intermittent fasting question?
embersdream
Posts: 401 Member
Hi there,
i noticed that a few people have mentioned and also suggested that i try some inter mittent fasting.
I m a bit concerned about it as obviously i dont want to go into starvation mode .
However, in terms of keto and lchf , what are the guidelines? Does it mean you are still having a certain amount of cals a day ? do u just have the monimum amount recommended on the keto calculator? or are people meaning a fast as in a water fast etc.? Im curious. And if needed will try it just to see. No plans to do so at this point, but would like to know for furture reference.
i noticed that a few people have mentioned and also suggested that i try some inter mittent fasting.
I m a bit concerned about it as obviously i dont want to go into starvation mode .
However, in terms of keto and lchf , what are the guidelines? Does it mean you are still having a certain amount of cals a day ? do u just have the monimum amount recommended on the keto calculator? or are people meaning a fast as in a water fast etc.? Im curious. And if needed will try it just to see. No plans to do so at this point, but would like to know for furture reference.
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Replies
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I'm an IF noob, but I have been IF'ing since last Friday...on a 20/4 schedule. I travel every week for work, and work a LOT, so its been working out well for me both on the road and at home on weekends...as that man I married is a one meal a day kinda guy most of the time.
Basically what that means for me is that I have a 4 hour window, every 24 hours in which I eat. Since I keto....thats how I eat in that window. Here is my example, which is in no way a recommendation...just the way I do it because it works for me:
My fast started last night at 9:00 pm. I drink water....tea...whatever. I go to bed. I get up and go for a walk....I have coffee and get ready for work. I go to work. I stay under 50 calories during my fasting times. I have water...coffee, bouillon with holy basil seeds, tea during the day. Around lunchtime my belly starts grumbling, So, weather providing, I go out for another walk. and so it goes. Around 3pm my belly starts grumbling. I take a couple flights of stairs. at 5pm my feeding window is open for business, and I break my fast with something small like some almonds...beef jerky...whatever. After work I go back to my hotel and have a helluva dinner. This week its been rib eyes with mushrooms, sautéed on coconut oil and ghee. celery with this killer fatty dip I call crack dip (sour cream, cr. cheese, chopped bacon..oh my), and I finish off with a couple of squares of lindt 90% dark.
Its stopped my mindless keto snacking at my desk, and created its own calorie deficit for me because frankly, thats about all i can stuff in my maw at one sitting. I go to bed full, but wake up "light" if that makes sense. My glucose levels are down. My ketone levels are up, along with my energy, alertness and sense of well-being. Note the uber-long post. Sorry for that.0 -
I am not a dietician, but I would suspect that starvation mode would only kick-in after a prolonged time, like a week or so... one or two non-sequential days a week isn't going to do it.
Nill4me has a great fast routine, I think it would be great for a beginner. Then maybe if you go back to eating and get into a stall do a "skip-eating-for-one-day" fast. Water & vitamins only.
I hope this helps,
Dan the Man from Michigan
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aha. and do people do it when they have a stalled weight loss or are there other reasons?0
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think i might try it when my kids are away next0
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embersdream wrote: »aha. and do people do it when they have a stalled weight loss or are there other reasons?
I do it to break a stall (maintenance)...
Other reasons: If done routinely, it will decrease your Insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) factor, which in turn will help you live longer and prevent cancer. There are tons of studies on this.
Just google: IGf-1 fasting
It gives your digestive system a break.
If you go to my Keto Links blog, there's a video about it too.
I hope this helps,
Dan the Man from Michigan
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brilliant thankyou. i did watch fat sick and nearly dead. not a keto documentary but loads of reseacrh on fasting merits0
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I started doing an eating window every day. No specific times, I would basically skip breakfast and try and push back lunch to 1:00 or so. After this I did a 5:2 with 5 days of normal eating and two days where I just ate a light dinner. They both worked, for me the 5:2 seemed to fit better to my lifestyle. I would usually go for a walk at lunch time instead of eating. That's a good thing about IF, you can Taylor it around your lifestyle.
During fasting times in the morning I would drink a black coffee with butter and coconut oil in it, then water/black coffee and maybe a few nuts to get me through.
I lost 50 lbs over a year and since then have kept it off for a year by doing a low carb/keto diet.0 -
I IF for 16:8. I fast from 8pm to noon. To reset my hungries, to nudge my dumb body, and to preserve a huge bunch of calories for an eating window that I usually have larger meals anyway so I can fat them up superstar style and not feel like I have to scrimp. My calorie goal stays the same. I am not going to fast for a whole day. Ever. There would be blood. I'm not that nice a person when I'm hungry.0
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baconslave wrote: »I IF for 16:8. I fast from 8pm to noon. To reset my hungries, to nudge my dumb body, and to preserve a huge bunch of calories for an eating window that I usually have larger meals anyway so I can fat them up superstar style and not feel like I have to scrimp. My calorie goal stays the same. I am not going to fast for a whole day. Ever. There would be blood. I'm not that nice a person when I'm hungry.
I agree that a person is more hungry when fasting. But, its not as bad as when you are on a high carb low fat diet. Since I started LCHF last August, my hunger level is order of magnitudes better than before. It hasn't gone away (like some people on this list has been blessed with) but it is lower than anytime in my life. So when I skip a day from eating, I am not AS grumpy as my former life.
I hope this helps,
Dan the Man from Michigan
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embersdream wrote: »aha. and do people do it when they have a stalled weight loss or are there other reasons?
I did IF simply because I liked it. I did it for many months last year and only recently stopped to work on digestive issues (which I 100% do not believe were related to IF, my problems were around long before keto or IF, but I was willing to follow all suggestions from my physical therapist that did not involve an increasee in carbs... anyway, back to the point):
-- I love breakfast food. I hate eating it at breakfast time. Just not eating breakfast and not having to worry about that morning routine was really nice.
-- I like big meals! I love food. IF allowed me to eat fewer, but larger and enjoyable, meals. I was doing ~16:8 IF, I would eat a big bacon and egg meal around noon and a big dinner around 7pm, with a small snack in the middle if I wanted to.
-- As a diabetic, IF made me feel powerful. It was a very novel idea to learn that I would not feel sick if I did not eat! That I could just get up and start my day and that I didn't have to live in fear of low blood sugars. Keto in general gives that benefit, but IF to me was initially a very freeing experience and what really kicked me out of the mode where my entire life was based around my need to eat regularly to manage my blood sugar.
I initially tried IF during a stall. For me, it did nothing to change my weight loss (for better or worse). But I simply liked it so I kept doing it
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I think it's an awesome reset button. Many fast for religious reasons, or detox, or any number of things. I think it's easier once your Keto adapted, and there is no doubt that the fat you are burning is your own (vice dietary fat). My glucose is 102 @ 230 pm and my ketones are a killer 3.4. I am a fat burning beast at the moment0
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I think it's an awesome reset button. Many fast for religious reasons, or detox, or any number of things. I think it's easier once your Keto adapted, and there is no doubt that the fat you are burning is your own (vice dietary fat). My glucose is 102 @ 230 pm and my ketones are a killer 3.4. I am a fat burning beast at the moment
wow fat burning beast!! id love to get there
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I've done IF for gosh, probably over 4 years at this point? I eat from 1p-9p. Calorie and macros are the same as if you were eating a traditional schedule.
IF's just about *when* to eat, not *what* to eat.0 -
-- As a diabetic, IF made me feel powerful. It was a very novel idea to learn that I would not feel sick if I did not eat! That I could just get up and start my day and that I didn't have to live in fear of low blood sugars. Keto in general gives that benefit, but IF to me was initially a very freeing experience and what really kicked me out of the mode where my entire life was based around my need to eat regularly to manage my blood sugar.
I love this statement. I've been struggling so badly with my glucose levels, and have watched them steadily drop over the last week with IF, when nothing else has helped. Tomorrow will be a week, and today has been my best overall day so far. I dipped under 100 this afternoon, and tonight my BG was 104, 2 hours post (BIG) meal, and I almost cried I was so happy.0 -
baconslave wrote: »I IF for 16:8. I fast from 8pm to noon. To reset my hungries, to nudge my dumb body, and to preserve a huge bunch of calories for an eating window that I usually have larger meals anyway so I can fat them up superstar style and not feel like I have to scrimp. My calorie goal stays the same. I am not going to fast for a whole day. Ever. There would be blood. I'm not that nice a person when I'm hungry.
I agree that a person is more hungry when fasting. But, its not as bad as when you are on a high carb low fat diet. Since I started LCHF last August, my hunger level is order of magnitudes better than before. It hasn't gone away (like some people on this list has been blessed with) but it is lower than anytime in my life. So when I skip a day from eating, I am not AS grumpy as my former life.
I hope this helps,
Dan the Man from Michigan
No doubt I would do better since I'm LCHF than I would have on the SAD. My hungry-tantrums were legendary then. I'm am entirely a mostly Zen creature now. I handle my 16hr fast with little issue. But it still wouldn't be pretty. I imagine it would be like living with Gollum for a day. Ho hum, it's the handy little fellow.. then BAM!-- the nasty, bite-The-Ring-off-you-finger beast would randomly pop out. Bad juju.0 -
I don't necessarily IF but I prefer to eat two big meals per day instead of three meals or three meals + snacks. If I had my way, I'd have a huge breakfast and a big dinner. My life doesn't usually work out that way, due to having to get my children out the door to school and my *kitten* on a commuter train, so I often skip breakfast and eat lunch and dinner. That often winds up naturally being a 16/8 schedule.
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