I'm interested in the particulars of the intermittent fasting. I've read mixed thoughts on this, but I lend weight (so to speak) to empirical results.
Opinions when it comes to nutrition will always be mixed and the data will always be absolutely useless. Nutrition research isn't worth the paper it's printed on for the most part in terms of actually making decisions for yourself.
There are a lot of reasons for this that I won't get into, you can read Unsavory Truth by Marion Nestle if you want to understand the fucking uselessness of that majority of nutrition science and why most nutrition scientists admit that they would never even do the studies they do if they had more freedom to choose their own studies. Again, read the book if you want more info on this.
But more relevant to IF, you will never see very good research on this because it's simply impossible to study human eating very effectively.
Humans are remarkably difficult creatures to control in terms of eating, which is why almost every RCT on diets is only a few weeks in duration. That's nowhere near enough time to understand any eating habits. Everything longer will be correlational and deeply confounded by the myriad factors that vary along with eating pattern choice.
What I can tell you about IF is that *for some people* it seems to reduce food cravings and significantly increase energy. I am one of those people.
Behind that, the rest is largely noise and not relevant for you as an individual.
As for my individual experience, I started slow and modest, took a few months to adapt, smelled FUCKING AWFUL for 6 months, like a cross between acetone and burnt popcorn, I was pouring ketones our of every part of me, it was traumatically bad.
After about 3 months it was easy, after 6 months I just never got hungry, like ever. I only got hungry if I ate something and if I did, I had to eat a full meal within 20 minutes or else shit would go sideways.
I also started eating only at night because I was so buzzed on ketones I would have insomnia, but a big meal would knock me right out. When I started I was getting energy from food, so I ate in the morning, but after 6 months my main energy source was ketones, so a whole switch flipped.
That said, I have a body that switches to ketosis ridiculously easily. Many people take weeks of cravings and light headedness and feeling awful and their body just doesn't want to produce ketones, so it's a struggle for them. I was dripping ketones my second day. The overwhelming smell was unmistakable. Thank god it was during the pandemic because there was no hiding it. I was showering multiple times a day.
So clearly my body was like "FUCK YEAH!" about ketosis. I'm fairly convinced that a chunk of my fat loss at the beginning was me literally pissing out ketones instead of burning them. It was insane.
Almost immediately, I was metabolizing fat like crazy, jazzed out of my mind on ketone energy like I was drinking too much coffee, and suddenly losing weight while eating about 30-40% more calories.
That's just me though. Also, after the 6 months, everything really calmed down, the insane energy was gone as I adjusted to the ketones, but I still had way more energy than before. The weight loss slowed and stopped as I got to an equilibrium with what I was eating.
My digestion improved dramatically, which was an enormous win, and my skin got a lot happier. I have a condition called MCAS, which means mount essentially a mini allergic reaction to literally everything. So if I eat, I feel sick and itchy for a few hours. It's nice to limit that to once a day.
I've read a ton about IF and almost none of it is useful beyond reading personal accounts to see what kind of experiences individuals have. I briefly joined an online fasting forum, which was very helpful for me to gauge if certain things were normal, like the stench and the...uh...need to be near a bathroom when breaking a fast, especially during the first several months.
Literature can't tell you if IF is a good idea for you or not, only trying it can tell you that. However, you sound like you have a great eating routine going on, so you might be best off just sticking with that.
Although, with your mobile lifestyle, the enormous freedom of IF can be amazing. It's a bit tricky when first adjusting to it, but once you've adjusted, it can be incredibly flexible.
I started doing one meal a day (OMAD) while traveling because it was just sooooo easy to only have to eat once a day. After that, the thought of having to feed myself multiple times a day just felt like this huge, annoying chore.
And because I didn't get hungry, that meal could be at any time of the day, so maximum convenience and flexibility. I could even skip a day if that worked out best, but then I would have to eat several meals the next day, which I found annoying, so I rarely did that.
I had no choice but to eat 6 times a day for meds after surgery and I despised it. I'm now 2-3 times a day because I don't trust OMAD to be compatible with bone healing. I have no science to back that up, just an over abundance of caution.
But I have one real.meal, one Vega One shake with plain yogurt so that I can pile on the protein and nutrients, and often a big bowl of vegetables and hummus. So really, OMAD plus snacks and supplements. I typically eat within a 6hr window.
