Intermittent Fasting
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MaryBethHempel
Posts: 513 Member
This is for posts on your Intermittent Fasting, what you have learned, any informational articles to share, and your own experience on Intermittent Fasting (IF).
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I am going to do 18 hours of fasting 6:30 pm until 12:30 pm, and eat between 12:30-6:30pm. Today I did 20:4, because I just wasn't hungry and wanted to work out before I ate, among other circumstances. I will do some more research on it tomorrow. You can do 12:12, 18:6, or 20:4. You can have black coffee, tea, or water during fast times. I had a sugar-free orange drink mixed with orange Powerade Zero today during the fast time. I wouldn't think that it would matter, as long as it is sugar-free.5
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Martin Berkhan is largely considered the leader of popularizing the intermittent fasting and leangains approach. I would suggest starting there and soak up as much as you can.
https://leangains.com/the-leangains-guide/
To answer the rest of your questions, IF is merely one tool (of many) in creating a calorie deficit for fat loss by restricting your eating window to a certain number of hours. It's not magic, and people can completely derail (binge) on this diet just like they can with any other diet.
As a list of positives, it trains you to understand the physiology of actual hunger cues; it promotes discipline and controlled freedom by plotting a strategy that allows you to eat at a regimented time; outside the feeding window, you're either asleep or working so you don't need to be thinking about food all the time; eating the bulk of your calories in a smaller window of time promotes satiety especially if you focus on protein (also what contributes to a calorie deficit).17 -
Martin Berkhan is largely considered the leader of popularizing the intermittent fasting and leangains approach. I would suggest starting there and soak up as much as you can.
https://leangains.com/the-leangains-guide/
To answer the rest of your questions, IF is merely one tool (of many) in creating a calorie deficit for fat loss by restricting your eating window to a certain number of hours. It's not magic, and people can completely derail (binge) on this diet just like they can with any other diet.
As a list of positives, it trains you to understand the physiology of actual hunger cues; it promotes discipline and controlled freedom by plotting a strategy that allows you to eat at a regimented time; outside the feeding window, you're either asleep or working so you don't need to be thinking about food all the time; eating the bulk of your calories in a smaller window of time promotes satiety especially if you focus on protein (also what contributes to a calorie deficit).
Wow, thank you! This is a great start of information for this thread. I am new to this, but I noticed a few days that when I did do it, I had more energy, wasn't even hungry, and had more focus. I also felt that I was more in control of my life. I will share this with others. Thank you again!
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Here is an article I found from from Leigh Campbell on MamaMia 14 hrs. ago. I thought this was interesting because it really opens up different methods to do of the Intermittent Fasting.
Timing when you eat: Why periodic fasting can have a such a huge impact on your health.
You’ve probably heard of people doing ‘intermittent fasting’.
Some follow the popular 5:2 diet, while others might only eat within a specific window of the day.
Regardless of the method, essentially it all comes down to timing when you eat and monitoring calorie intake within those times.
What is intermittent fasting?
“Intermittent fasting is a general term used to describe a variety of approaches that change the normal timing of eating throughout a day, with short-term fasts used to improve overall health,” Dietitian Robbie Clark told Mamamia.
“In other words, the one consistent theme of intermittent fasting is that individuals periodically fast for a longer duration than the typical overnight fast that occurs while you sleep.”
The overall health benefits Clark refers to go way beyond weight loss (more on those later) but of course fat loss can be a result for those who are overweight. First, let’s take a little science lesson in what happens when we eat.
“When we eat, we ingest more food energy than our body can immediately use. As a result, this energy is stored away for later use,” Clark said.
“Enter the hormone, insulin. Insulin is the key hormone involved in the storage of food energy. To put it simply, insulin rises when we eat, helping to store the excess energy, known as glycogen, in the liver. There is, however, limited storage space, and once that is reached, the liver starts to turn the excess glucose into fat.”
Through fasting the process is essentially reversed, whereby the body calls on the excess energy stored as fat to use as the energy it needs to function.
“When we fast, insulin levels fall, signalling the body to start burning stored energy, since no mfore is coming through food. Blood glucose also falls, so the body must now pull glucose out of storage to burn for energy,” Clark said.
Intermittent fasting, also referred to as periodic fasting, works on the stop-start premise so as not to slow the metabolism down in a detrimental way, which can occur with long, extended periods of not eating.
How is intermittent fasting done?
There are a few different approaches to intermittent fasting. Below, Clark outlines some of different types:
The 5:2 Diet
This is one of the most popular intermittent fasting plans. The diet allows you to follow a ‘normal’ healthy pattern of eating for five days followed by two ‘fasting’ days. On fasting days, energy intake is restricted to around 500 calories for women and 600 calories for men, per day.
Fasting days can be consecutive or split over the week. The daily calorie allowance can be eaten over various combinations of one, two, or three meals plus snacks, depending on personal and practical preferences.
There are also variations of the 5:2 Diet, including 6:1 (restricting only one day per week), 4:3 (restricting three days per week) or ADF (alternate day fasting).
16/8 Fasting
This method recommends you fast for 16 hours a day and limit your eating to an eight-hour window. Most often, this simply involves skipping breakfast and eat between the hours of 12-8pm.
Eat-Stop-Eat
With this method, you pick one or two days out of the week and fast for 24 hours, eating nothing from dinner one day until dinner the next day. On the other days, you should aim to eat normally.
Lots of fluid is encouraged during these fasts.
What are the benefits of intermittent fasting?
“Fasting’s most obvious benefit is fat loss. However, research has shown that there are numerous benefits beyond this,” Clark said.
And there’s plenty of research. Periodic fasting has been proven to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation in the body and a Harvard study shows how intermittent fasting may actually increase lifespan.
Other studies have looked at the improved brain and memory function, while anecdotally many fasters report an overall feeling of sharpness and lifted mood.
“Fasting helps normalise insulin sensitivity – lowering insulin production means you decrease your risk of insulin resistance, which can be a precursor of type 2 diabetes,” Clark said.
It also aids in improved immune function – your body kick-starts stem cells into producing new white blood cells, which fight off infection.”
What are the downfalls of intermittent fasting?
As with any approach to health and wellness, it’s certainly not one size fits all.
“I would strongly recommend that people work with a qualified healthcare professional or dietitian who understands the risks and benefits and can help determine if it’s right for you.”
“For example, intermittent fasting should always be avoided during pregnancy and breastfeeding, and should generally be avoided during times of increased stress. It is also not recommended if you are a child or teenager as it may interfere with growth and development. People with uncontrolled diabetes should also proceed with caution,” Clark said.
Mark Robinson, Accredited Practising Dietitian, also warns against the risk of calling on the methods of intermittent fasting too often.
“The trick is to not make intermittent fasting the new ‘norm’ for the body because then it can go into a storage mode and slow down metabolism. When this happens, the body starts holding onto our calories from our meals because it does not know when the next intake will be and somewhat prepares for a fast, which is unhealthy.”
Clark also says to be wary of becoming over reliant on caffeine, as coffee is allowed during fast periods in a lot of the formulated food plans. This has the potential to lead to poor sleep and even anxiety.
“Other health risks that are generally associated with diets that are too low in calories, include risk of nutritional deficiencies, electrolyte abnormalities, and potentially more serious risks if extreme diets are undertaken without appropriate supervision.”
As with any adjustment to your diet, make sure you get the all clear from your doctor first.18 -
MaryBethHempel wrote: »“The trick is to not make intermittent fasting the new ‘norm’ for the body because then it can go into a storage mode and slow down metabolism. When this happens, the body starts holding onto our calories from our meals because it does not know when the next intake will be and somewhat prepares for a fast, which is unhealthy.”
I started IF on Sunday and I had not thought about this. But I also do a lot of HIIT workouts which is supposed to speed up your metabolism. So at what point do I stop doing IF?
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The Benefits of Intermittent Fastng:
1. Fasting simplifies your day by reducing the number of meals you
have to prepare.
2. Intermittent fasting helps you live longer. Scientists have known
for a long time that restricting calories can lengthen life. Intermittent
fasting activates many of the same mechanisms for extending life as
calorie restriction.
3. Intermittent fasting may reduce the risk of cancer. A small
amount of medical research has indicated that fasting might be helpful
in the fight against cancer.
4. Fasting can help you get lean. Fasting puts your body in a fat
burning state that you rarely reach while following a normal eating
schedule.
5. Intermittent fasting is much easier than traditional diets. The
reason most diets fail is because we don’t follow the diet over the long
term. Fasting is a weight loss method that is remarkably easy to stick to
long-term.19 -
Thomas Delauer and Dr. Berg on YouTube have some great videos on IF.
Also, be careful of those sugar free drinks... Certain ones can still cause a caloric response in the body and therefore put you out of a fasting state. Also intermittent fasting combined with ketosis has been proven to have many health benefits. With this combination you're not just losing weight but you're losing fat. It's also been proven to have many health benefits such as increased insulin sensitivity, improved triglyceride and cholesterol levels, better blood glucose stabilization, increased energy levels, increased Focus, etc etc.19 -
MaryBethHempel wrote: »“The trick is to not make intermittent fasting the new ‘norm’ for the body because then it can go into a storage mode and slow down metabolism. When this happens, the body starts holding onto our calories from our meals because it does not know when the next intake will be and somewhat prepares for a fast, which is unhealthy.”
I started IF on Sunday and I had not thought about this. But I also do a lot of HIIT workouts which is supposed to speed up your metabolism. So at what point do I stop doing IF?
You can do it a long time if you are doing the daily IF. I have to do more research, but I remember seeing that you can do almost a whole year. What are your intervals of IF? Are they 12:12, 18:6, or 20:4?2 -
MaryBethHempel wrote: »MaryBethHempel wrote: »“The trick is to not make intermittent fasting the new ‘norm’ for the body because then it can go into a storage mode and slow down metabolism. When this happens, the body starts holding onto our calories from our meals because it does not know when the next intake will be and somewhat prepares for a fast, which is unhealthy.”
I started IF on Sunday and I had not thought about this. But I also do a lot of HIIT workouts which is supposed to speed up your metabolism. So at what point do I stop doing IF?
You can do it a long time if you are doing the daily IF. I have to do more research, but I remember seeing that you can do almost a whole year. What are your intervals of IF? Are they 12:12, 18:6, or 20:4?
Thanks for finding that information for me. I am currently doing 16:8 and been having success with that. I don't think I could eat all my calories for the day in only 4 or 6 hours. There are lots of books about IF, I think I will pick one and read more about it.
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Thomas Delauer and Dr. Berg on YouTube have some great videos on IF.
Also, be careful of those sugar free drinks... Certain ones can still cause a caloric response in the body and therefore put you out of a fasting state. Also intermittent fasting combined with ketosis has been proven to have many health benefits. With this combination you're not just losing weight but you're losing fat. It's also been proven to have many health benefits such as increased insulin sensitivity, improved triglyceride and cholesterol levels, better blood glucose stabilization, increased energy levels, increased Focus, etc etc.
Thank you for the info. Do you know which sugar free drinks cause a caloric response and put you out of a fasting state?
I will check out the videos...Thank you again! 2 -
MaryBethHempel wrote: »MaryBethHempel wrote: »“The trick is to not make intermittent fasting the new ‘norm’ for the body because then it can go into a storage mode and slow down metabolism. When this happens, the body starts holding onto our calories from our meals because it does not know when the next intake will be and somewhat prepares for a fast, which is unhealthy.”
I started IF on Sunday and I had not thought about this. But I also do a lot of HIIT workouts which is supposed to speed up your metabolism. So at what point do I stop doing IF?
You can do it a long time if you are doing the daily IF. I have to do more research, but I remember seeing that you can do almost a whole year. What are your intervals of IF? Are they 12:12, 18:6, or 20:4?
Thanks for finding that information for me. I am currently doing 16:8 and been having success with that. I don't think I could eat all my calories for the day in only 4 or 6 hours. There are lots of books about IF, I think I will pick one and read more about it.
Great idea! Please share if you find any more useful information. I will have to check the books out myself. Looking forward to what you come up with. 1 -
MaryBethHempel wrote: »MaryBethHempel wrote: »“The trick is to not make intermittent fasting the new ‘norm’ for the body because then it can go into a storage mode and slow down metabolism. When this happens, the body starts holding onto our calories from our meals because it does not know when the next intake will be and somewhat prepares for a fast, which is unhealthy.”
I started IF on Sunday and I had not thought about this. But I also do a lot of HIIT workouts which is supposed to speed up your metabolism. So at what point do I stop doing IF?
You can do it a long time if you are doing the daily IF. I have to do more research, but I remember seeing that you can do almost a whole year. What are your intervals of IF? Are they 12:12, 18:6, or 20:4?
Thanks for finding that information for me. I am currently doing 16:8 and been having success with that. I don't think I could eat all my calories for the day in only 4 or 6 hours. There are lots of books about IF, I think I will pick one and read more about it.
Which is precisely how IF works in creating a calorie deficit.10 -
MaryBethHempel wrote: »MaryBethHempel wrote: »“The trick is to not make intermittent fasting the new ‘norm’ for the body because then it can go into a storage mode and slow down metabolism. When this happens, the body starts holding onto our calories from our meals because it does not know when the next intake will be and somewhat prepares for a fast, which is unhealthy.”
I started IF on Sunday and I had not thought about this. But I also do a lot of HIIT workouts which is supposed to speed up your metabolism. So at what point do I stop doing IF?
You can do it a long time if you are doing the daily IF. I have to do more research, but I remember seeing that you can do almost a whole year. What are your intervals of IF? Are they 12:12, 18:6, or 20:4?
Thanks for finding that information for me. I am currently doing 16:8 and been having success with that. I don't think I could eat all my calories for the day in only 4 or 6 hours. There are lots of books about IF, I think I will pick one and read more about it.
Which is precisely how IF works in creating a calorie deficit.
I like my three meals per day. I'm trying to lose about 10 lbs so I am eating at a deficit. I have digestive issues so if I tried to eat that much in a smaller time frame, it wouldn't work. Everyone's different and you gotta do what works for you. 2 -
Yes, you do what works for you to meet your goal.
I think there may be a miscommunication, but I wasn't directly responding to you per se, as I tend to generalize statements for everyone else who may have questions as to why IF works.
But you've also supported my sentiment that it would be physically impossible for you to fit 3 meals into a shorter eating window. Therefore, you would be restricting far more than you planned, thus creating a larger deficit. Which is the ultimate premise of IF in the first place - creating a deficit (large or small).
Some people remove the idea that 3 meals a day is necessary and begin eating 2 or even 1 meal a day. Or they adjust their idea of how large a meal should be. Again, this is not something anyone has to do at all, nor does anyone need to IF to create a deficit. In my initial response, I said IFing was a tool (among many) that helps some people create a calorie deficit and adhere to a diet they enjoy. Some are successful, some are not. Some prefer shorter eating windows, some prefer longer.5 -
You can eat 12 meals during your eating window if you really wanted too. Clearly not recommended of course. Some people like me just eat at the beginning of the window and at the end. There are a lot of people who have their largest meal when they break fast. You have to try several things until your find the one that works for you.2
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There is a wealth of videos on You Tube on IF from Dr Jason Fung, who has written The Obesity Code and The Complete Guide to Fasting: How To Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and..14
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MaryBethHempel wrote: »There is a wealth of videos on You Tube on IF from Dr Jason Fung, who has written The Obesity Code and The Complete Guide to Fasting: How To Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and..
I actually wouldn't look to Fung for advice. He talks a good game and makes fasting sound compelling, but he's widely known for straw-manning arguments and science. He makes outrageous claims that muscle can be built on eating no nutrients at all or that calories are only a working theory and impractical for the purposes of metabolism.13 -
MaryBethHempel wrote: »There is a wealth of videos on You Tube on IF from Dr Jason Fung, who has written The Obesity Code and The Complete Guide to Fasting: How To Heal Your Body Through Intermittent, Alternate-Day, and..
I actually wouldn't look to Fung for advice. He talks a good game and makes fasting sound compelling, but he's widely known for straw-manning arguments and science. He makes outrageous claims that muscle can be built on eating no nutrients at all or that calories are only a working theory and impractical for the purposes of metabolism.
Hmmm. I will have to check that out. I checked out your recommendation of Martin Berkhan and it seemed like he is more geared for men.2 -
Martin Berkhan's demographic is primarily male, yes, but his approach is universal. I'm not sure what your goal is for IF, but if it's primarily for fat loss then Martin's approach is sufficient enough to follow. If you are wanting to practice fasting for any other reason, then perhaps Fung -might- pose some benefit, but comparing their respective knowledge of biochemistry and physiology, Berkhan has a firm and realistic grasp of nutrition and will dispense that advice as such. Fung will use metaphors and weave straw man arguments into his writing to support a bias. Whenever his view is challenged, Fung resorts to using the number of patients he's treated as his basis of evidence.
It's up to you who to listen to, and there are other resources out there for the same topic besides those two, like Aadam Ali (aka Physiqonomics) or Amy Berger, just take it with a grain of salt. Martin, Aadam, and Amy will tell you that it's not necessary to IF whereas Fung will kind of use the blanket approach that all people should more often than not.5 -
Martin Berkhan's demographic is primarily male, yes, but his approach is universal. I'm not sure what your goal is for IF, but if it's primarily for fat loss then Martin's approach is sufficient enough to follow. If you are wanting to practice fasting for any other reason, then perhaps Fung -might- pose some benefit, but comparing their respective knowledge of biochemistry and physiology, Berkhan has a firm and realistic grasp of nutrition and will dispense that advice as such. Fung will use metaphors and weave straw man arguments into his writing to support a bias. Whenever his view is challenged, Fung resorts to using the number of patients he's treated as his basis of evidence.
It's up to you who to listen to, and there are other resources out there for the same topic besides those two, like Aadam Ali (aka Physiqonomics) or Amy Berger, just take it with a grain of salt. Martin, Aadam, and Amy will tell you that it's not necessary to IF whereas Fung will kind of use the blanket approach that all people should more often than not.
Thank you for the info. Have you read any good books on IF?1
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