Intermittent Fasting Support Group?

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  • skinnyfat14
    skinnyfat14 Posts: 107 Member
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    13 hours into my 24 hour fast and going strong!

    Anyone tried Oolong tea for appetite suppression?

    I'm just under 14 hours right now. Are you doing 16?

    I've never heard of it, what is it?
  • janiedoe111
    janiedoe111 Posts: 161 Member
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    It is a variety of tea, like black or green. It is picked at a specific time and many "studies" have shown it helps with appetite suppression.

    I am thinking about it more for my non-fasting days than my fasting days.

    Does anyone have a variety of tea they like for appetite suppression?
  • janiedoe111
    janiedoe111 Posts: 161 Member
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    13 hours into my 24 hour fast and going strong!

    Anyone tried Oolong tea for appetite suppression?

    I'm just under 14 hours right now. Are you doing 16?

    I've never heard of it, what is it?

    Oops sorry, I'm doing 24.

    And Wikipedia says this about Oolong: "Oolong tea has numerous health benefits and the most well known is its effect on the prevention of obesity and active contribution in weight loss. It also assists in prolonging and improving vitality and life span, reducing high blood pressure, strengthening teeth and prevent tooth decay, relieving physical and mental stress, treating skin problems such as eczema and rashes, etc"

    Keep going strong!
  • skinnyfat14
    skinnyfat14 Posts: 107 Member
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    13 hours into my 24 hour fast and going strong!

    Anyone tried Oolong tea for appetite suppression?

    I'm just under 14 hours right now. Are you doing 16?

    I've never heard of it, what is it?

    Oops sorry, I'm doing 24.

    And Wikipedia says this about Oolong: "Oolong tea has numerous health benefits and the most well known is its effect on the prevention of obesity and active contribution in weight loss. It also assists in prolonging and improving vitality and life span, reducing high blood pressure, strengthening teeth and prevent tooth decay, relieving physical and mental stress, treating skin problems such as eczema and rashes, etc"

    Keep going strong!

    Sounds interesting. I'll have to take a look for Oolong tea.

    I'm at 15 hours right now and very hungry!!
  • FaithHopeBELIEVE
    FaithHopeBELIEVE Posts: 626
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    It is a variety of tea, like black or green. It is picked at a specific time and many "studies" have shown it helps with appetite suppression.

    I am thinking about it more for my non-fasting days than my fasting days.

    Does anyone have a variety of tea they like for appetite suppression?

    I do drink 2c of Oolong tea a day and also 2c. green tea but had no idea it suppressed appetite.
  • MsMouseMouse
    MsMouseMouse Posts: 92 Member
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    I have a question that I have not seen asked on here and I am wondering ...
    I am 62 and have never been a person who has worked out..
    I have been following IF for a month now, and in that month I have had remarkable
    results. (Lost 10.2lbs). How ever I am not lifting weights, or going to the gym. I have done
    some walking on my treadmill at home, but this has not been a daily thing. I do have to walk a lot at work and
    I have some heavy stock to lift and move around when the order comes in.
    My question is, am I going to lose my muscles doing IF and not exercising or doing weights?
    I do not want to be doing something that in the end will do me more harm than good.
    I am just doing the 18/6 and have not done a 24. Thank you for any help you can give me.
  • soulatomic
    soulatomic Posts: 20
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    Hi, everyone! I'm giving IF a try for two weeks and am doing 16/8s. (However, today I broke about a half hour early for lunch with my manager.)

    While I'm hungry during the fast, I'm not feeling weak or shaky or anything. I'm unable to do exercises during the fast because I have kids and a job and need to be out the door pretty early in the morning. I suppose I could get up earlier, but I view sleep as part of successful weight loss.

    An interesting thing I've noticed is the elimination of the post-lunch spike. Although I've only been doing this two days, I noticed that I don't feel sluggish after eating lunch, the way I did when I wasn't fasting. Is this normal? (I'm not complaining!)

    I'm also not reaching "I'm gonna cut someone if I don't eat"levels of hunger. Woot.

    Finally, after I break the fast, I notice my stomach gurgles A LOT. I imagine it's because it's gone from no food to full rather quickly. Does anyone else experience this? Is it just digestion?

    Thanks for all the valuable feedback in this thread. You all have helped me a lot!
  • FaithHopeBELIEVE
    FaithHopeBELIEVE Posts: 626
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    Hi, everyone! I'm giving IF a try for two weeks and am doing 16/8s. (However, today I broke about a half hour early for lunch with my manager.)

    While I'm hungry during the fast, I'm not feeling weak or shaky or anything. I'm unable to do exercises during the fast because I have kids and a job and need to be out the door pretty early in the morning. I suppose I could get up earlier, but I view sleep as part of successful weight loss.

    An interesting thing I've noticed is the elimination of the post-lunch spike. Although I've only been doing this two days, I noticed that I don't feel sluggish after eating lunch, the way I did when I wasn't fasting. Is this normal? (I'm not complaining!)

    I'm also not reaching "I'm gonna cut someone if I don't eat"levels of hunger. Woot.

    Finally, after I break the fast, I notice my stomach gurgles A LOT. I imagine it's because it's gone from no food to full rather quickly. Does anyone else experience this? Is it just digestion?

    Thanks for all the valuable feedback in this thread. You all have helped me a lot!

    I can't answer everything but yes I feel the same after lunch and love it! I do work out at 5:45 am (I have 3 kids I have to get up at 7 and ready for school by 8) but go to bed before 9pm. Love the energy I have during my workout in the fasted state. My stomach did feel a bit wierd after eating but that was just the first few days, today I feel normal. I think it just takes the full 3 weeks for your body to really get used to this IF process. Hope I helped a bit?
  • pork_belly
    pork_belly Posts: 144
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    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?

    I agree with this.

    If I recall correctly much of this is due to the reduction of insulin in the bloodstream (as long as you are not insulin resistant). With lower insulin levels more fat is released from the bodies fat stores. Someone check me on this.
  • akonobi
    akonobi Posts: 3
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    Hi everyone. I've been reading this thread because fasting is my great interest at the moment. This is my intro to intermittent fasting. I've done 10 day and even 18-day fasts and lost a ton of weight and so far have kept it off. This IF looks like something I can use to maintain the results. Will continue reading everyone's comments.
  • FaithHopeBELIEVE
    FaithHopeBELIEVE Posts: 626
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    Hi everyone. I've been reading this thread because fasting is my great interest at the moment. This is my intro to intermittent fasting. I've done 10 day and even 18-day fasts and lost a ton of weight and so far have kept it off. This IF looks like something I can use to maintain the results. Will continue reading everyone's comments.

    WOW! I admire you for doing those fasts. That takes a lot of selfcontrol and perserverance.
  • Bluestar083
    Bluestar083 Posts: 146
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    Hi everyone. I've been reading this thread because fasting is my great interest at the moment. This is my intro to intermittent fasting. I've done 10 day and even 18-day fasts and lost a ton of weight and so far have kept it off. This IF looks like something I can use to maintain the results. Will continue reading everyone's comments.
    wt?? i seriously hope you mean days where you have gone 18 hours of fasting for 10 days not fasted (ie no food at all) for 10 days?
  • MsMonny
    MsMonny Posts: 183
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    *bump*

    I am interested in IF. Bumping the thread so I can find it again and to keep reading all the posts. Then I have a few questions!!
  • chrisdavey
    chrisdavey Posts: 9,835 Member
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    MsMousemouse:

    Weight loss is easy. Create a calorie deficit through diet (and preferably exercise)

    Fat loss requires:
    calorie deficit through diet and exercise
    adequate protein (I aim for 1g/lb of BW minimum)
    resistance training (progressively increasing weights to challenge yourself)

    These are to promote the preservation of lean body mass.

    The above is the case for "normal" eating pattern or Intermittent Fasting.

    soulatomic: breaking your fast half an hour early is no biggie. It's about being flexible. Can't say I've noticed much difference in energy post "lunch" & no stomach gurgling for me.

    akonobi: you didn't eat for 18 days???!!! Why?
  • Alloranx
    Alloranx Posts: 51 Member
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    @MsMousemouse
    My question is, am I going to lose my muscles doing IF and not exercising or doing weights?
    I do not want to be doing something that in the end will do me more harm than good.
    I am just doing the 18/6 and have not done a 24. Thank you for any help you can give me.

    Well, it's not as easy as saying you will or you won't lose your muscles. It's a matter of percentage: how much muscle mass vs how much fat mass was lost as a percentage of the weight you lost? Research has shown that if you do resistance exercise, then you will tip that balance so you will lose less muscle and more fat. Some people even claim to be able to gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, with very precise control of nutrients, exercise, and fasting schedules. I think that's extremely tough to do, but possible.

    This doesn't just apply to IF, though. Any calorie restriction you do below your maintenance threatens muscle (though, eating adequate protein helps prevent this too, like chrisdavey said). Still, if you went on a very calorie restricted diet without fasting, this would still hold true: resistance exercise will reduce or possibly even eliminate muscle loss as a percent of your weight loss.

    The bottom line is: I would strongly recommend doing resistance exercises if you are dieting in any way, shape, or form. If you're intimidated by the weight room, there are other options. Check out a book like "You Are Your Own Gym" by Mark Lauren:

    http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Your-Own-Gym/dp/0345528581/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319499071&sr=1-1

    He has over 100 exercises in his book that you can do with nothing but your own body and the floor or a wall, and in some cases other common household items. They range from the very easy to the incredibly difficult. He also has premade exercise programs with four levels of difficulty that each last 10 weeks. Worth checking out, I'm enjoying the program so far.

    @chrisdavey - not sure if you saw my edit or not, but I did find that paper in full text. Check that post on the last page for a link.

    @ Akonobi - Religious fasts, I take it? I've done 7 day prayer fasts before, but not for weight loss purposes. Nothing *technically* wrong with it I don't think, as long as you don't do it so long that you get a vitamin deficiency or something. Much easier to avoid that eventuality with intermittent fasting. Amazingly, this dude fasted for 382 days eating nothing but a multivitamin and some yeast (and drinking lots of water, of course):

    http://pdfcast.org/pdf/382-day-fast

    I have no clue what the rationale behind the yeast was, lmao. Please no one try this at home, I don't want to feel bad for posting this and you getting hurt trying it! This was done with extensive medical supervision, frequent blood tests, that sort of thing. Again, do not try at home.
  • chrisdavey
    chrisdavey Posts: 9,835 Member
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    thanks for the link. Interesting stuff.
  • KettyLan
    KettyLan Posts: 440 Member
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    Bump
  • catwrangler
    catwrangler Posts: 918 Member
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    I burp all morning long! It's awful, I have uncontrollable belching, probably because there's nothing in my belleh but AIR. Any remedy for this?
  • Bluestar083
    Bluestar083 Posts: 146
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    @catwrangler-You may be swallowing air-are you chewing lots of gum? Cos that will do it. Or soda/soft drink?
  • MsMonny
    MsMonny Posts: 183
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    Ok, thanks to Alloranx for giving me the link to this thread!!

    I have been using Xtend during my weight workouts for a while BUT still doing the 6 meals a day, non fasting diet. Well, I was told I am wasting my money if I am using it this way.....so, I am really considering doing the Leangains way of eating (not a diet!!). I have read most of these posts, looked at his website and convinced that this may be the way to go.

    Firstly, here is my exercise regime.....

    I exercise at 9.30 in the morning with weights for 1/2 hour and then I do pilates after that twice a week. I do weights only twice a week, but in a few weeks time it will be bumped up to Mon, Wed and Fri (Pilates Mon and Fri).

    On other days I do interval jogging/walking on the treadmill for 1/2 hour or more. I am really only new to the cardio thing (not my cup of tea) but have been doing weights for a while now. Even though I don't like cardio, it is beginning to get easier and I am even wanting to do a marathon in the future!!

    Now, my food regime....

    I am a breakfast eater! I think I could miss it, but it would be hard. I fear feeling ill, actually. I also like my snacks.

    My questions...

    * my lunches usually consist of a couple of crackers with tomato and cheese. This would have to change BIG TIME as it would be my first meal that breaks the fast. How do I know how much to eat? Do I just eat big, and then see how much I have left over or do I split my calories into thirds and eat 3 equally caloried meals?

    * I have a family and this means we eat dinner at about 6.30pm/7pm. If I eat the three meals, that means I would eat at 1pm, 4pm and 8pm. Not family friendly! How do I overcome this?

    * how do you work out the macros? How do you know how much you are eating in that meal? Obvioulsy I would need to work it out beforehand. If I eat out, how can I work it out before hand?

    I am thinking that eating the three meals would be fantastic but, even though I am sooo wanting to do this, and it makes sense, it is doing my head in. I, and we all, have been sooo conditioned to believe the 'eat every 3 hr' rule and the 'slowing of the metabolism if you don't eat' statement, having a new, left of field rule really is hard to get my head around.

    I am now laughing at how many times I told my mum she should be eating breakfast, that it was unhealthy!! Ha ha ha - geez, how brainwashed we were. Mum, even in her younger years, always did a monthly fast. She said she felt 'cleaned out' from it.

    I have done colon cleansing fasts before, so even the ESE would be okay, but I am sure I couldn't handle the headaches, that come with that regime, at the moment (I have a feeling I would get them.

    So, hope this wasn't too long. :o)

    Will probably have more questions, but these are the most concerning! Thanks in advance! :smile:

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