Mice and 16 hour fasts.
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jknight001
Posts: 745 Member
Thought all of you IF wonks out there, ahem @Orlcam, would be interested in this article I saw in the LA Times today about fasting timing in mice. Enjoy!
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You a wonk! ...call me a...hmph
Interesting, this lends credence to what we think we know (or what we've been saying) in the group. Nice catch...thanks.0 -
What I really found interesting about the article is that they said if the mice eat like this most days they can "take a break" and it won't throw them off course. I kind of feel that way about 5:2. I don't have to be perfect to lose weight. It is very freeing.0
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What I found interesting about this...
1 -One of the other things they found was that they said that the fasting mice (eating 9 hrs / fasting 15) were actually eating just as much in their 9 hour of food intake as the mice who were eating whatever they wanted for 24 hours. The difference was in how the body processed the food. The researchers hypothesized that there is a rhythm to how the body processes energy (just like as we have a sleep/wake cycle)... like maybe in the "sleep" phase the body takes more energy from fat, but maybe in the "wake" phase it takes more energy from whatever the mouse is eating... so by altering the times when food was given, they could change that cycle. Even when the body was given just as many calories in the form of food, it chose to use less of them, and to use more calories from stored fat, than when the rhythm of energy metabolism was different. I think.***
If the mice stuck to their 9/15 schedule 5 days a week and did whatever 2 days a week, it didn't matter than much... suggesting that 5 days a week was enough to set and maintain the body's rhythm even with occasional "splurges".
So these are just mice and we can't take it too far, but one thing it does suggest is that daily fasts (like 9:15) might be particularly useful to lose/maintain weight and stay in good health. They don't discuss weekly cycles of fasting like 2:5 at all, but you can imagine that this isn't really exactly what the researchers are talking about... since it's not immediately clear how your body's daily cycle would get altered by a twice-weekly fast. Maybe your body's rhythm would be set by whatever you did more often (5 days a week), and the 2 days of week of fasting would matter less. Or maybe fasting 2 days would be enough to influence the other 5 days. It isn't explored in this paper.
2- this is published in Cell Metabolism, which is a very good journal. If you ever want a short cut to understanding how "important" the scientific community thinks a particular article is, go look up the impact factor of the journal it was published in. It's not perfect but it'll give you an idea. No impact factor=possibly not real research; IF 1-3 = probably solid research but not revolutionizing the field, IF 3-9 = this article is probably considered better/more important than average by researchers in the same field. IF >9 = this is really going somewhere. IF of Cell Metabolism is 16 which means... some grad student probably just got their career made off of this article. :-)
*** not an obesity researcher here so this is just my layman's interpretation0 -
One more vote for IFing....Maybe if I scratch breakfast during the week, I could shift these last few kilos. I've already scratched the grain carbs for breakfast on most days. And I skip it anyway on fast days and then my eating window is normally shorter than 9h.
Problem is, I enjoy breakfast. But might be worth a try. Will give it a go for the next week or two.0 -
Thanks guys for your comments. I appreciate hearing your thoughts. I am wondering myself if it would be a fun experiment to try. Although, I like breakfast and having dinner with the family. An 8 window would be tough to manage.0
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Ty for sharing jknight
I read the article. It looks like the scope was a feeding window 15:9. Is that the Satchinanda Panda I have seen being ridiculed in general forums? I don't know why though, it's usually from the lifters club.
The mouse study does, however, confirm my personal experience. I've been doing combo of 5:2 and 16:8. It was the 5:2 that got me started and significantly helped me retrain hunger cues. In the weeks I haven't been able to finish fasting, I've stuck to skipping breakfast.
Now that I've added LCHF I almost lost the hunger feeling. Past 2 weeks I've forgot to have dinner several times!
It was like a muscle memory kicking in. I realized that this is what used to happen when I put on some weight when I was skinny. I unconsciously reduced intake significantly (fasting) and forgot to eat. I'm very happy to have rediscovered my maintenance tool.
@jknight and flumi experimenting. Any habit you really like is hard to let go of. Keep in mind that starting to skip breakfast is a bumpy ride at start. There will be unpleasantness. After 2-3 weeks or sooner, you have reprogrammed your body to not expect food early. Even though your brain still prefer breakfast.
Maybe similar to the mice, I experience that I literally can't overeat too heavily with a smaller eating window. Which leads to naturally reduced intake. For me skipping brekkie is how I've always lived. Refused it growing up and haven't for the majority of adult life either. (Still finished 2 bachelor's degrees at uni so no brain damage
) I've lost 1kg per week. Whichever factor "works best" is not so important to know right now. I guess the combination of all my dieting measures is the key. Will be interesting to find out what's the most efficient tool in maintenance. More experimenting!
For us small women even 200-300 kcal a breakfast typically involve is a substantial chunk in the daily budget!
As you said, give it a try. Asess results. If little or no results, provided you keep other intake stable, you'll have to reconsider if it's worth it. Good luck!
Edit: I forgot to say, going LCHF makes hunger go away. For me! Carbs drives hunger. I know a lot of you don't want to stop having carbs, and that's ok just wanted to supply that problems with feeling hunger has a solution, if the cost benefits are reasonable. For me they are, reduced knee pains and inflammation etc. I still have some carbs though, just not as much as I want to, hehe. 0 -
Foamroller wrote: »Ty for sharing jknight
@jknight and flumi experimenting. Any habit you really like is hard to let go of. Keep in mind that starting to skip breakfast is a bumpy ride at start. There will be unpleasantness. After 2-3 weeks or sooner, you have reprogrammed your body to not expect food early. Even though your brain still prefer breakfast.
For us small women even 200-300 kcal a breakfast typically involve is a substantial chunk in the daily budget!
Edit: I forgot to say, going LCHF makes hunger go away. For me! Carbs drives hunger. I know a lot of you don't want to stop having carbs, and that's ok just wanted to supply that problems with feeling hunger has a solution, if the cost benefits are reasonable. For me they are, reduced knee pains and inflammation etc. I still have some carbs though, just not as much as I want to, hehe.
I've already reduced the carbloaded brekkie on most days. Even Sa/Su I often resort to eggs or skyr instead of bread. Something I couldn't have imagined before. And I don't eat breakfast on fast days, so I'm hoping, I can get used to skipping breakfast too. Often even after a fast day, the real hunger kicks in after I eat breakfast. So if I skip it, I might be OK until lunch. I won't be keeping that 8h window religiously, but should be ok with it on most days, as lunch is normally at 11h30 and dinner between 17h-18h30.
Yup, those small budgets do get used up quickly
Grain carbs do exactly the same thing to me. Which is why I have drastically reduced them. Most of my carbs during the week come from veggies and fruit. Pasta and bread are to be enjoyed, but not very often. This sentence totally applies to me: I still have some carbs though, just not as much as I want to, hehe.
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Yeah, this time window thing is super-interesting. I did 16:8 for a few weeks but stopped in favor of 24-hour fasts because I wasn't aware of a compelling reason to do the leangains-style.
But this is cool. Now for my regular days, I'm gonna try small windows again. I did a few days of 16:8 last week and they went well. I'm digging the getting-all-your-eating-over-with aspect. Also, feeling more full instead of spacing my TDEE-food out all through the day in little bits, which can leave me vaguely hungry-ish a lot of the time.
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Again, thank you all for your comments. I love that this group is so intelligent.!
It is interesting that Foamroller and Feisty_bucket have already tried this. I was always told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day because it fuels the brain so I struggle with that. And I tend to have cereal for breakfast so that is a lot of carbs. I would not like giving up my carbs but I do have to consider what you all have said.
Thanks for the input!0 -
I'm not convinced. If you really do lose weight eating 8:16 five days a week then whatever you like on the weekend I wouldn't have been 10kgs overweight.
I never eat breakfast during the working week because I'm busy and don't get hungry til about midday, and I never eat after 7:30pm at night...which gives me an eating window of less than 8hrs a day 5 days a week (and sometimes 6 or 7 days). Yet I was a porker.
Maybe I'm missing something?0 -
EmmaOnTrack wrote: »I'm not convinced. If you really do lose weight eating 8:16 five days a week then whatever you like on the weekend I wouldn't have been 10kgs overweight.
I never eat breakfast during the working week because I'm busy and don't get hungry til about midday, and I never eat after 7:30pm at night...which gives me an eating window of less than 8hrs a day 5 days a week (and sometimes 6 or 7 days). Yet I was a porker.
Maybe I'm missing something?
I believe the article said that they were comparing the same amount of calories with different windows of time so it could be that if the mice were allowed to eat whatever they wanted in the 8:16 window they would have gained weight compared to the mice who ate when they wanted.
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@Emma - of course if the calories over the course of a week are on the plus side....16:8 is not magical, it is just another way to save some cals. There could be some good effects on metabolism and health though, just any fasting way of eating.
I'm just trying it, because, I've been a bit stuck and I have to change something on my non fast days. My fasts are normally fine...0 -
EmmaOnTrack wrote: »I'm not convinced. If you really do lose weight eating 8:16 five days a week then whatever you like on the weekend I wouldn't have been 10kgs overweight.
(...)
Maybe I'm missing something?@Emma - of course if the calories over the course of a week are on the plus side....16:8 is not magical, it is just another way to save some cals. There could be some good effects on metabolism and health though, just any fasting way of eating.
I'm just trying it, because, I've been a bit stuck and I have to change something on my non fast days. My fasts are normally fine...
@Emma. I second jknight and flumi here. The basis of any weight loss is caloric deficit. So you can't eat whatever you fancy in weekends and still get a substantial loss doing 16:8 or 20:4. The theory of 16:8 or similar eating protocols is that giving your tummy a longer rest from digesting than the normal 10-12 hrs overnight, can yield more fat loss and possibly less loss of LBM compared to straight CICO deficit. I highly recommend to browse around on leangains.com or bodyrecomposition.com if you're interested in trying it out. It helped me understand the reasoning better:)
It's hard to tell for sure, but I think maybe 16:8 was even more instrumental for me to teach my tummy that it's ok to be hungry before lunch. After a bit of initial dizziness (cause I used to have a carb heavy brekkie), I got weened off.
For those who suspect they may be insulin resistant, although a "good" carb with lots of fiber, oatmeals gives the highest climb in insulin after intake. So blood sugar levels are not the only variable to consider.
Becoming progressively insulin resistant is the enemy of weight loss.
Because insulin drives fat storage, if I understood the explanations for metabolic pathways correctly. In other words, permanently high insulin levels in blood tells your body to store excess calories into fat. It means that despite all desperate, meticulous logging and exercise, some people will have very slow or no weight loss, unless they change their macros.
Edit: If any of this doesn't apply to your body, ie. You're losing weight doing CICO (weight lifting or other high intensity traing seems to alleviate the insulin problem)...then congratulations! It means your carb tolerance is higher. This does not mean there isn't such a problem for other people's bodies.
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Second day of 16:8.5 ;-) went well. Got pretty hungry around 10AM. Had a higher cal lunch than normal and was pretty full until dinner time. Need to listen to the 'I'm full' signals better though. Then the bigger meals could keep me from snacking.... Landed around TDEE so all is good.0
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Third day...16:10 today as I'm out for a late dinner. A bit of exercise and skipping breakfast got me some extra cals for the restaurant Shouldn't be too far over my TDEE.
Might be 15:8 tomorrow, but it will be a fast day anyway.
I have noticed some hunger around 10AM. Hoping I can skip that small snack next week and wait until lunch to start eating. Giving myself a few days to get used to the concept.0 -
This is all facinating! I'm enjoying reading everyone's input and researching on my own. I really appreciate you folks with lots of experience sharing your journey here - thank you! @flumi, I'm totally creeping on your posts to see how your progress is going, you're inspiring me
This is my 3 week 5:2, kinda bounced around 3lbs. since I started. Yesterday was my first 16:8 day (actually it was more like a 8.5 eating window...evenings are kinda chaotic, but I'll take it over my normal 12 hr eating window). It was easier than I thought it would be, and I found that to be true with the 5:2 plan as well. Maybe I'll have better luck sticking with this then!?!
So you guys that have been doing this a while - what are your thoughts on eating close to bed time? There are some nights when that's unavoidable in our house; am I unnecessarily concerned about it? Does it matter where in the day the eating window is?0 -
@maphammonds. I think the IF eating plans work more like a continuum. There are no absolutes, very flexible. It boils down to finding a system that works for YOU. Similar to any dieting, the more adherence to your chosen "rules" the easier to assess measures and results. Don't worry too much. Make the plan work for your schedule.
About late night eating. Again, in general, the theory is that if you can refrain from eating longer than the regular 10-12 hours...you possibly lose more fat. Following the logic of if there's no constant refeeding into your system, you give the body room to work on your surplus fat. So if you have to eat late night on a regular basis, then that's your choice. But you may not be able to get the same results as someone fasting for 13-18 hours on a regular basis. Think cost benefit 0 -
Thanks @foamroller! I would assume that consistency is the key. Yesterday I set my window from noon-8pm, didn't quite get done fixing/eating dinner until 8:30; then went to bed at 9:30. Today, I've got a work meeting from 11:30 - 1pm, I was starving and couldn't see myself waiting until 1pm to eat so just now fixed myself a smoothie. So didn't quite get in a 16hr fast. I'm thinking I'll need to mess around and see what I can realistically, consistantly stick with; even if it's not a true 16:8 plan.0
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Yes. Also in the transition phase, sometimes take a tiny meal, preferably not snack. Just 100-150 kcal to tide you over, without it becoming a "meal". Find the solutions that work for you.
Edit: Orlcam has an interesting system of gherkins and fiber gummies amongst other things to help him finish his monster fasts of 40 hours.
Edit: I've said it many times before, but I can repeat it again for the newcomers. I have a shake of 10g psyllium fiberhusk as a pre-meal. It helped enormously in both filling up the tummy and retrain it to eat less. If psyllium doesn't work for your digestion, try other types of fiber. GRADUAL phasing in!0 -
@flumi_f - broke my 16:8 today. Missed having breakfast with my son too much. It was just to creepy for me to be sitting there with just my glass of water while my son was eating.
I might do 16:8 on fast days since they are different anyway. Still am interested on what you think about 16:8. 0
