u/Wrong_Procedure_8040

Hi everyone,

I’ve been getting a lot of inspiration from this community since starting my fasting journey, and now that I’ve started building a fasting app, I wantd to give something back. I’d like to offer people from this community lifetime access to the premium features for free when the app launches, while also being open to your feedback so I can adapt and fine-tune the app around things that may be important to you.

I’ll share more details about the app below, but first, what was the story behind all this, and what problems am I trying to solve?

A few months ago, I was about to start fasting, inspired initially by friends and people around me. However, I noticed that many of them, even after experiencing benefits and getting significant results, eventually stopped because fasting no longer fit their lifestyle, whether because of exercise timing, social dinners, changing jobs, travel, or other transitions in life.

I didn’t want to go through the same cycle, and I also wanted to encourage them to keep going, since they were the ones who inspired me to start fasting in the first place.

So I joined communities like this one and started reading and analyzing people’s experiences to better understand how an IF plan could be adapted to someone’s actual lifestyle instead of forcing their lifestyle to revolve around fasting. Across many testimonials, I kept seeing the same problem my friends had maintaining fasting becomes difficult when life changes.

At the same time, I came to another frustration. Popular fasting apps such as Zero, Easy Fast, and Fastic have increasingly moved features behind paid plans or introduced more ads, pop-ups, and interruptions into the normal user experience.

That led me to build something around two core problems- the lack of an app that helps create a more personalized fasting plan based on your lifestyle and previous fasting experience, and the lack of a clean fasting experience that does not constantly push users through paywalls, ads, and interruptions.

Most importantly, I wanted to give something back to the people who inspired me to do this, including my friends and communities on Reddit such as this one, r/fasting, and r/OMAD. That is why I want to offer community members lifetime access to the premium features for free.

One important note- after learning more about how fasting considerations can differ between men and women, the version I’m currently building is specifically designed around men and male physiology.

Nevertheless, I hope that in the future I will potentially put time into building one around women, taking into account that such an app needs to consider many additional variables (hormones, cycle, menopause if happening, etc.) in order to give the right fasting recommendation and adapt the app.

You can find more information about the project and the features already planned on the first link bellow.

.https://fastinghabits.com/

Through the link below, you can also join the waitlist, which will give you access to the lifetime-free premium offer when the app becomes available. Not all of the features presented on the app website will be free for the general audience when the app will be launched on app/play store.

https://tally.so/r/Me8a98

One thing I found imprtant to share is that I unfortunately can’t promise unlimited free premium accounts forever. Once the app reaches a certain number of users commig from the community, hosting, infrastructure, and maintenance costs will become more significant on my side. I’ll therefore make as many lifetime-free premium spots available to people joining through this community waitlist as I reasonably can, but I can’t guarantee that the offer will remain open indefinitely.

And finally, I’d genuinely appreciate your feedback in the comments aeound the app and limitations you come across the others apps you have been usinf. That feedback can directly help fine tuning the app and bringing it even closer to solving problems of the community

Anyone who's fasted for more than a few weeks knows this feeling. You're doing everything the same as before, the fast is fine, you're not cheatng, and the scale just stops. No movement for weeks. It happened to me too and honestly it's the point where most people either quit or start second guessing the whole thing.

So instead of just waiting it out again I went back through a bunch of posts on r/fasting and r/intermittentfasting where people specifically talked about hitting a stall and what actually got them moving again. Ended up with 26 posts that actually had enough detail to be useful, split pretty evenly across both subs.

. What actually worked for most people was restructuring the fast itself, going from 16:8 to OMAD, adding a longer fast on top of their normal schedule (36hr, 48hr, sometimes a multi day water fast), or just moving their eating window to a differnt time of day. That was the answer in something like 6 out of 10 cases.

Second most common thing, and this one felt very counterintuitive, was people taking a short break from fasting or just eating more for a few days on purpose. Like actively loosening up instead of tightening up. A decent chunk of people said that's what got the scale moving again, not less food, more.

Also noticed the stalls themselves lasted a while, average was around a month before anything changed, but once people actually did something different it usually only took less than a week for the scale to move again. So it's less "you're doing something wrong for a month" and more "you probably just needed to change one variable."

Couple things worth saying before anyone jumps on conclusions. This is 26 self reported Reddit posts, not a study, so take it as potential patterns not proof. People also only post when something worked, so there's obviously some bias toward success stories here, someone who's still stuck probably isn't writing a post about it.

Finally, I have found far more interesting patterns than I can share in one post while analysing hundreds of the fasting testimonials and talking directly to other people doing it. Therefore, looking forward to keep sharing the things that surprised me and interesting statistic here. Moreover, I also gather findings in a free newsletter where I share the fasting insights even more often. But if it is something itneresting for you, you cna take a look to my reddit bio.

Curious if this matches what other people here have actually experienced. Did changing your fasting schedule work for you, or was it something else entirely that finally broke your plateau?

If you've spent any time in the weight loss subreddits, I guess you've seen the same post again and again. Someone's dropped real weight and not one person has said a word. It happens enough that I got curious whether there's an actual number behind it, so I went through a bunch of these posts and pulled what people reported.

 One thing worth mentioning is that I looked at this as a percentage of someone's body weight, not the actual kilos. Losing 5 kilos just isn't the same thing for someone starting at 105 as it is for someone at 65.

 The interesting part is that there isn't one clean number. For some people someone noticed fairly early, under 10 percent of their body weight. Around 14 percent was roughly the middle of the pack. But a fair few had lost close to 20 percent of their body weight and still hadn't heard a single word.

If anything, that second number feels like the more useful one. You can be well past a real amount of weight and still fly completely under the radar, and it's clearly pretty common.

And even that doesn't mean people haven't seen it. A lot of the time people do notice and just don't say anything, because bringing up someone's body can feel awkward or too personal. So no comments really isn't the same as no one seeing a difference.

 So if you've put in the work and nobody's said anything yet, it really doesn't mean it isn't showing or isn't working. Plenty of people are past a big chunk of weight and still waiting on that first comment, and plenty more have been noticed without anyone actually saying it out loud. The part that genuinely matters is that you're doing something good for your health, and that deserves real credit on its own. The noticing tends to catch up in its own time.

 A note on the method. The posts came from r/loseit, r/intermittentfasting, r/CICO and r/WeightLossAdvice. I only kept ones where the person said both how much they'd lost and whether anyone had actually noticed. I set aside the handful where it wasn't clear anyone had, where the amount was too vague to convert, or where the numbers contradicted each other. These are people's own reports rather than a controlled study, so they point to a rough pattern rather than exact figures.

 I am curious about your experience, how much had you lost before someone noticed it?

If you've ever changed the times you eat, you probably know that rough patch in the first few days where it just feels like a mistake and food is on your mind constantly.

The question that seems to come up again and again is basically -Okay, but when does this stop being hard?

I got curious whether there was an actual answer to that, so I went through a big pile of people's own posts about it and tried to pin down how long it took before fasting stopped feeling like a fight and just turned into a normal part of the day.

For most people who stuck with a daily kind of routine, it landed around two weeks.

A decent number got there inside the first week, more crossed over by the two week mark, and then there's a real tail of people where it took a month or longer. So two weeks is the middle, not a promise.

One thing worth flagging though, a lot of the people who got comfortable inside that first week weren't really starting from scratch, they'd already been eating low carb or doing some kind of fasting beforehand, so their body had a bit of a head start.

The other thing that stood out is that "it got easier" usually didn't mean effortless. Most people described it more as manageable, like the hunger stopped running the show rather than disappearing. A smaller group were honest that it never really clicked for them, which felt worth mentioning too.

On the method side, these are self reported experiences from public posts in r/intermittentfasting, r/omad and r/AlternateDayFasting. I only kept the ones where someone gave a timeframe that was clearly tied to when it got easier, and I set aside anything vague, anything where the timing wasn't really linked to adapting, and anything mentioning a serious health issue. So this reflects people who stuck with it long enough to say how it went. It gives a decent sense of how long adaptation tends to take for that group, but it can't tell you how often fasting works out in general or how any one person's body will respond.

In fact, I have found far more interesting patterns while analysing hundreds of the IF testimonials and talking directly to other people doing it, than could fit into one post. I have been reading and organising fasting discussions for a few months now, and I would love to keep sharing some of the things that surprised me.

Anyway, I'm curious how it went for you. If you got past the rough patch, how long did it actually take before it felt normal, and would you call it easy or just manageable?

When people start fasting, the amount of advice out there can feel kind of overwhelming. Every thread seems to have someone recommending a different window length or a different rule.

So I spent some time reading through posts and comments from people who had been fasting for a while and were sharing advice with beginners, just to get a sense of what semed to come up most often.

I expected most of it to focus on the fasting itself. How many hours, how to handle hunger, and when it might make sense to stretch the window longer.

But that did not really seem to be the focus to the extent I expected.

A lot of the advice appeared to centre more on what you eat when you do eat. Getting enough protein and choosing more nutrient dense food seemed to come up frequently, with cutting back on processed food and sugar not far behind.

The fasting mechanics were there too, such as easing in with shorter fasts and paying attention to electrolytes during longer ones. Still, the food side seemed to come up more consistently.

The beginner mistake people mentioned most often also appeared to follow the same pattern. Many described eating lower quality food, or simply eating too much, once the fast ended. From the way they talked about it, this sometimes seemed to leave them feeling hungrier and may have made the fasting part more difficult.

None of this feels especially revolutionary on its own. But seeing how often people seemed to return to food rather than only focusing on the clock gave me the impression that nutrition may be one of the first things worth discussing with a beginner.

On the method side, this came from posts and comments across r/fasting, r/intermittentfasting, r/AlternateDayFasting and r/OMAD. I only kept entries where someone appeared to be speaking from personal experience and offering a genuine tip or lesson to a beginner, which left 132 usable posts out of the few hundred I tried to look through.

Worth adding that plenty of people also gave their own one off suggestions, the kind that only came up once or twice, so those are not really captured in the common patterns above even though they were part of the 132.

Of course, this has limitations. You cannot fully verify everyone's experience, and seeing the same advice repeated only shows what appears common in these communities, and not necessarily what would always be the best advice. So this should not be taken as medical advice, but more as an impression of what experienced fasters seem to pass down to beginners.

Another limitation relates to how people with fasting experience were identified. The analysis was based on people sharing their own opinions and experiences in response to beginners asking for advice. Some mentioned fasting for several months or even years, but there was no universal checklist or minimum threshold used to define someone as an "experienced faster." Still, because they were offering advice to people just starting out, it was assumed that most commenters were not at the very beginning of their own fasting journey.

Honestly, I have found far more interesting patterns than could fit into one post. I have been reading and organising fasting discussions for a few months now, and I would love to keep sharing some of the things that surprised me.

Curious what the rest of you think. If you had to suggest just one thing for a beginner to focus on, would it be the food or the fast itself?

Something a lot of us know is that hunger isn't the same from one day to the next. Some days you barely notice it, other days it's loud the whole way to your eating window.

I got curious whether that loud hunger works the same for everyone, so I spent a while going through posts here and in a few nearby subs (r/fasting, r/intermittentfasting, r/OMAD, r/loseit, r/keto), only counting the ones where people actually described their hunger.

What came through is how differently women and men tend to talk about it. In the posts where you could tell who was writing, women brought up hunger tied to mood, or boredom, or hunger that comes and goes in waves a lot more often. Men mentioned hunger too, just more as a steady background thing they pushed through.

I want to be careful here. None of this applies to every woman or every man, and neither way of experiencing hunger is better or worse. It just seems that women and men may often notice and manage it differently.

And beyond the boredom and comfort-eating side, which you'd kind of expect from anyone, there were also a lot of posts about how women's hunger and energy naturally shift across the month. What was noticable is how well so many of the women knew their body and how to adapt to it. Instead of forcing the same schedule every day, they'd built their fasting around that rhythm, easing off in the phases that called for it and leaning in when the body was ready. And plenty of women were getting really strong results doing exactly that. Fasting with the body instead of against it.

The men's posts didn't have that same rhythm to plan around. More of the men seemed fine holding a longer or stricter window most of the time, so their fasting could be a bit more rigid and pushy without much kickback.

That difference made me think less about whether fasting works and more about whether the tools people use are actually built around these different patterns.

Which made me wonder about the tools themselves. What fasting apps you know that are actually designed specifically for women and for men? Ones that may help women sync fasting with the cycle and go gentler when the body's asking for it, and a different one for men, who tend to find it easier to push the window harder and chase a performance result.

If you spend any time around fasting, you've seen the advice a hundred times. Break it gently, start with broth or something light, don't shock your stomach.

So I got curious what people actually do when it's finaly time to eat. I went through 42 posts where people described the exact first thing they had after a fast, and it wasn't really the gentle version.

Most people break with a full, normal meal. Protein turned up in almost 9 out of 10 of them, and most plates had carbs and fat in there too. The chart up top shows how often each kind of food showed up.

The one constant was protein. Eggs, meat, fish, yogurt, a shake, some form of it was there far more than anything else.

Light, broth-only style breaks did happen, they were just the minority. A lot more people reached for a real meal than for a small careful bite.

What I keep coming back to is the gap between the advice and the habit. "Ease back in slowly" is everywhere, and yet when people describe that first meal, plenty of them just eat a proper meal. Neither one is wrong, it's just interesting how far the common wisdom sits from what people actually do.

A quick note on where this comes from, since it shapes what it can and can't say. The posts came from four communities: r/fasting, r/intermittentfasting, r/OMAD and r/AlternateDayFasting. I only included first-hand accounts that described an actual meal someone ate, with enough detail to read clearly, and left out anything that was just a plan, a question, or too vague to tell. So it reflects what people reported eating. It can show you what's common, but not what's best, and not how much anyone actually had.

And honestly this is just a small slice of it. I've been collecting and organising a whole load of data, testimonials and interviews behind people doing fasting, and I am looking forward to sharing it with you as the time passes.

Anyway, I'm curious what the rest of you go with. Full meal or keep it light at first, and does going bigger or smaller seem to change how you feel afterwards?

Losing weight gets all the attention, but keeping it off is the part almost nobody talks about. And honestly it seems like the harder half.

So the question that's easy to get stuck on is what the people who actually keep it off do differently once they've hit their goal.

I went looking for people on Reddit who'd reached their goal weight and stayed there, in some cases for years, and looked at what they said they kept doing afterward.

The thing they had in common wasn't really which diet got them there. People arrived by all sorts of routes. It was what came after.

The most common thing by far was that they kept measuring. Long after reaching their goal, most were still weighing themselves regularly, still tracking what they ate, or both.

But it wasn't constant strict dieting. A lot of them worked off a weight range instead. They'd pick an upper limit, say five pounds above their goal, eat normally most of the time, and only go back to tighter tracking if the scale hit that line.

The other habit that showed up just as much was exercise, just keeping some kind of regular movement going. You can see the full mix in the chart up top.

None of it was dramatic. It was mostly just not letting the habits quietly disappear the moment the goal was reached.

On the how: this came from public posts and comments in r/loseit, r/WeightLossAdvice, r/intermittentfasting, r/CICO, r/OMAD and r/progresspics. I only counted people who said they'd actually reached their goal and were describing maintenance, and left out anyone still in the losing phase or just talking about what they planned to do. It's all self-reported, so it reflects what these people say worked for them rather than proof it works for everyone, and a habit only got counted when someone actually mentioned it.

Anyway, I'm curious what folks here who've kept it off would say. Did you keep weighing or tracking, or did you eventually drop it and just go by feel?

When we start fasting, I think a lot of us end up reflecting on what it's actually doing to the body. And even before starting, or as the fasting journey gets going, there's often a quiet worry there too, whether fasting might be messing with something else while the weight comes off.

I got curious what people were actually worrying about regarding the fasting effects to they health, so I went back through posts here and in a few nearby subs (r/fasting, r/intermittentfasting, r/OMAD, r/loseit, r/keto), only counting the ones where someone actually named what they were worried about.

What was interesting to me and what came through clearly is that women and men tend to worry about different things. In the posts where you could tell who was writing, women brought up hormones, the cycle, energy, and things like hair far more often. Men didn't tend to raise energy or hair that much. What the men kept coming back to instead was muscle, strength, and holding onto what they'd built.

In many cases the women weren't just watching the weight loss, they were paying attention to the whole picture, how fasting was sitting with the rest of the body over the long run. It came across as women who really knew their own bodies.

The men's worry made just as much sense. Hard-earned muscle is a real thing to want to protect, and a lot of the men were happy to fast harder as long as the strength held.

I want to be careful here. None of this is every woman or every man, and neither worry is the wrong one to have. It just looks like men and women are often trying to protect different things. And if that's the case, you'd think the tools would reflect it, but most fasting apps treat everyone exactly the same.

Which made me wonder what fasting apps you know that are actually designed specifically for women and for me. taking into account that fasting can be fine-tuned differently for both sides? On the other words. there ones for women that keeps the cycle and hormones in view and stays gentle when the body's asking for it, and ones for men that's built around holding muscle and strength while pushing the fast.

 

A lot of people start fasting to lose weight, which makes sense, that's usualy one of the main goals going in.

But if you spend enough across fasting communities on redit you start noticing something else too, people mentioning stuff that has nothing to do with the scale, almost as a side comment.

I got curious enough about it that I sat down and actually went through a bunch of posts across a few fasting subreddits to see how common that really was, instead of just going off a feeling.

The results ended up being pretty interesting so figured I'd share what came out of it.

The single most mentioned thing was mental clarity, being able to focus and think clearer. About half of the people describing a real benefit brought that up.

Energy gains came in second, and after that a good chunk of people talked about their relationship with food changing, meals stopped feeling like a stressful event for some of them.

 One thing that stood out, it was almost never just one benefit on its own. If someone mentioned better sleep, they usually mentioned mood or energy in the same post too, it comes more as a cluster than one isolated thing.

A few people also noticed something within a day or two, not just after weeks of doing it, which I wasn't expecting.

For the method, I went back through public posts on r/fasting, r/intermittentfasting, r/OMAD, and r/AlternateDayFasting and only kept the ones where someone described a benefit they said they personally experienced, not a question, not a guess, and not something they'd only heard secondhand. Posts where the benefit wasn't clearly identifiable, or where nothing beyond weight loss was mentioned at all, were left out rather than forced into a category they didn't really fit.

It's worth being upfront about what this actually is. These come from public posts by people who chose to share their experience, not a controlled study, and nothing here was measured independently by anyone. People who notice a strong effect, good or bad, are probably more likely to post about it than people who don't notice much of anything, so this isn't a neutral snapshot of everyone who fasts. None of this shows that fasting causes these things. What it does show is a real, consistent pattern in what people who fast actually reported experiencing, and that's worth taking seriously even without a lab behind it.

Curious if any of you noticed something like this that had nothing to do with the number on the scale or physical appearance. What was it, and how long before you noticed it?