Generally speaking, people do well in their early days of diets.They shop, prep, clean out old foods, make a plan–and feel generally optimistic in the first few weeks. People do not usually feel physically bad on their new diets at first–and they are “good” for a while on them. Many people brag on social media that their new plan is “easy” and “can be done forever.” Down the road, however, the restrictions become too much to stick with for many people.

On the other hand, Daily IF is HARD at first. Before you become fat adapted (where your body goes from using your glyogen stores to using your body fat for fuel), hunger is very real. And it can hurt, cause headaches and dizziness, leave you nauseous, and more. However, unlike other diets, if you stick with it for five to twenty days of CLEAN fasting, IF will get easier and easier.  it is truly “upside down” in how easy it becomes later on!

When someone goes on a typical “diet,” weight loss can be immediate. There is usually a large enough calorie deficit, coupled with a large water loss, that the scale is pretty friendly to traditional dieters in the first few weeks.

Weight loss with Daily IF can be slower at first for a number of reasons:  People who come to IF from traditional diets often go crazy the first few weeks with their food during their eating window (i.e. too many calories). Appetite correction  (where your body naturally tells you that it’s done eating for the day–it really DOES happen!) hasn’t set in during the first couple of weeks, so new IF’ers often overeat during their eating window.  And, the newbie’s IF skills are not honed yet. You do get better and better at Daily IF as time goes on! On the up side, when these things are all solved, usually two to three weeks in, weight loss will come–and it will usually remain steady as your body works its magic.

Many traditional diets cause you to lose pounds by losing fat AND muscle (especially traditional calorie-restricted diets). In these protocols, a person must lose a large number of pounds in order to translate in to significant inch loss and/or a size loss.

 Daily IF changes body composition. It attacks fat and preserves muscle. Therefore, a pound of fat, which might look like a large one-pound bag of feathers, can be lost while a pound of muscle, which might look like a one pound bag of marbles, might be gained. There would be no weight loss on the scale in this scenario; however, the body can look significantly different and show inch loss/size loss well before it shows scale loss.

From day one of a Daily IF protocol, a person enjoys amazing freedoms–time freedom from not having to shop, prep, cook, and clean as much; money freedom from not having to buy as much food in general and as much specialty (“diet”) foods specifically; and thought freedoms from not having to think about and plan food as much. This is where IF really outshines other diets in a truly “upside down” way! Other weight management protocols zap our time, money, and thoughts immediately!

Daily IF, when not coupled with other eating protocols, gives amazing food freedom. People who come from stringent diets to IF finally get to go out for pizza with friends, have birthday cake (on their own birthday!), and eat dessert on Saturday night. Food freedom is huge with IF! Even those eating low carb have all of their carbs to “spend” during a shorter time span, which gives more opportunity for fruit, small servings of starches, etc., as desired.

When someone is on 1200 calories a day and cheats at the end of the day by eating, say, a candy bar for 200 calories, that person is pretty unharmed by that “cheat.” When a low carber eating 30 carbs a day eats an apple at the end of the day after they’ve already had 30 carbs, they just ate 50 carbs that day and can actually still be in ketosis. Small cheats don’t ruin other diets as much. The success of IF is based in large part on the fasting hours–having enough hours in the fasted state to burn through your glycogen stores so your body burns its own fat for fuel. “Cheating” on IF can fill these stores up too much for IF to work the next day for you.

There really isn’t a need to “cheat” on IF! If you need more eating time for a special occasion, you can just shorten your fasting window on that day and lengthen it on another day. However, if someone does “cheat” too much on Daily IF by eating three meals a day (whatever they want), they will (a) eat too much and gain weight; (b) fill their glycogen stores up full again; and (c) sort of have to start over emptying their stores and getting their body back into fat burning. (Why go through that again?) So, it’s upside down in a sort of bad way–cheating on IF isn’t good. However, once you are fat adapted in IF and you get into an IF rhythm, you don’t need to cheat anyway!

#1 Your Fasting Window Might Not Be Long Enough to Burn Through Your Glycogen Stores: IF Journal Episode 4

#2 You Might Not Experience Appetite Correction (AC) in a Longer Eating Window: Appetite Correction by Burt Herring

#3 You Will Likely Consume Too Many Calories for Weight Loss to Take Place: Delay, Don’t Deny

#4 Your Body Will Experience the Other Benefits of Daily IF More Fully. The Obesity Code

#5 You Will Likely Experience More “Personal” IF Benefits With a Shorter Eating Window: IF Journal Podcast

IF Fasting Journal here at Donna Reish

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