Intermittent fasting ? Does it work for you????
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SFLiminality wrote: »I've been doing IF for about 4 1/2 weeks, and I've lost 23 lbs (probably about 3-5 lbs of water weight) and 3 inches off my waist. I've dieted on and off throughout the years, and this has been the easiest plan to stick to for me personally.
It's not for everyone, but the narrow eating window makes it easy for me to stick closer to my calorie goal of 1200-1600, and not eating throughout the day gives me tons of time to focus on other things as well as having the side benefit of saving tons of money on not eating out since my eating window starts at 10 pm.
The reason I've lost so much weight on IF is that I've been doing a combination of a lot of suggested eating habits along with the fasting. Keto, OMAD, and 30 minutes to an hour of cardio a day averaging 150 bpm.
I think my favorite part about it overall is that the flexibility. Some days I don't eat all that great, but I can just pick it up the next day and not feel like I've ruined my diet. I've had about two weight loss plateaus so far due to letting loose and eating whatever, but I broke through them both in about 3 days of sticking to it.
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The reason you are losing weight so quickly is calories - you are under-eating. Unless you started out morbidly obese, losing 4+ lbs per week is incredibly aggressive. Please be careful and give some thought to how you intend to eat once you reach goal weight.11 -
I switch back and forth. Lately I am just skipping breakfast and having what I would have had for breakfast (a protein shake) as my mid morning snack, just to eliminate some calories. I used to skip breakfast and not eat until lunchtime and it was ok but I don't like being hungry.0
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My best advice is to stay utterly consistent with your start and stop times for eating. Like always. On the weekends. On holidays. Make exceptions, but don't expect progress.
This relates specifically to me. I cannot speak for others. But I have problems with being consistent, generally speaking, and IF is a great help for that.0 -
SFLiminality wrote: »I've been doing IF for about 4 1/2 weeks, and I've lost 23 lbs (probably about 3-5 lbs of water weight) and 3 inches off my waist. I've dieted on and off throughout the years, and this has been the easiest plan to stick to for me personally.
It's not for everyone, but the narrow eating window makes it easy for me to stick closer to my calorie goal of 1200-1600, and not eating throughout the day gives me tons of time to focus on other things as well as having the side benefit of saving tons of money on not eating out since my eating window starts at 10 pm.
The reason I've lost so much weight on IF is that I've been doing a combination of a lot of suggested eating habits along with the fasting. Keto, OMAD, and 30 minutes to an hour of cardio a day averaging 150 bpm.
I think my favorite part about it overall is that the flexibility. Some days I don't eat all that great, but I can just pick it up the next day and not feel like I've ruined my diet. I've had about two weight loss plateaus so far due to letting loose and eating whatever, but I broke through them both in about 3 days of sticking to it.
[/img]
The reason you are losing weight so quickly is calories - you are under-eating. Unless you started out morbidly obese, losing 4+ lbs per week is incredibly aggressive. Please be careful and give some thought to how you intend to eat once you reach goal weight.
This^ losing that rapidly is not necessarily a good thing. There will be muscle loss as well as other negative consequences if you continue at that rate.5 -
SFLiminality wrote: »I've been doing IF for about 4 1/2 weeks, and I've lost 23 lbs (probably about 3-5 lbs of water weight) and 3 inches off my waist. I've dieted on and off throughout the years, and this has been the easiest plan to stick to for me personally.
It's not for everyone, but the narrow eating window makes it easy for me to stick closer to my calorie goal of 1200-1600, and not eating throughout the day gives me tons of time to focus on other things as well as having the side benefit of saving tons of money on not eating out since my eating window starts at 10 pm.
The reason I've lost so much weight on IF is that I've been doing a combination of a lot of suggested eating habits along with the fasting. Keto, OMAD, and 30 minutes to an hour of cardio a day averaging 150 bpm.
I think my favorite part about it overall is that the flexibility. Some days I don't eat all that great, but I can just pick it up the next day and not feel like I've ruined my diet. I've had about two weight loss plateaus so far due to letting loose and eating whatever, but I broke through them both in about 3 days of sticking to it.
Before and after.
1200 calories is way too little for a male. unless you are under a drs strict care you should be eating 1500 calories or more. 1500 is for a male who is very short,sendentary,elderly or a combo of the 3. keto is also not a flexible diet its very restrictive.10 -
I tried IF as it worked wonderfully for my brother, but I found it didn't work out for me. By limiting myself to that 8 hour window, I tried skipping breakfast, but just found myself obsessing with the clock until I could finally eat something, and then feeling ravenous and overeating when I could finally allow myself to eat. I'm better off if I plan 3 fixed meals and allow some room for some snacks in between. I don't exactly graze, either, but do need to allow flexibility to eat when I'm hungry.4
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It definitely works for me. I do the 16-8 method it helps me keep from over eating during the day. It's hard to over eat when you barely have time to eat haha! Whatever works for your schedule though don't over stress!3
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It definitely works for me. I do the 16-8 method it helps me keep from over eating during the day. It's hard to over eat when you barely have time to eat haha! Whatever works for your schedule though don't over stress!
for you it keeps you from overeating. I got fat overeating doing IF. its real and does happen.Ive done 16:8 most of my life and there are times I do 18:6. Im maintaining right now doing IF, I lost weight doing IF I just ate in a deficit to lose the weight.3 -
CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »1200 calories is way too little for a male. unless you are under a drs strict care you should be eating 1500 calories or more. 1500 is for a male who is very short,sendentary,elderly or a combo of the 3. keto is also not a flexible diet its very restrictive.
Eh. People have been doing proper fasts on only water for ages, so I don't think the occasional 1200 calories is going to have any lasting impact. I feel great for the most part. MFP only yells at me if I go under 1200, haha.
On a side note, I'm actually bumping my calories up since I'll be trying out OMAD. I shoot for around 1600-1800 to prepare for when I'm going to try and start eating more to put on some muscle. I want to get back to my college weight first.
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SFLiminality wrote: »CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »1200 calories is way too little for a male. unless you are under a drs strict care you should be eating 1500 calories or more. 1500 is for a male who is very short,sendentary,elderly or a combo of the 3. keto is also not a flexible diet its very restrictive.
Eh. People have been doing proper fasts on only water for ages, so I don't think the occasional 1200 calories is going to have any lasting impact. I feel great for the most part. MFP only yells at me if I go under 1200, haha.
On a side note, I'm actually bumping my calories up since I'll be trying out OMAD. I shoot for around 1600-1800 to prepare for when I'm going to try and start eating more to put on some muscle. I want to get back to my college weight first.
If you're cool with losing muscle mass then go for it I guess. Most people who under-eat feel fine, until they don't when they slam into the brick wall and take weeks if not months to feel better.
It is WAY easier to lose weight at a more reasonable pace and protect the muscle you already have, than it is to build muscle once you've lost it. So many people post here upset that they got to goal weight fast but don't like how they look. And then they spend way more time trying to build back the muscle without getting fat again.13 -
If you're cool with losing muscle mass then go for it I guess. Most people who under-eat feel fine, until they don't when they slam into the brick wall and take weeks if not months to feel better.
It is WAY easier to lose weight at a more reasonable pace and protect the muscle you already have, than it is to build muscle once you've lost it. So many people post here upset that they got to goal weight fast but don't like how they look. And then they spend way more time trying to build back the muscle without getting fat again.
I haven't noticed any loss in strength. My cardio exercises haven't gotten any harder, and I can still lug around 150 pound packages while working at UPS, so I don't think muscle loss has been an issue.
Honestly, this is more of a personal test of what my body can deal with. I'm going to ride out this IF/Keto shenanigans for a few more weeks or as long as my body keeps letting me. No sign of slowing down so far.
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Here is an link which may be of interest to those that are following this thread.
Quote from the paper published in the journal Autophagy, posted here:
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/Short-term fasting induces profound neuronal autophagy
--snip--
Our observation that a brief period of food restriction can induce widespread upregulation of autophagy in CNS neurons may have clinical relevance. As noted above, disruption of autophagy can cause neurodegenerative disease, and the converse also may hold true: upregulation of autophagy may have a neuroprotective effect. For example, in vitro models have shown that starvation in neuronal cell lines can remove toxic molecules and damaged mitochondria from neurons.22–24 Other tissue culture studies, of mutant huntingtin and α-synuclein proteins (which are associated with Huntington disease and familial Parkinson disease respectively), have identified autophagy substrates that can be removed by drug-induced enhancement of autophagy. Most importantly, some neuroprotective effects of drug-enhanced autophagy also have been observed in vivo, in a D. melanogaster model of Huntington disease.25 Finally, it has been suggested that intermittent fasting might improve neuronal function by means that are entirely independent of caloric intake, and may instead reflect an intrinsic neuronal response that is triggered by fasting;26,27 we speculate that the reported improvement of neuronal function may be related to the upregulation of autophagy that we show here. The above findings have encouraged the development of drugs that might enhance neuronal autophagy, thereby protecting against disease. Such drugs must: (i) be able to cross the intact blood-brain barrier; (ii) upregulate neuronal autophagy; and (iii) be harmless to the recipient. Food restriction is a simple, reliable, inexpensive and harmless alternative to drug ingestion and, therefore, we propose that short-term food restriction may represent an attractive alternative to the prophylaxis and treatment of diseases in which candidate drugs are currently being sought. However, caution is counseled, because studies in rat brain have suggested that chronic starvation might inhibit autophagy,28 an outcome that could damage, rather than protect, neurons.28,29
(emphasis mine)
I did not read the links provided in the endnotes.
Yes, I did note the counsel to caution against chronic starvation.15 -
SFLiminality wrote: »If you're cool with losing muscle mass then go for it I guess. Most people who under-eat feel fine, until they don't when they slam into the brick wall and take weeks if not months to feel better.
It is WAY easier to lose weight at a more reasonable pace and protect the muscle you already have, than it is to build muscle once you've lost it. So many people post here upset that they got to goal weight fast but don't like how they look. And then they spend way more time trying to build back the muscle without getting fat again.
I haven't noticed any loss in strength. My cardio exercises haven't gotten any harder, and I can still lug around 150 pound packages while working at UPS, so I don't think muscle loss has been an issue.
Honestly, this is more of a personal test of what my body can deal with. I'm going to ride out this IF/Keto shenanigans for a few more weeks or as long as my body keeps letting me. No sign of slowing down so far.
Yet.7 -
MistressPi wrote: »Here is an link which may be of interest to those that are following this thread.
Quote from the paper published in the journal Autophagy, posted here:
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/
"May have clinical relevance"
"May have a neuroprotective effect"
"In vitro models"
"It has been suggested"
"Might"
"We speculate"
"Studies in rat brain"
The text sounds a lot more speculative and tentative than the title.
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MistressPi wrote: »Here is an link which may be of interest to those that are following this thread.
Quote from the paper published in the journal Autophagy, posted here:
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/Short-term fasting induces profound neuronal autophagy
--snip--
Our observation that a brief period of food restriction can induce widespread upregulation of autophagy in CNS neurons may have clinical relevance. As noted above, disruption of autophagy can cause neurodegenerative disease, and the converse also may hold true: upregulation of autophagy may have a neuroprotective effect. For example, in vitro models have shown that starvation in neuronal cell lines can remove toxic molecules and damaged mitochondria from neurons.22–24 Other tissue culture studies, of mutant huntingtin and α-synuclein proteins (which are associated with Huntington disease and familial Parkinson disease respectively), have identified autophagy substrates that can be removed by drug-induced enhancement of autophagy. Most importantly, some neuroprotective effects of drug-enhanced autophagy also have been observed in vivo, in a D. melanogaster model of Huntington disease.25 Finally, it has been suggested that intermittent fasting might improve neuronal function by means that are entirely independent of caloric intake, and may instead reflect an intrinsic neuronal response that is triggered by fasting;26,27 we speculate that the reported improvement of neuronal function may be related to the upregulation of autophagy that we show here. The above findings have encouraged the development of drugs that might enhance neuronal autophagy, thereby protecting against disease. Such drugs must: (i) be able to cross the intact blood-brain barrier; (ii) upregulate neuronal autophagy; and (iii) be harmless to the recipient. Food restriction is a simple, reliable, inexpensive and harmless alternative to drug ingestion and, therefore, we propose that short-term food restriction may represent an attractive alternative to the prophylaxis and treatment of diseases in which candidate drugs are currently being sought. However, caution is counseled, because studies in rat brain have suggested that chronic starvation might inhibit autophagy,28 an outcome that could damage, rather than protect, neurons.28,29
(emphasis mine)
I did not read the links provided in the endnotes.
Yes, I did note the counsel to caution against chronic starvation.
As the text above suggests, it has only been "suggested" that IF provides autophagy benefits. So far, this has not proven in studies on humans. Only in mice.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516560/
"Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that eating patterns that reduce or eliminate nighttime eating and prolong nightly fasting intervals could result in sustained improvements in human health. While this hypothesis has not been tested in humans, support from animal research is striking and data from human time-restricted feeding studies are suggestive. Prolonged nightly fasting may be a simple, feasible, and potentially effective disease prevention strategy at the population level.
Large-scale randomized trials of intermittent fasting regimens in free-living adults are needed and should last for at least a year to see if behavioral and metabolic changes are sustainable and whether they have long term effects on biomarkers of aging and longevity. Future studies should incorporate objective measures of energy intake, sleep, and energy expenditure; assess numerous markers of disease risk; and enroll diverse populations who disproportionately suffer from obesity and related health maladies."
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The reason you are losing weight so quickly is calories - you are under-eating. Unless you started out morbidly obese, losing 4+ lbs per week is incredibly aggressive. Please be careful and give some thought to how you intend to eat once you reach goal weight.
The thing is, I've done low calorie diets off and on over the years, and it's never been this easy to drop the pounds. Eating the same calories I am on IF as I used to on low calorie 3 meals a day took me months to make this much progress. The plateaus were rough, and discouraging. I've even upped my calories on IF this last week, and am still easily dropping weight.
I'm going to fall back on IF whenever the winter blues catch me, and my pants start to get a bit too snug for comfort.8 -
MistressPi wrote: »Here is an link which may be of interest to those that are following this thread.
Quote from the paper published in the journal Autophagy, posted here:
https://ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/Short-term fasting induces profound neuronal autophagy
--snip--
Our observation that a brief period of food restriction can induce widespread upregulation of autophagy in CNS neurons may have clinical relevance. As noted above, disruption of autophagy can cause neurodegenerative disease, and the converse also may hold true: upregulation of autophagy may have a neuroprotective effect. For example, in vitro models have shown that starvation in neuronal cell lines can remove toxic molecules and damaged mitochondria from neurons.22–24 Other tissue culture studies, of mutant huntingtin and α-synuclein proteins (which are associated with Huntington disease and familial Parkinson disease respectively), have identified autophagy substrates that can be removed by drug-induced enhancement of autophagy. Most importantly, some neuroprotective effects of drug-enhanced autophagy also have been observed in vivo, in a D. melanogaster model of Huntington disease.25 Finally, it has been suggested that intermittent fasting might improve neuronal function by means that are entirely independent of caloric intake, and may instead reflect an intrinsic neuronal response that is triggered by fasting;26,27 we speculate that the reported improvement of neuronal function may be related to the upregulation of autophagy that we show here. The above findings have encouraged the development of drugs that might enhance neuronal autophagy, thereby protecting against disease. Such drugs must: (i) be able to cross the intact blood-brain barrier; (ii) upregulate neuronal autophagy; and (iii) be harmless to the recipient. Food restriction is a simple, reliable, inexpensive and harmless alternative to drug ingestion and, therefore, we propose that short-term food restriction may represent an attractive alternative to the prophylaxis and treatment of diseases in which candidate drugs are currently being sought. However, caution is counseled, because studies in rat brain have suggested that chronic starvation might inhibit autophagy,28 an outcome that could damage, rather than protect, neurons.28,29
(emphasis mine)
I did not read the links provided in the endnotes.
Yes, I did note the counsel to caution against chronic starvation.
As the text above suggests, it has only been "suggested" that IF provides autophagy benefits. So far, this has not proven in studies on humans. Only in mice.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4516560/
"Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that eating patterns that reduce or eliminate nighttime eating and prolong nightly fasting intervals could result in sustained improvements in human health. While this hypothesis has not been tested in humans, support from animal research is striking and data from human time-restricted feeding studies are suggestive. Prolonged nightly fasting may be a simple, feasible, and potentially effective disease prevention strategy at the population level.
Large-scale randomized trials of intermittent fasting regimens in free-living adults are needed and should last for at least a year to see if behavioral and metabolic changes are sustainable and whether they have long term effects on biomarkers of aging and longevity. Future studies should incorporate objective measures of energy intake, sleep, and energy expenditure; assess numerous markers of disease risk; and enroll diverse populations who disproportionately suffer from obesity and related health maladies."
Yes, I did note the qualifications and cautious wording of the authors. I am currently reading papers of studies, conducted (voluntarily) on humans, which I consider have sufficient sample sizes, to further my own education. A human's body engages in autophagy, just like mice do, and presumably it does so because the mechanism contributes to the overall survival of the organism. Definitively quantifying such benefits may take some time... absolute PROOF beyond a doubt thrusts us into the realm of philosophy, which is beyond the scope of this discussion.3 -
SFLiminality wrote: »CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »1200 calories is way too little for a male. unless you are under a drs strict care you should be eating 1500 calories or more. 1500 is for a male who is very short,sendentary,elderly or a combo of the 3. keto is also not a flexible diet its very restrictive.
Eh. People have been doing proper fasts on only water for ages, so I don't think the occasional 1200 calories is going to have any lasting impact. I feel great for the most part. MFP only yells at me if I go under 1200, haha.
On a side note, I'm actually bumping my calories up since I'll be trying out OMAD. I shoot for around 1600-1800 to prepare for when I'm going to try and start ea ting more to put on some muscle. I want to get back to my college weight first.
if MFP yells at you for being under 1200 then you must have your settings set to female. because 1200 is the LOWEST amount for a woman. also you cant say you arent losing muscle, while you may be able to still pick up packages and what not now eventually down the road you may notice the effects of under eating.Im a 5'6 1/2 ft woman and need more than 1200 calories per day even when sedentary to properly fuel my body.fast weight loss is not always healthy and can lead to a lot of health issues as well as saggy skin.
1600-1800 calories may not be enough to put on muscle. its going to depend on if it puts you into maintenance or surplus calories. most men here need to eat over 2000 calories just to gain a little muscle.Im maintaining on 1900-2000 myself and Im not lugging boxes thats for sure. so its understandable the most males should be eating more than most females due to having more lean mass(including muscle) compared to a woman in order to keep from losing said mass. The more active a person the more calories their body needs to fuel it.9 -
CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »if MFP yells at you for being under 1200 then you must have your settings set to female. because 1200 is the LOWEST amount for a woman. also you cant say you arent losing muscle, while you may be able to still pick up packages and what not now eventually down the road you may notice the effects of under eating.Im a 5'6 1/2 ft woman and need more than 1200 calories per day even when sedentary to properly fuel my body.fast weight loss is not always healthy and can lead to a lot of health issues as well as saggy skin.
1600-1800 calories may not be enough to put on muscle. its going to depend on if it puts you into maintenance or surplus calories. most men here need to eat over 2000 calories just to gain a little muscle.Im maintaining on 1900-2000 myself and Im not lugging boxes thats for sure. so its understandable the most males should be eating more than most females due to having more lean mass(including muscle) compared to a woman in order to keep from losing said mass. The more active a person the more calories their body needs to fuel it.
I have it set to male. It will only yell at me if I drop below 1200, which I haven't lately. I was just exceptionally not hungry for a few days, so I ran with it 1189 or whatever I was at. I'm 6'3 227 currently. I did some research on 2-3 day water only fasts to see if I could, but that probably wouldn't cut it at work. The research seems to point to longer day fasts doing more good than harm.
I'm also not saying I'm not losing muscle, just that I'm not losing enough for it to slow me down all. Like, the only reason I've been doing 40 minutes of cardio lately instead of an hour - two hours is that I heard shorter high intensity cardio is better than dragging it out, and you increase you chances of burning muscle. The real test is to see if keeping the weight off is difficult after I'm in maintenance.
1600-1800 is definitely not going to be enough to gain, but I'm slowly ramping up my calories while I get down to my goal weight. Then I'll switch to researching how to really pack on muscle.
Worst case scenario is that this all goes poorly, and I get warn others that are considering going my route.
Here is my below 1200 warning. Goes away if I go to 1200 or more.
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New at this ? Please give me advice? Testimonials etc? What’s the reason for it. Thank you in advance
Relatively new to this as well (about 4 weeks in at this point). I chose this plan because it a) works with my life regardless of if I'm working, traveling, visiting, racing, track day, etc and b) it works with my natural eating patterns.
I ended up on more of an OMAD (started out allowing a small afternoon snack), especially since I'm trying to lose. I've started tracking my calories, even with this, to ensure I'm going to hit my loss goals without going too far under on my calories (hasn't been a problem). I like a big dinner, and that tides me over for my morning workouts. Since it's all about finding something you can live with, I don't have hard and fast rules - more flexi-rules. For example, I still have my morning coffee with creamer every day. If it's a race/track weekend and I'm riding hard and a lot, I'll allow myself some extra, light, meals. If I'm meeting a friend for a lunch, then that can be my big meal that day. Etc, etc.
It boils down to CICO, and what works for you. For me, this is working great, and is saving me money and time as I only have to buy food for one type of meal, I use the food up before it goes bad, and I don't have to invest a bunch of time into shopping and meal prepping as it is WAY easier to just have my calories in one, delicious meal I don't need to overthink every little speckle of food that I'm cooking (dividing that meal into 2 additional, different meals, ends up being a lot more work for me).3
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