How to not mess up hormones when starting IF?

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  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
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    pierinifitness wrote: »
    Based on my experience, the first time I practiced IF during Lent 2009, I lost 17 lbs. in 40 days not counting calories. What I learned from that experience is how hard it is to eat the calories one can eat in a normal eating pattern unless you're practicing gluttony. And, if you are practicing gluttony, you're not going to achieve weight loss no matter what eating schedule protocol you follow.

    There are some credible studies, in my opinion about IF that don't involve rats. I've shared at least one in the past, one that involved men who regular lifted weights for strength training. I read the study carefully and thought it was convincing pro-IF. Of course, there are studies that support the opposite. It's the nature of research and will always be.

    Bottom line, it's rather easy to eat less with a restricted feeding window, unless you're a glutton.

    What have you found in relation to women's hormones?
  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,754 Member
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    nutmegoreo wrote: »
    pierinifitness wrote: »
    Based on my experience, the first time I practiced IF during Lent 2009, I lost 17 lbs. in 40 days not counting calories. What I learned from that experience is how hard it is to eat the calories one can eat in a normal eating pattern unless you're practicing gluttony. And, if you are practicing gluttony, you're not going to achieve weight loss no matter what eating schedule protocol you follow.

    There are some credible studies, in my opinion about IF that don't involve rats. I've shared at least one in the past, one that involved men who regular lifted weights for strength training. I read the study carefully and thought it was convincing pro-IF. Of course, there are studies that support the opposite. It's the nature of research and will always be.

    Bottom line, it's rather easy to eat less with a restricted feeding window, unless you're a glutton.

    What have you found in relation to women's hormones?

    I need to know too.

    To add, I am not a glutton. What do you mean by glutton? that is a derogatory term.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
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    On the hormone thing, I haven't studied it, so I would look into it if planning to do a more extreme version of IF, but given how many people routinely skip a meal and the variety of human eating patterns I can't imagine that merely eating in an 8 hour window would be a problem if you are eating enough and a well-balanced diet with enough fat.

    I would be more concerned about extensive fasts, and I would be very careful that you don't pick a pattern that causes you to eat too low (or a less healthy diet to get in all the cals in a short window).
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
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    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    Your comment was: "What I learned from that experience is how hard it is to eat the calories one can eat in a normal eating pattern unless you're practicing gluttony. And, if you are practicing gluttony, you're not going to achieve weight loss no matter what eating schedule protocol you follow."

    On the definition of gluttony: in casual conversation, yes, it means habitual excess in eating. That does not merely meaning "eating too many calories and gaining weight." It's commonly used to refer to eating huge amounts of food at a time (ironically) and gorging on expensive or wasteful things. A really good example of classic gluttony (in pretty much all ways) is Petronius' Dinner With Trimalchio section in the Satyricon (working title for Great Gatsby was Dinner With Trimalchio, btw, and Petronius was Nero's arbiter of taste, as well as an author of this truly bizarre novel that is fascinating for its insights into certain aspects of Roman culture).

    More broadly, it's one of the seven deadly sins, and again the definition is more broad than merely eating. In particular, it is the sinful the overindulgence and overconsumption of anything. Excessive means both more than one needs (so habitually overeating to the point of obesity can be included -- but I note that you chose a word with an inherent moral connotation). The more significant use of the term is excessive in the sense of using more than your share, causing others to go without, not being willing to share with others. (And importantly again, this is not merely, or primarily, about food.)

    According to St. Thomas Aquinas and others, gluttony would also include thinking about food excessively, over-anticipation of meals, and -- again similar to the conversational usage -- too much focus on fancy, costly, indulgent foods.

    What I personally found incorrect in what you said was the idea that one cannot overeat when doing IF unless one is gluttonous, as if this were different from other ways of eating. If you were not trying to claim that was something different in general (and to insult those for whom IF doesn't work, or who find that they can easily gain on IF, not sure what you were trying to say -- I think you did not communicate it well).

    FOR ME, it's FAR easier to gain weight (to mindlessly overeat) if I graze for a period of time on higher cal foods than if I eat 3 meals a day that basically fit my usual meal templates. I would find it very difficult to gain weight if I ate mindfully and only at regular meals (even if they are spread over the day, as mine are -- at 6, 12, and 9, usually). However, in contrast to you, I don't insist that someone for whom my preferred and easy schedule does not work must therefore be practicing gluttony. (An example of what I (unlike you) do not say: "what I learned from my experience in losing and maintaining weight is how hard it is to eat the calories in 3 standard time meals that one can following some other eating patterns unless you are practicing gluttony." See, that would be to suggest that anyone who tended to overeat on 3 meals = glutton, and that would not be correct. But it's precisely the same as what you said.)

    I suppose you could argue that you only meant that no one gains weight without being a glutton, and while I think that's needlessly moralizing about the issue and not helpfully addressing the reasons many people find it easy to overeat without realizing how many calories they are consuming, I might have objected to that less. But that wouldn't explain why you were drawing a contrast between IF (IF works for everyone who is not a glutton) and other ways of eating. In theory, if eating more calories than you burn = gluttony in your mind, everyone who gains is a glutton and IF or no makes no difference. Just don't be a glutton. (But since that ignores the context and history of the word glutton, I would say it's a poor or uneducated word choice if that's the intended meaning.)

    I refreshed before I posted my reply which said "if you are so greedily consumed by your desire to eat that you would take food from a hungry person you are a glutton."
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
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    Well, that would be a much shorter and better way to say basically the same thing!

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