Intermittent Fasting, yae or nay?

I could skip dinner every day and be perfectly happy.

I haven't ever called it anything, but unless I am on vacation and enjoying breakfast with a group, I don't eat breakfast. I looked at how my calories are split up yesterday.... like 15 to lunch and the rest was dinner and snacking at night. If I eat breakfast it seems to make me hungrier through the day.

gia07 wrote: »

Intermittent fasting is not to loose weight. It is just an eating schedule.

For example, you just put off your "break fast" till later in the morning and then eat your "break fast" and all the rest of your calories up to a point in the day, like ending food intake at 6:00 .p.m. You start at 11:00 a.m. and end at 6:00 p.m.

I basically have been eating like this all my life and found that it has name. And I always always exercise fasted.

Yep, I was doing 16:8 without knowing it!

I personally love it. I have always been a night eater so I've just rearranged my eating schedule to fit with what works for me. As others have said, IF alone doesn't help you lose more weight, eating in a calorie deficit does. IF just allows me to stay within my calorie allotment easier than if I ate all day long.

I've been IF'ing and training fasted for over 5 years straight now. I'll never eat or train any other way. Cardio days I push my fast to 20 hours, weight lifting 18 hours. I use the same eating schedule whether I'm bulking or cutting.

For me it was a game changer. Everything in terms of my health, fitness and overall physical & mental performance improved. But as with everything tho... YMMV. Do your research.

A great resource for IFing and training fasted...
http://www.leangains.com/

lithezebra wrote: »

Intermittent fasting is one of the things you can do to promote the formation of new brain cells.
https://www.ted.com/talks/sandrine_thuret_you_can_grow_new_brain_cells_here_s_how?language=en

On top of this, Autophagy activity in the body (our bodies natural cellular repair/breakdown/maintenance crew) is dramatically increased, as well as Human Growth Hormone release, mitochondria biogensis, improved insulin sensitivity and more efficient fat utilization in the body.*

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3106288/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21106691
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23591120
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2622429/
http://www.anabolicmen.com/5-scientifically-proven-health-benefits-of-intermittent-fasting/


*More efficient fat utilization does NOT mean it can break the laws of thermodynamics... if you need to lose weight/fat mass, CICO still applies.

I've tried this a dozen times before but gave it another go starting last week and for whatever reason despite usually being hungry pretty constantly it's been pretty comfortable not eating until 12. And between meals it's been pretty stress free. I'm not sure how long this control is going to last, but I really hope it does. Has anyone else failed at this before but then inexplicably found it just sticks? I'd like to know if that is the case with anyone else and if it has worked long term. I'm not utterly strict with it, I go off the concept of breakfast at lunch time, a big meal post workout and a moderate meal anytime at night, not necessarily within an eight hour window. I also don't adhere to any rules on keeping pre and post workout meals low fat. I had a full length subway the other day with cheese, that definitely wasn't low fat. I'm tracking macros until I (hopefully) get down to about 12% BF but after I think I could do this for adding muscle simply by eating the type of meals I'm getting used to on this and adding in a moderate sized meal at a more traditional breakfast time. Obviously that wouldn't be IF, but it'd be using what I've learned from IF somewhat.

I had lost about 50 pounds eating 5 to 6 small meals a day then I got stuck. I switched it up lately and have seen great success with eating an extremely small breakfast (under 100 calories) a larger lunch and an medium sized dinner. I've since been able to start losing again and have reached my lowest weight ever. You just have to play around and see what's right for you.

One, I highly doubt past a certain age your Bain "creates new cells". Ridiculous and not logical. The hgh, insulin etc would make sense because you are starving your body therefore it's having to adapt. Makes sense, doesn't mean it's healthy to do that on a daily basis. I think fasting for a day every 3-4 months is probably good for that purpose. However, your body requires energy.. After you've been asleep or a heavy workout your metabolism goes into a catabolic state where it is breaking down itself to provide energy to function. Do you lose some fat? Sure, but you also lose muscle mass.. Which requires energy (carbs>amino acids+protein>stored energy - what you people call fat). Therefore will it work.. Sure. Is it healthy? Probably not every day. Breakfast, or immediately following a workout you need to replenish glycogen in the body, which causes insulin spike then shuttles all the nutrients to the proper area. You just have to watch how much you eat, what you eat, and when. Fasting is a lazy way to do this. Not the most efficient, or most beneficial. Everyone has their own way. I believe it over complicates the simplicity of what a healthy lifestyle program involves.

IF is so far making things simpler for me, not complicated. What was complicated was the stress of planning out so many different meals. For losing weight, IF is simple for me because I can eat meals that are of a size that is filling to me rather than tediously downsize everything to a point where it may as well have been nothing.