Intermittent Fasting - are there any side effects?

Richbelle1

Hey guys ,
I've been reading a lot about intermittent fasting and it seems to have sooo many benefits.
Has anyone tried it? Are there any cons? Especially for women.
Would appreciate any advice!
Thanks!

jjpptt2

Most of the claimed benefits aren't significant enough for most people to really matter. First and foremost, IF is just a bit of structure designed to control when you eat - not what you eat nor how much you eat. In that sense, IF can be completely irrelevant to both overall health goals AND weight management goals. Regardless of IF, you still have to manage your intake to manage your weight, and you still have to eat an overall healthy, balanced diet for general health.

With all that said, the pros and cons are going to be largely individual - meaning what 1 person sees a pro, another may see as a con. It's really a question of how well IF lines up with your normal eating tendencies/preferences. If IF makes it easier for you to adhere to your diet, then IF is a good thing for you. If it doesn't, then it isn't (because why would you want to make things harder than they have to be).

Personally, I IF'd for a long time and really liked it. I liked eating larger meals less often - this worked with my preferences. However, over time it seemed to reinforce my binge tendencies (my big meals got bigger and bigger and bigger), so I've gone away from it while I try to rehab my eating habits. But that's just been my experience. Different people will have different stories. It works for some, but not for others.

Nama_Slay

richarebello wrote: »

Hey guys ,
I've been reading a lot about intermittent fasting and it seems to have sooo many benefits.
Has anyone tried it? Are there any cons? Especially for women.
Would appreciate any advice!
Thanks!

I practice IF along with keto! Many benefits to both, however everyone's body responds differently. Do your research on IF, there's alot of great info out there. My goal is to drop BF% not necessarily weigh.. I drink my BCAA'S because I work out alot, and do fasted cardio at times. Best of luck!

Richbelle1

Hey @jjpptt2 !
Thanks for the advice. So I feel it's easier for me to have a fixed time in which I eat and so I hope IF works. Otherwise I'm just eating throughout the day. And that makes it difficult to count calories for every small thing I've eaten.

jjpptt2

richarebello wrote: »

Hey @jjpptt2 !
Thanks for the advice. So I feel it's easier for me to have a fixed time in which I eat and so I hope IF works. Otherwise I'm just eating throughout the day. And that makes it difficult to count calories for every small thing I've eaten.

Sounds like it's worth trying then. You'll probably still want to log/count cals if your intake isn't where it should be, but IF can be a nice tool to help manage cals.

Richbelle1

@Nama_Slay would I need to take BCAAs if I'm only interested in weight loss and work out like thrice a week?
All the info I've found on IF is that it's magical. So I just wanted to know the flipside from people who've tried it

lemurcat12

There are lots of different ways to do an eating schedule, many of which are not IF. I grew up eating 3 meals a day, and that's what I prefer now, no snacks. Some like 4 meals a day or 2 or 2 meals and 3 planned snacks or whatever.

I think IF works for some people for similar reasons to why a schedule works, and that's basically what it is, just one that limits the eating window. You can eat throughout the window or have planned eating times within it.

There's a different form of IF that involves having 2 low cal days and 5 at maintenance. Others too.

IF itself doesn't work or not, it's a tool that may or may not work for you. The only negatives would be if you don't feel good doing it or enjoy it, or if you find it tends to make you want to eat more, not less. The 5-2 method could be bad for those with restricting and binging issues, maybe.

amusedmonkey

- If you have issues with low blood sugar, you may need to watch out.
- It can be hard to get enough protein if your fasting window is too short
- Some people don't do well with it and feel lethargic and hungry
- Some people adhere better to a typical schedule
- If you work out in the morning, not everyone does well with fasting workouts
- Some people can overeat because they're very hungry
- Some people can undereat because they're not used to this meal pattern
- Some people expect miracles. Intermittent fasting has very few proven benefits if you look it without the weight loss (most of the benefits you read are actually a result of weight loss, not IF itself)

jjpptt2

richarebello wrote: »

@Nama_Slay would I need to take BCAAs if I'm only interested in weight loss and work out like thrice a week?
All the info I've found on IF is that it's magical. So I just wanted to know the flipside from people who've tried it

No. BCAAs were a buzz supplement a while back, but newer information is showing them to be largely pointless - they don't really do anything.

lemurcat12

Um, if you are being told it's magical, the sources you are using aren't trustworthy.

I find it kind of odd that people will claim that if you consume, say, 1800 calories over 3 meals, at 7, 12, and 8, that's somehow not great, but if you consume the same exact meals in a 8 hour window! (so say at 12, 4, and 8), the effects are going to be different and you will do better. I think that's obvious bunkum. But you may well find it easier, FOR YOU, to stick to those 1800 cals (or whatever you goal is) not eating in the morning. That's been true since before IF was a thing, of course.

Nama_Slay

richarebello wrote: »

@Nama_Slay would I need to take BCAAs if I'm only interested in weight loss and work out like thrice a week?
All the info I've found on IF is that it's magical. So I just wanted to know the flipside from people who've tried it

BCAA'S have No thing to do with weigh loss, it is used during exercise to reduce fatigue, accelerate recovery, reduce muscle soreness and so forth. I strength train 4-5 days a week, so thats why I incorprate it into my nutrition plan. IF is far from magical, it's tough at first, as your body adjusts, I have my macros set to the keto plan I follow, not necessarily to IF, if that makes sense. My advice, if you've done your research, know your goal you want achieve, then try it.. There are pros/cons to everything, you just have to try it and see if it works for you!

Nama_Slay

jjpptt2 wrote: »

richarebello wrote: »

@Nama_Slay would I need to take BCAAs if I'm only interested in weight loss and work out like thrice a week?
All the info I've found on IF is that it's magical. So I just wanted to know the flipside from people who've tried it

No. BCAAs were a buzz supplement a while back, but newer information is showing them to be largely pointless - they don't really do anything.

Everyone has their own opinion, but Thanks!

Richbelle1

@lemurcat12 I'm looking at a calorie intake of 1200. So that's why I'm inclined to IF. Since I have a small window for a small amount of calories.
Also the benefits with regard to higher levels of growth hormones and lower levels of insulin didn't seem to be 'bunkum' to me. Hence the question.

missevil

I did it now for about 2 months and don't see any effects at all. Neither negative nor positive. For me, it's just another tool to keep me from eating all the time. My calorie allowance is so low that skipping one meal doesn't help me at all to eat less. I still have to count and plan, but it's a second "barrier". I might be tempted in the evening to say "ok, I eat one more little <whatever>, the calories aren't THAT bad", which is usually a bad idea Having my IF window closed makes me not eat the little <whatever> on most of the days, which is a good thing.
I had high hopes after reading of all the benefits, but there was absolutely NO change/effect, which is actually pretty sad.

lemurcat12

So change 1800 to 1200, and same point.

I've not heard anything about growth hormones, but the thing about insulin is bunkum, especially if you are talking about the two patterns I mentioned. Meals in IF are larger, so the insulin is in your system longer. (Insulin is also not evil, and will depend on what you consume, so making it all about IF is also misleading.)

Anyone who claims you won't lose on a non IF pattern because insulin is basically lying.

jjpptt2

richarebello wrote: »

Also the benefits with regard to higher levels of growth hormones and lower levels of insulin didn't seem to be 'bunkum' to me. Hence the question.

From what I've read, those benefits only apply under very specific conditions, and are only significant/meaningful to a very small group of people. I really think this is a case where your ability to adhere to your calorie and macro goals FAAR outweighs any imperceptible benefits coming from hormone manipulation.

lemurcat12

General rule of thumb, if some way of eating is promoted as "magical" (in that you can keep eating without lowering calories or even eat more and still lose or you will somehow never want to overeat again), then it's probably not credible, and may well be coming from a scammy kind of source.

However, that doesn't mean that a change might not be "magical" for you -- changing macros or eating schedule can make it easier to adhere to calories, and even go from hard to easy. But what the changes are vary by person. Again, anyone who pushes something as "will work for all" is not to be trusted, period.

That eating windows of 8 hours (or sometimes even 12) are sold as some HUGE NEW THING that means you lose when you otherwise would gain is just odd. If it works (and it very well can) it's because you find it easier to eat less.

The converse of this is that somehow it's a BIG DEAL to have an eating window that basically means skipping breakfast. People have skipped breakfast forever, it's not a big deal. I for years ate only at lunch and dinner and maybe a snack in-between, because that's when I wanted to eat. No negative effects (because it's not a big deal, humans are not so fragile that we have to eat every few hours), and also I managed to gain weight doing it (I also managed to maintain and lose doing it -- the difference was the calories).

amusedmonkey

richarebello wrote: »

@lemurcat12 I'm looking at a calorie intake of 1200. So that's why I'm inclined to IF. Since I have a small window for a small amount of calories.
Also the benefits with regard to higher levels of growth hormones and lower levels of insulin didn't seem to be 'bunkum' to me. Hence the question.

In the short term, higher levels of growth hormones has only some support in men, much less support in women. If anything, some women have increased cortisol, which isn't something you want to happen chronically. If you want higher HGH levels long term, weight loss does it. Insulin sensitivity is also a function of weight loss mostly, so it's hard to isolate as specific to IF.

Richbelle1

So @amusedmonkey assuming I stick to my 1200 calorie plan and workout, will IF facilitate the weight-loss ? That's essentially what I wanted to know.
If I can use it to stick to my calorie goal, focus in my macros AND benefit from the hormone manipulation, then isn't it a win-win ?

jjpptt2

richarebello wrote: »

So @amusedmonkey assuming I stick to my 1200 calorie plan and workout, will IF facilitate the weight-loss ? That's essentially what I wanted to know.
If I can use it to stick to my calorie goal, focus in my macros AND benefit from the hormone manipulation, then isn't it a win-win ?

No. 1200 cals in 6-8 hours vs 1200 cals in 12-14 hours makes no difference to weight loss.

Richbelle1

@jjpptt2 @amusedmonkey @lemurcat12 I've been following this YouTube page by Thomas Delauer. He uses extensive scientific studies to prove the benefits of IF. Which is what I'm basing my knowledge on. Now I'm inclined to think he's a quack.