Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
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When you're intermittent-fasting, how do you deal with your stomach growling?
There are times that I get SO hungry that my hands start shaking. I'm serious, it's like my body is begging me to eat something--anything.
I'm tempted to eat something that's very low-calorie like a dill-pickle spear, but a cursory reading of the "nutrition facts" tells me one is about 24 calories and no detectable nutritional value otherwise, so I hold off...but God, this feeling SUCKS.
How on Earth do others tolerate this?
And before anyone asks, yeah, I'm very much hydrated!
Take a couple of MCT oil or regular coconut oil. It will lower the stress and anxiety. You can also massage your hands and feet vigorously while the coconut oil does the trick.
I intermittent fast on 6-8 hours of eating with 16 or more hours of fasting. I pretty much eat whatever I want during the eating window and drink water the fasting time. I can truly say I have never had my stomach growl. My stomach has shrunk quite a bit and I very much enjoy my schedule...it suits me just fine but I am early 70's and just don't need all that much food. There are several different IF schedules you can follow so maybe you need to try a few to find out which one suits you. Good luck...check out Dr. Berg on IF schedules.
I second the broth and hard boiled eggs ideas, but I do best when I have a crunch like celery or such along with the soft things. It will pass, so keep looking forward.
Go buy yourself some boxed or canned Chicken or beef broth. Heat you a cup up in the microwave. It will fill you up and there is only 10 calories per cup of chicken broth and 15 calories per cup of beef.
It gets better. I noticed at first, the morning hunger was almost unbearable but that only lasted a few weeks. When I just couldn’t take it, I’d go for some almonds, low carb cheese or a hard boiled egg. Try that. I’ve been doing IF and keto for over a year and it’s no problem anymore unless I haven’t gotten a good night’s sleep. Then I’m starving. It’s ok to some days have a snack if you feel really horrible, but focus on very low carbs.
Since I went keto, my stomach ceased to remind me to eat that way. My wife usually breaks the news to me that I should eat because I get exhausted and nervous and food smell make me shiver a little.
As a person who could not even imagine not eating late at night daily, let alone IF, I can tell you one thing from experience. Your craving for food (its not the stomach growling per se, but rather the whole body wanting and expecting carbs) is very much dependent on your insulin resistance.
Its a vicious cycle - the more you eat carbs, the more insulin resistance you develop and more you hunger for carbs.
So whats the solution? Let your body lead you. If you were eating till 9 pm daily, stop at 7pm. If you started eating breakfast at 8 am, delay it to 9am. You will notice that after a few weeks this becomes very easy and your body begs you to start ending early and starting late.
Why? Because its the opposite vicious cycle. You are giving your body a chance to wean off the insulin resistance, and the more you do it, the more the body rejects carb. (And yes, it does. Once you wean it off carbs, it starts hating carbs and you will feel very full with just a bit of carbs, and you will be turned off from eating more carbs).
Finally the actual issue of stomach growling. Once your insulin resistance is down, the hunger growls in the morning becomes gentle and quite enjoyable. I hadn't felt what hunger was, for years. Now I look forward to it every morning because it makes you lighter and reminds you how well you are doing. Its your body softly thanking you.
TL;DR: Start very slowly. Dont push hard. The body will guide your pace and you just listen to the body.
I'm not diabetic--though my family feared I was for the longest time--but I'd never considered that. Insulin resistance. The body is so weird.
By the way, do pickles make a good snack? Personally, I love them, but I was surprised to see all the 0% on the label on my jar. Are the bad guys just trying to discourage me from eating good food?
The problem with pickles is the salt. if a pickle is made with good salt (like black salt or pink salt that contains all minerals not just sodium, then its good salt) and does not have any preservatives or sugar etc, then it would be good. Otherwise, its not the pickle per se, but the salt/sugar in it thats not good for you.
The snacks I have discovered are walnuts. Its a tough taste in the beginning, but once you develop a taste, its fantastic snack (of course buy one with no salt etc)
Cashews are my go-to.
Insulin resistance does not necessarily mean you are diabetic. It just means the body needs to make a bit more insulin to burn the same amount of carbs. It just means the liver has been under stress from years of eating carbs and sugar (atleast for me it was the case).
Have you done any recent blood work with liver functions specifically? It gives you a clue where you are at.
The real problem is liver damage - it is estimated that >25% of the world population has some amount of liver damage.
I would highly recommend watching this video to learn how liver, cholesterol and insulin resistance are all connected: https://youtu.be/C3rsNCFNAw8?t=1530
(The time I have linked is where he talks about the insulin resistance, but I highly recommend watching the whole video)
I have a fatty liver, yeah. It's why I'm currently trying to lose weight--down about 17 pounds so far. Not much, but it's a start.
Granted, about seven pounds of that was lost VERY quickly when I got food poisoning a couple of weeks ago. Ugh, what a disaster that was. Thankfully I'm okay now.