Yeah of course you should definitely have a varied diet, especially if you're doing IF, but again that's very different from calorie counting.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Yeah of course you should definitely have a varied diet, especially if you're doing IF, but again that's very different from calorie counting.
Had a bit of diarrhea which supposedly is normal / healthy. Other than that it was surprisingly easy and I've been super full today just eating as I normally would.
Finished 24 hour fast earlier. Just had my meal and with it I allowed myself a 12oz bottle of root beer & 2 single serving chip bags. Still right at my goal for intake which is awesome. It feels good to do these small indulgences with a meal that would normally turn into a binge before if I had say a whole family size bag of chips or a 12 case or 2 liter of pop. Now to start a 16 hour fast I do 16:8 most of the time and do a 24 every few days. It's working well for me.
Alright, last time I tried an extended fast, I went 4 days before social obligations brought me out of it. That was about 4 months ago or so, and I'm ready to give it another shot. Starting today, I'm aiming for 5 days, but if everything still feels alright by Friday, I may go longer (longest I can do is probably 10 days since I'll have Memorial Day Weekend things and will want to break the fast a few days early to be safe).
I did a 40 hour dry fast followed by another 24 hours drinking last week. I didn't do it for weight loss reasons but primarily for treating onset of rheumatoid arthritis recently. I went down 6-7 Lbs. Currently doing another dry fast following by water only [probably 3 days total] for dealing with some lower back and sciatic nerve pain. Pain is probably about 80% gone. I'm definitely less hungry when dry fasting.
Wow, that's a fascinating treatment strategy. Just read an article on it.
It's amazing how many conditions can be treated with longer duration fasting such as chronic auto immune problems and neurological conditions [whether it affects the central nervous system or peripheral nerves].
Here's one sample: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3946160/
Currently 16 hours into what was going to just be 16:8 but I think I am going to try and push it to 48 as I've already done just shy of 24 hours not too long ago. I just feel so much more relaxed since starting this and less inflamed overall.
Done 3 days in a row of OMAD, basically eating at the 24h mark. It gets easier and easier to do. I didn't really set out to do OMAD on purpose, its just that I hit the 16 hour mark and I'm still not hungry at all.
I get full with so little food, that I worry I'm not consuming enough calories haha. At least I am making sure to eat healthy foods with greens, fats, proteins, and even some carbs.
I get full with so little food, that I worry I'm not consuming enough calories haha. At least I am making sure to eat healthy foods with greens, fats, proteins, and even some carbs.
Track your calories. I felt frustrated at not losing weight and when I actually track & observe my calories, it magically starts to come off. It's pretty easy to overeat, especially if you are just eyeballing hard to measure stuff. There is such a thing as eating too little, to the point where your body will harshly correct to stop your attempt to rob it of glorious survival fat.
So I decided to skip lunch today and fast for two days straight. When I told my wife her eyes rolled to the back of her head, she thinks I am being extreme. I told her occasionally extending the fasting window is perfectly normal. Any good resource I can point her to to prove my point? 😝
Nature? Common sense?
Why would we suffer ill effects or drop dead after a few days of not eating? Not a very good survival adaptation.
It's not really a coincidence that rates of obesity skyrocketed when meal timing shifted in the middle of the 20th century.
Normal, but largely pointless. There's very little science behind it having any measurable advantage over daily fasting.
Quite a bit of science behind it harming your progress if you're doing weights / athletic training though.
Quite a bit of science behind it harming your progress if you're doing weights / athletic training though.
Interesting. Can you point me towards more details, I'd be interested. As a fair few people around here seem to regularly extend their fast I think it would be an interesting topic.
For the most part on a daily basis I do anything between 16:8 and 18:6.
Sorry, I'm reading this stuff continuously so I don't really tend to know where the info comes from. Almost certainly likely to be a suppversity article though.
https://suppversity.blogspot.com/
https://suppversity.blogspot.com/
I train fasted and I'm still consistently adding weight to the bar after about 8 months. Leangains is a thing.
There's also a laundry list of benefits if you do a true longer fast beyond just 72 hours to the point where it's used in clinical settings to treat all kinds of conditions. Under that amount of time, there's not a huge difference beyond the added calorie restriction.
The body has a potent self-repair mechanism called autophagy that only turns on in the complete absence of calories.
Dr. Fung, a nephrologist, has a good article on it here: https://idmprogram.com/fasting-and-autophagy-fasting-25/
You can watch his videos or read his articles on his website. Fung started as a huge skeptic but ended up a believer after seeing results in his patients. He has some good lectures on YT as well.
Highly recommend this one:
Covers caloric deficits and why most people fail on diets
I'm not talking about fasted daily training (which is shit if you need to spend any significant amount of time at high heart rates for what it's worth). I'm talking about doing multiple days of fasting. Your body doesn't have what it needs to properly rebuild your muscles, so you just end up harming your progress.
Also, I added far more weight when I started lifting after my first meal than when I didn't. That's based on the results of about 5 years of lifting (with two of them done fully fasted).
Doing multiple days might be great if you're not working out. It's really not if you are.
I was wondering if somebody knew what the impact of alcohol was on fasting, specifically vodka and soda water? I'm guessing it breaks the fast, unless there is something different about the calories such a drink contains?
I've been eating (mostly) once a day for the last month with good results, and was curious how a night out on the town factors in. Vodka and soda water is my drink of choice for a number of years when going out to limit overall calorie, sugar, and caffeine intake and keep "water" intake high. But curious how it impacts fasting. Am assuming it turns a 24 hour fast into a 8:16 of sorts.
I've been eating (mostly) once a day for the last month with good results, and was curious how a night out on the town factors in. Vodka and soda water is my drink of choice for a number of years when going out to limit overall calorie, sugar, and caffeine intake and keep "water" intake high. But curious how it impacts fasting. Am assuming it turns a 24 hour fast into a 8:16 of sorts.
Just started IF OMAD so great to see this thread fresh
Last time was on it lost a shit ton of weight
Gained it back + more but that was slowly overtime.
IF definitely worked so doing it again with more will power.
As said great to see this OT
Hoping to read back through posts again to hear your stories
Last time was on it lost a shit ton of weight
Gained it back + more but that was slowly overtime.
IF definitely worked so doing it again with more will power.
As said great to see this OT
Hoping to read back through posts again to hear your stories
What if you drink during You're eating window?
Let's say you're doing 8:16
You delay the 8 to cover let's say 8PM > 4AM?
Once you don't go above your calerie intake.
I'm curious
If you drink during your window then it counts the same as any other calories. It's fine. Just account for it. Not eating at your usual time and waiting to eat/drink when you're out on the town or whatever the case may be is a totally valid strategy. The key is to be flexible.
The 'benefits' of fasting come from lowering your insulin level, which drops depending on the type of diet you eat (lower carb is better), how frequently you eat, if you are exercising, and where you are at on your weight loss journey. Intermittent fasting drops the frequency of meals and adds a period of 'rest' for the body so that insulin levels drop, allowing your body to access fat stores. It's nearly impossible for the body to utilize existing bodyfat when your insulin levels are high.
If you have a bad week diet wise or just feel up to it you can always find a day and not eat that entire day, fasting from one meal to the next. So, for example, Saturday dinner to Monday whenever you usually eat your first meal. In addition to feeling good, you'll bank that day of calories with no real downside. Your metabolism won't drop, you won't lose muscle, you won't keel over and die.
That was a really interesting video, thanks.
A question arising out of that, what are the effects on metabolism after more than a month of OMAD IF and let's say sub 1800 calories daily? The video suggested that metabolism increased very short term, but it wasn't clear on longer term impact on metabolism. Is it recommended over the longer term to mix in days of a full ~2200 calories? Or does the nature of IF mean you never see your metabolism slow down under sustained periods of calorie deficit like you would on a regular diet?
IF fights metabolic adaptation to a degree, something continuous caloric restriction suffers from and why most diets fail. But you should probably mix in days where you eat nothing at all and days where you eat over maintenance.
It's counterintuitive, but metabolism actually goes up on a short term fast. It's also why fasts are protein (muscle) sparing by nature. It makes evolutionary sense, as it would be a rather dumb survival adaptation to be lethargic and to have your muscles break down after a day of not eating. You need those things to get food. It also makes perfect sense that the body can adapt to steadily slowing caloric intake but doesn't adapt anywhere near as quickly (or at all) to an intake that varies. The constant availability of food is a relatively recent invention on the timeline of our biology.
I would find a day where you can do a 24 hour fast aka not eating for a day, then put those calories on your workout days or whatever fits best. It's what I'm currently doing. You'll find that you can't really overeat as much as you think, especially if you are still using a feeding window. Meanwhile, you are banking a calorie deficit with the day of not eating.
In IF, this is referred to the Every Other Day diet or Alternate-day fasting. Calorie cycling isn't a new concept but applying it to IF has some promising results.
BBC doc on IF covers it in a section:
Only starts around 16 hours, so to reap any daily benefits you'd need to shrink your eating window to as small as possible and/or incorporate a day where you don't eat into your weekly schedule. Autophagy is also fairly picky about even limited calories so you'd need to do water on that day if possible.
On a sidenote, found this handy chart to explain why IF works:
IF will put you in the lower third of the normal range if you are doing 18:6 or better. This is why it's great for fat loss.
Thanks for that.
I typically fast 2 days a week from 7am to 7am but am currently trying to go a bit longer - 7am to noon the next day (29 hours), 2.5 hrs to go! While any weight control is appreciated, I'm mostly interested in the effects of Autophagy and how much clearer my mind is/better my brain works.
I typically fast 2 days a week from 7am to 7am but am currently trying to go a bit longer - 7am to noon the next day (29 hours), 2.5 hrs to go! While any weight control is appreciated, I'm mostly interested in the effects of Autophagy and how much clearer my mind is/better my brain works.
IF has changed my life.
It is 100% the reason I am losing weight and have been able to have days where I cheat and I still don't go back to gaining it all again like I had in previous diets.
It is 100% the reason I am losing weight and have been able to have days where I cheat and I still don't go back to gaining it all again like I had in previous diets.
Having a desk job has ruined my body, honestly. I'm 27 years old. Last June I started my first deskjob, eight hours or more a day. I started this job weighing 175 at 6 foot 3. I'm currently 223 a year later. It really doesn't help that my entire day is basically inactive, with the exception of hanging out with my toddler from 7:30am - 10:30am. I typically get to work around 11 or 12:00pm and hope to be off between 7 and 9 on any given night.
So, I'm gonna try out 16:8. My plan was to have my eating window end at 11:00pm, and open at 3:00 -- however last night I finished dinner at 10 and it's almost 4:00 and I've only had water and black coffee today. I feel great and wouldn't really mind if I kept waiting it out until closer to the time I get off. Should I avoid this??
So, I'm gonna try out 16:8. My plan was to have my eating window end at 11:00pm, and open at 3:00 -- however last night I finished dinner at 10 and it's almost 4:00 and I've only had water and black coffee today. I feel great and wouldn't really mind if I kept waiting it out until closer to the time I get off. Should I avoid this??
The smaller the eating window, the better. No harm in it. The only downside would be if a super small window forces you to miss your calorie targets but that's really not a problem for most people unless they are extremely active.
Eating essentially one large meal a day is called OMAD and people have had tons of success with it.
Because of your inactivity at your job, it's important you find a way to exercise or get to a gym at least a few days a week. Go for a walk. It's probably hard to find time but you need to stress your body in positive ways to help combat metabolic adaptation.
Gonna add to the whole "I have a desk job and it messed me up" crew. I'm at 155 and 5'6" and used to be 30 pounds lighter. There is a work gym and cafeteria but I want to make sure I'm attacking my weight gain the right way. I work from 9-5:30 every day and I usually just wanna get the hell out of the office instead of use the gym :(
Ah, yeah, I'm actually considering joining a gym if the membership price is affordable for me. They offer childcare in the mornings which would be super helpful. Of course, my apartment complex has weight machines and treadmills included -- but I don't have anything to do with the kiddo if I want to go, and with him being two years old, I don't see my self bringing him along.
also! Black coffee is ok right? Honestly, I drink it all day long (black). I've done a lot of research on all of this but seem to find conflicting arguments on whether it's okay to drink it during your fast or not. Obviously you want to drink more water than anything, but I have a 1L bottle on my desk at all times. I've been trying to drink at least 3 liters of water per day if I can help it.
There is some debate about whether or not coffee stops autophagy. This is a life-extending benefit that fasting induces due to a pause in feeding. It's nice, but it is not a component of weight loss.
There is no debate about pure black coffee 'breaking' a fast; it doesn't induce an insulin response so therefore it's great to drink when fasting, especially as the caffeine will boost your metabolism while also suppressing your appetite. Sip away.
Yeah I've been doing OMAD (one meal a day) since August last year, and it's been going great. Try to see what works best for you. An 8-hour window, a 6-, a 4-, or perhaps just one meal a day -- try it out and see what feels good.
Good luck! and don't feel bad if you ever mess up a fasting window, the great thing about it is you can get right back on track the very next day.
I've been doing 16/8 and 18/6 for the past two months now and there's been a few days I messed up the fasting, but the next day I would just make up for it fasting a bit longer.
This is all going to feel very natural too you after you get used to it.
The one thing I don't like about Intermittent Fasting is it's almost too good.
Jokes aside, this has been working very well for me. Surprisingly so. I've been aiming for 16/8, but it's probably closer to 18/6, as I don't tend to eat right up to the end of the feeding period. It's been around 4 weeks (iirc) and I've just cleared over 15 lbs. lost (5'4", started at ~200 lbs.), and I'm still consistently losing a little bit each day. I feel great.
If anyone is on the fence about this, I would say give it even half a week and I think you'll see it's easy to adjust and adhere to.
Jokes aside, this has been working very well for me. Surprisingly so. I've been aiming for 16/8, but it's probably closer to 18/6, as I don't tend to eat right up to the end of the feeding period. It's been around 4 weeks (iirc) and I've just cleared over 15 lbs. lost (5'4", started at ~200 lbs.), and I'm still consistently losing a little bit each day. I feel great.
If anyone is on the fence about this, I would say give it even half a week and I think you'll see it's easy to adjust and adhere to.
so i've been doing this for about a week. 23:1 is mostly what I have been doing on a daily basis. it's just been working out better that way, because I basically will not eat at all during my work hours and then when I get home I have one big meal, but I haven't been spreading food out over time like you would a 20:4 or 16:8
Scale says I've lost about 11 pounds, most likely water weight. I looked this morning and the scale read about 212. I don't notice much of a change but my wife says my face is starting to thin out. Most importantly, I just feel better on a daily basis. way more energy and my mood has improved tons.
Gonna stick to it, I don't miss eating all day long at all.
Scale says I've lost about 11 pounds, most likely water weight. I looked this morning and the scale read about 212. I don't notice much of a change but my wife says my face is starting to thin out. Most importantly, I just feel better on a daily basis. way more energy and my mood has improved tons.
Gonna stick to it, I don't miss eating all day long at all.
Your insulin sensitivity is returning. IF also tends to help people rediscover their actual hunger cues rather than just eating out of habit/boredom.
I really can't recommend adding at least 1 water only day to your week if possible enough. It helps with your calorie deficit while upping the health benefits. It feels fantastic.