Quote from lil chick on July 13, 2026, 5:48 am

I think right now my husband and I are in a good place with our intermittent fasting (IF) experiment.    I will probably post about it soon on my log.   It has been almost 3 weeks.   Perhaps still honeymoon period of the IF?

I think it is very important to go slowly with this.    And perhaps we are just "ready" having lowered our Vitamin-A for seven years now.    Maybe this isn't for newbies.   You don't want to open up Pandora's box of visceral fat...when you're already struggling.   The visceral fat seems to be the target my husband and I need to hit, the housekeeping that needs to be done.

Protein is very important to vitamin-A detox and so I insist that he gets some at each meal.    Gotta make those retinol-binding proteins.

(Our version of IF is to not eat after the dinner meal ever, eliminate sugar/fruit, cut back on bad fats (like fries), and skip breakfast every other day.    We do drink coffee on fasting morning.).  (gotta feed the addiction, but also it is a known help in fluid-retention conditions)

One of my goals or wishes or dreams was to become more "resilient" and I'm thinking I might finally have the key.   I went on a trip recently and I DID GREAT with the travel.    

I have a little bit of fat on me (all in the stomach area) and I wonder if I will have to give up the "IF" if I get down to my "ideal weight" which is only a few pounds away.    I began the IF at 117 ish and I'm now at 115 ish, and 110 is probably where lil chick will have to get off the "IF" train.

However, I did some thinking about the "hermit's way" and I think that even if I stop skipping breakfast every other day, perhaps I can still do things like not eat in-between meals, not overload at any meal, avoid junk food and not drink more than an ounce or so of wine.    Beer and liquor seem to have only bad effects for me, but a tiny bit of wine (less than half a glass) seems to be OK or even somewhat of a help (occasionally).    The hermit's way is associated with spirituality...ascetisicsim, austerity, self-denial, abstinence, restraint, temperance... Grant might be in this category... and he has mentioned how he eats less than before.

Husband seems to be offloading excess fluids, because he can't possibly be getting rid of fat as quickly as he is losing weight.   (a pound per day sometimes).    (he probably began IF about 50 pounds overweight, all visceral, and  he only half-believes that he is vitamin-A overloaded, so he still eats colored veggies)   (I think he has Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver courtesy of my feeding him with excess vitamin-A in the past, and other baddies like restaurant food).    He has longstanding issues with huge-appetite and over-eating, which I mention especially as it is the topic here... I think the IF is helping with that (perhaps by allowing the stomach volume to shrink back to normal size?)

My daughter said something that stuck with me and that is that there is a yogic idea:   "the most important food is no-food".   Or something like that.    I've often thought that what you don't eat might be more important than what you do eat.     But this idea is somewhat different.    Maybe another way of saying this is that there is a yin and yang of eating, and we (modern people) get out of balance in the interplay of food/no-food.

Perhaps during no-food time your body has a chance to do long-needed housekeeping.  

Perhaps some are not ready for this, and "IF" should be postponed if any bad symptoms arise.   I had some weird symptoms after my first skipped meal, took a few days off, and then went back to it.    

It is probably best to REST during meal-skipping times.   Conserve the protein in your system for detoxing.

Quote from Bruce on July 14, 2026, 12:05 pm

Hi @lil-chick

I understand. It is summer for me and this is the time I start IF as well  …  and it is not going so well. Not sure if it is opening me up to dumping more vA (or faster), but some days I feel fine, and other days I feel like crap. I need to lose some weight, and not sure if it's wise for me to IF while also being low vA. The good days come in waves, much like the not-so-good ones. I can never tell which one I'll get, but usually the bad follow extremely low vA day the preceding day. Today is a not-so-good one, but I am taking it in stride.

I am also realizing that Vitamin D supplements have suddenly stopped agreeing with me. Magnesium is still okay, and a bit of K2 as well. They all have something to do with calcium balance, but I have cut way back on all supplements. The only ones I take daily are magnesium and B12 (because of anemia).

I plan to take yet another vA serum test at the start of August. I am just curious what my levels are, as my last one was a 20% decline from the month before. Hoping for another 20% drop. If nothing else, my blood level is dropping (which presumably also means my body storage is also dropping, but not necessarily).

Wishing you and your husband much success as you forge ahead.