Women IFers -- lets chat about protocols!

It is all interesting. And I am "subject to change" :cool: And percentages are, well what's the word, they don't tell the whole story really. All depends on what the total calorie is which some days I am more and some days I am less. So I just try to shoot for less than 60g of fat while I am trying to lose weight. I really have to watch this.

The higher my fat goes (calories, percentage, grams, whatever) the slower my weight loss. Which makes sense in my mind, since both Mark and PHD are more about long term health and not about weight loss per se - a way of living for optimum health, and they both advocate high fat for that. So my N=1 shows that I can maintain on high fat (because I quit losing weight on high fat and at about 80-85% I start to gain, and it didnt really seem to matter so much what my calories were though that warrants more n=1) so to lose weight, I have to dial back the fat, which is what PHD says to do for [URL="http://perfecthealthdiet.com/2011/02/perfect-health-diet-weight-loss-version/"]weight loss[/URL] - calorie restriction should come from fat.

But that is my goal at the moment. PPL IF for different reasons. It is easier for me to stay in my ranges if I can push off opening the window, so lately I have been trying to make sure I wait at least 16 hours. It helps if I start with something like salmon and eggs over something carby, but even then if I start earlier, I end up really having to reign it in the rest of the day.

Yesterday, I tried something different. I started with bone broth, small tator, and kraut for my first meal. My thinking was maybe that even though I was opening my window, it might would help me to extend the fasting effects. It may have been too much, about 100 calories, so I dont know.

I am a work in progress :cool:

That makes sense. It would be easy to cut back on the fat, honestly. :)

I am finding the same, gopintos. Others have posted how important it is to dial back the fat once you get close to your weight loss goal (I'm assuming you are not far off now).

[QUOTE=zoebird;1033072]That makes sense. It would be easy to cut back on the fat, honestly. :)[/QUOTE]

Fairly easy. But I had just learned how to add fat in. So when I went to cut it back, I was like wth do I eat now?! haha. So mostly I just had to cut out the extra fats, like butter on the steak but not the steak.

[QUOTE=paleo-bunny;1033077]I am finding the same, gopintos. Others have posted how important it is to dial back the fat once you get close to your weight loss goal (I'm assuming you are not far off now).[/QUOTE]

Well you would think I would be close. But I spent alot of months trying to go higher & higher fat, haha. I was still losing but slow up until it was like 85% and then it stopped. But I didnt want to give up too soon. So it took me awhile to make sense of my tracking and figure out what I needed to do.

So I really thought I would be done by Christmas. But I am not. And I don't really have a goal weight, or a jean size, just a look I guess. Just depends on what my muscles look like once I get the fat off :cool: Somewhere on here, I read something that gave me some hope. Something about when you are heavy, you are already packing around alot of extra weight (like strength training) so you are building muscle. Sounds good on paper :) So we will see what everything looks like. :cool:

I started with IF in March, 2 months after starting LC. I did IF all through the summer and into September and I biked fasted all summer. It was great! I believe it made my weight loss of 60 pounds easier and quicker. I definitely enjoyed the energy buzz I got from it during the long work days of the Alaskan summer. Once the days started getting shorter, I felt it more difficult to IF. My fingers got cold and I couldn't warm up. So I started eating all day again. My weight loss has stopped, but I wouldn't call it stalled because I'm indulging in potatoes and tequila and chocolate and cheese. I fully plan to IF again when the daylight returns. I am happy to be making it through the Holdiday season without gaining.

I'm trying a phase of IF at the moment. I really struggle to lose weight, but the one time it's worked wonderfully and effortlessly was a few years ago when a naturopath suggested that I have a very small protein focused breakfast, a big lunch, and no dinner. I worked shifts back then, and it was great. I lost about 20kg.

Now my husband and I have regular jobs and dinner is a social time for the two of us, so I don't want to do that same protocol again. Instead, I'm having a small amount of fatty protein, or just coconut oil during the day if I want it, and a dinner with whatever primal foods I fancy - including carbs. It's only been a week, but I feel OK so far. Also, counting anything just makes me crazy, so I'm not working to particular hours or macros. Yet another experiment!

[QUOTE=Jac;1033366] Also, counting anything just makes me crazy, so I'm not working to particular hours or macros. [/QUOTE]

Not counting makes me crazy... or maybe it's more like I am crazy, therefore I count haha

I know they suggest not to count, so maybe some day. But before I counted, I just had no clue. I was trying to do some things on my own, and just cooking at home and cutting sweet tea helped, but it wasn't until I found sparkpeople with tracking that I started to see any real progress.

However just the last few days, I quit tracking veggies. Now that was strange. I have been faithfully tracking for almost a year. I have only missed a couple of days. It was nice but also I kept second guessing myself. Cuz ppl say it's still the calories, and if you go over.... and the veggies I had would put me over... (over my range for weightloss, not for maintenance) But then I would remind myself that no, veggies provide onlyenough glucose for their own digestion, so it will be okay not to count it. So that has been different, trying to wrap my head around it.

On the other hand, it was sort of nice because I could track what I needed and then I told myself I could have however much else of veggies I wanted. If I was still hungry, I could eat unlimited this or this. So that was nice. I mean I know veggies don't have alot of carbs and calories but when you are trying to stay within a certain range, or certain gram, it can all add up over the course of a day. So before if I was maxed out on carbs or calories, but still hungry I would not even think about anything else, but now I have veggie options.

I can remember when I first started, I found a saying, "if you are not hungry enough to eat an apple, you are not really hungry" And I remember thinking at times, omg I can not even eat an apple if I wanted. Too many carbs and too many calories (over my limit for the day) So now if I am close to limits, at least I can eat some more veggies of some kind :)

So I do feel a bit free-er now. But it will still take some getting use to. Maybe this is the beginning of weaning myself off of tracking :)

Hey ladies... I'm new to all this. I kinda IF naturally on most days. Pre-primal I didn't get hungry until around 10am, but there were maybe 2 or 3 days out of the week where I'd be hungry when I first woke up so I'd eat.

I'm on day 4 of primal right now. Yesterday I went until noon before I ate. I was hungry beforehand, but I'd really like to teach my body to eat twice a day with a mid-day snack. I have a love/hate relationship with cooking. I love to cook great meals, but I hate being in the kitchen constantly, so two good meals a day works best for me LOL!

I ate at 7pm last night and have only had a bite of an egg/ham fritatta (sp) to make sure it was cooked for my 3yr old. I called it egg pizza, she enjoyed that lol

I am hungry, but I'm ok with powering through it. I've done juice fasts before so this "empty/hungry" feeling isn't anything new to me :)

Hope I can stick around, I'm a newb to all this :D

Did the no breakfast, noon to 8 pm eating window about 3 months after going primal. Worked for me, but when my client schedule changed & I started doing morning sessions, I found that my brain worked better if I had eaten.

So now I do a loose 8 am to 4 pm eating window. Seems to be working for me & I notice that I don't get hungry as much as I did on the old IF schedule. If I know we are eating out, I will just eat less during the day.

[QUOTE=paleo-bunny;1033077]I am finding the same, gopintos. Others have posted how important it is to dial back the fat once you get close to your weight loss goal (I'm assuming you are not far off now).[/QUOTE]

Same with me. I still like to try to aim for at least 60g a day, though, just for health reasons, but I can easily achieve that out of my 3000/day caloric burn and still be comfortable with what I'm eating.