels based on societal norms. It doesn't mean that they are better (or worse) for you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually find it more shocking that people are so uncomfortable with something as simple as skipping breakfast. Is it completely unfathomable to you that some people just don't get as hungry in between meals? It does not matter if you are eating small, frequent meals or larger, less frequent meals. If you are taking in the right amount of calories and nutrients, you're good to go. It is amazing to me that people want to label that disordered. Are you assuming that people doing IF are severely restricting calories or something?

I couldn't care less if people skip breakfast. It's creating rules around it that strikes me as problematic. If you're not hungry for breakfast, then don't eat it. But I don't buy for a second that everyone, or even most people doing IF are just naturally not hungry. If they were, they wouldn't need to label their eating with anything. They'd just eat when they're hungry. That's not IF.

There is a theory that we have trained our bodies to be fed on these "schedules" (such as eating breakfast first thing in the morning) as opposed to simply eating when hungry. Americans don't just eat when they're hungry, so what some doctors who promote IF claim is that if you start out by "restricting" yourself to a different schedule (like 16:8), your hormones will regulate themselves and you will naturally want to eat on that kind of schedule. I am not a doctor so I cannot speak to the validity of that, but I also have PCOS which causes insulin resistance, and I have found that eating just lunch and dinner means I am so much less hungry overall. I eat normal sized meals with normal portions, and I'm more satisfied. For years, I would try to do small, frequent meals, starting with breakfast to jumpstart my metabolism and a) it never worked for me and b) it meant I was pretty much always hungry/never full.

I understand that if you don't fully understand why someone would try IF you could label it as problematic, but I actually found that for me personally, small meals were more problematic and lead to much worse behaviors, things like cheat meals. So my point is that the "rules" of IF are no different than the "rules" of having a breakfast, lunch and dinner. Those are just made up labels based on societal norms. It doesn't mean that they are better (or worse) for you.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually find it more shocking that people are so uncomfortable with something as simple as skipping breakfast. Is it completely unfathomable to you that some people just don't get as hungry in between meals? It does not matter if you are eating small, frequent meals or larger, less frequent meals. If you are taking in the right amount of calories and nutrients, you're good to go. It is amazing to me that people want to label that disordered. Are you assuming that people doing IF are severely restricting calories or something?

I couldn't care less if people skip breakfast. It's creating rules around it that strikes me as problematic. If you're not hungry for breakfast, then don't eat it. But I don't buy for a second that everyone, or even most people doing IF are just naturally not hungry. If they were, they wouldn't need to label their eating with anything. They'd just eat when they're hungry. That's not IF.

+1
It's the rigidity around eating. Definitely a disordered thought process.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually find it more shocking that people are so uncomfortable with something as simple as skipping breakfast. Is it completely unfathomable to you that some people just don't get as hungry in between meals? It does not matter if you are eating small, frequent meals or larger, less frequent meals. If you are taking in the right amount of calories and nutrients, you're good to go. It is amazing to me that people want to label that disordered. Are you assuming that people doing IF are severely restricting calories or something?

I couldn't care less if people skip breakfast. It's creating rules around it that strikes me as problematic. If you're not hungry for breakfast, then don't eat it. But I don't buy for a second that everyone, or even most people doing IF are just naturally not hungry. If they were, they wouldn't need to label their eating with anything. They'd just eat when they're hungry. That's not IF.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s fine if you are overweight and need to lose a few, but there’s a ton of disordered eaters on this board who are obsessed with being “lean” and I’m sure they use it to stay that way. Personally I don’t think IF is great for women. It’s more suited to male hormones. I think many women have dieted, restricted, and exercised to exhaustion and have forgotten that we need to be a little gentler on ourselves. These things will crash your metabolism and make weight management very difficult. I’m a normal sized woman, 5’7 and 140lbs with a good amount of muscle but also some flab, and it’s fine. I care more about functionality and health than fitting into a size 2. When I stopped caring about my weight (tossed my scale) and ate every day to fullness while maintaining a diet full of meat, dairy, carbs and tons of fruits and veggies I didn’t gain anything and actually have a lot more energy. I just focus on limiting junk and make sure to eat mostly real, unprocessed food 85% of the time.

If you have read the research on fasting (and there is a lot of it out there), you would realize that fasting and caloric restriction have very different metabolic effects.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually find it more shocking that people are so uncomfortable with something as simple as skipping breakfast. Is it completely unfathomable to you that some people just don't get as hungry in between meals? It does not matter if you are eating small, frequent meals or larger, less frequent meals. If you are taking in the right amount of calories and nutrients, you're good to go. It is amazing to me that people want to label that disordered. Are you assuming that people doing IF are severely restricting calories or something?

I couldn't care less if people skip breakfast. It's creating rules around it that strikes me as problematic. If you're not hungry for breakfast, then don't eat it. But I don't buy for a second that everyone, or even most people doing IF are just naturally not hungry. If they were, they wouldn't need to label their eating with anything. They'd just eat when they're hungry. That's not IF.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I actually find it more shocking that people are so uncomfortable with something as simple as skipping breakfast. Is it completely unfathomable to you that some people just don't get as hungry in between meals? It does not matter if you are eating small, frequent meals or larger, less frequent meals. If you are taking in the right amount of calories and nutrients, you're good to go. It is amazing to me that people want to label that disordered. Are you assuming that people doing IF are severely restricting calories or something?

I couldn't care less if people skip breakfast. It's creating rules around it that strikes me as problematic. If you're not hungry for breakfast, then don't eat it. But I don't buy for a second that everyone, or even most people doing IF are just naturally not hungry. If they were, they wouldn't need to label their eating with anything. They'd just eat when they're hungry. That's not IF.

Anonymous wrote:I actually find it more shocking that people are so uncomfortable with something as simple as skipping breakfast. Is it completely unfathomable to you that some people just don't get as hungry in between meals? It does not matter if you are eating small, frequent meals or larger, less frequent meals. If you are taking in the right amount of calories and nutrients, you're good to go. It is amazing to me that people want to label that disordered. Are you assuming that people doing IF are severely restricting calories or something?