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I failed to go 24 hours without consuming calories, attempting intermittent fasting. This is my 4th such failure. I am currently at a record high weight, and it's having health impacts and reducing my daily quality of life. Last night I had 2 Ben and Jerry's pint ice cream containers as dinner.
I'm biased against alternate-day fasts, because routines work better for me as daily things. (If you were trying to fast one day a week, then never mind!).
What I'd recommend is trying a feeding period each day- the one I use is between noon and 8 PM. Eat normally during that period, don't eat outside of it. You'll feel full for part of the day, and hungry for another part, and are able to remind yourself during the hungry part that the feeding period is coming up, and you just need to wait. (You can even keep a list of what things you want to eat during the feeding period, if that helps you put off eating the food.)
Having breakfast reduces my overall daily intake, but I have to force myself to eat it, since it makes me feel too full and I don't naturally get hungry until 11am or so.
Some people do a breakfast-lunch-supper window of around 8 am to 4 pm- the downside of that one is it makes social meals in the evening more difficult. (Mine is often functionally that, because I'll often wake up around 10-11.)
I'm currently doing 16 hour fasts every day, and that seems to be pretty sustainable.
Shangri-La doesn't work for everyone, but it's very painless to try and works amazingly for some - have you tried it?
No, but I will.
Have you tried this in combination with low-carb intake? Insulin / blood sugar spikes and depressions can have strong effects on hunger & cravings. Also maybe trying to go 24 hours is too ambitious. Obviously YMMV but my current strategy is to skip breakfast and eat only eggs fried in butter when I find myself too hungry to bear it. Usually I end up eating only eggs for lunch sometime after 12 and then an ad libitum dinner around 6:30pm.
The low-carb might also be helpful in limiting your calorie intake. I find if I start eating carbs, I can basically just keep eating and eating them until my stomach is ready to burst. With high fat & protein items, I seem to reach fullness & satiety much faster and it lasts much longer.
I attempted Atkins and after 3 days constantly felt like I was starving. Fried eggs work well, but are on the edge of my effort threshold.
That must have felt both awesome and awful.
Also, why do you think that intermittent fasting is a good idea? (I've gone 24+ hours without food or water on occasion, to keep company to an observant friend of mine, but I cannot see it helping one to lose weight. Incidentally, it's easier if you only eat a light meal before the fast.)
It's one more strategy in a long line of weight loss attempts. I was doing very good with a 3 rule system until it broke down and I started eating too much again. I don't understand my stomach, and it seems impervious to any hackery, requiring copious amounts of fat, sugar, and carbs to "feel good". I may be overly sensitive to hunger or emptiness, or whatever it is that I'm feeling when I feel I've already eaten way too much and yet I know I need more to change the feeling to "right".
Plus, it's an interesting test of willpower. I've always looked at drug addicts and said to myself, well, it shouldn't be too hard; you just have to avoid it until the withdrawal goes away. And yet I can't even avoid calories for a full day. It's altered my view of how much willpower I have in general.
I've just (yesterday) started to do intermittent fasting as well, but more of a 'light' version: I allow myself only ~500 kCal on diet days. This has worked for me in the past, and it was OK yesterday. Hopefully it works again; just eating low carb isn't helping this time (due to lack of exercise, maybe?).
Are you exercising? I've found dieting to be difficult-useless without burning calories and increasing metabolism. I also find that it jump-starts my discipline and will-power making it easier to avoid junk food.
I will start exercising this Wednesday.
Have you a good reason for waiting that long?
I started exercising a day early, since I got everything moved out of my bedroom, the new bed set up, and the rowing machine set up. Common advice says not to exceed 10 minutes on the first row, so I went 9 minutes and felt pretty good about it.
The effort required will be lower on Wednesday. I purchased a rowing machine and a smaller bed to make room for it, and the bed arrives on Tuesday. Once I set it up, get rid of the larger bed, and set up the rowing machine, the effort to start exercising will likely be below my (admittedly too low) threshold.
Similar threshold anecdote: drinking tea helps me lose weight due to making me not hungry for a couple hours, but I don't like filling the pot, heating it up, pouring, steeping the tea, throwing away the scraps, and waiting for it to cool. But a Keurig single serve coffee machine works great.
Doesn't a glass of tap water do the trick?
Each step is simplicity in itself, and yet the 6+ minute process combined into one "make tea" step is often too much of a hassle. Making each step discrete and separable, like with a Keurig, works great. There's a lot I don't have to do at that point. I don't have to watch how long the tea has been steeping. I don't have to wait for the pot to scream and then silence it. I don't have to turn on/off the stove. I don't have to throw away the cartridge if I don't want to. I don't have to fill up the water if I don't want to. Instead, I put in cup -> receive coffee.
I have an extremely low activity threshold.
/gives in to the other-optimizing temptation
I like oolongs and greens that resteep very well. So my process is essentially: boil water; dump into tea cup; occasionally sprinkle in some new loose tea; once every few days, dump out all the dregs. You don't really need a tea ball or strainer or anything once you have a nice clump at the bottom.
There is an electric tool for this, I don't remember the English word. Or you could make a lot of tea, and then just warm it up in microwave, or just drink it at room temperature.
Even for drinking water, you can make it easier by bringing a whole bottle in your room, so you don't have to go to kitchen (and be tempted by proximity of food) for each cup.
I hear ya, brother. Are any activities oddly exempt from the budget, like commenting on LW?
Anything that's "in my way" or at the polite, in-person request of someone else. As such, I've adapted many strategies for placing things in my way deliberately so they get done. Like returning Netflix DVDs: I place the DVD on the floor at the front door so I have to pick it up on the way out.
Try eating a half-stick (yes, half of an entire stick) of organic grass-fed better before your next attempt (no, I'm not kidding). Also, drink lots of water (with a pinch of salt). When you get sick of water, try tea.