Welcome to Debate Club! Please be aware that this is a space for respectful debate, and that your ideas will be challenged here. Please remember to critique the argument, not the author.
Intermittent fasting- just an acceptable way of starving yourself?
Replies
-
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.4 -
Here is a BBC documentary about fasting, and specifically the 5:2 diet. It's very well researched and seems to have a lot of good data behind it. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Ihhj_VSKiTs
The point with fasting is that it forces your body to use the energy it already has stored instead of constantly looking for a new source of energy in the food you're feeding it. As long as you are aren't underweight it's a perfectly healthy way to lose weight and it also boosts your immune system and helps with a lot of other physiological and even psychological issues.8 -
musicfan68 wrote: »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?
No. I do not have an eating disorder, otherwise I wouldn't be overweight.
Wrong.6 -
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.1 -
tbright1965 wrote: »
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.
By that logic, you are out of fuel anytime the fuel tank in your car is less than full.
Or, you are starving when you are not eating during the 8 hours you are asleep at night.
The question is, do you want to maintain your current body? If a man is carrying over what, 25, 30 percent body fat, do they really want to maintain that body?
I'd rather maintain a 200 pound 5'11" male body than the former 265 pound body I had 14 weeks ago. So I don't want to carry so much fat.
But burning that fat is no more starvation than burning the fuel in the gas tank of my car is being empty.
The human body takes in fuel and burns fuel all the time.
I just happened to fill up some extra gas cans I really didn't need over the course of the past 25 years, and I'm choosing to burn that fuel and, with some discipline, not refill those cans. I have 29 pounds of unneeded spare fuel to burn, if not more. But let's get to that goal before I go on to the stretch goal of the high school graduation weight.
Very different from starvation.7 -
I am on day 2 on the "IF" 16:8
So far so good .2 -
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.3 -
cammiecane wrote: »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.
CICO is not an eating preference. it applies to ALL ways of eating. its an energy balance.saying its a diet like keto is incorrect. yes a deficit leads to weight loss. but CICO isnt a diet or a deficit. CICO also applies to gaining and maintaining weight.7 -
cammiecane wrote: »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.
Way to take my comment way out of context. Good job. I was responding to the OP that was inferring that people who do IF are doing an acceptable version of starving themselves and that it is an eating disorder. I do IF and I do not have an eating disorder that is starving myself. If I were starving myself, I would not be overweight.5 -
stanmann571 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.
Taken to its extreme though (ie not stopping before hitting underweight)...
I just ran my stats through a TDEE calculator to see how low my weight would be before I hit a TDEE of 1200 cals as a sedentary 168cm/5'6" female - 34kg/74.8 lbs, BMI of 12. So yeah, me eating 1200 cals probably would be fatal eventually.
Technically, being at a calorie deficit is a slow form of starvation. Most people just stop waaaay before it becomes harmful.
(and yes, it's semantics, and I'm playing devil's advocate
) 6 -
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.1
-
hobbitses333 wrote: »Here's an often cited link for those asking for citations or studies on the health benefit of IF...if you do a little research you will find the good and the bad of it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3680567/
16:8 is working for me better than anything else I have ever done before...but I know its not for anyone..dont just believe what I say, go and find out for yourself too...
An important part out of that piece:
"Intermittent fasting with compensatory overeating “did not improve mouse survival nor did it delay prostrate tumor growth,” the study concluded."
It's the weight loss that leads to health benefits, not the fasting itself.12 -
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).4 -
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).
There is also logic. IF means not eating an extra 2-4 hours, typically. Do all the miracles happen and your whole body changes the way it works when you spend an extra couple of hours not eating?6 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »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).
There is also logic. IF means not eating an extra 2-4 hours, typically. Do all the miracles happen and your whole body changes the way it works when you spend an extra couple of hours not eating?
I think you are on to something. It sees to be living mainly on ketones is where a lot of health recovery may begin. Of course an obese person losing weight is positive I think most will agree but just losing weight does not mean one has moved over to burning mainly ketones instead of the more highly inflammatory glucose.
It seems medically speaking a person living mainly in a state of nutritional ketosis can expect to avoid developing Type 2 diabetes for example.
If you want to call anything a miracle perhaps is lies in the difference between burning glucose or ketones as our main fuel source.16 -
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 it1
-
Please post you proof source for this statement.GaleHawkins wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »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).
There is also logic. IF means not eating an extra 2-4 hours, typically. Do all the miracles happen and your whole body changes the way it works when you spend an extra couple of hours not eating?
I think you are on to something. It sees to be living mainly on ketones is where a lot of health recovery may begin. Of course an obese person losing weight is positive I think most will agree but just losing weight does not mean one has moved over to burning mainly ketones instead of the more highly inflammatory glucose.
It seems medically speaking a person living mainly in a state of nutritional ketosis can expect to avoid developing Type 2 diabetes for example.
If you want to call anything a miracle perhaps is lies in the difference between burning glucose or ketones as our main fuel source.
9 -
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.1 -
LiftHeavyThings27105 wrote: »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.
If you are not using IF as a way to regulate calories then I fail to see the point. CICO still is in effect whether you consume all of your calories in an 8 hour window or not. If you eat more calories than maintenance in that time, you will still gain weight. If you consume fewer calories, you will lose weight. If you are trying to keep it simple, then that's as simple as it gets.
6
This discussion has been closed.
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.3K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 388 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.4K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 910 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.2K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions