Hi Juan
I've been doing the 6 hour eating window, and I notice it's getting easier. Less and less symptoms of keto flu. My window has been 7am to 1pm, however, I don't even really feel to eat until 9am. The morning I wake up especially comfortable and with no symptoms of keto flu.
So I am looking forward to reduce to 9am to 1pm, when the time is right. But I want to make sure I'm eating the right things, and having the right multivitamins. Right now I have magnesium, potassium, and a vitamin C tablet. What other supplements would you recommend?
I'm also reducing carb intake in general but not cutting it out. During a 4 hour eating window, what should I eat to ensure the body has enough nutrients? Unfortunately I won't be cooking for myself; I will be at work for 5 days a week and eating at any of the local restaurants in the area.
It's interesting - for my whole life I have been conditioned in the belief that the "body needs food to function." Doing intermittent fasting I notice these beliefs being challenged. It brings up anxiety now and again. My mother always used to say "make sure you eat enough," "have you eaten?," etc. Now I'm learning that perhaps my body doesn't need more than 1 meal per day to function well, if not, better than ever.
My current weight is 86.5kg without any food inside me (morning weight). This is a drop of about 4kg at least, since starting the intermittent fasting. For my medium frame, 186cm height, I expect this should drop to 80kg over time. Slowly, over time, I will start to introduce exercise to my life. My body still has aches and pains, is stiff, and not very strong.
Ulla and I went to British Columbia for a road trip around the province and found it difficult to eat enough, compared to our normal diet. I usually take a daily centrum multivitamin supplement adequate for my age. I have been taking Osteobiflex for many years, even before I started my OMAD. In addition, I take Omega-3 capsules and Fairlife Homomilk with Omega-3 as well. This is to make sure that my Omega-6/omega-3 ratio is not too high, although I don't usually monitor this any further. I also take a capsule of Turmeric. Because of my intense exercise, I do take a lot of water to hydrate. To avoid muscle cramps and electrolyte deficiencies I do take Himalayan salt in my food as well as magnesium tables. For Potassium, I do eat fried plantains 2-3 times a week with my meal.
In my trip to BC I did not take any of my supplements for the week we were traveling. I did not experience any symptoms of any sort, so all the supplements are good to have, but not absolutely necessary in the short term. Finding what to eat was hard, and usually not satisfying enough. So we bought bags of mixed nuts and ate a lot of that after our meal. In restaurants, fats and protein are very low in quantity, so I did eat a lot of carbs in those days. Again, there is nothing too bad about this short-term. Once we were back here, I returned to my high fat, mid-high protein, low carb diet.
I suggest that you do not make dramatic changes in your diet. Give yourself time to adapt. I was in OMAD for several years, maintaining a high carb diet, and I still lost a lot of weight. I probably would have lost my weight faster if I had eaten a low carb diet. Nevertheless, I quickly became adapted to OMAD and soon began to increase my workout routine in duration and intensity. Therefore I had no need to change my diet. I know better now and see that I was eating up to 250g of carbs daily. OMAD sure made up for the excess carbohydrate intake.