Fun with time-restricted feeding (TRF)

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  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,265 Member
    edited November 2023
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    It's been not quite a week, so perhaps I can say that I'm still at it.

    I've been reading through this article. If half of this is true, I'm going to live forever!

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8754590/

    I particularly like this quote:

    "Fasting can stimulate neurogenesis and enhance synaptic plasticity, which can regulate pain sensations and enhance cognitive function and the antiaging ability of the brain. These beneficial effects may be associated with changes in neurotrophic factors and neurotransmitters."

    Woah, sign me up!

    Yeah, exercise has the same ability. It just means you did something that will enable you to remember better as you get older. :D
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 34,458 Member
    ...and I would add..."remember better," than - what - exactly? How do you prove that? I don't know, maybe the pain part is objective. "Antiaging" though? Hm. How would it be proven that any given person wasn't going to age in a particular way and at a certain rate had he/she not fasted? Is it fasting for years, or a week? How is that studied.

    Sorry, JThan, maybe you were kidding around...? :lol: I hope you live long and never have a headache and never lose your keys.

    I don't believe every article on the Disclaimer list of NCBI. It's just a repository, not a research study. No different from Harvard and its weird articles.

    Or maybe I am wrong. ::shrug::
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,265 Member
    edited November 2023
    cmriverside wrote: »
    ...and I would add..."remember better," than - what - exactly? How do you prove that? I don't know, maybe the pain part is objective. "Antiaging" though? Hm. How would it be proven that any given person wasn't going to age in a particular way and at a certain rate had he/she not fasted? Is it fasting for years, or a week? How is that studied.

    Sorry, JThan, maybe you were kidding around...? :lol: I hope you live long and never have a headache and never lose your keys.

    I don't believe every article on the Disclaimer list of NCBI. It's just a repository, not a research study. No different from Harvard and its weird articles.

    Or maybe I am wrong. ::shrug::

    Yeah exactly. It's not fasting per se that improves cognition, it's the ability to improve insulin sensitively over time. Exercise improves insulin sensitively as well in this context over time. Basically one of the downsides of insulin resistance and diabetes and a lifetime of higher blood sugar is it's effect on blood vessels in the brain and the eventual atrophy and cell death which then effects memory and thinking in general, it's well established and recognized as diabetes 3 where the blood brain barrier is compromised.

    This is also why the ketogenic diet is studied so much in this regard. Ketones use a different pathway and circumvents the glucose pathway allowing ATP to be used by the brain improving cognition and why you'll see hundreds of ongoing studies for demetia, alzheimers and other brain dysfunction.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31996078/

    Several small human studies have shown benefit on cognition in dementia with a ketogenic diet intervention. Future, large controlled studies are needed to confirm this benefit; however, the ketogenic diet has shown promise in regard to delay or mitigation of symptoms of cognitive decline.

    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30554068/

    The underlying pathology of Alzheimer's is not yet fully understood, so existing research has focused on understanding the prominent features of the disease. These include amyloid plaques, which accumulate in the brains of those with Alzheimer's disease; impaired glucose metabolism; and neuronal cell death. Emerging evidence suggests that a low-carbohydrate, high-fat ketogenic diet may help to mitigate the damage associated with these pathologies. The ketogenic diet could alleviate the effects of impaired glucose metabolism by providing ketones as a supplementary energy source.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,265 Member
    edited November 2023
    Also TRF is not fasting. Fasting is the effects from not eating over a time line where TRF is studying the metabolic effects as it relates to a single 24 hour period while calories are ad libitum, basically calories are at maintenance and held there for the study period otherwise the metabolic effects of TRF can't be discerned from the effects of weight loss. Basically TRF is about when you eat and not how much you eat.
  • vivmom2014
    vivmom2014 Posts: 1,649 Member
    @Jthanmyfitnesspal Just from the puppy standpoint, we also became puppy owners at the end of June, and the demands to exercise her (Siberian Husky - so admittedly a very different breed from yours) plus general insane puppy care (sleep deprivation anyone?) had me dropping so much weight it was almost alarming. So I'm wondering if the increased exercise that puppies demand is helping in your weight loss efforts?
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    vivmom2014 wrote: »
    So I'm wondering if the increased exercise that puppies demand is helping in your weight loss efforts?

    Only sort of. This small dog is not supposed to walk more than about a mile. We do that same mile 1-2 times a day. But, it's only a mile, and it cuts into my exercise time. Things are rapidly changing as we reach the 6 month mark. Mileage will start to increase and he may be able to jog with me. (That's mostly up to whether the dog likes to move along at a slow human jogging pace without stopping to sniff stuff. Pretty rare!)
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    cmriverside wrote: »
    I don't believe every article on the Disclaimer list of NCBI ["PubMed"]. It's just a repository, not a research study.

    That's definitely a good policy, particularly if they have to do with nutrition. But, this is a review article, not an original research article. To evaluate it's claims, you'd start by checking through all the associated references. Sounds too much like work to me, so I'll just peruse it and take what I like.

    And, If fasting were really all that great, our forebears who commonly suffered from malnutrition would have lived longer than we do today!
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    My most interesting fasting day was Thanksgiving! We ate at 2. I fasted until around 12, then just ate a few nuts and cheese while I waited for the feast. And, I found I could only eat a single (large) portion. Dinner was pie and ice cream. Hey, it worked for me!

    Friday, I did a 5k event. I fasted until afterwards. Sat, I did a hike. I fasted until around 10, then ate some nuts and dates. That got me up the mountain!

    The moral is: I really don’t need to eat right when l get up.
  • chris_in_cal
    chris_in_cal Posts: 2,547 Member
    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    If half of this is true, I'm going to live forever

    In the physical plane, no. But due to you posting all of this online, large language models (LLM) will be able to scrape all of your words, ideas, points of view, thoughts and with artificial intelligence (AI) create a simulaceum Jthanmyfitnesspal that infact will "live" forever.

    Or, not.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    @chris_in_cal : 😲
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    I stayed the course over the holidays. It was interesting. I had a huge lunch sometime after 12 each day. Lots of carbs, sweets and alcohol, too. I had a long walk most mornings with the pup, which served to reduce my hunger. I find it harder to delay eating if I’m inactive, in fact. Darn this desk job!
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    I’m still at it. I try to wrap up dinner well before 8 and I delay my first meal ant least until noon. Sometimes I finish eating earlier and sometimes break my fast later, so I’m doing 16+/8- IF. 😀 And, it’s going fine. It doesn’t seem to matter if I exercise the night before or even in the morning.

    It has seemed to be a motivator and I’ve been very productive. So, I like doing it. But: it hasn’t been a magic bullet for losing weight. I need to track to do that, it seems. (The point was to avoid tracking.)
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    More news from my stomach:

    It's January, so I'm starting to exercise more. Monday night I did an hour of stationary bike after dinner. Tuesday it was a bear fasting until noon. I was so hungry at 9! Yet, somehow, I made it, although I was really hungry by noon. Luckily, I had work to distract me or I wouldn't have made it!

    Man, I hope fasting is making me smarter, because it's hard sometimes!
  • xbowhunter
    xbowhunter Posts: 1,309 Member
    I fast daily as well. I do this when I am sleeping... lol
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    xbowhunter wrote: »
    I fast daily as well. I do this when I am sleeping... lol

    There are reasons to extend your fast to 16h or more. I have definitely had struggles, but I've also experienced some benefits. The promises are lofty: you'll be thinner, smarter, more energetic, and live longer! Check this out:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8754590/

    I particularly like this quote:

    "Fasting can stimulate neurogenesis and enhance synaptic plasticity, which can regulate pain sensations and enhance cognitive function and the antiaging ability of the brain. These beneficial effects may be associated with changes in neurotrophic factors and neurotransmitters."

    Holy moly, how can you turn that down?
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    Well, I'm still at it and still not losing any weight. I've been less active overall than at other times because I've had a couple of injuries and other issues (my favorite pool closed for long-term repairs, 😭!)

    Now I'm trying to ramp up the exercise, and the fasting in the morning is getting harder. I'm beginning to think it's one or the other: fast or exercise. Doing both is too hard and perhaps counterproductive.

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