The Science of Fasting (20 Viewers)

You might want to consider intermittent fasting, just reducing your eating window each day. Lots of people do OMAD (one meal a day) or TMAD (two meals a day) and by having the tightened window (4 - 6 hours), it makes it easier to restrict calories. It's much more sustainable than extended fasting. And now that you're likely in ketosis, it should be easier as well.
I'm pretty much a TMAD person already. I rarely eat breakfast. I think this is why I was able to dive into an extended fast. My next extended fast may be just celery, lettuce, nuts - just something to gnaw on.
 
Just read today...

Based on this, researchers from the University of Alabama conducted a study with a small group of obese men with prediabetes. They compared a form of intermittent fasting called “early time-restricted feeding,” where all meals were fit into an early eight-hour period of the day (7 am to 3 pm), or spread out over 12 hours (between 7 am and 7 pm). Both groups maintained their weight (did not gain or lose) but after five weeks, the eight-hours group had dramatically lower insulin levels and significantly improved insulin sensitivity, as well as significantly lower blood pressure. The best part? The eight-hours group also had significantly decreased appetite. They weren’t starving.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/intermittent-fasting-surprising-update-2018062914156
 
That's interesting. So, if I shoot for a window from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM, would drinking an unsweet tea or black coffee be advised prior to the 11:00 meal?
If I'm reading that right, then you'd want an earlier window of only 8 hours with the benefit being less hunger and lower insulin. I don't see why the time would make a difference as much as the window size and calories. Maybe they just didn't feel as hungry because they were tired.

I'm hearing the recommendation is to drink water before coffee or tea as those are diuretics. I don't think there's enough calories to worry about if you don't sweeten or cream them.
 
That's interesting. So, if I shoot for a window from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM, would drinking an unsweet tea or black coffee be advised prior to the 11:00 meal?

Caffeine is an appetite suppressant. Typically what I've done is start my fast the evening before (following dinner). Go to bed, wake up and have some black coffee (stevia is ok in it as it doesn't have calories or produce the response sugar does) or an energy drink (Monster, Bang, etc). Bang was really effective for me, but they're also 300 mg of caffeine in a can (2x Monster). Just depends on your caffeine sensitivity. This helps sustain the fast through to your next eating window.

If you're looking for increased fat loss, you can also read up on the Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF). This can be incorporated with intermittent fasting. Best advice is to buy Lyle McDonald's e-book on it and read it. Basically it's a ton of protein and next to no carbs or fat each day, aside from essential fats from omega-3 pills. But it's a way to maintain lean tissue (skeletal muscle, etc) while also ramping up your fat loss potential.
 
I've not been doing well over the holidays mostly due to increased alcohol consumption. I've managed to add about 10# from my lowest.

Started back a couple days ago and have already dropped a couple.

Anyway, came to post this for digestion.

https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/calorie-restriction-and-fasting-diets-what-do-we-know

The study was designed to have participants in the experimental group eat 25 percent fewer calories per day than they had regularly consumed before the study. Although they did not meet this target, they reduced their daily caloric intake by 12 percent and maintained, on average, a 10 percent loss in body weight over 2 years. A follow-up study 2 years after the intervention ended found that participants had sustained much of this weight loss.

Interesting note in there was about the thermal regulation. I think I'm having some issues there or maybe the blasted thermostat is busted in here again.
 
I wrote a book on Prayer and Fasting because of the dearth of info on the subject at the time (started writing it in 1992; finished 13 yrs later in 2005).

Book isn't that long (<120 pages), but I there's an intersting chapter about Physical and Physiological considerations for fasting. It's in paperback, and in eBook form.

The following link will give you a free look at Chapter 1 in its entirety:

Amazon product ASIN B07933K2LL
PM me for more info or questions. :scratch:

Cover.JPG
 
From Dr. Jason Fung


https://idmprogram.com/fasting-and-muscle-mass-fasting-part-14/


"It seems that there are always concerns about loss of muscle mass during fasting. I never get away from this question. No matter how many times I answer it, somebody always asks, “Doesn’t fasting burn your muscle?”

Let me say straight up, NO.

Here’s the most important thing to remember. If you are concerned about losing weight and reversing T2D, then worry about insulin. Fasting and LCHF will help you. If you are worried about muscle mass, then exercise – especially resistance exercises. OK? Don’t confuse the two issues. We always confuse the two issues because the calorie enthusiast have intertwined them in our minds like hamburgers and french fries.

Weight loss and gain is mostly a function of DIET. You can’t exercise your way out of a dietary problem. Remember the story of Peter Attia? A highly intelligent doctor and elite level distance swimmer, he found himself on the heavy end of the scale, and it was not muscle. He was overweight despite exercising 3-4 hours a day. Why? Because muscle is about exercise, and fat is about diet. You can’t out-run a bad diet.

Muscle gain/ loss is mostly a function of EXERCISE. You can’t eat your way to more muscle. Supplement companies, of course, try to convince you otherwise. Eat creatine (or protein shakes, or eye of newt) and you will build muscle. That’s stupid. There’s one good way to build muscle – exercise. So if you are worried about muscle loss – exercise. It ain’t rocket science. Just don’t confuse the two issues of diet and exercise. Don’t worry about what your diet (or lack of diet – fasting) is doing to your muscle. Exercise builds muscle. OK? Clear?"

I have recently gotten into fasting after doing a bunch of internet searches, and stumbled on Dr. Jung. I see you referenced him a year ago and I wish I had read this post then.

I have, for years, done calories in vs calories out with weight training only to easily gain all the weight I lost within a year or two after losing it. The reason: metabolic slowdown. He explains why this happens in this video.



I will never count calories again. I just started alternate day fasting and so far, I love how I feel and the effects are of my body. I was worried that the last two years of strength training would go to waste if I went on a calorie deficit. I know understand how I can avoid that and lose fat while losing weight. and NOT see my metabolic rate plummet.

Fasting will INCREASE your growth hormone; restricted calories will do the opposite. The key is insulin and Dr. Jung explains it very well in the video I linked. Check it out for yourself.
 
Energy balance (calories in, calories out) still matters relative to fat loss. Your alternate day fasting is just changing how you reduce your calories. If you overeat fat, as promoted by Fung and others with the therapeutic keto diet, you'll eventually stall out.

Lots of times, the yo yo dieting is due to your fat cells not actually leaving the body. They just shrink. And when you come out of a prolonged period of caloric deficit (ie weight loss diet), those fat cells are waiting for any extra calories you take in. So unless you're meticulous with tracking calories at maintenance as well as when dieting, you can see any increase in weight very quickly and easily.
 
I'll admit the first day was hard and the second day was a little tough, but so far I've fasted 5 full 36+ hour fasts and they're becoming easy. (8 lbs lost since Feb 6. Started ADF on Mon Feb 11).

I feel sharp mentally and lighter on my feet on fast days. Besides the occasional bout of hunger, I prefer how I feel on those days. I love food so I love feast days as well, but the pleasure is more psychological.

And no, I do not plan to meticulously track calories when I reach my maintenance weight. Rather, I will just incorporate fewer fasting days or periods.

So far, I have not lost any strength in the weight room which makes me very happy. I'm also able to complete long distance runs, which I was worried about.
 
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Energy balance (calories in, calories out) still matters relative to fat loss. Your alternate day fasting is just changing how you reduce your calories. If you overeat fat, as promoted by Fung and others with the therapeutic keto diet, you'll eventually stall out.
I hate when people tie it all up so simply to CICO. MAYBE at the base Kcal level it is true; but in the psychology of what drives people to eat beyond just "eating to live", it's not helpful. For one thing, counting calories -- along with accounting for calories burned due to exercise -- is soul killing (and you can't out-exercise a bad diet), so I find that useless to know.

I needed something that was going to teach me about MY eating habits and, more importantly, get beyond my inability to control my eating by willpower. I don't have an eating disorder; but when I fast, I realize how much of eating is boredom or distraction or just the "action" of eating. That was quite a revelation to me as I did not consider myself an emotional eater. I still don't "eat my feelings" but I didn't think I was engaging in a "habit" of eating, if that makes sense.

I am not fasting right now per se (more like OMAD); but because I'm focusing on being more mindful about using willpower to curb my sweets habit, I have lost 6 pounds in 2 weeks. I've also learned to add ACV to my daily water consumption and have made it a habit and I'm so proud of myself!

Fasting isn't for everyone, I'm sure. But for me, it's been a beneficial tool that, because I had never fasted before, gave me a lot of insight to my own psychology of eating and further cemented my mantra of "hunger is not an emergency".
 
I listened to this a while back and forgot to post (or maybe posted it and forgot i did). Anyway, it's an interesting story that describes the interactions of overfeeding with a mixed diet. If I understand properly the main reason that you lose weight going to a low carb diet is only the calorie restriction. Since you aren't overfeeding as much, you are burning more fat rather than storing it.

The short version of that answer is yes and no. I’ll explain why. Yes, you become more efficient at burning fat. Now, why that happens, I’ll explain it. Each macronutrient oxidizes or burns differently than the other macronutrients. So you have fat, carbohydrate, protein, alcohol’s technically a macro, depending on who you ask, but typically fat is easily converted to fat. It doesn’t have to go through any alternate pathways to become stored body fat.

Now, when you start overfeeding these macronutrients, your body responds to that in different ways. They’ve done studies on individuals what are following a mixed diet, so carb, fat, proteins pretty even. Nothing’s extremely high or extremely low, just a mixed diet. They’ve basically overfed them carbs and overfed them fat and looked at the responses. The classic study I like to cite is Tracy Horton’s study. I believe it was, I want to say it was done in the ’90s, maybe early 2000s. I don’t have the exact date. They basically found that when you overfeed carbs to somebody on a mixed diet, they tend to burn more carbs. They see an increase in carbohydrate oxidation, which means you’re burning more carbs because you’re eating more carbs. To put that simply, the more carbs you eat, the more carbs you burn. They stimulate their own oxidation. Just simply eating more of them makes you burn more of them.

But then something else happens. As you eat more carbs, you start burning less fat because you have to burn off those carbs. What they also looked at was the proportion of those calories that stored as fat. So basically what happens is all the fat that you’re eating gets stored as fat because you’re burning off the carbs.

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-401-the-science-of-fat-loss/
 
I hate when people tie it all up so simply to CICO. MAYBE at the base Kcal level it is true; but in the psychology of what drives people to eat beyond just "eating to live", it's not helpful. For one thing, counting calories -- along with accounting for calories burned due to exercise -- is soul killing (and you can't out-exercise a bad diet), so I find that useless to know.

I needed something that was going to teach me about MY eating habits and, more importantly, get beyond my inability to control my eating by willpower. I don't have an eating disorder; but when I fast, I realize how much of eating is boredom or distraction or just the "action" of eating. That was quite a revelation to me as I did not consider myself an emotional eater. I still don't "eat my feelings" but I didn't think I was engaging in a "habit" of eating, if that makes sense.

I am not fasting right now per se (more like OMAD); but because I'm focusing on being more mindful about using willpower to curb my sweets habit, I have lost 6 pounds in 2 weeks. I've also learned to add ACV to my daily water consumption and have made it a habit and I'm so proud of myself!

Fasting isn't for everyone, I'm sure. But for me, it's been a beneficial tool that, because I had never fasted before, gave me a lot of insight to my own psychology of eating and further cemented my mantra of "hunger is not an emergency".

And I agree with you regarding fasting and gaining/creating self control over eating habits. It made me more aware of how often and how much I ate. And the additional time not eating only helped to strengthen my willpower.

Regarding CICO, I was strictly speaking from a weight loss perspective, since many people IF or EF for weight management.
 

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