Fasting

[Humanofearth]

I went from 100kg to 72.7kg over 18 months and am now back to 76.2. Going in wrong direction since January. I notice getting a gf and weight gain go together for me, whereas heart break or dating and weight loss go together for me. I am trying to more consciously direct this as I enjoy being healthy and in relationships.

I will begin tracking my food more closely, I need a kitchen scale. I intend to eat once a day, have steamed vegetables in a giant portion(thinking broccoli, carrots, and shredded cabbage), along with some meat (chicken ideal but beef as a treat is okay), with some grapefruit and coconut water or berries and protein powder for dessert on weight days.

If I feel hungry during my fast to the point of breaking, which is purely psychological and never actually a need, I intend to eat some boiled eggs and sauerkraut or drink chicken feet broth.

Changes:
Kitchen scale
Track what and when I eat in food journal
No sugar in house, only healthy vegetables and proteins
Broth ready
Maybe eggs ready?
Find a way to not eat or go full when gf eats junk food

Anybody have any experience or tips with this?

I tend to lose weight once fasts get to 36-48 hours and maintain at omad.

[Western Red Cedar]

Sounds like you are on a good track. I've been experimenting with intermittent fasting for the last couple years. It is a great ERE strategy for health and wellness. I dropped it for a while during Covid but have picked it back up lately. There are a lot of benefits to fasting and different approaches to it.

My main recommendation is to ease back into it. Consider starting with two meals, within a 5-8 hour period, before transitioning to one meal a day. Staying hydrated really helps, and I've found engaging in some kind of activity to take my mind of hunger helps a lot. I go for a walk on my lunch break, which is about 16-18 hours from when I eat the night before, and I notice I feel good and don't need to eat for a couple more hours once I get back, even though I was really hungry before I left.

I've started tracking my fasting periods which is nice for the data. I don't use a food scale, but will use the app MyFitnessPal which gives you information about calories and macronutrients which is helpful.

If you are going to break your fast, prioritize foods that are high in protein and fat. Avoid carbs. This will keep you in ketosis.

You should check out this podcast with David Sinclair from Harvard for a bunch of the science behind the benefits of fasting:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD8reCw3Kls

[KRUMPn]

I highly agree with @Western Red Cedar about easing into it. It get's much easier as you practice it more. My longest fast at this point is 96 hours and one thing that I know really helped is having something engaging to do. If you are just sitting around reading or doing something more passive, I always started thinking about food. Even something as simple as going for a long walk is helpful (for physiological reasons as well). I definitely had success revisiting some N64 video games that I could never beat as a kid (take that Banjo-Kazooie!). For whatever reason that kept me out of the hunger mindset, but YMMV. It also get's easier the deeper the further into a fast you get in my experience. Probably the roughest part was my sleep started suffering, so getting actually tired is probably useful and I think having something engaging helps with this as well.

As far as the junk food goes, it's way easier to avoid if you don't buy it, so only get groceries after you eat so the temptation is lower. It's way easier to resist buying it in the first place than it is to avoid eating it once you have it. I'm notorious for plowing through my entire stock of junk right after I get it, but once I go a couple days without the cravings subside for the most part.

Maybe adding in a weekly fast is also something to think about? I've been toying with the idea of skipping food on Sundays, but have yet to implement this. I would think this would make it easier to start up a long fast whenever as you always have a decent base. I'm not sure if the small eating window (16 off 8 on aka no breakfast is mostly what I do) really accomplishes this.

[unemployable]

I'm in the middle of a fasting regime. Lazy OMAD six days a week plus an all-day fast on Fridays. This means I fast for close to 48 hours between Thursday evening and Saturday evening. By "lazy OMAD" I mean I often stretch the eating window to two or three hours with an after-dinner snack.

On this go-round I started a couple days before the new year and will be down some 34 lbs (~15 kg) come tomorrow mornings weigh-in. The other time I did this was 2020, when I dropped some 65 lbs in 3½ months while everyone else was gaining weight.

I get used to it pretty easily. No problem with the OMAD days really. I do go for long walks in the afternoon to stay out of the house and away from food.

It feels like a rebellious act not to eat, especially in the Deep South. But I love the simplicity. No worrying about calories or macros or whether something's "keto" or whatever. You simply... don't eat. I suspect it's not as popular as it should be because there's no profit angle, nothing to be sold to you.

[horsewoman]

I've been doing intermittent fasting for a couple of years now, with the 16-8 method. It was not for weight reasons I started it, since I'm naturally slim,rather to battle food in tolerances and silent reflux. I lost the last few stubborn remnants of pregnancy fat around my middle pretty quickly though, a nice side effect.

The first few months where really hard but after that it got habit and now it's easy. What's difficult is working around a family. Shared meals are important to get everyone together, which is kind of logistically difficult with my eating hours. It took me a year to be able to sit at the dinnertable around 7 in the evening with my family, just being there but not eating. There are downsides but the advantages and health benefits outweigh them in my case.

[Humanofearth]

Shared meals are the hardest. That’s the hardest part.

Today I bought the scale, a lot of sugar free gum, mushrooms and vegetables and chicken. I tracked my diet and WOW. Thought I barely ate but came in at 1900 kcal. That’s above maintenance if I don’t count my workout.

I also realized counting will be much easier by weighing before cooking. After, almost nonsensical. Also, hard to know how much I eat when sharing plates.

What’d I eat? For simplicity, I’ll only include Kcal item
170 protein powder
135 butter
78 carrot
106 broccoli ( 764g of broccoli and carrot)
306 pomelo
420 spicy sour chicken
50 onion
90 pork (finger sized rib)
50 mushroom
5 tomato
170 rice
420 French fries ( she wanted, air fried 500 g potatoes with 14 g coconut oil, 100g onion, 11g garlic; I ate 70% of 600kcal)

The biggest surprises: 320kcal of vegetables, thought it’d be closer to only butter but at that volume, vegetables carry some kcal. But still, that’s 1.5 small chocolate bars and made me full. I somehow still ate so much after though.

For tomorrow:
More fried vegetables, chicken, cabbage and mushroom soup; less pomelo, no French fries any more but still have the potatoes so I’ll have to strategize how to not eat them while together. Maybe can give them to her while I go to the gym.

Also, gym not being first in the morning made it much easier to fast into the day. I noticed some agitation towards the evening, around 2-5pm. Went to ice bath, then shopped for some final ingredients and I felt cranky yet alert. Complaining in my head about everything, trying to focus on my breath. Ate at 17:20 and felt much better. So omad was successful today. Keeping broth and gum as an emergency, along with eggs ready to boil to kill hunger. 6 boiled eggs is ~400kcal and is hard to finish.

But I need to do 0 days to lose weight, this is slow loss and mostly maintenance, I want to rush to the finish line and then maintain from there. Think I have 10-20 pounds of fat to lose, 76.2kg was my lowest weight today.

[take2]

How’s your daily movement outside of the gym? Do you walk/cycle much?

I find that intermittent fasting (16/8), cooking my own meals (I don’t track kcals but generally cook healthy) and getting constant movement (essentially just using my own feet or bicycle to get around) has worked for me.

The constant movement is key - hard exercise at the gym is definitely a huge positive but don’t underestimate the impact of constant low stress movement.

I usually do a 22-24 hour fast a couple of times a month as well; usually this is driven by being so busy between 12-4 that I forget to eat and then I just hold off for a few more hours. Would like to try an extended fast but 22 hours seems to be about my limit as I get quite light headed by then.

[guitarplayer]

I feel a bit like a broken record bragging about Dr Greger's approach on the forum in various threads, but still, would recommend reading 'how not to die' and 'how not to diet'. Take is FWIW, some principles are:

* As much plant based as possible
* line of most resistance for calorie retrieval, so better if everything is encapsulated in cell walls (hence plant foods). some why's:
-- more left for the friendly gut flora to flourish and take care of skin conditions and a bunch of other things
-- there is a mechanism the name of which I forgot that if body detects a certain amount of nutritional matter down the bottom of digestion track it send a signal back to the brain 'we are good, no need to be hungry'. beans sort this out.
-- extracted sugar is counterbalanced by insulin spike followed by a dip, but less so if consumed with fruit. Jams are a good source of berries all things considered.
-- extracted fat (oils, butter) impair the working of insulin receptors, cause energy fluctuations (it was counterintuitive for me)
* consider cyrcadian rhythm, body is better at processing food early than late. Best way to 16/8 fast is having a large breakfast and lunch
* salt is no good, eat your fruit veg and legumes and you will most often get your daily intake unless you sweat a lot for one reason or another.
* there is a daily dozen app suggesting what elements to include daily in your diet, it averages around 800-1200 kcal. Theoretically this is high quality nutritious daily intake so you could go with just that and cut the quantity of kcal (and lose weight) without sacrificing or risking not getting nutrients you need.

https://nutritionfacts.org/ is your friend on the web.

[chenda]

. I notice getting a gf and weight gain go together for me, whereas heart break or dating and weight loss go together for me.

Why not just get rid of the girlfriend?

I find just cutting out refined carbohydrates (pasta, rice, bread etc) and walking an hr a day causes me to loose weight.

Fasting intuitively feels like a healthy thing to do and like @horsewomen suggests might help to eradicate the last few stubborn cms off my hips. I am pear shaped so I tend to accumulate fat around my hips, though is apparently healthier than fat around the anatomical waist as apple shaped people do.

Though eating is good for my mental health so I can't see myself doing it.

[white belt]

But I need to do 0 days to lose weight, this is slow loss and mostly maintenance, I want to rush to the finish line and then maintain from there. Think I have 10-20 pounds of fat to lose, 76.2kg was my lowest weight today.

It’s possible you are suffering from diet fatigue, so it might be more beneficial to just eat at maintenance for a month or two before continuing caloric restriction. This will help to reset your body’s set point. Diet fatigue is psychological but also physiological; after extended caloric deficit your NEAT is almost certainly down, sleep is disrupted, etc. Your weight loss is relatively rapid, which generally makes it harder to keep off the weight over the long term.

I weigh all of my food but I track macronutrients, which I think is more useful than calories (it’s easy to calculate calories from macronutrients anyway). Weighing after cooking works if the ingredients are separate, but for combined dishes I agree that usually weighing before cooking is the most accurate. I use an app that allows me to toggle between raw and cooked weight for a particular ingredient.

If fasting works for you, then that’s great and stick with it. But don’t assume you need to fast in order to lose weight. If you’re tracking macronutrients it takes all of the guess work out of food quantity. Determining caloric expenditure on the other hand is much more of an art than a science due to differences in genetics, activity level, and other factors. Therefore it makes sense to track weight a few times a week and look at trends over time rather than assuming any sort of caloric calculation is correct.

I go into more detail on a previous post in another thread: viewtopic.php?p=214918#p214918

[white belt]

* there is a daily dozen app suggesting what elements to include daily in your diet, it averages around 800-1200 kcal. Theoretically this is high quality nutritious daily intake so you could go with just that and cut the quantity of kcal (and lose weight) without sacrificing or risking not getting nutrients you need.

There is no standard caloric intake because there is no standard caloric expenditure. I can almost guarantee that eating only 800 calories daily will land you in a hospital if you do it for an extended period of time unless you are a child. At bare minimum a daily caloric estimation app worth using should factor in age, height, weight, gender, activity level, and exercise intensity. A good app will also incorporate hours of sleep, stress level, and muscle mass.

[guitarplayer]

Sorry @white_belt (and sorry I misread the user name yesterday and replied to @chenda here instead!) I didn't make myself clear. The idea was that if one wants to lose weight, more calories have to be spent than consumed. This would either be achieved by less calorie intake or more calorie expenditure. If one chooses the former, it is still important to eat well because we don't live on calories only. In fact, the less calories the less food in general so the quality of food becomes all the more critical.

I think the general recommendation for an average person is to eat 2000-2400 kcal / day which I am sure is known to most here.

(ETA: edited for typos)

[theanimal]

There is no standard caloric intake because there is no standard caloric expenditure.

On an individual level, no. But on a general basis, new research may suggest yes. The book "Burn" has an interesting take that metabolic rate does not change, regardless of activity levels. I don't remember the exact ranges but the author and the research he cites says men are something like 2200-2900 cals and women are something like 1800-2400. Much of the book discussed the hadza tribe,who live a very active lifestyle. The author was surprised with the result that their base metabolic rate was essentially the same as their counterpart in sedentary western society.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/05255 ... HWK55XCGG2

[guitarplayer]

@theanimal, nice one! I have always liked anthropology studies, often provide a good opportunity to reflect on the plumbing of social system one lives in.

If someone is interested in increasing the base metabolic rate nevertheless, this can be done with exposure to cold, chilli / cayenne pepper (and other hot spices such as ginger), and tea, coffee, food or alcohol. From the point of view of losing weight, the 'food' and 'alcohol' bits are irrelevant, 'tea' and 'coffee' can be risky because dependence, but exposure to cold or some spices? Sure.

[Humanofearth]

75.2kg was my lowest weight today. Expecting it’ll drop quickly till 74kg or so and then will slow down as I’ve lost the extra water/food weight with the change. Another day at about 1800kcal while trying to undereat. Ate tons of vegetables. Coconut water and protein powder and pork had more kcal than expected, while blueberries and chicken breast had less. Weight dropping quickly though. Eating within a 2 hour window or so. I think I’ll acclimate to this and then focus on only broth on non weights days to burn fast. Im ready to burn this off asap then eat comfortably around maintenance.

Gf still eating lots of junk food but being helpful with helping me have vegetables and protein ready, took all sugar out of cooking even. I appreciate it.

My weight began increasing since early Jan because Ive been eating too much. I feasted often. I notice it now that I’m eating around my bmr. My daily energy expenditure is mostly fat loss now, which is a great change.

I’ve done a 5 day fast before with just broth once a day and some sugar free gum. I found it extremely helpful, lost weight but more importantly, started exercising and deepened my breathing practice at the time, changes still with me. One commonality in most religions is extended fasting.

There’s not much hospital risk for non diabetics but I do find fasting healthier than frequent tiny meals. Jesus went 40 days, as did many others. There was a man who fasted 384 days (documented by hospitals) with no health problems, I see it as one of the healthiest things I can do so the fat loss is one of many reasons for this change and focus. Increased lifespan, lowered cancer risk, increased peace and stress resistance, fasting is like a superpower.

Not sure if already mentioned but I do weekly ice baths and go to the gym almost daily for an hour, typically alternating days with an hour of weights (upper/lower split) or an hour of light to medium cardio, hiit if feeling very high energy.

Got a business trip tomorrow for about 40 hours round trip. Debating on going for a fast vs eating once or twice on the trip, already got a healthy nearby restaurant in mind in case, just have to keep to calories.

[Humanofearth]

Got to 72.8kg a few weeks ago. 73.8 was my lowest this week.

I’m a cow. I went to the gym twice today. Worked my push muscles, ate chicken, broccoli, protein powder. Ate the same again later. Went to the gym for 45 minutes of cardio. Went to the market on the way home and f***. Bought 5 heads of broccoli, 4 cases of pomelo, okay. Still healthy. Bought 4 tubes of sticky rice. Can give to friends tonight. Bought a dollar of crunchy fried dough with condensed milk, bought another cakey egg dessert (sounds better than I’m making it sound). Except the last 2, I gave away most of it. Have 15kg of guava coming tomorrow to share. Hopefully, this and broccoli + chicken will be enough to keep me from going to the market. Getting a better idea for what I can give away vs not and what is healthy. Hence the 15kg of guava. Low calorie, delicious.

Based on *, 91 cups is ~15kg, 10192 kcal-810g fiber *2kcal=8572 kcal. About 4 days of food. Realistically, I’ll eat 1kg per day personally and be stuffed. 678kcal -54x2= 570 kcal and I’ll fight off my sugar cravings I get from working out.

Debating strongly on whether cardio is good for me while trying to lose weight. I enjoy weights more and cardio seems to give me a ravenous appetite. Goal long term is 66kg. If I fast 36-48 hours, probably around 73-74kg now.

* https://www.nutritionix.com/food/guava

[white belt]

I think your caloric deficit is too extreme. You are quickly going to hit diminishing returns as your body goes into legit survival mode. Renaissance Periodization, who works a lot with both athletes and general population, recommend not exceeding 1% of total body weight loss in a week and not exceeding 10% of total body weight loss in a fat loss period without switching to a maintenance period to reset the body.

Have you calculated your caloric expenditure? Adding extra exercise sessions (particularly cardio) is going to increase expenditure which is why it makes you hungry. However, the research indicates that some daily cardio does help to stem hunger and this makes eating in a deficit easier.

[Humanofearth]

I wish my calorie deficit was extreme. I eat way more than I plan. I get ravenous often. That’s why I need the fasts, otherwise I balloon up due to my feasting. I just love eating. I notice that eating lean chicken with vegetables and high fiber fruits satisfy me more efficiently than other foods.

You’re recommending to plan more calories and somehow not get tempted by all the delicious foods everyone around me eats? Navigating that has been the hard part for me. If it wasn’t for the fasting, I wouldn’t still be hitting 72.8 on the fasts. I’d be at least 80kg. I’m quite satisfied with the progress I’ve made but I have a while to go, a month or 2 if I can really get it but I make the most progress when alone and I haven’t had that in a while.

[Lemur]

1.) Burn more calories than you consume. Very rough estimate but close to Harris-Benedict formula: Male estimate of calories is bodyweight (lbs) multiplied by 15. Females by 14. Eat less than that. Adjust lower if not dropping desired fat.
2.) Raise protein intake especially if you're lifting weights and doing cardio to maintain muscle mass and increase satiety/fullness.
3.) Get good sleep and hydrate. Recovery improves with better sleep and with bad sleep you're more tempted to target carbohydrates/sugars for energy.
4.) Paleo/Fasting/Keto/whatever only works because of point 1. Ultimately --> The best diet is the one that you can stick to.

This is very simplistic but really creating the habit of point 1 is like....95% of the battle for weight/fat loss purposes. I combine a Lose It! App and a pedometer to hit daily caloric goals. I tried approaching from not-tracking vs tracking calories and found I could only diet right with the latter. Personality type or something.

But since the topic was on fasting itself I can't comment too much.....I used to read about this a lot but it has been a while. It can definitely help some with adherence to a diet and that style of eating may have some longevity benefits per David Sinclair. I personally could never adhere to it and never felt great doing so and I have even ran the protocol for weeks - I just found it hard to stick too. 14 hour fasts or even 16 hour fasts sure if I wanted too (but OMAD screw that!) ...but my cereal or Yogurt with berries in the morning is how I like to start my days .

[Slevin]

A new hot paper dropped recently on the topic: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114833. Basically, findings are that if you are controlling for calories, fasting offers no benefits versus not fasting.

This isn't to say fasting offers no benefits. Some people use fasting to limit food consumption (as a method of controlling calories), and that can be a very valid way to lose weight. It could also be a flaw in this RCT, like the fasting window was too close to the control window (16 hour fasting window versus normal, which for most people is gonna be like 10 hours fasting or so). But this lines up with the growing body of work that sees fasting generally as just a calorie management tool.