Intermittent fasting

Sorry, thought this was intermittent farting. I do that all the time.

Fasting seems pretty stupid to me. I'm sure there are less extreme methods of getting results.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/695972-intermittent-farting?hl=Intermittent+farting

In all seriousness, IF is really not extreme at all. There are different variations that have smaller feeding windows like 23/1 and 20/4 but most people that do 16/8 basically just skip breakfast. I don't consider skipping breakfast to be extreme.

Here's the problem I have with that statement. When i was a teenager, I skipped breakfast and lunch regularly, ate from 3-7 and "fasted" the rest of the time. And I gained 100 pounds in four years, two years of which I mostly ate cabbage soup (not pizzas and burgers and other fatty foods...I knew i was heading for disaster and not eating and eating soup was my attempt to stop the train wreck).

I DO NOT recommend skipping meals. If you are losing weight, it is DESPITE your fast, not because of it. Eat lettuce all day if you want to survive on fewer cals, but fasting causes your metabolism to shut down. Not Good.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc156352/

Yep! that ' metabolism ruining ' stuff is total bullsh*t..... yawn

It is called intermittent fasting because it is intermittent not constant. The way IF works is by letting you eat normally most of the time and then you low-calorie some of the time. By having up days and down days you do not slow your metabolism down (as would happen with constant, not intermittent very low calorie days) nor do you lose very much lean body mass because you have an immediate refeed persay once you finish a fast. So your body doesn't slow down or come to a screeching metabolic halt.
I have done intermittent fasting and I have lost 30 pounds of fat (weight loss occurred in 4-5 months) just by including two IF days a week that consist of 400 calorie breakfasts then no food until the same time the next morning for breakfast. This can be done lunch to lunch, dinner to dinner, whatever fits your lifestyle best! So you see, it isn't even a "fast" since your still eating every single day unlike true fasts where people go days without food. Even with my style of IF, the eat stop eat method, i still eat every day, its just spaced differently and in different amounts. I follow the more extreme version of 5:2. It's not dangerous and its even recommended for ill patients to allow their own body to heal themselves naturally without the constant strain of digestion from eating six times a day.

I've been on diets for a life-time and have lost large amounts of weight many times over, only to gain it back again. I saw the Horizons documentary with Dr Michael Mosley last year which looked into all the science of intermittent fasting and ended with him going on a 5:2 plan himself and improving his blood work by massive leaps. I forgot about the documentary but he recently released a book on it called 'Fast Diet' and having read the science again, I decided to give the 5:2 a go.

In all honesty it suits me because I was always that person who skipped breakfast and got told by anyone and everyone that skipping meals would screw up your metabolism and that you needed to eat little and often....despite the fact that this is not the way the animal world operates and we've just a higher functioning animal ourselves.

I'm only 2 fast days in (doing a Tuesday and Thursday and using my 500 calories on an evening meal) but don't find the fasting part hard at all...in fact I hardly notice it.

Dr Mosley then went on to look at exercise and the latest research on that is pretty eye opening too! For a start off, 20% of people apparently get NO cardio/vascular benefit from exercise what-so-ever. The other thing that was surprising was the study into HIT - by the end of the program the scientists had used Dr Mosley to show that he could get MORE benefits in such 3 minutes of exercise a week. He was made to do 30 second bursts - balls out - on a static cycle and that was proven to be far more effective that him slogging away in a gym for an hour. If anyone's interested in seeing that, Google 'Horizon: The Truth about Exercise' and you should find it free to view on BBC iPlayer.

I do 5/2 and 16/8, but the last one is not planned, it's just a side effect of my normal eating routine - no breakfast, lunch at 1 p.m and dinner aournd 8p.m.

To anyone who is interested, I have written two in depth articles about IF and it's 3 main methods - lean gains, 5:2 (eat stop eat) and The Warrior Diet.

What is IF?
http://yummygalley.tumblr.com/post/42541710879/how-i-lost-15-3lbs-in-28-days-with-intermittent

Health benefits of IF?
http://yummygalley.tumblr.com/post/42744214630/how-i-lost-15-3lbs-in-37-days-with-the-health-benefits

If you'd like to follow my week to week progress with IF and heavy lifting, like my FB page http://www.facebook.com/YummyGalley

Also this article I wrote because people were pissing me off when they said I needed to eat breakfast
http://yummygalley.tumblr.com/post/41859144184/myth-eat-frequently-to-stoke-the-metabolic-fire

I love IF. I started off last year doing 16/8 and it really helped me get a handle on my eating habits, controlling cravings etc. and teaching my body to recognise when it actually physically needed food or just thought it did. Unfortunately, I'm a student right now and my schedule is crazy so I haven't been able to focus so much on it. I just eat when I can. I do notice the difference though and as soon as my schedule goes back to normal (hopefully around May) then I should be able to get back into it. I do want to say to all those saying it's not healthy or whatever, then that's fine, that's your opinion but remember that everyone is different and everyone loses weight differently. Individual's have to find what works for them and what is going to continue to work. If you don't like it then don't do it but it doesn't make it unhealthy or a bad idea.

To anyone who is interested, I have written two in depth articles about IF and it's 3 main methods - lean gains, 5:2 (eat stop eat) and The Warrior Diet.

What is IF?
http://yummygalley.tumblr.com/post/42541710879/how-i-lost-15-3lbs-in-28-days-with-intermittent

Health benefits of IF?
http://yummygalley.tumblr.com/post/42744214630/how-i-lost-15-3lbs-in-37-days-with-the-health-benefits

If you'd like to follow my week to week progress with IF and heavy lifting, like my FB page http://www.facebook.com/YummyGalley

Also this article I wrote because people were pissing me off when they said I needed to eat breakfast
http://yummygalley.tumblr.com/post/41859144184/myth-eat-frequently-to-stoke-the-metabolic-fire

Thank you!! Can't wait to read!

Sorry, thought this was intermittent farting. I do that all the time.

Fasting seems pretty stupid to me. I'm sure there are less extreme methods of getting results.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/695972-intermittent-farting?hl=Intermittent+farting

In all seriousness, IF is really not extreme at all. There are different variations that have smaller feeding windows like 23/1 and 20/4 but most people that do 16/8 basically just skip breakfast. I don't consider skipping breakfast to be extreme.

Here's the problem I have with that statement. When i was a teenager, I skipped breakfast and lunch regularly, ate from 3-7 and "fasted" the rest of the time. And I gained 100 pounds in four years, two years of which I mostly ate cabbage soup (not pizzas and burgers and other fatty foods...I knew i was heading for disaster and not eating and eating soup was my attempt to stop the train wreck).

I DO NOT recommend skipping meals. If you are losing weight, it is DESPITE your fast, not because of it. Eat lettuce all day if you want to survive on fewer cals, but fasting causes your metabolism to shut down. Not Good.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc156352/

+1. IF works great for me. Helps me keep my calories in check and no binging. If I eat when I first get up then I'm starving all day long, I delay it till noon and I'm golden. People that do IF realize that the IF doesn't cause weight loss, we know it still is cals in vs. cals out. But the other health benefits are worth it. It does not cause your metabolism to shut down nor does eating 6+ meals/day speed it up. You more than likely gained 100 lbs due to yo-yo dieting, not feeding yourself enough calories and destroying your metabolism. You didn't gain it from skipping meals, unless those skipped meals caused you to eat more than you burn when you did eat because you were starving. I

Excellent post...

results?!

YOU WANT RESULTS?!!!

BOOOMM!!!!



thats 3 months right there!! 16/8 fasting!!!

30 lbs burned straight up!!!

That is great! But thats not to say that you couldn't have achieved 30lb. in 3 months doing it another way. It doesn't prove it works any better than other ways.

I do wish I could do short term fasting at night though... :S

BUMP

Haven't had a chance to read the links. I had to make myself start eating breakfast and I rarely eat after 7 pm. Usually don't want anything after dinner so this may suit my lifestyle. Curious question? If I workout in the AM and lift heavy, do I wait until 11 to eat? I do not eat before my workouts now but I always drink a protein shake within an hour after lifting. I was told it was very important to muscle recovery and rebuliding. What is IF's take on that?

Thankls!!

The studies I've read (and it doesn't mean that there aren't others that say otherwise) say that you should eat within 2-6 hours after working out (for best results). [I've only read two studies that specifically investigated the relation between the time post work out and eating]. I think that if you work out early then eat at 11am, that would be fine. It's probably more important how you feel after working out. You might really feel like eating (or having a protein shake) after working out for the first week or so (just because it's habit) but if you really feel bad, you might want to re-*kitten*. Just my opinion.

I tend to work out about 2-3 hours before I break my fast and that's mostly because that's how long it takes me to actually feel hungry post work-out. I find that I feel better lifting fasted and then, like I said, it takes me a few hours to actually feel hungry. Some people don't work out until right before they break their fast because they feel better.

results?!

YOU WANT RESULTS?!!!

BOOOMM!!!!



thats 3 months right there!! 16/8 fasting!!!

30 lbs burned straight up!!!

That is great! But thats not to say that you couldn't have achieved 30lb. in 3 months doing it another way. It doesn't prove it works any better than other ways.

I do wish I could do short term fasting at night though... :S

Hes's not saying that you can't do it another way, thousands of other people obviously have, but this was his choice (and mine) of doing it, because that is what works for him and I imagine he actually enjoys it and doesn't see it as "dieting".

I've been doing the 16/8 for over a week.
Even after a lot of cheating it seems like just by eating on a different schedule
my metabolism has sped way up.
My husband noticed a hug difference yesterday morning.

Meal timing and frequency has no effect on your metabolism. The Thermic Effect of Food is the same if you eat 8 small meals or 2 Big meals daily.

I don't believe that's true anymore. Recent human research shows that fasting increases HGH protein production by a factor of 12 in men, a metabolic protein. HGH is short for human growth hormones. HGH is a protein produced by your body throughout your entire life that builds both bone and muscle tissue. At the same time, HGH creates another protein called IGF-1 which is used to break down fat to be used as energy because your body needs a source of fuel in a fasting state. Your pituitary gland produces the most HGH in adolescent to help children grow but slows down as you get older, after age 30. Two ways to increase HGH proteins naturally is to fast or exercise, both of which deprive the body of carbs forcing HGH production increase to create IGF-1 enabling the break down fat.



http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110403090259.htm

This recent study also confirmed earlier findings about the effects of fasting on human growth hormone (HGH), a metabolic protein. HGH works to protect lean muscle and metabolic balance, a response triggered and accelerated by fasting. During the 24-hour fasting periods, HGH increased an average of 1,300 percent in women, and nearly 2,000 percent in men.

Edit: I decided to read a bit more into HGH proteins after the news started reporting on pro athletes such as lance Armstrong and MLG baseball player Alex Rodriguez using synthetic HGH injections. They use it because it's hard to test for since your body naturally produces it.


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