Has anyone tried the 8/16 diet?

[Ed-Alexander]

The idea is that you can eat anything inside an eight hour window, noon to 8pm being my own preferred timeframe. Obviously, it's an easier diet to follow than 5/2 because there's no calorie restriction per se so I try and do at minimum of 5 days a week but ideally every day. So far I've done if for three weeks and lost 5 pounds which i'm quite pleased with. Would be very interested to hear if anyone else has tried it and what their experience was...

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I personally prefer a healthy eating plan

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Starving your body for 16 hours a day sounds very unhealthy to me as it could send your body into starvation mode thus lowering your metabolism making it even harder to lose weight in future. Also if it does work for you would you plan to stay on it for life?

I believe healthy eating is better and much more sustainable. But hey if it works for you and you have lost weight who am I to knock it. Good luck.

[elliebath Maintainer]

It is not a problem to use intermittent fasting , and it can apparently even have some health benefits (as per Dr Mosely and others), but you still must ensure you get the right number of calories within that time frame and of the right quality.

If you fast it's still as important to eat healthy foods, and altho we may choose to not count calories daily, we still need to keep within a calorie maximum over the course of the week.

Everyone who wants to lose or maintain needs to keep at or under our TDEE ( but never below our BMR) . Just use an online calculator if you dont already know your personal TDEE and BMR levels.

Incidentally, I don't fast in a planned way but there are often days when I don't eat between 7pm and 11am . However I do still get about 1550 cals a day regardless of when I eat them, which as a maintainer is my TDEE.

[Anita44]

I believe these sort of diets are ok for maybe a short time but long term you need to eat normally and a healthier diet is probably better and realistic. Try it for a few months and if it works for you then thats great, I'm sticking to my Slimming World food optimising. Good luck.

[Ed-Alexander]

Thanks everyone for the very informative feedback - you've illuminated some key pitfalls (still watching the calorie count and eating healthily ) I was not fully taking into consideration. I have to say it's an easy diet to follow - something that's crucial to me! - and i've found I'm eating a bit less every day.

[altfast]

Hi Ed-Alexander,

I started the 8:16 eating window after watching Dr Eric Berg, Jason Fung MD and Dr Mike on Youtube. Have you watched any of those 3 doctors' videos on Youtube? If so, please let me know what you think. I am learning so much and am very excited about my results so far. I don't think of the eating window as a diet more an healthy eating plan which definitely does not starve the body.

I would love to hear how your weight loss journey has developed and share information, highs and lows of our respective journeys, encourage each other etc.