Intermittent Fasting Support Group?

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Hello I had my first fasting day yesterday. The only thing I am doing didference is leaving off breakfast And I drop 3 lbs overnite. I think I am going t like this. Gives me my Morning free to do other things. I am on 18 off 6.

Good job! I use IF to break my plateau. I've lost 5 lbs in 8 days. I'm on 19/5 schedule. Easy schedule to get used to. No cravings and energy level has been good, too.

Hello I had my first fasting day yesterday. The only thing I am doing didference is leaving off breakfast And I drop 3 lbs overnite. I think I am going t like this. Gives me my Morning free to do other things. I am on 18 off 6.

Good job! I use IF to break my plateau. I've lost 5 lbs in 8 days. I'm on 19/5 schedule. Easy schedule to get used to. No cravings and energy level has been good, too.

Thanks porkbelly. Hey that is good name for me.One thimg for sure I got the belly. I know that 3 lbs I lost was water weight. B ut I'll take it.I have had a good day today.I think I am going for it everyday to see how I react to it. i Am on insulin and keeping a close eye on my blood sugar. So far no Problem.

In fact I believe his argument is that we don't need to eat as much protein as the 1g per pound that most people talk about to gain muscle as that number has more to do with selling protein powder than it does to do with research about how much protein we need to eat.

As far as that goes, what are the pros/cons of higher protein intake than necessary vs. lower protein intake than necessary? Let' say Brad is right, and 100g is all you need.

Pros: Adequate muscle repair/gain.
Cons: None.

But what if Brad is wrong?

Pros: Save money on protein supplements.
Cons: Wasting time/energy at the gym, poor muscle gain.

Now, let's say the 1g/lb of bodyweight recommendation is right.

Pros: Adequate muscle repair/gain.
Cons: None.

What if they're wrong?

Pros: Adequate muscle repair/gain..
Cons: Waste money.

So really it depends on which side you'd rather fall on. If you truly believe Brad is right, and he IS right, then by all means go with 100g of protein per day. On the other hand, if there's any doubt about whether he's right or not, some of us would rather waste a little bit of money on protein supplements (with no health downside) rather than be wasting hours at the gym.

Agree with Teemo (even though I'm an LGer). 1g/lb protein for me. If I only need .75g/lb then so be it but I'd rather have a bit too much than not enough.

Martin recommends much higher intake than Brad then. I have seen 2.5g/kg talked about. Also an advocate of getting it from whole food not supplements. I try to as much as I can but sometimes fill it in with supplements. And the protein meal before bed is for next day satiety also.

Ok, got some studies for you, Teemo. Be prepared, this is a lot of info. Some is from Brad Pilon's references in his book, others from LeanGains.com, others from my own research in the medical literature:

First, a textbook chapter about the basics of fasting metabolism:

Jan Badar V, Lowry Stephen F, "Chapter 2. Systemic Response to Injury and Metabolic Support" (Chapter). Brunicardi FC, Andersen DK, Billiar TR, Dunn DL, Hunter JG, Matthews JB, Pollock RE: Schwartz's Principles of Surgery, 9e

Short summary of salient points:

At the beginning of a fast, in a typical 150lb man, 85% of available calorie reserves are contained in fat stores. About 14% of available calories are in protein, and the remainder is glycogen. Clearly, fat is the primary energy storage molecule. Each gram of fat produces 9 kcals of energy when burned, while each gram of protein or carbohydrate produces only 4 kcals. This is why I said earlier that fat is twice as energy dense as protein. In this same typical 150 lb man, about 0.35 lbs of fat per day is mobilized for energy production during fasting, compared to 0.16 lbs per day of protein at the beginning of the fast, and 0.04 lbs per day after two days or so when ketone bodies really kick in hard. Even at the beginning of the fast, fat is mobilized at about double the rate of protein.

The basal dietary need for protein in men is of course very hotly disputed, but the lowest value I found (corresponding to the minimal amount needed to offset base catabolism in a fed state) is 54 g/day, which translates to 0.11 lbs per day of loss offset. So even using this very low number for estimated basal protein catabolism, MUCH less than most body builders recommend, we see that protein catabolism during early fasting only goes up by about 45%, and even this apparently large increase does not bring protein catabolism up to even half the level of fat catabolism during fasting. Using the similar estimates I used for basal protein catabolism above, fat catabolism increases by 141% during fasting from the basal level. Also note that the studies I present below show that lean mass loss can be essentially halted by resistance exercise.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2919581/

"Previous studies suggest that while both fat and protein are lost during short-term fasting, protein loss is minimal and the majority of weight lost from muscle is primarily glycogen and water"

If you look down at the graphs in the discussion, this study supports this conclusion as well- fat loss is about double the lean mass loss, and much of the lean mass loss is water in an 18hr fast in rats.
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Regarding protein sparing mechanisms in short term fasting:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Gjedsted J, Gormsen L, Buhl M, Norrelund H, Schmitz, Keiding S, Tonnesen E, Moller N. Forearm and leg amino acids metabolism in the basal state and during combined insulin and amino acid stimulation after a 3- day fast. Acta Physiologica. 2009; (6): 1-9.

"Our data indicate that after a 72-h fast basal and insulin/amino acid-stimulated regional phenylalanine fluxes in leg and forearm muscle are unaltered."
Here phenylalanine flux is a surrogate for protein catabolism: higher flux indicates lots of breakdown. Lack of an increase in flux indicates no significant change in catabolism. This is a reference used in Brad Pilon's ESE book, but frankly, I think these results are contradicted by a lot of other studies, so take them with a grain of salt. Lots of other studies show protein catabolism increases early in fasting, just not nearly as much as fat catabolism does.

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/50/1/96.short

Growth hormone protects muscle from excessive catabolization during fasting.

"These results demonstrate that GH—possibly by maintenance of circulating concentrations of free IGF-I—is a decisive component of protein conservation during fasting and provide evidence that the underlying mechanism involves a decrease in muscle protein breakdown."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21410865?dopt=Abstract

This study indicates that Intermittent Fasting (various forms) may be more efficient in preserving lean mass in dieters than straight calorie reduction. I can't access the full paper without going to a lot of trouble, so I will just note that Martin Berkhan of Leangains.com did a review of this article and while there are some methodological problems, the study indicates that it *may* be the case that an intermittent fasting pattern increases fat-to-lean weight loss ratios from 75-25 in normal calorie restriction to 90-10. It's a meta-analysis with a lot of heterogeneity in the component studies, though, so may not be valid.

http://www.leangains.com/2011/03/intermittent-fasting-for-weight-loss.html

Additionally, there are a lot of studies which don't directly deal with fasting, but which do show that people on very low calorie diets (which intermittent fasting may or may not be, depending on how it's practiced) maintain their muscle mass by doing weight bearing exercise, which ESE also recommends for fasters ----

Bryner RW. Effects of resistance training vs. Aerobic training combined with an 800 calorie
liquid diet on lean body mass and resting metabolic rate. Journal of the American College of
Nutrition 1999; 18(1): 115-121

Rice B, Janssen I, Hudson, R, Ross R. Effects of aerobic or resistance exercise and/or diet on
glucose tolerance and plasma insulin levels in obese men. Diabetes Care 1999; 22: 684-691

Janssen I, et al. Effects of an energy-restrictive diet with or without exercise on abdominal
fat, intermuscular fat, and metabolic risk factors in obese women. Diabetes Care 2002; 25:431-
438

Chomentowski P, et al. Moderate Exercise Attenuates the Loss of Skeletal Muscle
Mass That Occurs With Intentional Caloric Restriction – Induced Weight Loss in Older,
Overweight to Obese Adults. Journal of Gerontology: MEDICAL SCIENCES. 2009. Vol. 64A, No.
5, 575–580
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Regarding the increase in fat burning during the first 24 hours of a fast:

http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/265/5/E801.short

Study of lipolysis indicators from 12 to 72 hours in fasting subjects -
"Of the total increase in lipid kinetics, 60% occurred between 12 and 24 h of fasting; the greatest interval change occurred between 18 and 24 h of fasting."


http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/94/11/4524.abstract

The same growth hormone surge during fasting that protects muscle also increases lipolysis in fasting subjects:

"This supports the notion that stimulation of lipolysis is a primary and important effect of GH. "


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed?term=Tunstall RJ, et al. Fasting activates the gene expression of UCP3 independent of genes necessary for lipid transport and oxidation in skeletal muscle. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 2002; 294:301-308

This study demonstrates a 5-fold increase in Uncoupling Protein 3 within muscle during the first 15 hours of fasting, which according to Brad Pilon is correlated to fat burning. I'm honestly a little skeptical of this particular claim, because a lot of the sources I looked at suggested that the exact function of UCP3 is unclear at best, though some sources do say it is seemingly associated with fat burning activity.
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I'd like to say at this point that I do agree with you that the initial statement I made was an oversimplification, since in fact both protein and fat are being catabolized to a greater or lesser degree all the time (fed or fasted), and so asking which one is burned first is kind of silly. What I mean when I say that fat is burned first is that fat is burned *in earnest* first when fasting. I hope I've managed to evidence that with the studies I provided above. Your body's basic metabolic strategy when it comes to fasting is to use up its storage medium first, and only sparingly use proteins along the way until almost all of the storage molecules are gone, at which point it has no choice but to burn lots and lots of protein until you either find food or die. Fat's major function is to spare muscle in a time of famine. Muscle protein's role is only to fill in a small portion of the energy need that fat fails to fill, namely some of the glucose need for your brain and red blood cells. In maximum protein sparing ketosis, <10% of glucose needs are met by muscle breakdown. That is why this statement:

http://www.weightlossresources.co.uk/calories/burning_calories/starvation.htm
"The main way it does this is to protect its fat stores and instead use lean tissue or muscle to provide it with some of the calories it needs to keep functioning."

Is false. The idea of protecting fat stores in a famine indicates a fundamental lack of understanding of what fat is even for, and how important protein is to our bodies. In fact, as fasting progresses, muscles get more and more of their energy from fat-derived ketone bodies, such that muscle essentially cannibalizes your body fat to preserve itself.

The other two quotes you mentioned sound roughly correct to me, though I read elsewhere that the reduction in protein catabolism to 20g/day happens much faster than two weeks. More like a matter of 2-4 days.

I agree, these sources are poor, but as I mentioned, that's the nature of Wiki. It's mostly a spring board for further research.

I'll retract my statement, though I would appreciate a link to the source saying that fat is burned during fasting until only essential fat remains, before muscle is catabolized. If that's true, you may have just hit upon the easiest way to get ripped ever and revolutionized the contest-dieting procedure.

If you listen to the people on LeanGains.com, to mention nothing of looking at their results pictures, you might agree that it is not only easy, but it works! Martin Berkhan there advocates a different fasting schedule than I personally practice ( I do alternate day fasting 24 on 24 off, he recommends doing 16 hr fasting with a 8 hr eating window every single day (I think? Someone correct me if I'm wrong). He also has some different ideas than Brad Pilon about BCAA's before fasted workouts, and he advocates large protein loads for your last meal to reduce the body's need to pull from muscle even further (theoretically). Whatever the case, the results pictures he posts of his clients look inhumanly ripped.

Not really interesting. Strength gains are not dependent on lean mass preservation or lean mass gains. It's entirely possible to increase in strength while losing lean mass.

That's true, but like I said, I'm not just depending on my strength gains as a measure of lean mass, I've been calculating it based on 3-site skinfold caliper measurements to get my % body fat. While I'm no expert and I frankly am not very good at getting consistent readings, nevertheless the trend seems significant even if the accuracy is off: my body fat has decreased from 18.5% to 14.5% and my lean mass has stayed between 169 and 171 lbs at every single one of about 8 separate measurements.

ESE, if I recall, recommends a high intake of protein even during dieting/fasting.

I'll defer to rileysowner on that one. I agree with what he said.

If that's the case, I'm curious why protein is recommended at all between fasts since, as I understand from this thread, your body doesn't need amino acids/lean tissue breakdown until all your fat stores are gone.

No, that's not correct. I said it needs relatively little, not none at all. Some AA's are needed to provide enough glucose for your brain and RBC's to function, just not nearly as much as the need for fat to satisfy the metabolism of pretty much the entire rest of your body. The glycerol backbone of the main storage form of fats (triglycerides) actually provides double the amount of glucose for your body that amino acids do until fat is mostly gone.

1) the statement that fat stores are catabolized COMPLETELY before lean tissue is incorrect.

Yes, that is incorrect. Some lean tissue is catabolized while the fat is being burned off, but based on the studies I provided above, it is likely that resistance exercise can lessen that catabolism significantly.

2) the statement that fat stores are catabolized FIRST before lean tissue is incorrect.

That one I actually do think is correct, with the proviso I mentioned above: fat stores are catabolized *in earnest* before proteins are in the fasting state, though in truth both are being turned over (both catabolized and anabolized to some degree) at every moment of our entire lives, fed or fasted. So in that sense asking which goes first is nonsensical. I didn't find any studies conclusively showing which started to ramp up catabolism first (i.e. how many hours into a fast until protein ramps up vs fat), but I think that's little more than an academic concern for us. What we're really worried about is the ratio of burning, like you said earlier. Unfortunately that sort of thing is very difficult to measure, and hopefully we will have better quality research to go on before too long. For now I think we have pretty good physiologic reasons and some fair experimental evidence to convince us that fasting is an effective weight loss technique that spares muscle. And though anecdotal evidence is the lowest form of evidence...those LeanGains.com success stories and pictures are pretty powerful stuff.

I agree that is very helpful. I am not considering doing ESE more that 2 days a week, but have considered combining it with ESE so my none ESE fast days are 16/8 fast days. I do agree with Brad's foundational philosophy of keeping it as simple as possible in the long run. The more complicated, the more likely to fail. Again thanks for taking the time to research.

by kgool
Interesting. A colleague of mine lost 100 lbs two years ago and did it in around 7 months. He did not eat at all between 4pm and 8am the next morning. I had no idea this was considered borderline fasting.

I have heard this longtimea ago when I was a kid like 14 years old. i am 80 years old now. i never went on it. but I remember they daid you could even have a piece of pie as long as you ate it before 4:00m. I might give it a try. Can't hurt.

I'm a true lurker I guess, I was feeling 100% outcasted by the 'community' here for trying to talk about how you're not going to jump into starvation mode if a sedentary dieter wants to deviate from 1,200 calories. I got totally slammed. I feel a bit better now, I suppose, this is the first non-1,200 calorie-or-else post I've come across since I joined last week.

sorry about all the triple posting don't know how I did it. Sorry

Does anyone know why the person who started this thread deactivated their account?

I started doing this type of fasting Thursday, but have mainly been trying to find the perfect window of time for me to eat. Right now I've decided on 2-8 because that's about the time I'll be getting home from working out for the next week. It will probably change when I get back to college. The only problem is that I have different days. For instance MWF I get out of class by 2:30. But Tuesday's I get out at 6, and Thursday's not til 9. I'm not sure how I'll do this then... I may even do a 24 hour fast Thursday's.

4-10 schedule seems like it would work okay for you. You can start it now and just stay on it throughout. Its easier to stick to a schedule if it doesn't vary. It may be a little bit of stretch when you first start but after a few days you should be fine.

I agree that is very helpful. I am not considering doing ESE more that 2 days a week, but have considered combining it with ESE so my none ESE fast days are 16/8 fast days. I do agree with Brad's foundational philosophy of keeping it as simple as possible in the long run. The more complicated, the more likely to fail. Again thanks for taking the time to research.

This is interesting...and honestly, due to work, is kind of how I do it anyhow 5 days a week. We eat dinner around 7pm, then basically I have no food till after 4pm the next day. Sometimes I've been trying to eat breakfast to get some early calories in...but I don't always get to.

Oddly enough, this is similar to how I was eating when I gained all the weight in the first place...

Go figure.

It really makes me wonder if the difference truly is strength training 3x or more a week.

I would think that making conscious decisions about your food in your eating window is a big factor. Even if you only eat in a certain time per day you can still pack in some serious calories if you try and at the end of the day calories above maintenance will make you put on weight.

I do agree with your strength training part though. Martin has said many times that it is a key factor in the success of his lean gains clients. Lifting heavy! (he actually likes minimal volume and no cardio but I still like a bit of volume and some other sorts of exercise as well)

Interest results from my last month of IFing. Aiming for a slow bulk.
I am exactly the same weight as I was one month ago (except yesterday was a carb refeed so I would say some water weight increase there)
chest size up 1.5cm, thighs up 1.5cm, fattest bit of waist down .75cm.
Caliper pinchese at chest/thigh identical but abs are down .5-1mm.
Made PB's on overhead press and bench press yesterday and getting back to my preinjury weights on stiff leg deadlifts.

I love my IF & IIFYM :happy:

Hi!

I have been doing IF on and off, starting last week. I want to try doing 16/8 (12pm-8pm feeding window) for a whole week but my problem is, I need to take C-Lium Fiber in the morning before I go to work (at 9am), because otherwise I don't go number 2 everyday! It's more convenient to take it at home rather than bring it to work.

C-Lium fiber is basically a fiber supplement that you can mix with water. It's only 20 cals, and has 5g of fiber. You can look it up here on MFP. By taking that, do I interrupt my fast period?

Also, would you say chewing sugar free gum (5cals) interrupts the fast period?


Thanks!

Ok, got some studies for you, Teemo. Be prepared, this is a lot of info. Some is from Brad Pilon's references in his book, others from LeanGains.com, others from my own research in the medical literature:

Appreciate you taking the time to find the sources. I don't see anything regarding priority of catabolizing in the sources though, and since I can't seem to support my statement that the body catabolizes protein FIRST I'll retract my statement. I don't disagree that fat is catabolized MOST, but I did disagree that fat is catabolized completely before protein is. You seem to have retracted that statement as well though so we aren't really disagreeing with anything.

LG and intermittent fasting can accomplish dramatic results but nowhere does LG suggest that a caloric deficit means you won't lose any muscle while losing exclusively fat... but like I said, that's no longer really a point of disagreement.