Intermittent fasting
aoapyro1134
Posts: 6 Member
I am 38 years old, currently weighing in at right around 270 (started around 313). I have a pretty sedentary job. I have been on my journey since July of this year. I have been steadily losing 2-3 lbs per week, even though every Saturday is my cheat day. It's the only way to keep my sanity lol. I try to work out 3-4 times a week doing weight training, and walking the dog for about a mile and a half. I have taken the last 3 weeks off from working out due to a sore elbow, but it's getting there. This past week I decided to try intermittent fasting. I eat for 8 hours a day, still staying within my caloric goal, and then fast for 16. The first couple of days were hard, but doable. At the end of the week I hopped on the scale and had lost 9 pounds in one week! (Including having a cheat day). Is this normal for fasting? Any input/experience would be appreciated. Sorry for the long post.
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If you didn't eat drastically less than before, it seems a bit strange.
I have a different potential theory for the weight loss: the fact that you haven't worked out for a few weeks. Exercising can lead to water retention for muscle repair, so likewise stopping strength training can lead to a loss of water weight? Which coincidentally happened the week you started intermittent fasting?
Another possibility is, depending on your fasting schedule, that you have less food in your digestive tract in the morning when you weight yourself (in the case that your latest meal/snack is earlier in the day than it was before).5 -
For me, intermittent fasting didn't work as I will tend to eat the calories I was supposed to save during the fast. For you, it probably does! So congrats....it should be calories in versus calories out. Do you log your food and exercise? Perhaps you burning more that you're eating?0
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Yes, fasting can be very helpful. It’s a good way to kick start your metabolism. One thing I recommend to people who have a sedentary job is every 45 minutes to an hour, stand and stretch and do arm circles or arm scissors. I usually do as many as I’m able to do of each for 1 minute. It can be very helpful to stimulate your heart as well as tone up your arms at the same time. It’s a nice way to burn calories during the workday.4
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Yes, this is normal because you are are also eating within your caloric allowance and you still have quite a bit of weight to lose, as you continue you probably won't lose as much each week. But if you stay the course and get back to exercising you will be pleasantly surprised, you will literally have to make yourself eat when you are supposed to ( I literally do not be hungry, I'm diabetic so I have to eat something to take my meds) but even if you eat what we call a little bit it can be more than your allotted calories for the day to be able to lose weight( you probably won't gain, but not lose as much as you want) that's where myfitnesspal comes in where you log in your food and keep up with your calories and you need to have a food scale. I love Intermittent fasting because it actually helps with my Diabetes big time It keeps my doctor so proud of me that he told other diabetic patients to do it and I just love eating this way.3
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JustRamona wrote: »For me, intermittent fasting didn't work as I will tend to eat the calories I was supposed to save during the fast. For you, it probably does! So congrats....it should be calories in versus calories out. Do you log your food and exercise? Perhaps you burning more that you're eating?
Yeah, I always log all of my food/drinks, except for my cheat day. I don't ever eat back burned calories, I just look at them as extra credit lol.2 -
Check out Dr Michael Mosley there are intersting articles around the proven science of TRE (Time Restricted Eating)and the best way to do it.
Burning fat by flipping the metabolic switch
We all use two different types of fuel to function: glucose and fat. If you eat and snack regularly throughout the day, your body gets a continual source of glucose from food to fuel your muscles. Any excess (if you eat more calories than you burn off through exercise) is then stored as fat. However, when you spend some time fasting and lowering your intake carbohydrates, the glucose supply temporarily runs out, and your body has to switch to taking fat from your fat stores to burn as fuel. Scientists call this fuel transfer ‘flipping the metabolic switch’.2 -
I log all my food. I don't log drinks since I only drink calorie-free drinks except for black coffee, and that is negligibly low anyway. I also don't eat back claimed exercise calories. If I did, I'd be gaining weight. I don't log them either. I never noticed exercise having any impact anyway.aoapyro1134 wrote: »Yeah, I always log all of my food/drinks, except for my cheat day. I don't ever eat back burned calories, I just look at them as extra credit lol.
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BartBVanBockstaele wrote: »
I log all my food. I don't log drinks since I only drink calorie-free drinks except for black coffee, and that is negligibly low anyway. I also don't eat back claimed exercise calories. If I did, I'd be gaining weight. I don't log them either. I never noticed exercise having any impact anyway.aoapyro1134 wrote: »Yeah, I always log all of my food/drinks, except for my cheat day. I don't ever eat back burned calories, I just look at them as extra credit lol.
If you're mathing correctly you wouldn't be gaining weight as you'd simply be accounting for activity that is not accounted for in your activity level and thus not accounted for in your calorie needs. I use the TDEE method which includes exercise upfront in my calorie targets and I get around 2400 calories per day to lose about 1 Lb per week. If I used MFP as designed my calorie target before exercise would be around 2000 calories per day...if I were to log exercise I would get additional calories to consume and on average, when I used MFP as designed, that came out to a total calorie target of 2300-2500 calories depending on the exercise that day...virtually the same as the TDEE method and I easily lost 40 Lbs doing this.
As to the importance, it depends. If one is doing a lot of exercise and not accounting for that in any manner and they've also selected an aggressive rate of loss, the chances are pretty good that they're going to create an overly large and unhealthy calorie deficit. I spent a good 5-6 years training for century and 1/2 century cycling events and it required many hours per week on the bike...had I not accounted for those calories (they were a lot) it would have been very bad news all the way around. If I'm just walking my dog a couple of miles, that's not as big of an issue because it's a fairly low calorie burn and a very light activity that requires basically no recovery.
I've been on here for over 10 years and I can't even count the number of people who crash their diets and then do a bunch of incessant exercise on top of that and come on here asking why they're losing their hair and losing their menstrual cycles, etc when the answer is pretty dang obvious.
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@cwolfman13 If it works for you, all the power to you. I have personally never noticed any difference between exercise and non-exercise. But then, all I do is walk at a relatively slow pace, albeit for long distances. If I believed what MFP tells me, I'd be dead by now, thanks to lack of energy intake. The fact that I am still here whining about it shows that the estimates are way off, at least for me. I don't have to tell you that is all they are anyway, estimates. If you are lucky, they are spot on. If you are even luckier, they are an underestimate. If you are like me, they are a gross overestimate.
That said, I am currently losing about 1.5 kg a month, i.e. 50 g a day, and that is quite fine. I'd love a little more, but the reduction in energy intake that would take would bring me close to hunger strike level, and that is not something I want to do. It certainly was a lot easier to lose when I was a lot fatter. Statistically speaking, I am of a normal weight now. Statistics are fine for population studies, not necessarily for individuals.
That said, I am very close to what the old Broca index considered "ideal weight" only 2.2 kg. My ideal weight is lower than that, but logic dictates it can't be much lower. Even the newer and lower German standard is only 4.7 kg away. All things being equal I expect to be at my ideal weight some time in the next quarter, regardless of how much that ideal weight actually is. My only preoccupation at this time is being careful not to go too far. While it is reasonable to make an effort to lose excessive weight, making an effort to reach underweight would be rather unreasonable.
In the end, all that counts is cold hard reality: 7700 kcal in 1 kg of body fat. Take in less energy than you need to stay alive and reserve storage will be used and weight will be lost as a result. It does help to have a good reliable scale. That is why I am using a mechanical medical scale. It is my dearest possession for this journey.
When I am ready, I will have lost a little over half my starting weight, so I am certainly not complaining ^_^.1 -
You may want to read and listen to what Krista Varady has to say on the subject. She is a professor at the university of Illinois in Chicago and while she is much less well-known that Michael Mosley, she is a pioneer in the field and the authority he based his programme on. She used to be really excited about intermittent fasting and wrote a book about it. As the years passed, and more science came in, she lost some of that initial enthusiasm, and is now much more realistic about it, even if she still sees it as a viable weight loss method for many people:Lizmossman wrote: »Check out Dr Michael Mosley there are intersting articles around the proven science of TRE (Time Restricted Eating)and the best way to do it.
Burning fat by flipping the metabolic switch
We all use two different types of fuel to function: glucose and fat. If you eat and snack regularly throughout the day, your body gets a continual source of glucose from food to fuel your muscles. Any excess (if you eat more calories than you burn off through exercise) is then stored as fat. However, when you spend some time fasting and lowering your intake carbohydrates, the glucose supply temporarily runs out, and your body has to switch to taking fat from your fat stores to burn as fuel. Scientists call this fuel transfer ‘flipping the metabolic switch’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsFJWsy9ddc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdzzJSyM_5E
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Your 9 lb loss had nothing to do with fasting in and of itself. IF has no special properties. It is just a protocol that helps some people control calories. IF tends to be less effective for women. Certainly no harm in self experimenting and seeing how it feels for you.2
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I remember when we used to call intermittent fasting "skipping breakfast"
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9lbs is an awesome weight loss! Keep going, you got this.
IF has worked for me so far, I lost 6lbs since starting on Halloween. It's a little tricky though, I tried it previously and didn't succeed because of headaches, low-electrolytes, low blood sugar. I had to address those issues and work through things. I think I have a good balance now. I do alternate day fasting. On my fasting days I'll have about 500 calories -- a spoonful of protein powder, a spoonful of fiber powder and some sea salt in a big shaker bottle with water, about 4-5 times during the day and maybe a cup of plain broth (5 calories). It makes it doable for me. I plan on keeping this going. I joined a gym and I really enjoy working out but my health is so poor that I wasn't recovering from exercise and I was doing more damage then building / repairing / healing. I hope to really enjoy working out now AND recovering from the exercise (hopefully)
Good luck! Check out Michael Mosley and Dr. Roy Taylor if you haven't already. Good stuff!
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IF has helped me more than anything else I've tried. I eat within my calorie range during my eating hours which are not as limited as some people use and log in everything as well as my exercise and I've been able to take off weight that I've been fighting for 10 years. I started the IF just a few months ago and have lost 16 lbs so far. Working on it slow and steady. Good luck!0
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I don’t know if it’s considered IF or not, but I stop eating at 7pm every night. It’s helped me because I make the worst food choices in the evening.2
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