Intermittent Fasting

[Fred Pabst]

Going to give this a go. For some reason I thought this was something you would do everyday? A little research came up with only two days a week for a 16/8 IF program. Is that a hard line rec or could you do more? Or are you doing more harm than good?

[Dantheman]

16/8 is every day. There is another protocol called 5/2 where you eat normally 5 days per week and eat nothing or very little (<500 kcals) 2 days per week.

[Grange]

I'd recommend starting out slow if you haven't done it before. The longer you do it the easier the fasting becomes, at least for me. I have done 18/6 to 20/4 for a long time after building up from 12/12 and had good results. Once the results slowed and stopped I moved on to longer (20hr +)alternate day fasting with no fasting on the weekends, which is working better for me.

I know if I had jumped into 16/8 everyday right from the start I doubt I would have been able to continue long term.

[bennymac]

I'd recommend starting out slow if you haven't done it before. The longer you do it the easier the fasting becomes, at least for me. I have done 18/6 to 20/4 for a long time after building up from 12/12 and had good results. Once the results slowed and stopped I moved on to longer (20hr +)alternate day fasting with no fasting on the weekends, which is working better for me.

I know if I had jumped into 16/8 everyday right from the start I doubt I would have been able to continue long term.

Just curious what you mean by results slowed - weight loss slowed? Or you stopped getting a different benefit (energy boost, mental clarity etc)

[Grange]

I was able to reach my weight goal after about 6 months or so and was able to maintain that goal for quite a while. After I started noticing fasting was becoming easy, in that I wasn't getting hungry that much and when I was it wasn't all that bad, my benefits started to diminish. I started finding maintaining my weight was getting more difficult and my energy for my workouts wasn't as good. Cravings started to become more prevalent and my weight started going up. I first started to try extending my daily fasts longer, but that wasn't really helping. I'm now doing longer fasts on alternate days and I'm noticing some benefits returning. I am slowly losing the weight when I am able to control my cravings for sweets. I also have more energy for my workouts. With more energy I'm able to start increasing the weight during my lift sessions.

[bennymac]

Gotcha. Just to be clear - do you think the weight gain was from your body getting used to IF or was it due to an increase in “sweets” that resulted from increased cravings

[Grange]

No. The weight gain started before I started eating sweets. I think the sweets made the weight gain more difficult to handle. I also started losing weight again once I switched to alternate day fasting. Now due to my lack of will power during the holiday season weight loss has not been happening recently, but other benefits are still showing. I have plenty of energy for my workouts and my strength is up.

[bennymac]

Gotcha thanks

[couloirman]

Well, I'm sold. Been doing OMAD since January 1st, been losing almost 1/2lb a day with no loss of strength (I got in some real bad eating habits over the past 6 months). I didn't do anything to 'prepare' in terms of going slow to get into it, just straight from 3 meals plus snacks to OMAD and it wasn't that bad. Hardest part was going to black coffee in the AM. Runs are getting faster, I'm lighter than I've been since high school, virtually no snack cravings through the day, and on my long runs of >2hrs I don't even use gels anymore. Why didn't I try this sooner?????? This is by far the easiest diet I've ever tried to be on. No counting macros, no wondering if I'm above or below my calories, no thinking, no choices, it just works.

I've fully drank the Kool-aid. Been watching/listening/reading this dudes research a lot and seems like fasting is the way to go for longevity. Why buy a bunch of expensive supplements to try to live longer when you can just stop eating?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD8reCw3Kls&t=13s

[XXX-er]

even at a BMI of 24 riding my new E-bike I would show weight loss on a fasting weight check in the AM

only thing I can think is that riding assisted/ constantly at a lower heart rate of < 110 bpm is where the fat gets burnt

[Dantheman]

I've fully drank the Kool-aid. Been watching/listening/reading this dudes research a lot and seems like fasting is the way to go for longevity. Why buy a bunch of expensive supplements to try to live longer when you can just stop eating?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wD8reCw3Kls&t=13s

Sinclair is awesome, and if he's right stock up on shades because the future is bright. To be fair, he also takes several supplements and drugs daily. But, the drugs and supps won't help if your diet and lifestyle aren't dialed in.

OMAD is definitely the world's simplest diet bar none, and allows you to eat less "clean" and get away with it. If I could get enough calories in eating that way I'd do it in heartbeat, but I'm already lean. The healthier you eat the less IF seems to matter. But, no matter how healthy you eat you definitely want to try to be active after meals, stop eating at least 2-3 hours before bedtime, and go at least 12 hours between your last bite of food for the day and your first bite in the morning.

Huberman Lab has a great episode that really goes deep on the science of IF: https://hubermanlab.com/effects-of-f...ss-and-health/

[couloirman]

Sweet! Thanks for the Huberman lab link, I need some more stuff to listen to on my way to work. And true, Sinclair does take a very expensive daily regimen, but as you said, the diet and lifestyle comes first, supplements second. He said this is his daily routine right now:

Mixed with a scoop of yogurt or a little olive oil first thing in the morning:
1g resveratrol
1g NMN
1g spermidine
1/2 g Ficetin
1/2 Quercetin

And then 800 mg of metformin every night.

[Mazderati]

spermidine

If whole foods are best, every partner of every man should know about spermadine.

[Dantheman]

but as you said, the diet and lifestyle comes first, supplements second.

Now that I think about it this isn't entirely true. He repeatedly cites research showing that diabetics who take metformin live longer than a similar cohort of non-diabetics who don't take metformin. That's actually pretty crazy given how badly diabetes ravages overall health.

It's also worth noting that Sinclair is very open about the fact that he really doesn't like exercise and does the bare minimum the research suggests he can get away with (NTTAWWT). Different rules apply for athletes.

[riser4]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...ve-weight-loss

[californiagrown]

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...ve-weight-loss

If you reduce the amount of time that fatties have to stuff their face, then they wont be able to stuff as much stuff in their face.

[Kenny Satch]

What I got from that article is most people are kicking in their starvation mechanism and maybe that's why they don't lose weight.

Used to go 12 to 18 hours when I was a Vegan. I made sure I was eating enough calories so I went from 180 lbs to 145 lbs in about 4 months. 8 years of doing that became impossible when your a night owl. Now I only fast seasonally.

OTOH fasting helps with my wife's Alzheiemers. Her brain can not process glucose very well but ketones are very beneficial. The human body will producing ketones after certain amount of hours while fasting. I'm basing on this Dr. Mary Newport's experience and research. The first few minute covers this point. https://youtu.be/BHVDMcJn2YE
My wife is under the care of Dr. Sandra Black. She's one of Canada's top cognitive doctors. She also subscribe to this approach. I've seen my wife go from foggy, catatonic to alert and very talkative. It's no cure but fasting has been a BLESSING!

[Skistack]

Kenny, are you aware of ketone supplements? Check out HVMN.


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[bennymac]

So is the current thinking that with time restricted feeding/intermittent fasting (say the popular 16:8) the main or potentially only benefit is that it leads to a decrease in calories (and therefore weight loss if the calories in is lower than calories out)

is there any evidence that it changes other factors like cholesterol levels or inflammation etc

(understanding that if there is weight loss and that weight is body fat that this in turn would have effects on things such as insulin resistance, liver function etc)

[nickwm21]

I’ve been dabbling in the IF thing recently. It seems to work for me. Easiest to maintain. If I keep stringing together 5-6 days of IF a week I should be able to maintain a good weight for the foreseeable future.

My previous strategy was a few 1700/1500 cal/day diets a year but it’s hard to stay on that horse. I can certainly drop more weight, quicker that way… but it’s not maintainable.

Food type restrictive diets (low carb, no gluten, no sugar, etc…) have worked for me in the past as well, but they are hard logistically.


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[Kenny Satch]

Kenny, are you aware of ketone supplements? Check out HVMN.

Thank you but I have tried them on Maria. Couldn't tell if they were helping because of the fasting but now that she's on a limited diet most of the time I should give them another try.

I really appreciate you letting me because if didn't I'd be running to the store right now.

[californiagrown]

Food type restrictive diets (low carb, no gluten, no sugar, etc…) have worked for me in the past as well, but they are hard logistically.

Tasty, Easy, Cheap. Pick 2 haha.

[frorider]

I’m not in the category looking for the IF benefits, so I’ve generally ignored the articles etc but read one recently in a credible publication that said recent research indicates time awake after your last meal of the day is key to what essentially is daily IF (from a benefits point of view).

Dinner at 6 pm, no food at all after dinner, bed by 10 pm, break-fast (!) at 7 am. Apparently the digestion mode in evolutionary terms didn’t overlap with the sleep mode.

Anyway curious if any of you experts know this research and can summarize it better.

[Toadman]

I intermittent fast between meals by not snacking between meals.

[Dantheman]

I’m not in the category looking for the IF benefits, so I’ve generally ignored the articles etc but read one recently in a credible publication that said recent research indicates time awake after your last meal of the day is key to what essentially is daily IF (from a benefits point of view).

Dinner at 6 pm, no food at all after dinner, bed by 10 pm, break-fast (!) at 7 am. Apparently the digestion mode in evolutionary terms didn’t overlap with the sleep mode.

Anyway curious if any of you experts know this research and can summarize it better.

Yeah, pretty much. Stop eating at least 2 hours before bedtime, start eating >1 hours after waking in the morning, go at least 12 hours between your last bite of food at night and your first bite in the morning. Also, try to eat at the same times every day.

Longer feeding windows (10-12 hours) are generally recommended for athletes where RED-S is a concern (https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/t...ncy-in-sports/). Shorter feeding windows (4-8 hours) are recommended for sedentary people and/or people trying to lose weight since they reduce caloric intake to levels on par with typical calorie-counting strategies without having to weigh and measure food.


Some deep dives:
https://hubermanlab.com/effects-of-f...ss-and-health/
https://hubermanlab.com/dr-satchin-p...and-longevity/