Is intermittent fasting good for mentaining weight?
cocoradical
Posts: 10 Member
I want to be at lot leaner and loose fat. A friend told me intermittent fasting is a good way to go. Although I'm confused if intermittent fasting will make me loose weight or gain weight since I still have to eat my macros which is focused on weight gain but have to fast for 16hrs while weight lifting. The main question is, will intermittent fasting mentain my weight and loose fat gain muscles? Or will I loose fat and loose weight? Or gain weight and gain muscles?
*Sorry for too many confusing questions
*Sorry for too many confusing questions
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cocoradical wrote: »I want to be at lot leaner and loose fat. A friend told me intermittent fasting is a good way to go. Although I'm confused if intermittent fasting will make me loose weight or gain weight since I still have to eat my macros which is focused on weight gain but have to fast for 16hrs while weight lifting. The main question is, will intermittent fasting mentain my weight and loose fat gain muscles? Or will I loose fat and loose weight? Or gain weight and gain muscles?
*Sorry for too many confusing questions
Good questions. Curious at folk's answer to this one. I've never tried intermittent fasting -- and I can never seem to get a clear or accurate answer. Lot of mixed reporting on this -- I can find articles that warn against it and others that say it's the best thing since sliced bread.
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Your calorie balance determines if you lose weight or not - your eating pattern is a virtual irrelevance apart from either helping or hindering you to eat at maintenance levels.
If you are eating at true maintenance you will stay the same weight, doesn't matter if that's one meal a day or no meals and load of snacks
Whether you gain muscle depends if you are training effectively or not. IF again is an irrelevance.
My experience:
I lost weight doing the 5:2 protocol. (5 days at maintenance, 2 days very low)
Maintained for a while successfully doing 6:1. (6 days slightly over maintenance, 1 day very low)
Reverted to eating at maintenance 7 days a week. (7 days at maintenance.)
Tried 16:8 at maintenance but didn't like feeling restricted. (7 days at maintenance but with an 8hr eating window.)
Still skip breakfast often but only when I feel like it.4 -
The answer to all of those questions lies in how many calories you're eating, not when you're eating them. Given a hypothetical diet of 1800 calories per day, it won't matter (for purposes of weight gain/loss/maintenance) if they're eaten in 6 meals over an 18 hour window or 1 meal in a 1 hour window.
Gaining/losing muscle is a function of your protein intake and training program (as well as overall calorie intake), when you eat your food is largely insignificant.1 -
You have to try it itself. It has helped me to loose body fat even when I meet my macros faster than just eating regular. I think because ur body get a longer time to burn off ur fat and while fasting. More agressivly as well because we need the energy. The only think is that it suppresses appetite so sometimes I feel like I'm forcing myself to eat by the end of the night.1
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lady_ghost wrote: »You have to try it itself. It has helped me to loose body fat even when I meet my macros faster than just eating regular. I think because ur body get a longer time to burn off ur fat and while fasting. More agressivly as well because we need the energy.
No, this isn't something that IF does. Sorry. All it does is to perhaps help to limit your total calories in a 24 hour period by limiting your eating to within a specific window of time. That's it. No magic, I'm afraid.
PS: I've been doing IF (16:8) for two years now, and find that for me the benefit of eating in this manner means that I can more easily control my caloric intake.
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IF will boost your growth hormone so its good in conjuction with bulking and maintaining weight. Good for losing weight also but only if a calorie deficit. I find it works for my lifestyle as i snack less and find my energy levels are much improved. Im in the process now of bulking as have reached desired weight now to pump up those muscles1
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Actually any positive thoughts as how to lose, gain or maintain weight will work it seems. Most world religions teach Fasting of one type or another which indicates to me Fasting must be a positive thing if done for positive reasons.1
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I've been intermittent fasting since February this year and it helped me lose the last 5 lbs to my goal weight and get me into the 12-13% body fat area. What I was doing was keeping my caloric intake the same as I would have otherwise (it was a deficit of about 300-400), but I decided to not eat breakfast (I changed to black coffee in the morning and did drink 2-3 cups). My total fast was about 12-14 hours each day from about 9 - 10 pm to 12 noon.
IF definitely helped me achieve the loss I intended due to the fact that it was easier to meet my caloric intake goals for the day if I had less time to do it in (lunch, dinner and snacks).
I still use it while I am bulking back up in conjunction with a calorie surplus and progressive lifting in order to make it easier to stay within my calorie goals, although now since I'm in a surplus I am more free with when I eat if I know that some days I have a busy evening schedule.
I have read that there is a theory that your body will burn though the blood glucose and other rather immediate stores of energy, then turn to fat, then muscle on a preferential sort of a way and that IF helps make your body use up all the immediate stores and get to the fat on a rather predictable way each day so even in a caloric maintenance you can eat up a bit of fat. I don't know if this is actually true, or true the way I do it, but it is pretty logical and if it works then great, but it's just a potential side benefit. There's a neat little graph in this article that shows it really well. Essentially after about 4 hours the liver, muscles and fat cells have started to burn fat and the longer this lasts the more organs start to use fat as the energy source. Now this happens to everyone once they've been without food for 4 hours or so, so every night. But you can go longer than this be skipping breakfast, it's just convenient. https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fasting-and-lipolysis-part-4/
Lower insulin and higher growth hormone are some purported benefits as well. Who know, but on balance it seems there are many potential benefits, with very few if any side effects.
Bottom line though. IF will help you achieve your total calorie goals (lose fat, gain/keep muscle) in conjunction with other more important methods.
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Keep in mind Dr. Fung (from Intensive Dietary Management, linked above) is a nephrologist dealing with a lot of obese, diabetic and other patients often suffering from kidney disease or malfunction as a result of their medical conditions. He also recommends a low-carb ketogenic diet which is what's being used in the patient studies/profiles he mentions in his blog.I have read that there is a theory that your body will burn though the blood glucose and other rather immediate stores of energy, then turn to fat, then muscle on a preferential sort of a way and that IF helps make your body use up all the immediate stores and get to the fat on a rather predictable way each day so even in a caloric maintenance you can eat up a bit of fat. I don't know if this is actually true, or true the way I do it, but it is pretty logical and if it works then great, but it's just a potential side benefit. There's a neat little graph in this article that shows it really well. Essentially after about 4 hours the liver, muscles and fat cells have started to burn fat and the longer this lasts the more organs start to use fat as the energy source. Now this happens to everyone once they've been without food for 4 hours or so, so every night. But you can go longer than this be skipping breakfast, it's just convenient. https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fasting-and-lipolysis-part-4/
Lower insulin and higher growth hormone are some purported benefits as well. Who know, but on balance it seems there are many potential benefits, with very few if any side effects.
Without someone already being in nutritional ketosis and having very low levels of glycogen storage, I.F. alone wouldn't normally be able to cause a person to move into lipolysis as our primary energy source for 12+ hours a day like he's suggesting. Because glucose is the body's preferred fuel for cellular respiration, and because most MFP'ers aren't in nutritional ketosis (and therefore have considerable glycogen reserves), the above doesn't necessarily apply.
And if someone DOES want to venture into nutritional ketosis and try I.F. (intermittent fasting) they'll find that CICO still does apply. I've been in ketosis for 7 years or so (it's my chosen method to manage my own diabetes) and am currently doing I.F. on a 18:6 protocol - and I still measure/weigh everything I eat because I know that's how it works...
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albertabeefy wrote: »
Keep in mind Dr. Fung (from Intensive Dietary Management, linked above) is a nephrologist dealing with a lot of obese, diabetic and other patients often suffering from kidney disease or malfunction as a result of their medical conditions. He also recommends a low-carb ketogenic diet which is what's being used in the patient studies/profiles he mentions in his blog.I have read that there is a theory that your body will burn though the blood glucose and other rather immediate stores of energy, then turn to fat, then muscle on a preferential sort of a way and that IF helps make your body use up all the immediate stores and get to the fat on a rather predictable way each day so even in a caloric maintenance you can eat up a bit of fat. I don't know if this is actually true, or true the way I do it, but it is pretty logical and if it works then great, but it's just a potential side benefit. There's a neat little graph in this article that shows it really well. Essentially after about 4 hours the liver, muscles and fat cells have started to burn fat and the longer this lasts the more organs start to use fat as the energy source. Now this happens to everyone once they've been without food for 4 hours or so, so every night. But you can go longer than this be skipping breakfast, it's just convenient. https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/fasting-and-lipolysis-part-4/
Lower insulin and higher growth hormone are some purported benefits as well. Who know, but on balance it seems there are many potential benefits, with very few if any side effects.
Without someone already being in nutritional ketosis and having very low levels of glycogen storage, I.F. alone wouldn't normally be able to cause a person to move into lipolysis as our primary energy source. Because glucose is the body's preferred fuel for cellular respiration, and because most MFP'ers aren't in nutritional ketosis (and therefore have considerable glycogen reserves), the above doesn't necessarily apply.
Good point, this article is geared towards his field. It just had a nice graph on this page that shows how the body progressively favours glucose, then glycogen as time goes on and the general basis for fasting and insulin levels which also affect muscle and fat growth.
I'm the furthest thing from an expert, but I can spot a nice graph 0 -
I don't know if it's considered IF or not but, by habit, I stop eating around 8-10pm at night and don't eat again until 8am-1pm, which works out to around 10-17hrs bet meals.
Eat about the same amount (1900 cals) every day regardless. Lost 36# from 196-160) in the 1st 6 mos and have maintained w/in 2-3# of that bet 157-160 for past 6 months doing this.0 -
Honestly, every time I try the 3 meals and 2 snacks format I feel starved on the calories mfp gives me, but eating one meal a day I can sometimes have trouble reaching my mfp target, believe it or not. After six months of eating like this, my appetite has decreased substantially. I want to experiment with two meals within my eating window to see if that would help me hit target calories. But it's funny, because the common dieting advice is the opposite. I wonder if it's that I've had an eating disorder so long that my hunger signals are confused, or my body is just weird, lol. But IF definitely seems to be a solution for my own weight loss.3
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Honestly, every time I try the 3 meals and 2 snacks format I feel starved on the calories mfp gives me, but eating one meal a day I can sometimes have trouble reaching my mfp target, believe it or not. After six months of eating like this, my appetite has decreased substantially. I want to experiment with two meals within my eating window to see if that would help me hit target calories. But it's funny, because the common dieting advice is the opposite. I wonder if it's that I've had an eating disorder so long that my hunger signals are confused, or my body is just weird, lol. But IF definitely seems to be a solution for my own weight loss.
This is so true, eating more throughout the day does make you hungrier, I don't know why.
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Honestly, every time I try the 3 meals and 2 snacks format I feel starved on the calories mfp gives me, but eating one meal a day I can sometimes have trouble reaching my mfp target, believe it or not. After six months of eating like this, my appetite has decreased substantially. I want to experiment with two meals within my eating window to see if that would help me hit target calories. But it's funny, because the common dieting advice is the opposite. I wonder if it's that I've had an eating disorder so long that my hunger signals are confused, or my body is just weird, lol. But IF definitely seems to be a solution for my own weight loss.
This is so true, eating more throughout the day does make you hungrier, I don't know why.
I have found this to be true for myself, too, which is why I started IF in the first place.
If I eat breakfast, it's like I'm waking up the sleeping "Feed Me!" monster , who then just bugs me for food until I go to sleep at the end of the day. If I can delay my first meal until lunch at 1 or 2 p.m., that leaves me plenty of room for a good dinner and some snacks in the evening.
What's interesting is that I've never been a morning eater. Never really been genuinely hungry for breakfast. But at times when I *did* eat breakfast (as part of the old "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" mindset) I found that I was eating food I didn't really want and that it just triggered my appetite for the rest of the day.
Everyone's different, though, so your results may vary. 2 -
snickerscharlie wrote: »Honestly, every time I try the 3 meals and 2 snacks format I feel starved on the calories mfp gives me, but eating one meal a day I can sometimes have trouble reaching my mfp target, believe it or not. After six months of eating like this, my appetite has decreased substantially. I want to experiment with two meals within my eating window to see if that would help me hit target calories. But it's funny, because the common dieting advice is the opposite. I wonder if it's that I've had an eating disorder so long that my hunger signals are confused, or my body is just weird, lol. But IF definitely seems to be a solution for my own weight loss.
This is so true, eating more throughout the day does make you hungrier, I don't know why.
I have found this to be true for myself, too, which is why I started IF in the first place.
If I eat breakfast, it's like I'm waking up the sleeping "Feed Me!" monster , who then just bugs me for food until I go to sleep at the end of the day. If I can delay my first meal until lunch at 1 or 2 p.m., that leaves me plenty of room for a good dinner and some snacks in the evening.
What's interesting is that I've never been a morning eater. Never really been genuinely hungry for breakfast. But at times when I *did* eat breakfast (as part of the old "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!" mindset) I found that I was eating food I didn't really want and that it just triggered my appetite for the rest of the day.
Everyone's different, though, so your results may vary.
This is me to a T.
I get up at 5:00, but delay that "feed me" monster until 2:00 or 3:00. I usually have 2 cups of tea during the time before I eat, but that's about it.
I stop eating around 7:30 or so.
Eating in this small time window really helps me control my appetite.3 -
snickerscharlie wrote: »lady_ghost wrote: »You have to try it itself. It has helped me to loose body fat even when I meet my macros faster than just eating regular. I think because ur body get a longer time to burn off ur fat and while fasting. More agressivly as well because we need the energy.
PS: I've been doing IF (16:8) for two years now, and find that for me the benefit of eating in this manner means that I can more easily control my caloric intake.
Agree about controlling intake with meal timing. I've had success and failure with IF and it all depends on calories in and out. For me the timing helps me eat on target.
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I've been able to maintain, gain & lose fat on 16:8 as needed. Nothing magical about it. I love this eating schedule. I tried 5:2 and that worked very well for losing weight. I just didn't want to put the effort into planning my 2 fast days.
Also to note, I don't track calories. Except the 600 calorie fast days when I tried 5:2 for a while.0 -
lady_ghost wrote: »You have to try it itself. It has helped me to loose body fat even when I meet my macros faster than just eating regular. I think because ur body get a longer time to burn off ur fat and while fasting. More agressivly as well because we need the energy. The only think is that it suppresses appetite so sometimes I feel like I'm forcing myself to eat by the end of the night.
How do you know IF helped you to lose body faster than just "regular" eating.... Did you have an identical twin living your exact life at the same time eating the same food over more hours of each day?1 -
I have talked to my trainer about this, and he tells me that it'll help lose a little weight but mainly lose body fat.0
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lol @filbo132 - I agree with you, I dislike when people say hand-wavy things like "this diet will help you focus on fat loss". Losing weight is hard as it is, and it doesn't help when people are inundated with all sorts of nonsense.
I wanted to share a recent study that was published about alternate-day fasting -- it's pretty well done and in a top journal. Quick summary is that they found no significant difference between people who tried alternate-day fasting v. a normal calorie restricted diet. But there were some participants who found fasting to be helpful and saw good results, and the researchers demonstrate the difference for these people is merely that they stuck with it.
So takeaway: all that matters is picking an approach at your calorie maintenance level that you can stick with. If IF does that for you, go for it!2 -
I expect the main interest in IF is not weight management but life extension benefits.
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GaleHawkins wrote: »I expect the main interest in IF is not weight management but life extension benefits.
Many people might be interested in this aspect of IF, but I think most people will veer towards just skipping breakfast each day instead of the longer term fasting. I'm not sure the benefits (if eventually shown to be true) will be as significant with just skipping breakfast, but who knows.1 -
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Trust me, my main interest in IF is in appetite control.
I don't care how long I live and feel that is up to chance. I'm concerned about the quality of the years I have left.
I found out long ago that my first meal of the day turned on my appetite switch. The longer I delay that meal, the less I eat throughout the day, thus making IF a great weight loss/management tool for me.2 -
GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »Trust me, my main interest in IF is in appetite control.
I don't care how long I live and feel that is up to chance. I'm concerned about the quality of the years I have left.
I found out long ago that my first meal of the day turned on my appetite switch. The longer I delay that meal, the less I eat throughout the day, thus making IF a great weight loss/management tool for me.
Every single word of this applies to me, too.
I'm not interested in the unproven, woo-driven 'benefits' that are attached to most every WOE. I'm only interested in a method that works for *me* to more easily control caloric intake that doesn't involve omitting entire food groups, taking expensive and ineffective supplements or potions, or exercising to the point of injury and/or exhaustion.
IF does that for me. 3 -
Most likely any WOE that gives appetite control will result in better health markers and life quality.1
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livingleanlivingclean wrote: »lady_ghost wrote: »You have to try it itself. It has helped me to loose body fat even when I meet my macros faster than just eating regular. I think because ur body get a longer time to burn off ur fat and while fasting. More agressivly as well because we need the energy. The only think is that it suppresses appetite so sometimes I feel like I'm forcing myself to eat by the end of the night.
How do you know IF helped you to lose body faster than just "regular" eating.... Did you have an identical twin living your exact life at the same time eating the same food over more hours of each day?
Because I've lost weight a few years back without IF and it took a longer time to loose the fat than it did when I did IF.0
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