Intermittent fasting ? Does it work for you????

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Replies

  • elisa123gal
    elisa123gal Posts: 4,333 Member
    no it didn't.. but I think for people with binging eating disorders ..it helps them. it is either feast or famine for them. doesn't fix the problem.. but at least they can lose weight.
  • soufauxgirl
    soufauxgirl Posts: 392 Member
    lbzmse wrote: »
    Ok thanks ! I will just eat when I’m hungry and mind my calories 💪🏼👌💯

    Yep that's it really.
  • L1zardQueen
    L1zardQueen Posts: 8,753 Member
    redhed1971 wrote: »
    This is paraphrased from an article, written by a dietician, that I read recently on IF (wish I'd copied the title and author): Fasting triggers beneficial hormonal changes. Insulin levels drop when you fast, allowing your cells to release stored fat and use it more effectively. Fasting also stimulates a housekeeping process called “autophagy.” With no food around to process, your cells can use that spare time to remove damaged cells.

    I was losing quite well on keto, and even with 5-6 days of week of mod to high-intensity exercise and sticking to plan (including logging everything, and adjusting cals and macros as I lost weight), hit a longish plateau. I decided to try IF and chose 16:8, which fit very easily into my lifestyle. I felt hungry in the AMs for a day or two, but now I don't at all. I eat all my meals between 12:30 and about 8 PM. It helped me bust through the plateau, without adjusting my calories down or changing anything else. I feel really good. It may not be for everyone, but it is working for me.

    If I can track down the article I read, I will post the title and author.
    redhed1971 wrote: »
    This is paraphrased from an article, written by a dietician, that I read recently on IF (wish I'd copied the title and author): Fasting triggers beneficial hormonal changes. Insulin levels drop when you fast, allowing your cells to release stored fat and use it more effectively. Fasting also stimulates a housekeeping process called “autophagy.” With no food around to process, your cells can use that spare time to remove damaged cells.

    I was losing quite well on keto, and even with 5-6 days of week of mod to high-intensity exercise and sticking to plan (including logging everything, and adjusting cals and macros as I lost weight), hit a longish plateau. I decided to try IF and chose 16:8, which fit very easily into my lifestyle. I felt hungry in the AMs for a day or two, but now I don't at all. I eat all my meals between 12:30 and about 8 PM. It helped me bust through the plateau, without adjusting my calories down or changing anything else. I feel really good. It may not be for everyone, but it is working for me.

    If I can track down the article I read, I will post the title and author.

    This?https://www.dietdoctor.com/fasting-affects-physiology-hormones

  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    when you put your info into mfp youre activity setting is what you do daily for a job. so you need to put that in and you need to eat the calories it gives you, your deficit is built in without exercise aside from your job. you are seriously underfueling your body. even doing IF you need to make sure you get enough calories in. you are not doing your body or organs even any justice eating so little. your TDEE should be more than 2500 if you lug around boxes all day.so go back and re enter your height,weight,and your day to day acivities and how much you want to lose(if its more than 75lbs you can put 2lbs a week. and eat to your calorie goal. any extra exercise you will need to eat at least some of those calories back and gauge in a a month or so how your weight loss is going. right now you are eating too little and burning too much. a lot of lean mass is definitely being lost even if you dont feel it your organs and heart is also a muscle. so damage can be done there too.

    UPS is only 3 hours a night, and I'm mostly gaming the rest of the day, so I figured that about evened out to lightly active. As far as underfueling goes, I have more energy than I've had in years, and my body isn't telling me I'm hungry all of the time like it did when I was eating 2500-4000 calories a day, so I'm not inclined to argue with it really. I've got plenty of fat stores to with for now.

    I was at the doc not long ago about high blood pressure. She said try diet and exercise. My blood pressure is now lower than ever. Around 117/80, so my heart is probably fine? Used to be 168/90 range.

    I'll hit my goal weight soon, and then I'll take your suggestion and bump up my calories closer to maintenance range, and keep up with MFP for about a month to see how that goes. My next challenge is building muscle, because I've never done it intentionally, so I'm not too concerned about losing muscle mass. Lifted a friend that's pushing 220 without much effort yesterday, so I'm still where I like to be on strength.

    just because you arent hungry now doesnt mean nothing is happening. that happens at first with low calorie diets then your body will signal for you to eat more or it will start trying to reserve energy you may become tired or feel worn out. as for blood pressure it has nothing to do with your heart being bad or not. I have heart issues and my blood pressure is fine. my hubbys heart is fine and he had high blood pressure(change in diet helped his and hes not even overweight) my daughter is obese due to a thryoid issue and no high blood pressure either, she has no heart issues .

    so normal blood pressure has no indication on heart issues,you can have high blood pressure whether you have a healthy heart or not. if youve lost weight that can bring blood pressure down. as for having fat stores. if your pics are accurate you do NOT have the fat stores to eat so little. yes you have fat to lose but its not like you are over 300 lbs.as for losing muscle building it back up later on is a LOT harder than you think and why would you want to do that? but you do you
  • SFLiminality
    SFLiminality Posts: 16 Member
    just because you arent hungry now doesnt mean nothing is happening. that happens at first with low calorie diets then your body will signal for you to eat more or it will start trying to reserve energy you may become tired or feel worn out. as for blood pressure it has nothing to do with your heart being bad or not. I have heart issues and my blood pressure is fine. my hubbys heart is fine and he had high blood pressure(change in diet helped his and hes not even overweight) my daughter is obese due to a thryoid issue and no high blood pressure either, she has no heart issues .

    so normal blood pressure has no indication on heart issues,you can have high blood pressure whether you have a healthy heart or not. if youve lost weight that can bring blood pressure down. as for having fat stores. if your pics are accurate you do NOT have the fat stores to eat so little. yes you have fat to lose but its not like you are over 300 lbs.as for losing muscle building it back up later on is a LOT harder than you think and why would you want to do that? but you do you

    Like I've said before. I've done low calorie diets before. They sucked. I was pretty much always hungry because I kept trying to have evenly spaced 400-600 calorie meals. This feels different. I'm not hungry and lethargic all of the time. Week one and two was me being cranky, and generally bleh feeling, but 3, and 4 have been pretty decent. Week 5 now is easy mode. I might even stick with fasting on and off during my maintenance since I'll already be adapted to it.

    Either way. My blood pressure being lower is putting less stress on my heart. Outside of a doctors visit, I have no idea what's going on in there. I'm actually planning to get some labs done soonish, so I'll have to see if they measure heart health somehow.

    As far as muscle gain goes, I'm not concerned about it being hard. I don't think it will be easy in fact. I'm just curious as to what I can accomplish.

  • SFLiminality
    SFLiminality Posts: 16 Member
    I'd be more convinced if the before picture were from the same angle so we could see your posture.

    I thought of that after the fact. All I can do is update the after picture obviously, haha. ejedonc1knsd.jpg
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    just because you arent hungry now doesnt mean nothing is happening. that happens at first with low calorie diets then your body will signal for you to eat more or it will start trying to reserve energy you may become tired or feel worn out. as for blood pressure it has nothing to do with your heart being bad or not. I have heart issues and my blood pressure is fine. my hubbys heart is fine and he had high blood pressure(change in diet helped his and hes not even overweight) my daughter is obese due to a thryoid issue and no high blood pressure either, she has no heart issues .

    so normal blood pressure has no indication on heart issues,you can have high blood pressure whether you have a healthy heart or not. if youve lost weight that can bring blood pressure down. as for having fat stores. if your pics are accurate you do NOT have the fat stores to eat so little. yes you have fat to lose but its not like you are over 300 lbs.as for losing muscle building it back up later on is a LOT harder than you think and why would you want to do that? but you do you

    Like I've said before. I've done low calorie diets before. They sucked. I was pretty much always hungry because I kept trying to have evenly spaced 400-600 calorie meals. This feels different. I'm not hungry and lethargic all of the time. Week one and two was me being cranky, and generally bleh feeling, but 3, and 4 have been pretty decent. Week 5 now is easy mode. I might even stick with fasting on and off during my maintenance since I'll already be adapted to it.

    Either way. My blood pressure being lower is putting less stress on my heart. Outside of a doctors visit, I have no idea what's going on in there. I'm actually planning to get some labs done soonish, so I'll have to see if they measure heart health somehow.

    As far as muscle gain goes, I'm not concerned about it being hard. I don't think it will be easy in fact. I'm just curious as to what I can accomplish.

    it would take echocardiograms,ultrasounds,stress tests and so on to check if you have heart issues. you are still in whats called the honeymoon phase of a low calorie diet. it will catch up to you when you least expect it if you keep up for any length of time. kidney stones is one issue that can crop up,hormones can become out of whack,sex drive can go down,brittle nails and hair loss are another issue that can come from too low of calories.my sisters heart was fine until she decided to do cycles of low calories then do high calories and then low calories.

    of course she abused laxatives and so on but for the most part she starved herself. she now has to have stents put in due to the abuse she put her body through because she was losing weight so fast not eating enough,it damaged her heart. not to mention that toddlers over a certain age eat 1200 or more calories to fuel their bodies, so do you really want to eat the amount a toddler eats? does eating that little make sense to you?

    a grown man needs more calories than a toddler. but like I said you do whatever it is that floats your boat. you will have to decide whether or not you want to put your body under excess stress from eating too little. and stress means cortisol levels can go up,injuries can happen ,the list goes on and on.doesnt it say something to you that a woman who is sedentary can eat more calories than you and still lose weight?if you think you dont need more than 1200(or less) calories you really need to see someone because that to me is a sign of disordered eating when you think eating too little to fuel your body is ok to do.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,097 Member
    just because you arent hungry now doesnt mean nothing is happening. that happens at first with low calorie diets then your body will signal for you to eat more or it will start trying to reserve energy you may become tired or feel worn out. as for blood pressure it has nothing to do with your heart being bad or not. I have heart issues and my blood pressure is fine. my hubbys heart is fine and he had high blood pressure(change in diet helped his and hes not even overweight) my daughter is obese due to a thryoid issue and no high blood pressure either, she has no heart issues .

    so normal blood pressure has no indication on heart issues,you can have high blood pressure whether you have a healthy heart or not. if youve lost weight that can bring blood pressure down. as for having fat stores. if your pics are accurate you do NOT have the fat stores to eat so little. yes you have fat to lose but its not like you are over 300 lbs.as for losing muscle building it back up later on is a LOT harder than you think and why would you want to do that? but you do you

    Like I've said before. I've done low calorie diets before. They sucked. I was pretty much always hungry because I kept trying to have evenly spaced 400-600 calorie meals. This feels different. I'm not hungry and lethargic all of the time. Week one and two was me being cranky, and generally bleh feeling, but 3, and 4 have been pretty decent. Week 5 now is easy mode. I might even stick with fasting on and off during my maintenance since I'll already be adapted to it.

    Either way. My blood pressure being lower is putting less stress on my heart. Outside of a doctors visit, I have no idea what's going on in there. I'm actually planning to get some labs done soonish, so I'll have to see if they measure heart health somehow.

    As far as muscle gain goes, I'm not concerned about it being hard. I don't think it will be easy in fact. I'm just curious as to what I can accomplish.

    What about muscle loss while you're undereating? Your heart is a muscle. You don't want to damage it from long-term steep deficits.
  • SFLiminality
    SFLiminality Posts: 16 Member
    What about muscle loss while you're undereating? Your heart is a muscle. You don't want to damage it from long-term steep deficits.

    Even if I am experiencing some muscle loss, (Not enough to prevent me from doing anything that I do normally, but I'd guess I've lost some.) I highly doubt that the body is so dumb to choose my heart as the first place it takes proteins from when it has so many other options. I feel like our species would have died out long ago if that was the case. I could be wrong. *shrug*
  • redhed1971
    redhed1971 Posts: 11 Member
    ZeetaFit - thanks for posting the link to that article. It isn't the one I read, but very helpful.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    just because you arent hungry now doesnt mean nothing is happening. that happens at first with low calorie diets then your body will signal for you to eat more or it will start trying to reserve energy you may become tired or feel worn out. as for blood pressure it has nothing to do with your heart being bad or not. I have heart issues and my blood pressure is fine. my hubbys heart is fine and he had high blood pressure(change in diet helped his and hes not even overweight) my daughter is obese due to a thryoid issue and no high blood pressure either, she has no heart issues .

    so normal blood pressure has no indication on heart issues,you can have high blood pressure whether you have a healthy heart or not. if youve lost weight that can bring blood pressure down. as for having fat stores. if your pics are accurate you do NOT have the fat stores to eat so little. yes you have fat to lose but its not like you are over 300 lbs.as for losing muscle building it back up later on is a LOT harder than you think and why would you want to do that? but you do you

    Like I've said before. I've done low calorie diets before. They sucked. I was pretty much always hungry because I kept trying to have evenly spaced 400-600 calorie meals. This feels different. I'm not hungry and lethargic all of the time. Week one and two was me being cranky, and generally bleh feeling, but 3, and 4 have been pretty decent. Week 5 now is easy mode. I might even stick with fasting on and off during my maintenance since I'll already be adapted to it.

    Either way. My blood pressure being lower is putting less stress on my heart. Outside of a doctors visit, I have no idea what's going on in there. I'm actually planning to get some labs done soonish, so I'll have to see if they measure heart health somehow.

    As far as muscle gain goes, I'm not concerned about it being hard. I don't think it will be easy in fact. I'm just curious as to what I can accomplish.

    What about muscle loss while you're undereating? Your heart is a muscle. You don't want to damage it from long-term steep deficits.

    Ive said that too. its fallen basically on deaf ears. my sister has to have stents put in at 31 years of age due to years of eating too little and abusing her body with not eating enough,laxatives,and eating disorders(stints of starving herself for months on end,then binging and purging for months on end,then overeating for awhile and then back to the starvation diets).
  • mmapags
    mmapags Posts: 8,934 Member
    just because you arent hungry now doesnt mean nothing is happening. that happens at first with low calorie diets then your body will signal for you to eat more or it will start trying to reserve energy you may become tired or feel worn out. as for blood pressure it has nothing to do with your heart being bad or not. I have heart issues and my blood pressure is fine. my hubbys heart is fine and he had high blood pressure(change in diet helped his and hes not even overweight) my daughter is obese due to a thryoid issue and no high blood pressure either, she has no heart issues .

    so normal blood pressure has no indication on heart issues,you can have high blood pressure whether you have a healthy heart or not. if youve lost weight that can bring blood pressure down. as for having fat stores. if your pics are accurate you do NOT have the fat stores to eat so little. yes you have fat to lose but its not like you are over 300 lbs.as for losing muscle building it back up later on is a LOT harder than you think and why would you want to do that? but you do you

    Like I've said before. I've done low calorie diets before. They sucked. I was pretty much always hungry because I kept trying to have evenly spaced 400-600 calorie meals. This feels different. I'm not hungry and lethargic all of the time. Week one and two was me being cranky, and generally bleh feeling, but 3, and 4 have been pretty decent. Week 5 now is easy mode. I might even stick with fasting on and off during my maintenance since I'll already be adapted to it.

    Either way. My blood pressure being lower is putting less stress on my heart. Outside of a doctors visit, I have no idea what's going on in there. I'm actually planning to get some labs done soonish, so I'll have to see if they measure heart health somehow.

    As far as muscle gain goes, I'm not concerned about it being hard. I don't think it will be easy in fact. I'm just curious as to what I can accomplish.

    What about muscle loss while you're undereating? Your heart is a muscle. You don't want to damage it from long-term steep deficits.

    Ive said that too. its fallen basically on deaf ears. my sister has to have stents put in at 31 years of age due to years of eating too little and abusing her body with not eating enough,laxatives,and eating disorders(stints of starving herself for months on end,then binging and purging for months on end,then overeating for awhile and then back to the starvation diets).

    Yes, it's been pointed out. You can't counsel someone who refuses to listen.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    it would take echocardiograms,ultrasounds,stress tests and so on to check if you have heart issues. you are still in whats called the honeymoon phase of a low calorie diet. it will catch up to you when you least expect it if you keep up for any length of time. kidney stones is one issue that can crop up,hormones can become out of whack,sex drive can go down,brittle nails and hair loss are another issue that can come from too low of calories.my sisters heart was fine until she decided to do cycles of low calories then do high calories and then low calories.

    of course she abused laxatives and so on but for the most part she starved herself. she now has to have stents put in due to the abuse she put her body through because she was losing weight so fast not eating enough,it damaged her heart. not to mention that toddlers over a certain age eat 1200 or more calories to fuel their bodies, so do you really want to eat the amount a toddler eats? does eating that little make sense to you?

    a grown man needs more calories than a toddler. but like I said you do whatever it is that floats your boat. you will have to decide whether or not you want to put your body under excess stress from eating too little. and stress means cortisol levels can go up,injuries can happen ,the list goes on and on.doesnt it say something to you that a woman who is sedentary can eat more calories than you and still lose weight?if you think you dont need more than 1200(or less) calories you really need to see someone because that to me is a sign of disordered eating when you think eating too little to fuel your body is ok to do.


    I guess I'll find out if "any length of time" is 6 weeks. Should be at or around my goat weight by then. If my body decides to betray me before then, or my labs turn up something awful, I'll make a forum post about it.

    I'm not currently experiencing any concerning side effects. Everything is functioning as usual except that my energy levels are higher than normal, and I've lost my interest in sweets, which I'll take.

    Developing bodies need lots of nutrients. Yes. There are however, lab studies on adults where they go on extended fasts. They seem to do fine. Gandhi did several extended fasts. One lasting for 27 days I believe and he died at 73 when he was assassinated. I have at least a little faith in the human body being built to survive.

    I know that I CAN lose weight on a higher calorie diet, I'm just not interested in dragging this out for another few months when I can be done in a week and switch to my next challenge. Not terribly concerned about cortisol levels. I'll see if they pop up in the labs, but I have a decently paying job, get plenty of sleep, good insurance, no children, and I'm not dating, so life is pretty comfortably laid back. Like I said though. I'll see what pops up in the labs.

    In short, I've done a fair amount of research. I'm pretty familiar with when my body isn't having any of my nonsense, and I'll let my doctor's visit be the judge overall, but I'm going to continue listening to my body in the meantime. It seems to be doing alright.

    yeah and look how emaciated ghandi looked, and its said he did not allow pics to be taken while he was fasting, so he was already very thin.and he did fasting for a purpose a protest. sure he lived until he was 73 but that doesnt mean he didnt have health issues due to it. and just because he did it for 27 days doesnt mean its safe to do either. he had health issues from what I read but doesnt say what they were the man ate very little and you can see that from most of his pics. comparing yourself to someone who fasted for political reason to yourself eating so little and thinking its ok its ludicrous. others here have told you that its not safe but obviously you arent going to listen and you think just because you feel fine now that down the road you wont have issues that come from this. but you do what you have to do. as for cortisol levels most drs do NOT test for that,it usually increases belly fat and its a stress hormone at that. your social status,home life and so on has no bearing on anything else either.
  • SFLiminality
    SFLiminality Posts: 16 Member
    mmapags wrote: »
    Yes, there is evidence. In rats not humans. He is indicating these benefits for human. There is neither evidence or proof of those benefits for humans yet.

    Many things look promising in rat trails that don't prove out for people. There is enough evidence to justify studying it. To call it "promising" is to editorialize.

    There is actually a pretty good Youtube video by a doctor studying this stuff that says exactly what you said. A lot of things that work for humans regarding ketosis don't translate over to rats, and vice versa.
  • CharlieBeansmomTracey
    CharlieBeansmomTracey Posts: 7,682 Member
    yeah and look how emaciated ghandi looked, and its said he did not allow pics to be taken while he was fasting, so he was already very thin.and he did fasting for a purpose a protest. sure he lived until he was 73 but that doesnt mean he didnt have health issues due to it. and just because he did it for 27 days doesnt mean its safe to do either. he had health issues from what I read but doesnt say what they were the man ate very little and you can see that from most of his pics. comparing yourself to someone who fasted for political reason to yourself eating so little and thinking its ok its ludicrous. others here have told you that its not safe but obviously you arent going to listen and you think just because you feel fine now that down the road you wont have issues that come from this. but you do what you have to do. as for cortisol levels most drs do NOT test for that,it usually increases belly fat and its a stress hormone at that. your social status,home life and so on has no bearing on anything else either.

    ... I'm bringing up Ghandi to point out that doing 6 weeks of IF on between 1200-1700 calories isn't going to make turn my body into some wasteland of medical conditions. We store body fat to use as calories in times when our body feels it necessary. IF is designed to put you into a fat burning state. I'm pretty much always in high levels fat burning. I can measure it. That's why I'm not highly concerned about my short term calorie intake.

    It sounds like your sis is suffering from years of disordered eating. I'm shredding, and then I'm going to put on some muscle. I want to see what I can accomplish. We've made it this far as a species, and we have had to deal with much worse than I'm putting myself through for a short time.

    And you telling me doctors don't test for cortisol is weird as my friend went to the doc and they told her that her cortisol levels were unusually high. How did she find that out if the doctor didn't test it?

    And yeah. I don't expect issues down the road from this. If they crop up, I'll be a cautionary tale I guess, but I highly doubt it. I'll see what my doc has to say. I'm almost positive that you are wrong about your home live having to do nothing with cortisol levels. It's a stress hormone. Your daily stressors affect it.

    nope its not strange cortisol levels are not routinely checked unless your friend has an issue that results in a cortisol issue which can happen. I get blood work done every 3 months and cortisol is not part of the testing,unless I ask for it since I have no issues for them to want to test it. and intermittent fasting is NOT a way to burn fat., your body can only burn so much fat a day. fat is lost in a deficit whether you fast or not.we also do not store fat in a deficit which is why a deficit is needed to lose fat.

    how are you measuring when you are in a high level of fat burning? and while you are shredding(aka a calorie deficit) 1200 is still too little for a male. plain and simple. you have a lot of misinformation on how fasting really works or doesnt work or how fat is lost, my point was cortisol can and is raised by stress you put on your body, such as too little calories and for some too much exercise or a combo.


    your diet can be a even bigger stressor . Like I said you do whatever but you fasting is not making your fat loss any faster its your HUGE deficit when you eat 1200 or less. its not the fasting. you were saying that since you have no kids and so on that your basically arent stressed. you may not be but your body mosst likely is and you cant always tell when it is or not. you dont always have symptoms when you have issues with your body. some things never show any signs until it kills you. a perfectly healthy adult can drop dead of a heart attack and not have any symptoms prior to the event.
  • gstaubs1
    gstaubs1 Posts: 200 Member
    Hell no I cant stand starving myself it causes headaches and mood swings. I would rather eat food and feel good and work out.
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