Alternate day fasting here

Stud47 wrote: »

The catch is that you can't access the energy stored as fat until you've first depleted the liver of sugars. So, if you continue with high eating frequencies you are keeping your body in a constant fed state your body will continue to get energy from incoming food sources never depleting the liver of sugar and never allowing your body to access the stored fat on your body thereby leading to weight gain.

The key to unlocking the fat stores is Fasting.

With ADF especially True ADF (zero cal on fasting days), you are quite certain to lose weight because its a lifestyle more than calories deficit that ends most of the time by regaining all the weight losted.

I'm glad you're doing something that works for you. But the first bolded statement is not true, as many people here who have lost weight without fasting can attest (including me).
The reason fasting works for you is because it helps you attain a caloric deficit (burning more calories than you consume) by limiting your consumption.

The second bold statement regarding weight regain is not because something is wrong with a calorie deficit as a method, it's because people revert to old habits, etc. Just like when you stop fasting, you can gain back the weight as well.

Stud47 wrote: »

When you eat more food than you can readily expend the excess energy is stored away for later use. When we eat our insulin levels increase and help to store energy in two ways. Sugars form long chains and are stored as glycogen in the liver. This energy source is for immediate use. There is limited storage space in the liver so; once capacity is reached the liver then begins to turn excess energy into fat to be stored on the body. There is no limit to how much fat can be stored on the body.

The catch is that you can't access the energy stored as fat until you've first depleted the liver of sugars. So, if you continue with high eating frequencies you are keeping your body in a constant fed state your body will continue to get energy from incoming food sources never depleting the liver of sugar and never allowing your body to access the stored fat on your body thereby leading to weight gain.

The key to unlocking the fat stores is Fasting.

Just for education - another incorrect aspect of physiology.

Insulin sends glucose to liver AND muscles stores first - and it's what you use as energy while the insulin is elevated. Along with available fat from meal or already in blood stream.
It's why even in deficit eating, ie maintenance - little of carbs is actually stored as fat in the first place. And if it happens to be - it's pulled right back out and burned.

In a diet that all happens quicker than not in a diet - and insulin lowers sooner than later.

And then ditto to sijomial when fat is used.

I IF too, usually about 20:4 just because of schedule.
And I'd never make it through the day and a 2 hr bike ride on only liver glucose store - fat is predominant energy source as shown out from metabolic tests, until I get to that bike ride, when glycogen becomes majority.

Glad it's working for you, OP. From time to time there have been people on the boards who have had great success losing significant portions of their weight this way. It seems it works best in the early days with folks who have a lot to lose and difficulty transitioning to portion sizes appropriate to their goals. E.g. one day they don't have to think about it and the next they get to eat double the appropriate amount which is more satisfying to them.

Over time and with ADF success, two things happen- one physiological and one mental.

1) As body fat decreases, the energy available daily from body fat decreases. There is a metabolic limit to how much fat a body can convert to energy per unit time; it is not unlimited. An often used rule of thumb (that I personally have tried to source without success) to estimate just how much energy you can get from fat daily is 30kcal/lb fat/day. Someone with 100lb lean and 100lb fat can get up to 3,000 kcal of energy per day just from fat stores, without eating anything. Once that same person leans down to 20 lb fat, they can get 600kcal of energy MAX from fat without eating. The lean person is going to feel a lot more run down and tired than the person with greater fat stores. The lean person is also at higher risk for losing lean mass with frequent fasting. Hence, people who have used ADF successfully eventually reach a point of leanness where they feel better when they even out their intake.

2) As you near GW, it's a good idea to think about and plan for how you are going to maintain that weight. ADF may not be a good long term strategy for the physiological reason above, which means you have to habituate yourself to eating, enjoying and feeling satisfied with the appropriate portion sizes for your GW. I remember one person who lost a lot using ADF indicating that when she neared GW, she switched to eating at maintenance for GW. It was a pretty slow rate of loss, but she reached her goal and by that point had a lot of practice and had developed a lot of habits around appropriate portion sizes.

There are lots of ways to be successful losing weight. There is no one right way that works best for everyone, and there may not be one right way that works forever with the same person. Everyone has to adapt on occasion. I wish you every success with ADF, OP!