18 6 Fasting: A Proven Weight Loss and Health Strategy {2022}

I’ve been alternating between 18 6 fasting and 20/4 fasting for almost six months now, I easily maintain my weight loss of over 40 pounds and it’s a wonderfully simplified lifestyle that’s easy and allows me to splurge frequently on my favorite snacks and meals.

IMF is merely eating during a narrower timeframe each day. Your body gets a break from processing food and experiencing frequent insulin spikes when you do this. Your body has a resting time to regulate and heal, as well as burn fat. It’s that easy.

The finest advice for achieving success with 18 6 fasting will be covered in this post along with a step-by-step transitional plan.

This is not a fad diet. It’s a proven strategy for quick (or gradual—your choice) fat loss and improvements to overall health and wellbeing.

Getting Started with IMF and 18 6 Fasting

Step 1: Food Cut-off is 4 hours before Bedtime

Your body stops processing food roughly four hours after your last meal. Simply stop eating four hours before bedtime to benefit from the natural fasting that occurs while you sleep. Water is okay, and also any drink with zero calories, such as tea, or water mixed with power pak.

Step 2: Changing Your Morning Routine

Breaking your fast with fat tells your body that your eating window is beginning without spiking your insulin. Our bodies are extremely sensitive to insulin following fasting periods (including sleeping). Breaking with fat is basically signaling your body, “Yes, food is incoming, but it’s okay… LET GO OF THE FAT!”

Taking 1-2 MCT gels would be most beneficial (MCT is a form of coconut oil), but you could also break your overnight fast with half an avocado or one tablespoon of nut butter. You can drink unsweetened water, tea, and regular coffee or bulletproof coffee (also called keto coffee). Now just wait 45 minutes to an hour before consuming a meal or coffee that has any calories besides fat.

Step 3: Avoid Withdrawal and Headaches by Drinking Your Vitamins and Minerals

Depending on your current eating and drinking habits, your body may start to experience detox or withdrawal symptoms as you start making these gradual but very effective changes. Add a vitamin and mineral drink into your day and you can prevent this.

Avoid unnecessarily painful and sometimes crippling withdrawal symptoms while fasting or following a low-carb or low-calorie diet. It really helps to stabilize your energy and mood and stops the demoralization of getting wiped-out by withdrawal issues.

I researched each and every ingredient, compared them to the FDA recommendations and to several natural health site recommendations to make sure I would get all the nutrients I needed everyday while 18 6 fasting, 20/4 fasting or total fasting.

I combined these three items to produce my super health and energy mix. You don’t not need to do this, but I found that doing so allowed me to maintain my weight loss while having peace-of-mind that I’m not starving my body—just my fat! The ingredients cost roughly $3-6 per day, but I was able to save money because this drink replaced my daily Starbucks (coffee) and Sonic (tea) habits.

• Water: Any brand of pure water, 33.8 oz (nothing added, not alkalized) Here’s what i use: 6-pack of 33-ounce smart waters, or a glass bottle. Keep extras in your car so you don’t end up tempted to drink something else. 2 bottles a day. Refill instead of throwing away to limit plastic, but don’t drink nasty tap water. *IMHO
• Packets: Pour out (or slug) a bit of water to make room for the powders.
  Add 1 of each: Modere Go, Modere Revitalize, and Power-Pak. Shake it up and pour over ice in your Tumbler or Yeti.
  If you want to do your own research, check the ingredients with the links the products.
• This is an all-day sipping experience. I personally do two bottles a day, but remember green tea extract does have caffeine, so cut off early enough to not effect your sleep.

Step 4: Keep Mealtime Moving Ahead!

It’s time to move on to narrowing your eating window. If you’re in a comfortable routine with steps 1-3, it’s time to up your game and move your first meal one hour beyond the time you typically start eating.

Don’t let old habits like drive-through breakfast, office snacks, or even family breakfast meals stop you. These are the old mindsets and habits that probably contributed to any excess weight or health issues related to extra weight. You can still enjoy your family time, just skip that early meal. They might not even notice. But my good advice: don’t tell them! That way you won’t have to endure any resistance or criticism or defend your new lifestyle. Fasting is not easy, but it’s harder with your loved-ones tempting you.

When they see the new you, they may want to jump on-board!

Step 5: Coffee Modification

Coffee is allowed during 18 6 fasting and all IMF. Just ditch sugar and sugary creamers. If you can do that cold-turkey, awesome! If not, try this to move a little slower.

• Week One: Downsize to a smaller cup.
• Week Two: Replace sugar with Stevia, creamers with Stevia and whipping cream.
• Week Three: Downsize to the smallest available cup.
• Week Four: Go to every other day instead of every day.
• Ongoing: You’ve got your mineral drink now — new steady energy and improving health — do you still need the coffee? If you do, just drink your revised coffee drink from here forward. Great job!

Next Step (5): Forward We Go

Let’s advance our morning meal once more while you are practicing the coffee strategy. Lunch is the new breakfast! Don’t be a slave to the old wives tale that you have to eat breakfast. You’re a new you! Plus you can still eat the breakfast foods if you really love them, just do it at lunchtime.

Research is now proving that eating too many times in a day appears to be a factor in chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, elevated insulin levels, and chronic inflammation. Our ancestors may have had fewer illnesses and better overall health because they ate less often, either on purpose or by accident, and kept their calorie intake low. This science also applies to many modern civilizations that live a more limited imf lifestyle.

You will automatically eat fewer calories as your meal window gets smaller, and you probably won’t even realize it.

Today, let’s also start ACV gelcaps. These have been proven to aid in weight loss and regulate acid reflux. This seems counterintuitive, I know, but it’s factual.

Step 6: Keep Narrowing the Window

You’re almost there! What’s your eating window look like? Lunchtime through dinnertime? This is great. Let’s complete the strategy.

Step 7: Hone it in to to 6 Hours

So, now that you’ve narrowed your eating window and realized you’re not going to starve, how about slowly passing on the dessert? Or downsizing to smaller meal? Small adjustments each day. Just make healthy choices as often as possible and occasionally throw in a splurge. We want to live this— ongoing. A healthy lunch and a healthy dinner within 6 hours of each other and with 4 hours left before bedtime. It’s enough of a lifestyle change that you should start seeing the extra weight come off gradually.

If there’s no hurry, get excited that you’ll be a better version of you every day!

At this point, I transitioned effortlessly to an OMAD (one meal per day) diet. As a result, I eat whatever I want for my one meal of the day, including Raising Cane’s 4-piece once a week. I occasionally eat hamburgers and onion rings or super splurge with marble slab ice cream and pecans.

A sensible-sized lunch with roughly 1000–1800 calories, carefully chosen, can keep you full until the next meal. Choosing fresh, healthy foods is important, but the meals I listed above are only an example of what I can get away with when I’m feeling indulgent.

Ultimate Results: Get Hardcore a Few Days a Week

Most people will notice a decrease in their fat reserves and feel more energized by this point.

By assisting my body in triggering autophagy, I hastened my own fat loss and probably preempted MANY future medical problems. Autophagy, which is a benefit of the intermittent fasting strategy, is defined as “self-eating.”

Even MORE hardcore is to throw in a full day fast once or twice a month.

Maintenance

Alternating between 20 4 and 18 6 fasting is the maintenance strategy for life.

Enjoy every bite, eat things you like, be flexible and don’t kick yourself if you have overeat on a day, just get right back on it. You know what to do now.

Intermittent Fasting Benefits

• Decreased Insulin-Resistance and Improved Insulin Sensitivity
• Lowers Your Blood Sugar and Your Blood Pressure
• Decreases Cardiovascular Disease and Heart Disease Risks
• Lessens Appetite and Binge-Eating (from fear of not ever getting to eat tasty foods again)
• Self-Repair of Damaged Cells (Autophagy), including Cancers
• Weight Loss and Healthy Metabolism
• Improvement in Diabetes (and sometimes Reversal)
• Improved Mental Health, Moods, and Attitude
• Increases Chances of a Longer Life

More General Tips

If you can reduce the amount of carbohydrates in a meal, do so.

You do not need to eat snacks! Snacks, IMO, may be just emotional habits and disinformation. Refer to the medical disclaimer.

Include some healthy fats—especially avocado and coconut or olive oil—because your body needs them.

Raw and whole foods are excellent for you.

Whatever you decide to eat every day, eat it with gratitude and delight.

Miki Hart