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Intermittent fasting, thoughts?
Hey everyone,
Intermittent fasting is a diet where the user fasts for either periods of their day for 10-16 hours or for set days throughout their week. As long as you don't binge eat and stick to your diet, it's a good option for losing weight. There's other science coming out from rodent testing concerning other potential benefits, though that's not always consistent for the effects on humans.
Check out this article for more information
So, any thoughts or experiences? Who else eats breakfast at 2pm?
I've been doing IF for the past ~4 years with various amounts of dedication.
I gained 20 pounds when I started college and when I moved off campus and started needing to buy my own food I just sort of naturally fell into IF. I was too lazy to wake up early enough to make breakfast or prepare lunch and I was too poor to buy lunch on campus regularly so I just ended up eating probably around 1500-1700 calorie
mealsdinners.I've lost most of that weight since then although now a days my fast is more like:
Sunday-Thursday/Friday skip breakfast and lunch, break fast around 4/5 pm (some Fridays I go out to lunch with coworkers). During my fast I allow myself to drink black coffee and tea (although lately I've been putting a tablespoon of creme in my two coffees and haven't noticed a stall). Then around 4/5 I'll eat something, lately it's been a cliff bar before heading to the gym, and then around 6/7 I'll make myself a 1500-2000 calorie meal.
Every 4th month I go off my fast for a month and eat breakfast and lunch to sort of reset my metabolism and keep it from getting adapted to the fast ( I do notice a slowing a weight loss around the 3rd month).
The first 2-3 days of the fast are the hardest, but after that I don't even start getting hungry until 4/5 pm, I also don't get post lunch crashes from eating food.
I also don't see myself moving away from IF any time soon, I'll most likely just increase my caloric intake a dinner and do a more lazy IF (maybe go out for lunch on a weekday 2 times a month) once I reach my goal weight, though I wanna get in the 12-15% BF range so I still have ~1.5ish years before I hit that at my current rate of weight loss.
I find it interesting that the article says cells responded to the stress of exercise in a similar way to the stress of fasting.
The takeaway at the end of the article seems to say that what matters most is total calories consumed. The article is skeptical that there is a benefit to fasting over just reducing calorie intake daily.
Sometimes I feel too sick in the morning to eat anything, and my appetite doesn't kick in for a few hours. So I guess I already do this, sometimes!
Ditto... my stomach is very, very touchy in the morning so I usually just drink lemon water for "breakfast" and don't eat until it settles down again (noon-2ish).
So, I'm not the only one who drinks lemon water. I make mine by taking a regular glass, 12 oz or so, and putting a capful of lemon juice in it.
Personally, I've never enjoyed eating when I first wake up. I naturally fast, and figured I'd go the extra couple of hours to get the structured benefits of intermittent fasting.
The best thing for myself is the structure of the diet. I follow intermittent fasting to help count calories and to limit my caloric intake. I'd say it works for me, as I have below 6% body fat and a bmi of 21. This is with working out though, so it's not only due to the diet. I do weightlifting before I break my fast, and I haven't had any problems with making progress.
6% is really low. Are you getting ready for a physique competition?
It's not ridiculous if you're an athlete or a soldier or insane or something.
I took a test on a scanning machine in my college's gym. Maybe it's in error? I'm not a professional body builder, though I am really lean.
Here
Picture of physique (Don't know why it's so red)
I just read into it and it seems that electronic tests can be innacurate when you're too ripped or too fat.
Yeah seems they aren't completely accurate. Going from online charts I'd maybe me closer to a 13%. I am living a lie!
I typically eat one meal a day. It just feels right. It hurts to skip meals at first, but I'd just remind myself that I'm pretty sure it's good for me and that most people eat too damn much. After a while the hunger pain stopped hitting me. Now I only eat twice in one day on occasion, like a holiday or something.
I've also heard people talk about not having food in you making you generate more growth hormones. I have no idea if there's anything to it, but I can't write it off because at my biggest and leanest I was only eating once a day.
How did that work for you?
Whenever I see diets about "emulating our ancestors diet" I can't help but think, yea that's how they ate but they also were shorter, malnutritioned, and lived shorter lives.
The book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harrari has a section about ancient diets. He says people ate much healthier back then due to the large variety of foods available.
I've been fat since my early teens until I started intermittent fasting that I learned about through paleo. I used to always be incredibly hungry just a few hours after breakfast.
It seems I thrive better with fewer meals where I actually get full, than trying to eat many small meals.
I'm still following it loosely, but sometimes I'll have breakfast anyway, I just eat when I feel hungry which is often twice a day, but sometimes more.
I got down quite now in weight, but my strength suffered, now I carry a bit more fat than I'd like, but I'm overall pretty happy about my looks and performance.