Intermittent Fasting

hauntgoddess

Dieting is all about what works for YOU! Some people can eat 5 or 6 small meals a day, and still lose weight. I worked out, and did this and never lost much. As soon as I integrated fasting into my training, I lost 8 lbs in the first 2 weeks. I feel alert during my workouts, and don't find myself obsessing about when I'm going to eat. Food tastes better when I do eat! I do the ESE method 24 hours fasting/2 days a week.

Food is so available to us these days that we THINK we need it. We are force fed commercials, and marketed weight loss programs to spend money on all their food. What do you think our ancestors did before grocery stores, and they had to hunt/farm for their food? They had to fast until they had food that was available to them.

I've tried every program possible, and this has been the most beneficial to me.

ericabrothers

everyone is an expert/doctor huh?
I personally think insulin spikes are total bull****. I remember on one occasion for lunch I had Pizza, coke, and hershey's dippers and about 15 min after we finished eating we got curious and checked our blood sugar. I believe mine was 90ish. easily between the 70-120 rang. Your body is amazing at compensating. Take into consideration your body's temp for instance, unless your are sick your body is rediculious at keeping the same consistent temp. If people seriously suffered that much from fasting/not eating then why would the hospital make you NPO (nothing by mouth) if you are vomiting or have diarrhea. And they normally do NOP for no less than 12 hours. Oh that is right, they are TRYING to kill you. :huh: It is one thing for people to think you are stupid, but people have this almost primal urge to open their mouth and confirm everyone's suspicions. :noway:

teagin2002

I just started IF this week. I tested it out last week on Friday and loved it. It was a time of mental healing for me, a time where I didn't have to think of food at all. I started to focus on other aspects of health, like facials for my skin and coconut oil for my hair. I had more time to give myself a nice mani pedi and then practice meditation to clear my mind.

I made Mondays my official Fasting day, I am doing the ESE method with a 24 hr fast. I stop eating on Sunday after a nice family @ 7:30 pm then start eating a gain on Monday @ 7:30 with my family.
I am also going to incorporate clean eating Tuesdays through Fridays then I will have Saturdays and Sundays to eat what I please with in my calorie limits.

I will be lifting weights on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays and doing one heavy cardio day on Wednesdays. On Saturdays and Sundays I will be going out on nice outing with my sweetheart (just leisurely walks), while my Mondays will be total rest days; I like to soak in a nice hot bath with natural aloe vera (peeled and blended aloe vera leaf) and a cup of instant coffee. It makes my skin so soft!!

Any way with all the mental benefits and relaxation I am getting on my fast day how can I resist!!! :bigsmile:

Matt_Wild

Real world results?



Better angle on her face...


My SOH.

lilojoke

I have been doing it for two years almost and love it.

I mostly do a 5-8 hour eating window every day usually between 4:30am - 12pm as this is when I workout. I find this works well for me as evening eating gets me into trouble so kitchen and food is off limits when I get home.

Clean eating is important even with a condensed eating window. Hydrated is even more important while fasting as well.

I find ADF which alternate day fasting to be very effective for quick fat loss and find a 5-8 hour window best for fat loss but find myself doing both including ESE from time to time.

I do each one depending on what the day I have planned. Weekdays is a 5-8 hour morning window and fridays is a one meal in evening while grocery shopping so I can have fun foods. Saturdays is like Friday nights and Sundays is a ESE day... I try to stick with this most of the time.

dinosnopro

ok some people don't like what I said... lol but good for you!! Here are some reasons why you should not INTERMITTENTFAST

A Supplecity site visitor asked about "intermittent fasting," after having read about its many wonders on various blogs and postings written by people with credentials completely unrelated to diet and fat reduction.

The idea behind this is you starve your body of calories just long enough to tap your fat stores but not long enough to trigger your body's starvation defenses. Looking at it from just this perspective, it would appear to be just the thing for a person who wants a magic bullet for losing fat. It's not.

This practice has several serious shortfalls. For starters, it reduces nutrient absorption, causes insulin swings, and plays hell with your kidneys. If you want to go into a coma or wind up on dialysis, this approach is perfect. Otherwise, stay away. It's Dangerous (notice the capital D there?).

Let's step back a moment and look at the bigger picture. If your goal is to "lose weight," then of course mindlessly reducing calories for a short enough period that you don't go into the low-metabolism, calorie conserving mode makes sense.

But, that's not a sensible goal. A sensible goal is fat reduction. And that is hugely different (no pun intended) from weight loss. And so are the consequences. After all, you can lose weight very quickly by having your limbs amputated. Do you think a runner who wants to go faster should lose weight by such a method? Of course not. And it doesn't make sense for anyone else.

You can lose weight by losing lean tissue, and most weight loss methods result in that. What you really want to do is lose excess fat, because that's how you get rid of a root cause of disease.

Nobody has ever gone to a doctor and heard, "Well, your arteries are clogged because you have too much lean mass." No, the problem is the excess body fat.

That excess fat comes from too many calories. But simply cutting calories doesn't fix the fat problem. There's a bit more to it than that.

Your body needs a certain amount of calories each day to:

Maintain healthy bone and muscle.
Maintain healthy organs.
Maintain adequate brain functioning.
Further, you cannot build new muscle on a restricted calorie diet. This means that, for sustainable leanness and fat loss, this diet works against you by inhibiting muscle growth.

Your body also needs a certain level of fiber flow through the digestive system to reduce cancer risk and generally detoxify your system.

When you go on intermittent fasting, all of this stops.

You stop building new muscle, which means you reduce the amount of fat you burn just by sleeping. You will, in fact, lose muscle. And why on earth would you want to risk your job by showing up with a brain that isn't firing on all cylinders? Do you want to drive a car on our dangerous roads in that condition?

This diet, like all other "silver bullet" diets, ignores fundamental principles and tries to get something for nothing.

If you want to reduce your body fat, you will find out how to safely and effectively do that in our other fat loss articles. Go here to see what they are: Weight loss and fat loss articles.

Some general principles of fat loss are as follows:

Get adequate nutrition. Did you notice that the intermittent fasting method violates this?

Eat six meals a day. Did you notice that the intermittent fasting method violates this, also?

Control your portion size to limit calories to what your body needs to maintain lean tissue, based on your lean tissue composition and activity level.

Avoid or eliminate highly processed foods.
If you follow just those four principles, you will see your body fat level go to well within the "Look at that tight bod!" level. Yes, there's more you can do to fine tune things and get really "cut." And maybe you would like more information on the details of doing so.

But it you just follow these four principles, you will get results. You won't need to experiment with a health-challenging, unsustainable, uncomfortable practice like fasting. Intermittently or otherwise.

the broscience is strong in this one.

strawberrie_milk

leangains.com
All you need to know about IF. It's not superior to other diets, it's just another way to spread out your meals (proving that meal timing does not matter). Weight loss is still calories in and calories out.

Sublog

I don't really agree with this because when you fast you spike your insulin levels and when you finally eat because of the high insulin levels everything you eat gets stored as fat in the body.... not a good idea

What? This is completely wrong.

nutandbutter

ok some people don't like what I said... lol but good for you!! Here are some reasons why you should not INTERMITTENTFAST

A Supplecity site visitor asked about "intermittent fasting," after having read about its many wonders on various blogs and postings written by people with credentials completely unrelated to diet and fat reduction.

The idea behind this is you starve your body of calories just long enough to tap your fat stores but not long enough to trigger your body's starvation defenses. Looking at it from just this perspective, it would appear to be just the thing for a person who wants a magic bullet for losing fat. It's not.

This practice has several serious shortfalls. For starters, it reduces nutrient absorption, causes insulin swings, and plays hell with your kidneys. If you want to go into a coma or wind up on dialysis, this approach is perfect. Otherwise, stay away. It's Dangerous (notice the capital D there?).

Let's step back a moment and look at the bigger picture. If your goal is to "lose weight," then of course mindlessly reducing calories for a short enough period that you don't go into the low-metabolism, calorie conserving mode makes sense.

But, that's not a sensible goal. A sensible goal is fat reduction. And that is hugely different (no pun intended) from weight loss. And so are the consequences. After all, you can lose weight very quickly by having your limbs amputated. Do you think a runner who wants to go faster should lose weight by such a method? Of course not. And it doesn't make sense for anyone else.

You can lose weight by losing lean tissue, and most weight loss methods result in that. What you really want to do is lose excess fat, because that's how you get rid of a root cause of disease.

Nobody has ever gone to a doctor and heard, "Well, your arteries are clogged because you have too much lean mass." No, the problem is the excess body fat.

That excess fat comes from too many calories. But simply cutting calories doesn't fix the fat problem. There's a bit more to it than that.

Your body needs a certain amount of calories each day to:

Maintain healthy bone and muscle.
Maintain healthy organs.
Maintain adequate brain functioning.
Further, you cannot build new muscle on a restricted calorie diet. This means that, for sustainable leanness and fat loss, this diet works against you by inhibiting muscle growth.

Your body also needs a certain level of fiber flow through the digestive system to reduce cancer risk and generally detoxify your system.

When you go on intermittent fasting, all of this stops.

You stop building new muscle, which means you reduce the amount of fat you burn just by sleeping. You will, in fact, lose muscle. And why on earth would you want to risk your job by showing up with a brain that isn't firing on all cylinders? Do you want to drive a car on our dangerous roads in that condition?

This diet, like all other "silver bullet" diets, ignores fundamental principles and tries to get something for nothing.

If you want to reduce your body fat, you will find out how to safely and effectively do that in our other fat loss articles. Go here to see what they are: Weight loss and fat loss articles.

Some general principles of fat loss are as follows:

Get adequate nutrition. Did you notice that the intermittent fasting method violates this?

Eat six meals a day. Did you notice that the intermittent fasting method violates this, also?

Control your portion size to limit calories to what your body needs to maintain lean tissue, based on your lean tissue composition and activity level.

Avoid or eliminate highly processed foods.
If you follow just those four principles, you will see your body fat level go to well within the "Look at that tight bod!" level. Yes, there's more you can do to fine tune things and get really "cut." And maybe you would like more information on the details of doing so.

But it you just follow these four principles, you will get results. You won't need to experiment with a health-challenging, unsustainable, uncomfortable practice like fasting. Intermittently or otherwise.

stef827

Bumping so I can research about this. Very interesting and sounds like a great idea.

stef827

Anyone know if it is ok to use the I.F. method while breastfeeding? Any research/experience would be great to know. Thanks

Helloitsdan

Anyone know if it is ok to use the I.F. method while breastfeeding? Any research/experience would be great to know. Thanks

Talk to your doctor plz!


And hats off to the guy bringing the Martin Berkhan pic in!
This made my night!

PepeGreggerton

ok some people don't like what I said... lol but good for you!! Here are some reasons why you should not INTERMITTENTFAST

A Supplecity site visitor asked about "intermittent fasting," after having read about its many wonders on various blogs and postings written by people with credentials completely unrelated to diet and fat reduction.

The idea behind this is you starve your body of calories just long enough to tap your fat stores but not long enough to trigger your body's starvation defenses. Looking at it from just this perspective, it would appear to be just the thing for a person who wants a magic bullet for losing fat. It's not.

This practice has several serious shortfalls. For starters, it reduces nutrient absorption, causes insulin swings, and plays hell with your kidneys. If you want to go into a coma or wind up on dialysis, this approach is perfect. Otherwise, stay away. It's Dangerous (notice the capital D there?).

Let's step back a moment and look at the bigger picture. If your goal is to "lose weight," then of course mindlessly reducing calories for a short enough period that you don't go into the low-metabolism, calorie conserving mode makes sense.

But, that's not a sensible goal. A sensible goal is fat reduction. And that is hugely different (no pun intended) from weight loss. And so are the consequences. After all, you can lose weight very quickly by having your limbs amputated. Do you think a runner who wants to go faster should lose weight by such a method? Of course not. And it doesn't make sense for anyone else.

You can lose weight by losing lean tissue, and most weight loss methods result in that. What you really want to do is lose excess fat, because that's how you get rid of a root cause of disease.

Nobody has ever gone to a doctor and heard, "Well, your arteries are clogged because you have too much lean mass." No, the problem is the excess body fat.

That excess fat comes from too many calories. But simply cutting calories doesn't fix the fat problem. There's a bit more to it than that.

Your body needs a certain amount of calories each day to:

Maintain healthy bone and muscle.
Maintain healthy organs.
Maintain adequate brain functioning.
Further, you cannot build new muscle on a restricted calorie diet. This means that, for sustainable leanness and fat loss, this diet works against you by inhibiting muscle growth.

Your body also needs a certain level of fiber flow through the digestive system to reduce cancer risk and generally detoxify your system.

When you go on intermittent fasting, all of this stops.

You stop building new muscle, which means you reduce the amount of fat you burn just by sleeping. You will, in fact, lose muscle. And why on earth would you want to risk your job by showing up with a brain that isn't firing on all cylinders? Do you want to drive a car on our dangerous roads in that condition?

This diet, like all other "silver bullet" diets, ignores fundamental principles and tries to get something for nothing.

If you want to reduce your body fat, you will find out how to safely and effectively do that in our other fat loss articles. Go here to see what they are: Weight loss and fat loss articles.

Some general principles of fat loss are as follows:

Get adequate nutrition. Did you notice that the intermittent fasting method violates this?

Eat six meals a day. Did you notice that the intermittent fasting method violates this, also?

Control your portion size to limit calories to what your body needs to maintain lean tissue, based on your lean tissue composition and activity level.

Avoid or eliminate highly processed foods.
If you follow just those four principles, you will see your body fat level go to well within the "Look at that tight bod!" level. Yes, there's more you can do to fine tune things and get really "cut." And maybe you would like more information on the details of doing so.

But it you just follow these four principles, you will get results. You won't need to experiment with a health-challenging, unsustainable, uncomfortable practice like fasting. Intermittently or otherwise.

WIN!

fubar2us

http://www.backpackinglight.com/cgi-bin/backpackinglight/forums/thread_display.html?forum_thread_id=56326

Ok, not completely on topic but it sticks close to it for 6 pages. Very good read with more Facts and research than BroScience.

kritterxx

I was both surprised and amused by this, and the articles on it being a 'healthy' way to promote weightloss. As someone with a diagnosed eating disorder; fasting was how I lost most my weight. It takes psychological strength. And it works - if you want to lose bloat and water weight.
You eat something after a fast, and it feels bad. Not only that, it's very, very difficult to control your eating - and I find this undoes any of the good stuff. Including the weight lost. Often you'll find that perhaps eating nothing has shrunk your stomach a bit; you get full faster, but the next day you wake up ravenous and, I found at least, often uncontrollable.

I wouldn't recommend it. I also found it highly addictive. You start with one day fasts, and I ended up being able to managed four to five day fasts, where you can barely walk up a street and can't manage stairs at all.

Resalyn

I was both surprised and amused by this, and the articles on it being a 'healthy' way to promote weightloss. As someone with a diagnosed eating disorder; fasting was how I lost most my weight. It takes psychological strength. And it works - if you want to lose bloat and water weight.
You eat something after a fast, and it feels bad. Not only that, it's very, very difficult to control your eating - and I find this undoes any of the good stuff. Including the weight lost. Often you'll find that perhaps eating nothing has shrunk your stomach a bit; you get full faster, but the next day you wake up ravenous and, I found at least, often uncontrollable.

I wouldn't recommend it. I also found it highly addictive. You start with one day fasts, and I ended up being able to managed four to five day fasts, where you can barely walk up a street and can't manage stairs at all.

Kritterxx - I'm sorry, but you're comparing apples to oranges here. You are right that someone with an eating disorder trying to live an IF lifestyle - not a good idea and would/could trigger ED behaviors. But for someone else who does NOT have an ED, having a daily fasting "window" or fasting for 24 hours once or twice a week can be a good thing. Just like any other way of eating, it doesn't work for everyone, and no one here has said it is the be all or end all...

I hope you stay strong and fight against your ED, Kritter. Best of luck to you!

teagin2002

I was both surprised and amused by this, and the articles on it being a 'healthy' way to promote weightloss. As someone with a diagnosed eating disorder; fasting was how I lost most my weight. It takes psychological strength. And it works - if you want to lose bloat and water weight.
You eat something after a fast, and it feels bad. Not only that, it's very, very difficult to control your eating - and I find this undoes any of the good stuff. Including the weight lost. Often you'll find that perhaps eating nothing has shrunk your stomach a bit; you get full faster, but the next day you wake up ravenous and, I found at least, often uncontrollable.

I wouldn't recommend it. I also found it highly addictive. You start with one day fasts, and I ended up being able to managed four to five day fasts, where you can barely walk up a street and can't manage stairs at all.

Kritterxx - I'm sorry, but you're comparing apples to oranges here. You are right that someone with an eating disorder trying to live an IF lifestyle - not a good idea and would/could trigger ED behaviors. But for someone else who does NOT have an ED, having a daily fasting "window" or fasting for 24 hours once or twice a week can be a good thing. Just like any other way of eating, it doesn't work for everyone, and no one here has said it is the be all or end all...

I hope you stay strong and fight against your ED, Kritter. Best of luck to you!

^^ agreed!! If you have an eating dissorder than this is not for you sweetie. Go and get some help and take care of yourself :flowerforyou:

kritterxx

I guess I just can't wrap my head around it, good luck to all who try it, and I hope you get positive results (:

bluezy83

This sounds interesting but if your working out at the same time is drinking water allowed?

blueham5

Is it really necessary to quote a huge wall of text and then reply with an unamusing one liner/pic? The bodybuilding.com forums are THAT way.

AntWrig

Is it really necessary to quote a huge wall of text and then reply with an unamusing one liner/pic? The bodybuilding.com forums are THAT way.

Yuo mad?


I had to do it.

HonkyTonks

I use Eat Stop Eat. I do two 24 hour fasts a week. I have been doing this for 5 weeks and have lost about 4kg's after having not lost much at all for about a month. When I am not fasting I eat almost to maintenance, and do some cardio and strength training.

There are many many benefits to using the IF approach, and the science behind it is very sound. I would suggest checking out Eat Stop Eat or www.leangains.com to find out more.

I was both surprised and amused by this, and the articles on it being a 'healthy' way to promote weightloss. As someone with a diagnosed eating disorder; fasting was how I lost most my weight. It takes psychological strength. And it works - if you want to lose bloat and water weight.
You eat something after a fast, and it feels bad. Not only that, it's very, very difficult to control your eating - and I find this undoes any of the good stuff. Including the weight lost. Often you'll find that perhaps eating nothing has shrunk your stomach a bit; you get full faster, but the next day you wake up ravenous and, I found at least, often uncontrollable.

I wouldn't recommend it. I also found it highly addictive. You start with one day fasts, and I ended up being able to managed four to five day fasts, where you can barely walk up a street and can't manage stairs at all.

Sorry to hear about your eating disorder. I personally have no issues with overeating after a fast. I find that I am less hungry overall but I still eat 'normally' and do not ever feel bad. In fact, I feel the opposite because I have created a caloric deficit through fasting and feel totally relaxed. It takes the pressure off you not having to "diet" every single day.

Unfortunately many people cannot be swayed on IF, because we have had the whole 6 meals a day thing drilled into us for so long it has become ingrained in most peoples psyche. I just hope that those who knock it have at least done an adequate amount of research and are not just repeating things they've heard in diet/fitness circles.

rsmithy89

I do it and love it.

lilojoke

I personally have no issues with overeating after a fast. I find that I am less hungry overall but I still eat 'normally' and do not ever feel bad. In fact, I feel the opposite because I have created a caloric deficit through fasting and feel totally relaxed. It takes the pressure off you not having to "diet" every single day.

Unfortunately many people cannot be swayed on IF, because we have had the whole 6 meals a day thing drilled into us for so long it has become ingrained in most peoples psyche. I just hope that those who knock it have at least done an adequate amount of research and are not just repeating things they've heard in diet/fitness circles.

This is my finding too... I overeat almost always after coming off a fast but the fullness I get in a short time and I mean FULL FULL beats eating all day! I just eat my 1500-2000 calories in five hours and sometimes some of my exercise calories.

JennieAL

bump

Resalyn

This sounds interesting but if your working out at the same time is drinking water allowed?

Most definitely - good consistent water intake is a must at all times!

Resalyn

Today is my first 24-hour fast - noon today until noon tomorrow.....

expouk

Some bro-science in this thread...

http://www.leangains.com/2010/10/top-ten-fasting-myths-debunked.html

carrie_eggo

Anyone know if it is ok to use the I.F. method while breastfeeding? Any research/experience would be great to know. Thanks

It is probably best to talk to your doctor, but he/she is most likely going to freak out on you unless they are familiar with IF.

I don't have any personal experience with breastfeeding and IF, but I would say that as long as you are getting enough calories overall and you have already established a good milk supply, it would be ok. I would only fast for 16h at most though. You could always try it. Again, make sure you are getting all your calories in and drinking plenty of liquids.

lorierin22

Anyone know if it is ok to use the I.F. method while breastfeeding? Any research/experience would be great to know. Thanks

It is probably best to talk to your doctor, but he/she is most likely going to freak out on you unless they are familiar with IF.

I don't have any personal experience with breastfeeding and IF, but I would say that as long as you are getting enough calories overall and you have already established a good milk supply, it would be ok. I would only fast for 16h at most though. You could always try it. Again, make sure you are getting all your calories in and drinking plenty of liquids.

This is where I would think timing of meals might be important (not a scientist, just guessing). If you are exclusively breastfeeding and your baby nurses every 2-3 hours, I would think you would need to eat regularly throughout the day...since your body is trying to produce milk and needing energy throughout the day. If you are like me and just nursing at night and first thing in the morning, it would probably be ok because your body is not constantly trying to produce milk. Again, just a guess...not a doctor here. Just a mother that is still nursing and has had milk supply issues in the past from not eating enough/skipping meals.