Intermittent Fasting Support Group?

24 hour is hard to do the first time but stick with it if thats how you want to do it. if you struggle getting through i would try the 16/8 next time (daily). I try to stop eating nolater than 7 pm and then can eat again at 11 am.

Yeah, I'm going to be doing the 16/8 fast for the most part. Just thought I'd start off with a 24 hour fast to see if I can manage it. 16/8 fits in with my lifestyle. I just have to stop eating at 10PM and fast until I finish school at 4PM the next day. Sounds manageable to me.

Will possibly do the occasional 24 hour fast - once or twice a month.

Just checking in to say this is working for me so far. Official weigh in in Tuesday but according to the scale this hour I have lost a pound or so (analog scale hard to read).

It's working because I am able to stick to my daily calorie allotment without going over. No magic in it, just a schedule my mind can wrap around. It's all a mind game with me.

If the studies are correct, fat burning will be a wonderful side benefit. :drinker:

EXACTLY!!! way to go! I love this and it's so natural!

Someone should have an answer for you like Chrisdavey but I have no idea. Sorry.

Did my first 'proper' workout fasted today (had done some jogging before). Kept it simple- a 30 minute class at the gym called CX (Low impact, low cardio workout , dynamic training that hones in on your abs, glutes, back, obliques and “slings” connecting the upper and lower body)
After 5 minutes I was tired and about ready to go home-which is not like me. I pushed through and felt fine by the end. But didn't feel like doing my usual 10-15 min on the cross trainer after
Wonder how I will feel when I do body pump fasted? A bit nervous.
How has everyone else done on fasted workouts? Any advice/hints?

nyspotlight:
Estimated TDEE is 2700. I would say at this stage a 1000 cal deficit would be appropriate at this stage. (as you get closer to goal weight, the deficit should be reduced) SO aim for 1700cals. (don't worry about exercise cals)

P=131g minimum (525 cals)
F=54g minimum(486cals)

1700-525-486=689cals remaining to fit where ever you want.

That's what I would do.

Thank you so much - considering that that is awfully close to my calculations, that makes me feel much better. As far as this site goes, anyone know if there's a way to get it NOT to add your exercise calories to your food? That would help my sanity...

Otherwise I guess I'll log my exercise at the very end of my day or something.

Thanks again!

Did my first 'proper' workout fasted today (had done some jogging before). Kept it simple- a 30 minute class at the gym called CX (Low impact, low cardio workout , dynamic training that hones in on your abs, glutes, back, obliques and “slings” connecting the upper and lower body)
After 5 minutes I was tired and about ready to go home-which is not like me. I pushed through and felt fine by the end. But didn't feel like doing my usual 10-15 min on the cross trainer after
Wonder how I will feel when I do body pump fasted? A bit nervous.
How has everyone else done on fasted workouts? Any advice/hints?

i haven't completed any 24 hours fasts. But on my 16/8 fasts I workout at 5:45 amdaily during the week so I'm in my fastest state and will still not eat until 10-12 whichever i need to get to from stopping the night before. ANYWAY my workouts have been really good almost like I have more energy.

@Jeanine-was it always better for you fasted or did it take some time?
@ChrisDavey-CX is kinda like a pilates class crossed with a low impact aerobics class. visit fitnessfirst.com.au website for more info. I usually do body pump 3 times a week, pilates/core or CX 2 times a week, step once a week and jog or use the crosstrainer 2-3 times a week. I am not a fan of supplements so don't take BCAA. this (CX) was the first time I did a fasted workout as its only 30min and not full on.

No, not correct. Even if you eat all of your maintenance calories in your 8 hour window on Leangains style IF, you will still be losing fat, because IF works not only by calorie restriction but also by creating a hormonal state favorable to fat burning and muscle conservation. This is how it is possible to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time on Leangains. You will not be losing *as much* fat if you eat maintenance calories every day (as opposed to calorie restriction + fasting), but it will still occur. There is a veritable ton of research backing this up. It's not a "maybe" thing, this is how fasting works physiologically.

Can you post any of these studies? I would like to believe it is true but I can't see how eating maintenance cals can result in any fat loss. Unless you are referring to the recomp type setup Martin uses with +20% above TDEE on workout days and -20% on rest days.

Sure thing, Chris. I made a big post on this in the first part of this thread, but I'll go through it some more for new comers. Here is a study showing that BMR (actually RMR but the two are very close) goes up during early fasting, up to 10% by day three of a fast, seemingly mediated by increased catecholamines:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10837292

Note: BMR does eventually come back down in extended fasting, but in the early period it goes up.

So that's just simple math. If your BMR goes up and your calorie intake stays at maintenance based on a lower BMR, you go into a deficit and will lose weight. However, it's more than that.

This study shows that fatty acid mobilization (i.e. how much fatty acids are pulled into your blood to be used for energy) doubles between the beginning of a fast and 72 hours in. The majority of that increase (60%) happens between 12 and 24 hours, with the greatest acceleration between 18 and 24 hours (honestly this is one reason I like 24 hour fasting):

http://ajpendo.physiology.org/content/265/5/E801.short

So with this increased RMR comes an increased utilization of fat. In addition, as I've said elsewhere, growth hormone increases by up to 6-fold during fasting, which both protects muscle from degradation, and appears to promote both mobilization and burning of fat:

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.org/content/50/1/96.short
http://jcem.endojournals.org/content/94/11/4524.abstract

I actually did some calculations based on some text-book numbers (i.e. this is really rough and take it with a grain of salt) and found that fat, weight for weight, is burned at more than double the rate of protein during fasting. And that's in early fasting. As a fast goes on (>48 hours), the body gets better and better at suppressing protein catabolism and it becomes something like 7x more fat than protein burned.

What all this means is that the calorie need generated by fasting will primarily be filled by fats, and much less so by muscle (as it will be protected by growth hormone), and obviously not carbs, since they get all burned up by about 12-16 hours into a fast. So from all this, I think it is quite reasonable to suppose that fasting while at maintenance calories will in fact produce *some* fat loss, though not necessarily an impressive amount. Martin's diet that you mentioned above works on this principle, insofar as I can tell.

Does that make sense?

Alloranx. Thanks for that. Yeah makes sense. So the RMR increased by 15% after a 3 day fast. I couldn't see anywhere to see more details as to the progressions of this increase.

In the scheme of things, I still think that calories in vs calories out matters the most (and macro choices) but those studies do suggest that there is additional benefits.