The Latest Trend is Fasting: What say you?

Hey hey ! I personally have had a really bad experience with fasting - water fasting, that is, not IF. It triggered again a dormant eating disorder, and I took about three years to recover from it. It also led me to gain a good 7 kilos, which was obviously the reason I intended to fast in the first place. It also took me forever to recover my natural, quite high metabolism. I strongly believe it can trigger binge eating habits.
That said, I know plenty people who simply don't feel hungry at breakfast, or prefer to sleep a bit longer. That is perfectly fine with them, as they're not "forcing their nature.". So really it depends on how you feel about it.

IF was prescribed to me by my neurologist for managing nerve pain. It's done absolutely nothing for the nerve pain, but it's been AMAZING for my energy levels and weight loss. Plus my finicky stomach is much less finicky, my acid reflux is basically gone, I'm enjoying food a lot more, and I get far fewer drops in my blood sugar than I used to.

I used to get violent blood sugar drops, my vision would go wonky, nausea, shakes, lose my ability to speak clearly, and become really agitated and aggressive. When it happened, I absolutely had to eat urgently or I would throw up and/or pass out unless I could lie down. Now I can go an entire day without eating and not have that happen anymore.

When I originally heard of IF I thought it was the dumbest thing I had ever heard of. In fact that's exactly what I said to my employee who told me she was doing it years ago. But it's been a massive quality of life improvement for me. Still doing eff-all for my nerve pain, but I don't see ever going back to multiple meals a day.

But that's me and my unique body. You never know how any individual will react to any given way of eating.

I agree with others though, you have to be clear as to why you want to try it. What is your goal?
Also, fasting has been popular for as long as we have record of human eating behaviour. It's not a new thing, it's just getting a lot of media attention recently.

I skipped breakfast for over a year, my form of IF. Skipping breakfast made it easier to stay within my calorie goal and still have calories for an engerlingen snack.

Then I started eating (high protein) breakfast again, when I noticed my protein intake was low.

Didn't notice any difference in my weight-loss, my mood, my energy level... My hunger never when away when I stopped eating breakfast, my stomach would growl like a mad man in the morning. Nice and awkward when there's a quiet moment at the office and your stomach decides to roar 🤪

I still skip breakfast occasionally, when I know I'll have a high calorie dinner or lunch. That's about the only benefit I experienced.

Peppegal wrote: »

By experts and pros I mean doctors and qualified people not magazine articles by opinion writers. I've done a lot of research on it and for sure, it's not for everyone. My son is a doctor and we discuss a lot of topics. The biggest problem is so many studies change what previous study said!

That's not actually a problem, that's how research works. It's how popular media reports it that's the problem.

Diets are extremely hard to research, so only little bits can be studied by individual experiments, and only small little pieces of data are generated with each study. Years and years of these small, specific studies eventually start adding up to a bigger picture, but never a totally clear one when it comes to diets in humans, because it's impossible to study them effectively.

So research will likely never produce a clear, definitive conclusion about any specific diet, that's just the nature of research. We can't isolate thousands of humans in a controlled environment and control how and what they eat for years on end, and unless we did that over and over again, we won't ever get the info we really need about diets and their effects on humans.

It's just stupid pop science reporting that makes it sound like individual studies actually conclude anything significant about a particular diet. They're just tiny little drops in the bucket.

Of course they will seem like they contradict each other, but that's only if you interpret each study to be "proving" something. They don't individually prove anything, they just add to the overall blurry picture.

That's research for you. It's a feature, not a flaw.

Peppegal wrote: »

The idea of fasting kind of scared me because I experience low blood sugar. But since I have been eating more fiber I find my blood sugar levels allow me to go further without food or fuel.
Remember those days when the experts said, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day." What happened to that!

Eight hours of sleep count towards your fasting. What do you think about this idea and have you tried it? Feel free to leave resources to support your claim when necessary. Personal experiences are always welcomed.

Also include how you have been feeling versus the claims from the pros, including; moods, hunger, weightloss, or that you just think it's another trend.

I'm anxious to know!!!

~Resa

IF wouldn't be enjoyable for me (it's a personality thing), and it was 100% not necessary to me for weight management. I did and do eat from shortly after I get up in the morning, to right before bedtime. I lost weight at a good clip (at age 59-60, while hypothyroid, without much changing exercise or the range of foods I ate, class 1 obese to healthy weight), and I've been at a healthy weight since (now 66) after previous decades of overweight/obesity.

On top of that, if I work out fasted, my workouts feel awful, and I struggle to keep intensity up. (This isn't true for everyone, but is for me.)

To me, fasting isn't worth it, for any benefit for which I've seen reasonable evidence.

I find particularly odd the argument that natural selection designed us to go for long periods without eating, so that implies that we best thrive if we go for long periods without eating. Why would that be true? Natural selection designed us so that our broken bones can heal, too, but no one suggests healthy people should routinely break bones in order to make them stronger.

In evolutionary terms, it would be good if starving people could keep going, maybe even get a burst of energy so that they don't quickly give up on food-seeking behavior. That doesn't in itself mean food deprivation is optimal, when we have other choices.

Curmudgeon/ I'm skeptical of trendy things in general: I'm pretty old. Trends come and go. Sensible stuff is often kind of boring, especially as conversation fodder, less likely to be trendy. /curmudgeon

I've done 16:8 IF for about 2 years for about 90% of that time. I've lost weight doing IF. I've gained weight doing IF. When I lost weight doing IF, it was coupled with tracking calories and working out 5/7 days a week. When I gained weight with IF, just the opposite - I didn't track and probably didn't work out as much. So why do I continue doing IF? Mainly as a reminder to myself to "close the kitchen" at 8pm and to not mindlessly snack in the evening. It's been quite helpful as a mindset.

As far as skipping breakfast, not really a problem for me. I'm generally not hungry in the mornings (more thirsty than anything). I also workout in the morning around 9am and prefer to exercise fasted.

What I personally think...
I am from South of Italy, and my maternal grandparents were from Apulia. My granddad died of Alzheimer at 82, otherwise he was very very healthy, his wife my grandma died at 97, she got diabetes type 2 after menopause, although she had quite a healthy diet.

ANYWAY, when they were young they used to fast, not because they wanted to, but it was the II world war, there was poverty before it and after. My grandad's family was of farm workers (not owner of land!) and they used to have No breakfast at all or just soup (yeah, vegetables and that is it). They did not have it for breakfast, they used to go to bed at 9, wake up at 4, work until 12 and then have "breakfast" which was...soup and maybe, MAYBE a piece of bread (sometimes stale). They were all slim..but they were healthy?
Not sure.

Luckily enough, they managed to get passed the War, got better jobs and had a healthy diet, but still, breakfast..meh. maybe a coffee (home made), rarely milk and never ever croissants. I think they never had that.

So I think there's a need to divide between the WILL to fast, the NEED to fast (for medical reason) and well, Fasting because you do not have food.

We have food, plenty. Food is accessible and yes, junk food is even cheaper than proper food in some countries (and I am not talking of 2nd or 3rd world countries- I hate this distinction, but it is to explain myself better). When I was living in central London, I remember that buying fresh fennel would cost me 1.50 pound per piece (back in 2019), and the same in central Dublin, when I moved there. Here In Italy, you can buy 1 kg fennel for max 4 euro (so at least 4 or 5 pieces). Junk Food in London was way too cheap, and in Dublin too, in Italy you have junk food but is as expensive as good food. So I am not sure why, but still, processed food in some countries is cheaper than whole food.
So yes, we have plenty of food, and we feel the need to fast. Why?

Do we need to fast to lose weight? Would not not eat better to eat properly during the day, the 5 meals a day rule (not my opinion, doctors ' opinion!), than skip breakfast ?
Why do we need to workout on an empty stomach?To better perform? To burn more calorie?
And then, how do we feel after working out on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning?

I personally can't do it. I tried, but I can't. In the morning, I am hungry. I suffer from PCOS and Hypersulinism, and in the morning I need fuel. I can skip lunch, to be honest, and have an early dinner, but this does not count as fasting.

That said, I would love to go to a retreat to do fasting, meditation, reading, walks, swim, massages, Spa treatments.. Yet I do not have 5 k to fast


ps: sorry, my English got worse since I got back to Italy