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Intermittent fasting- just an acceptable way of starving yourself?

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Replies

  • CarvedTones
    CarvedTones Posts: 2,340 Member
    I absolutely abused 5:2. I get how it makes perfect sense if done correctly - eat maintenance calories 5 days a week, so that you know how to eat when you make goal and get your deficit by eating the equivalent of 17 meals a week instead of 21. If you really do that, it is a reasonable way to lose weight while still learning to eat exactly as you should.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    edited April 2018
    CarvedTones wrote: »
    I absolutely abused 5:2. I get how it makes perfect sense if done correctly - eat maintenance calories 5 days a week, so that you know how to eat when you make goal and get your deficit by eating the equivalent of 17 meals a week instead of 21. If you really do that, it is a reasonable way to lose weight while still learning to eat exactly as you should.

    That, and all the hormones that get jacked up from eating long term in a deficit, and body adaption - don't happen.

    Plus if you follow the program correctly and the 2 days are 25% of avg TDEE (not the 500 & 600 thrown out as examples of sedentary people), overall that's only a 22% deficit for the week. Decently reasonable.

    Now that I do IF, I think I could find 2 days that would have minimal impact on workouts and recovery.
    But I prefer IF with 4-5 hr window.
  • hotskytrotsky
    hotskytrotsky Posts: 14 Member
    I think the thing about IF and eating disorders is that people with eating disorders often practice forms of intermittent fasting as an expression of a disorder. That doesn't mean anyone who fasts has an eating disorder, but probably some people who are involved in IF use the framework of IF to disguise (to others or to themselves) forms of disordered eating. Almost any method of approaching weight loss has the same issue, though - if people can use it to lose weight successfully, some will use the same method in a destructive way. For me, IF comes with too much baggage to implement safely. But not everyone has the same relationship with eating that I do.
  • Vis77
    Vis77 Posts: 8 Member
    I like doing it, but I binge eat after a while, but I do think fasting is a good thing to do even spiritually and mentally, but I am doing the eat 6 times a day, if I throw fasting in I binge, so I have laid low on it for a while.
  • VUA21
    VUA21 Posts: 2,072 Member
    I starve myself every night, for about 8-10 hours I don't eat.

    As I'm eating at a calorie deficit I am "mildly starving" myself.

    Humans store fat very easily because 10,000 years of evolution has conditioned us to be able to go days without eating. Take any collegiate level human physiology course and you'll learn all about that.

    There's nothing wrong with intermittent fasting.
  • tbright1965
    tbright1965 Posts: 852 Member
    VUA21 wrote: »
    I starve myself every night, for about 8-10 hours I don't eat.

    As I'm eating at a calorie deficit I am "mildly starving" myself.

    Humans store fat very easily because 10,000 years of evolution has conditioned us to be able to go days without eating. Take any collegiate level human physiology course and you'll learn all about that.

    There's nothing wrong with intermittent fasting.

    Yep.

    I have the added "luxury" of taking my Blood Glucose reading when I wake. If I'm below 100 mg/dL, I'll have a banana before I go to the gym. If I'm above, no banana, don't need it. I need less sugar, not more.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    VUA21 wrote: »
    tbright1965 wrote: »
    youngmomtaz wrote: »
    anastasiadietitian wrote: »
    Calorie counting is also a way of starving yourself. Starving from food is how you get your body to use fat stores for energy. Its only a problem if you have a distorted body image or develop nutritional deficiencies from poor choices.

    Agreed. Not sure what the woos are about on this one. If we were not all slightly “starving” we would be gaining weight and not losing. “Starving” and “calorie deficit” are just different words stating a similar bodily state. One sounds more harsh than the other and that is the only difference.

    Actually no, starving and calorie deficit are not the same. Which is why people are woo'ing.

    Calorie counting is a way to know how many calories you are actually eating. You can be eating to maintenance, to gain or to lose. In no way is calorie counting equal to starvation.

    Per Oxford English Dictionary: a. The condition of being starved of food; suffering and gradual decline caused by lack of adequate nutrition, leading eventually (if unchecked) to death.

    If unchecked. Eating at a deficit is starvation as you are not eating enough food into to maintain your current body. If you continue to eat at a deficit and drop below a healthy will, you will die from it. Your body is suffering, because it's using it's fat reserve as energy.

    if you are truly starving your body doesnt just use fat for energy it will use lean mass which means muscle too. your heart is a muscle. your body if not getting enough calories can mean hair loss,lack of period in women,sexual dysfunction, brittle nails,possible teeth and gum issues and many many things.

    you can get adequate nutrition in a deficit if you are getting enough calories,protein and so on. can a persons deficit lead to starvation? sure it can if its too big of a deficit and the person is eating too little calories. which is why its recommended not to go under a certain calorie amount when losing weight. your body will die when you are starving it,if done long enough. but with a deficit its a bit different.

    if someone is eating 1500 calories(and is a healthy goal for them and its not undereating) and has a 500 calorie deficit(which means maintenance is 2000 calories) vs a person eating 500 calories per day or less(not 5:2 fasting).the latter is starving themselves especially if working out,IF they have the energy to do so. The first as long as they are getting enough calories to fuel their body and their workouts are not going to die from starvation. its as simple as that.They also should not have malnutrition issues(aside ones caused by health issues) if getting enough of the 3 main macros and getting enough of the right vitamins and minerals.
  • stanmann571
    stanmann571 Posts: 5,727 Member
    VUA21 wrote: »
    tbright1965 wrote: »
    youngmomtaz wrote: »
    anastasiadietitian wrote: »
    Calorie counting is also a way of starving yourself. Starving from food is how you get your body to use fat stores for energy. Its only a problem if you have a distorted body image or develop nutritional deficiencies from poor choices.

    Agreed. Not sure what the woos are about on this one. If we were not all slightly “starving” we would be gaining weight and not losing. “Starving” and “calorie deficit” are just different words stating a similar bodily state. One sounds more harsh than the other and that is the only difference.

    Actually no, starving and calorie deficit are not the same. Which is why people are woo'ing.

    Calorie counting is a way to know how many calories you are actually eating. You can be eating to maintenance, to gain or to lose. In no way is calorie counting equal to starvation.

    Per Oxford English Dictionary: a. The condition of being starved of food; suffering and gradual decline caused by lack of adequate nutrition, leading eventually (if unchecked) to death.

    If unchecked. Eating at a deficit is starvation as you are not eating enough food into to maintain your current body. If you continue to eat at a deficit and drop below a healthy will, you will die from it. Your body is suffering, because it's using it's fat reserve as energy.

    Here's the thing. Running an appropriate deficit, You won't starve. You'll simply slide into maintenance. you may do so at a weight lower than your target, but you'll still end up in maintenance.

    OF course that assumes that you started off your weight loss at an overweight/obese/overfat state. If you're normal weight, you may get to underweight before you hit maintenance, but you'll still get there. 1200/1500 net calories is enough for the sustainment of life for most living adults. It may be uncomfortable but it's not going to be fatal.
  • wind_chimes
    wind_chimes Posts: 6 Member
    I am on day 2 on the "IF" 16:8
    So far so good .
  • cammiecane
    cammiecane Posts: 62 Member
    musicfan68 wrote: »
    No. I do not have an eating disorder, otherwise I wouldn't be overweight.

    That’s actually completely incorrect. An ED is a mental illness, not a size or weight.

    In response to the OP, I believe disordered eating is more mental than behavioral. Plenty of people fast, do fad-diets, etc and do not have an ED. IF, in my opinion, is just a personal preference, the same way Keto, CICO, etc are all preference on how we want to eat to lose weight. They all amount to the same thing if done correctly - a calorie deficit leading to weight loss, if that’s the goal.

    I do think certain people shouldn’t do IF. I would never consider it because of my past history with an ED. But if someone has a problem with disordered eating, it also doesn’t mean they’re going to fast. Some people will eat three times a day, every day. They just eat VERY little. There’s no one style of disordered eating. That’s why I say it’s more a mindset than a specific style or way of eating.
  • HutchMCMLXXV
    HutchMCMLXXV Posts: 10 Member
    I use the 16:8 method and I still get 1600 - 2000 kcal/day. I don't see it as skipping meals because I'm still getting all of my calories in and my nutrients are where they need to be. I eat from 11am to 7pm and it works perfectly for me. I work out for about an hour in the morning and I finish my workout around 11:15. My first meal of the day is high in protein and healthy to feed my body post workout. From there, I usually have a decent sized snack and then dinner. I drink 9 -11 cups of water per day, which you can drink during your fasting period and that includes black coffee and unsweetened tea. That will usually help with any hunger. Bottom line is that it has to work for you, everyone is different.
  • Unknown
    Unknown
    edited July 2018
    This content has been removed.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    This part too - " If you don’t eat for 10–16 hours, your body will go to its fat stores for energy, and fatty acids called ketones will be released into the bloodstream."

    That sounds as if to say if you weren't fasting, your body wouldn't be using those fat store - which is false considering how much of the day no matter what diet is spent using fat stores as main energy source.

    And then who has tested going into ketosis that fast - or is this a reference to perhaps the quantity increased over the amount normally found in blood anyway. Same way people have misunderstanding about lactic acid in blood (already there) but thinking it's only released during hard workouts causing the "burn".

    Some decent comments in there - but some are clearly related to the losing of fat as a cause (like insulin sensitivity).
  • bufger
    bufger Posts: 763 Member
    It gives me flexibility. Instead of daily goals I have a weekly average goal. If I'm planning a big weekend with friends I'll IF in the week before so I don't feel guilty when I use up the 'banked calories'. At least that's how I see it
  • LiftHeavyThings27105
    LiftHeavyThings27105 Posts: 2,086 Member
    edited July 2018
    So, if I might jump in......not to add to the discussion necesarrily, but to provide my definition of what IF is....

    I look at IF as a schedule for eating. Plain and simple. There is an X Hour window in which I do not eat and there is an X Hour window in which I do eat. Pretty basic. Not sexy. Not gonna sell 1,000,000 books. But it is that simple (it just never seems to be easy).

    I was - as in, past tense - following the 16:8 cycle. So, my "DO NOT EAT" window was 16 hours and my "EAT EAT EAT" window was for eight hours.

    Please notice that I am not mentioning anything about skipping meals....I am not mentioning anything about more calories consumed or fewer calories consumed.

    It (IF) is simply the light switch (if you will).....I do consume my calories - whatever they might be for this day | week | month - within these eight hours.

    I am not super smart so I try to K.I.S.S (keep it simple, stupid) at all times and I do not think that there is anything more to IF than a schedule (or, to repeat the analogy that I used, the "light switch"). To this simple dude, pretty simple.

    Now, are there health benefits to IF?

    Possibly. And that is - at least to this simple dude - what the discussion is (mostly). Lots of smart people in here....I love just shutting up and listening.
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