Skparker's Journal, 20 Oct 15

Yes, I fast from dinner to mid morning. Typically I will eat dinner around 7-8pm and fast through the night to the next day and eat around 11am. Or until I am hungry. If I feel SO hungry I eat. It really also depends on my meal at dinner for how long I fast. If I have a big steak with veggies I seem to fast longer. Last night I had salmon and asparagus. But I didn't eat enough to be really full... So I ate breakfast at 8:45 am today. It is about how you feel. Listen to your body and soon enough it gets easier. 

i like to do morning cardio while fasting , thats about all. But I love it.. I feel really great once Im done and then eat a good breakfast.  

If you expect to shred down a certain amount of weight by means of fasting it may become a little disappointing. From my experience fasting is a great way to detox your body and your mind (!). As you bring your body down to zero-consumption your metabolism will completely switch to "clean-up-mode" rather than "fat-burning". Reasonably commenced the fasting process will take you into a state of being totally hunger-free after 2...3 days. You can't even imagine to ever eat again in your life. The "break-fast" process after 7...10 days will fill up your digestive system again, bringing back approx. 75...85% of what you thought of having lost. To shred of weight you better want to eat enough as well as the right things, accompanied by appropriate physical training. Take care.  

I've done 16:8 intermittent fasting where you fast for 16 hours of the day and eat all your calories in the other 8 hours. So for example if you finish eating at 8pm in the evening, you fast until 12noon the next day, then eat your food between 12noon and 8pm that evening. There are some health benefits to it, it can help burn body fat, and it can also help you to feel fuller when you eat because you're eating in a smaller window of time in the day. However from what you wrote IMO what's most important is that you find a way of eating/living that works for you and is sustainable. In order to lose weight and keep it off long term this needs to be a long term plan you can keep doing and live with. Keto works fine for many people, but I myself am not one who can continue doing it long term. 

Can put your body into starvation mode and will be harder to lose..need to eat healthy to lose.  

Technically a fast is from Dinner to Break'fast'. That's the shortest. 16:8 I don't think does anything magical. Don't get me wrong, I use it, I just use it to push my calories together. As to a 'real' fast, which I define as Dinner, through the next day to the following days breakfast, I do that from time to time as well. I've done as long as 10 days, but that was more as an exercise in determination than in diet. I don't really believe in starvation mode. As your weight falls you need fewer calories to maintain your body and the fat remaining. I think most people think they've damaged their metabolism and gone into starvation mode when what they do is pig out afterward and pack it all back on saying their metabolism has slowed. In fact any maintained fat loss slows the metabolism (food necessary for maintenance) since you don't need the calories you used to to maintain your weight. If I went back to eating the way I did when I weighed 230 pounds, would it really be my metabolism that has caused the problem, or is it that I no longer need the calories to where I am now. Starvation mode may be real, but I doubt many people in Europe or North America experience it.  

I fast for religious reasons but not every day or anything like that. I never fast for a diet but I have heard people do that. Like Northern says when you sleep you are fasting and that it why breakfast is so important. I would say maybe not fast, but if you must cut back maybe just have a really light Lunch? Heck I wish I had the answers for ya! 

Thanks for the insight everyone! I'm just struggling to figure out what's best for me, and I know everyone is different. If I had all the money in the world, I'd go to a nutritionist and find a trainer and a life coach and people to help me figure out what's best for me, but I guess I need to experiment. I think I'll just try to stick with staying under a certain calorie count again. I'm just disappointed that keto didn't work out, since I was losing a few pounds, but it might have just been from the deficit. I just know it's not sustainable because I still craved carbs like a mad woman.