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Intermittent fasting- just an acceptable way of starving yourself?
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janisseshirley wrote: »I just seen an article about IF in a magazine yesterday and the IF was 5:2. I noticed on the 2 days the calorie allowance was only 500 calories. Is that healthy? Also for anyone who has been on the IF plan, have you lost weight faster than if you ate your normal calories 7 days a week? I was wondering since I've been told that losing more than 1 - 1.5 pounds a week is aggressive and the article said most people lose 3-5 pound a week.
People who follow 5:2 will eat at maintenance the remaining days, so it averages out to give them a decent deficit. And unless you have several hundred pounds to lose, nobody should be losing 3-5 pounds every week.13 -
janisseshirley wrote: »I just seen an article about IF in a magazine yesterday and the IF was 5:2. I noticed on the 2 days the calorie allowance was only 500 calories. Is that healthy? Also for anyone who has been on the IF plan, have you lost weight faster than if you ate your normal calories 7 days a week? I was wondering since I've been told that losing more than 1 - 1.5 pounds a week is aggressive and the article said most people lose 3-5 pound a week.
How much weight you lose depends upon how large your caloric deficit is. Intermittent fasting doesn't change anything about that.
That's an example of the mystic aura placed around IF nowadays. It's nothing more than changing the times of day that you eat your calories, there's nothing magical about that. If your calorie goal is 1500 calories per day to lose 1 pound per week (as an example), it doesn't matter if you eat those 1500 calories in 10 meals spaced throughout the day or in one big meal at dinnertime - or anything else in between. It doesn't matter if you choose to alternate between 500 calories one day and 2500 calories the next, that still averages out to 1500 calories per day and in the long run will yield the same results. Fat loss doesn't occur on a discrete day-to-day basis, it occurs on a continuum. We're constantly alternating between anabolism and catabolism, lipogenesis and lipolysis.
5:2 wouldn't work for me because big nope to eating 500 calories per day. Not ever.13 -
janisseshirley wrote: »I just seen an article about IF in a magazine yesterday and the IF was 5:2. I noticed on the 2 days the calorie allowance was only 500 calories. Is that healthy? Also for anyone who has been on the IF plan, have you lost weight faster than if you ate your normal calories 7 days a week? I was wondering since I've been told that losing more than 1 - 1.5 pounds a week is aggressive and the article said most people lose 3-5 pound a week.
It's a 22% deficit overall - actually more reasonable than I'd suggest majority on MFP start at - attempting as fast as possible, getting closer to 50% in many examples I've seen.
People truly fast for a couple days with no issues, no food at all, just water. 500 would be like easy compared to that.
It is actually healthy - did you read the research results?
Or was it a weight loss only article not touching on anything else.
If article said 3-5 lb a week - they probably meant the first week - just like many do starting any diet of eating less.4 -
janisseshirley wrote: »I just seen an article about IF in a magazine yesterday and the IF was 5:2. I noticed on the 2 days the calorie allowance was only 500 calories. Is that healthy? Also for anyone who has been on the IF plan, have you lost weight faster than if you ate your normal calories 7 days a week? I was wondering since I've been told that losing more than 1 - 1.5 pounds a week is aggressive and the article said most people lose 3-5 pound a week.
It's a 22% deficit overall - actually more reasonable than I'd suggest majority on MFP start at - attempting as fast as possible, getting closer to 50% in many examples I've seen.
People truly fast for a couple days with no issues, no food at all, just water. 500 would be like easy compared to that.
It is actually healthy - did you read the research results?
Or was it a weight loss only article not touching on anything else.
If article said 3-5 lb a week - they probably meant the first week - just like many do starting any diet of eating less.
It was in a magazine called 5:2. Mainly it just said how people were losing weight at a faster rate and had various recipes for 500 calorie meal days. There were no research results.5 -
And like anything else that starts out as potentially useful - things are jumped on as a fad and extremes are pushed.
Link on 1st page several posts above yours - has that research.
It proved to be more sustainable than average diet, improved many health markers.
Faster rate? Eh, compared to people attempting, failing, and regaining - yes.
Compared to people not adhering well to another type of diet - yes.
Compared to extreme unreasonable diet - no.5 -
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I’ve noticed a few people saying that they are combining different types of IF diet (doing 5:2 and 16:8 for example) or limiting their eating window to a very short time. I like IF but part of me is uneasy about the way it makes skipping meals acceptable. What we reckon? Is IF just a way of people disguising disordered eating as an acceptable diet?
Notwithstanding that 5:2 and 16:8 are quite different approaches, this approach to calorie consumption is largely about behaviour. As illustrated in thread neither changes gross calorie intake, but puts some controls around when those calories are consumed. That can help some people.
One smooths intake through the week, the other is essentially Ramadan...
As ever, they're not a panacea. I've regularly found that 5:2 dieters are less effective in the workplace on fasting days. Frequently hangry, which is a pain.7 -
janisseshirley wrote: »I just seen an article about IF in a magazine yesterday and the IF was 5:2. I noticed on the 2 days the calorie allowance was only 500 calories. Is that healthy? Also for anyone who has been on the IF plan, have you lost weight faster than if you ate your normal calories 7 days a week? I was wondering since I've been told that losing more than 1 - 1.5 pounds a week is aggressive and the article said most people lose 3-5 pound a week.
@janisseshirley
Ask yourself why an odd day at 500 (for a woman, 600 for a man) is unhealthy. What do you think happens in that one day to make it unhealthy in the context that you are eating normally 5 days a week?
I lost at the expected rate in line with my modest weekly calorie deficit, as did my wife.
The maths don't support the assertion that people lost 3-5 pounds a week.
For a woman with the mythical daily average maintenance level of 2000 two days a week at 500 cals is a deficit of only 3,000, less than 1lb a week.
Let's assume a particularly large and/or active woman with a TDEE of 3000, weekly deficit is 5000 cals, less than a pound and a half a week.
5lb a week would be 17,500 calories - how on earth could someone generate that deficit in two days?
I think the societal attachment for eating to a set pattern irrespective of hunger or need is one of the factors that drives obesity in a time of plenty and with generally decreasing activity levels.12 -
I have a friend who does 5:2 and loves it. She lost about 15 vanity lbs initially -- no faster than a lb per week or less -- and now uses it for maintenance. She doesn't count on the 5 days, it's basically a way to let her eat whatever she wants at other times.7
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What on earth is a 'Vanity Pound?'4
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I eat around 2500 calories everyday in 3 meals. This girl is not starving. I just wait until I get hungry to start eating and I stop eating for the day after dinner, so I IF naturally.8
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I've been IF for a few weeks now at 14:10 and I still eat breakfast (10am) lunch (12:30) and dinner (6-7pm) with a snack between lunch and dinner. I went for the option that let me keep all my meals1
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I was accidentally IF at 240lbs the same way I do at 155 now; just a way to respect my personal preference of larger more calorie dense meals and not eating when I'm not hungry. Never been a breakfast person.3
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Eating enough each day is neither a sign of nor proof of not disordered eating. It's a sign of prosperity.
A lot of us have been so prosperous all our lives that we don't realize that humans are capable and often must go a few days without food.
If someone wants to schedule their daily sufficiency of calories in any consistent way, congratulate them for their prosperity.19 -
If you would see my “regular” eating you would be appalled at the level of disorder. Binge eating everywhere. When I follow my self imposed 20/4 IF schedule I can easily eat my 1500-1800 cal diet, feel great the fasted hours and satisfied with my large meal in the evening. Fasting for 3/4/5 or more days is not IF as far as I am concerned, and those styles as a weight loss form I would be concerned about.5
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yep Ive never been a breakfast eater even as a kid. just not hungry in the am. so I eat lunch,a few snacks,and dinner. always ate that way. and its not starving yourself because I have become overweight eating doing 16:8 because I ate too many calories.8
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